Romanticizing the Stalker

The internet is overflowing with articles accusing Twilight and Hush Hush and many other paranormal romances of romanticizing stalkers and abusive relationships. People seem genuinely concerned that a generation of girls is going to seek out unhealthy abusive relationships because Edward watched Bella sleep and removed her engine from her car.

Some of these YA paranormal romances want to have these dark, mysterious, dangerous heroes, but they don’t want to show the consequences. There is some fantasy involved in having a dark, dangerous hero without the actual danger. So these unseemly behaviors get glossed over or even romanticized.

But is this really as big of a deal as those articles on the internet make it to be?

Don’t get me wrong. I understand how serious and frightening being stalked is. I would never want to make light of it, but there are other stories that glorify other horrible behaviors like killing.

The movie the Matrix is one. I loved that movie (the first one, the sequels not so much), but it was extremely violent. Some people have blamed it and other violent movies and video games for being somewhat responsible for very tragic school shootings.

I understand that there is power in stories, that they can inspire and uplift and change minds, but I’m not sure if every story has that power.

Some stories like Twilight and The Matrix are really just for fun. They are not meant to be groundbreaking, world-changing novels. I don’t think the teenaged audiences are as impressionable as others make them out to be. Most people know the difference between reality and make-believe long before they are teenagers, and if they don’t, then there is a much bigger problem there.

I honestly don’t think that the reason someone gets into an abusive relationship can ever be simplified to “I read Twilight as a teenager.”

I don’t know. Am I wrong?

But I do know that I don’t like censorship in any form. Claiming that some novels are dangerous for impressionable teenagers is a slippery slope because it opens up the flood gates to keep some very important and powerful books from teen readers just because some people don’t agree with the world view presented in the story.

I believe we should trust the teen readers and teach them to think deeply and critically about what they read. Let them make up their own minds.

There was no YA section when I was a teen, and when I think about some of the things I read….

For example, when I was fifteen, I was obsessed with The Phantom of the Opera. I listened to the music from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical all the time, went to LA to see the play, and read the original novel by Gaston Leroux. I loved the story, and I still do.

But talk about a stalker.

The Phantom is unquestionably manipulative, abusive, controlling, and a murderer. But he is also isolated, rejected by society and his own mother because of a physical deformity. He is brilliant, a musician, a genius. Cold and callous, and yet deeply wounded. In my opinion, he is one of the most fascinating characters ever.

There is also something deeper in that story than an obsessive, controlling love.

In the book, we come to understand The Phantom, and by sympathizing with a villain, who does unspeakable things, we see that people aren’t born evil. They are twisted by how they are abused by society.

But his tragic past in no way excuses his behavior. He does not win. He does not get the girl. He is only redeemed when he gives up what he wants most. In the end, he learns that if you really, truly love something, you can’t trap, manipulate, or control it; you have to let it go.

I understood this as a teenager, and I don’t like the idea of keeping powerful stories like this from teenagers because it could be interpreted as romanticizing the stalker.

So what do you think?

Do you think that romanticizing the stalker is harmful to teenage girls and boys?

Do you feel that YA authors have a responsibility to present healthy romantic relationships or at least not glorify unhealthy ones?

And how do you really decide what is a healthy relationship?

I’m very curious because I've been fascinated by darker characters like The Phantom, Heathcliff, and Raskolnikov ever since I was in high school.

~MaryAnn

ETA: This post was inspired by this converstaion on Hatrack: http://www.hatrack.com/cgi-bin/ubbwriters/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=007142;p=0&r=nfx

I'm a mother/I'm a writer

I've had a lot of people, other moms mostly, ask me how I find time to write. Being a mom is a busy job. It's also the best inspiration for writing that I can think of.

For example...

The other day, I was reading The Usborne book of Fairy tales to my daughter. We read the story of Sleeping Beauty, where a grumpy fairy wishes Sleeping Beauty would die by pricking her finger on a spinning wheel, and then the last fairy changes the curse so that she wouldn't die, but would be just sleeping.

With my daughter on my lap, and dishes in my sink, I took the briefest of seconds and thought, "What would happen if Sleeping Beauty actually did die, but instead of sleeping became a ghost."  The idea of a ghost in love intrigued me, especially because in most fairy tales the princess is so helpless. Being a ghost is about as helpless as it can get. So how then could the prince bring her back with a kiss?

Hmm...

The idea ruminated in my head the rest of the day, but on the back burner. The actions of daily living were louder than that quiet whispered "Hmmm...", but the idea followed behind me. Floating along like a shadow, or a three year old, waiting for me to have a chance to think about it some more.

Later that night, as I was nursing my six month old in the middle of my dark and quiet house, I finally had a chance to think about the idea. An idea is just an idea, it takes work to turn the idea into a story.

First thing I did was get rid of the fairies.  I think fairies are a bit too... cartoon... for my taste. Does that make sense? Whenever I read a story that has fairies in it, I have to expand my sense of inconceivability. 

However, I love, and will buy, witches every day of the week. Especially witches in fairy tales. 

My next step was simplifying. (Yes, even fairy tales can be too big of a story idea for a mom of three.) Six good fairies and one bad fairy is way too complicated when you can have one witch who is mostly bad but with just a touch of good.

So I then thought, "Why is this witch who is mostly bad, but sort of good, angry with this perfect princess?"

Simple. Make the princess not so perfect. 

Now I have characters living within an idea, but I still don't have a story. By then, my son had finished, so I put him back to bed and fell back asleep.

The next day, in the fifteen minutes that my six month old, and four year old were both sleeping, before my seven year old came home from school, I sat in front of the computer, and instead of checking facebook, I wrote this first draft beginning. 

Please forgive it's total sense of not being very good. I wrote it in fifteen minutes with the promise to myself that it can be as crappy as possible, so long as I get the story idea out of my head.

Once upon a time*, there was a witch. The witch of the woods lived in a cottage not far from the king's castle. It was her task to keep the kingdom safe from dragons, and other witches, and she only occasionally ate children.

To thank the witch of the woods, and to keep his kingdom on good terms with her, every five years the kingdom gave her a tribute and a feast.

The queen died giving birth to a daughter**, and the heartbroken king never remarried. For guilt of all the princess missed out on by not having a mother, the king gave the princess everything she ever wanted.

Except when it came time to give tribute to the witch. When the child was one and a half, the king had the princess pick out her favorite toy, a doll with real silk hair, and it was placed in the pile of gifts for the witch to bring home to her cottage in the woods. 

When the child was six, her favorite thing was a sweet fluffy kitten, which the king took from his beloved daughters hands and gave her to the witch. That wasn’t fair, thought the princess.*** That was her kitten. Why did daddy give her kitten to that stinky old witch. The witch gave her a look like she knew what Princess Bea was thinking, and sweet Bea hid behind her father's legs.

When the princess was eleven, it was time for the tribute again. For a year beforehand, the princess was careful to show her father that her favorite toy was the half broken tea set she received for her ninth birthday. Because she was clever, as well as greedy, her father believed her. When the witch came however, and that chipped tea set sat at the top of the pile, the witch glared at Princess Bea and marched to the Princess’s room. The witch spied into the room, and scanned all of her belongings. 

Not the paint set, not the paint set, thought the princess. The witch smiled, and then collected the paper and every last brush and pot of paint.

In the five years that followed, children from the village were reported missing. Dragons came through the forest bounds, and the kingdoms crops were weak. The people, close to starving, whispered in corners about revolting against their king.****

While the king kept the kingdom together in this tumultuous time, the princess grew from a child to a beautiful young lady well known for her embroidery.*****

And that's it. Fifteen minutes goes quick.

In truth, I think this story is a novel length story, so each paragraph, will only translate into a few pages. And also, I haven't even mentioned a prince, and as this story is a love story, a prince is probably a bit necessary.

I am actually a mile away from finished, and I don't know if I will ever write the full version of the story. However, every book that was ever written was written one word at a time. So why not try?

Even if I can only write one page a day, or even one word a day, there's always time to do what I decide I want to do. As a mom, I think it is crucial that I take a few minutes every day, to be me, and not me as a mom.

I'm a writer. I'm a storyteller. More than being published, more than becoming famous or the next big thing, (which is not my goal, but sometimes is my daydream) I write, because that is how I keep my sense of who I am amid the diapers, and the laundry, and the dishes, and the tantrums, and the play forts, and the bed times, and the dinner times, and the...

This is what happens in my head as I mother my children. I write, and then wait for nap time so I can write down.

That's about the best life I can come up with, and I have a great imagination.

~Sheena

* I know that's a cliche, it's just a first draft, and whenever I write fairy tales I start once upon a time. I only had fifteen minutes, and I could spend that whole time thinking of a better first line.

** Again...cliche. However the trope of a queen dying while giving birth is familiar in fairy tales, yet isn't associated with Sleeping Beauty, so I think it's worth it to keep the story in genre, and give the princess some sympathy. Also it shows a bit about why the princess is why she is...i.e. plot.

*** establishing POV

**** Adding dread

***** embroidery...needle point... tying into the original fairy tale. Brilliance! :)

Some of my best friends are authors

Hi Proser pals, I'm excited to be guest posting this week in place of the lovely and talented Melanie, who is moving or some horrid inconvenience that involves packing up one's computer and being without internet service for days. It's like being back in 1999 or something.

I'm friendly with several of the Prosers, having frequented a certain speculative fiction writing board for years as well as being one of the staff readers for Flash Fiction Online magazine since the beginning too. So, natural fit, lovely stuff. Thank you so much for having me.

I write science fiction and an occasional fantasy piece for young adults and middle grade readers. (You can find my fiction for sale at all major ebook outlets, check my website www.karentsmith.com for links.)

Every writer needs other people in her life to talk writing stuff about or things get very weird very fast. I know some have indulgent spouses. I have a spouse who does not read a terribly large amount and when he does it's not generally *my* fiction. This is sad for several reasons. First, he's missing out on the rich imaginary life in my head. Second, I don't have a good local sounding board. I've had to search farther afield.

The aforementioned speculative fiction writing board has satisfied many needs for many years, but a while back I started wondering what actual authors were LIKE, not just what their fiction was like but what the person, that phenotype, the AUTHOR, was like in the wild.

Without an actual wild life habitat for authors, like a park or something that I could visit, I had to turn to the internet.

Will you be surprised to learn that many authors maintain an online presence these days? Er, perhaps all of them? Or at least all of the ones you've heard of.

So, that's useful information, right? You read a book, liked the author, searched his/her name and found a blog, maybe a facbeook fan page. Then what?

Well, this is the really interesting part to me. I've extended invitations over the years to several different writers. Some of them I shared mutual friends with, some of them are complete strangers to me and everyone I know. But even more interesting, as I've requested connections with author A, she's connected with author B so when I go invite author B to connect, he sees my relationship to author A and *bam* - instant credibility! I'm not just some silly fan-girl staying up past her bedtime to google favorite authors. I'm a person, with some virtual connections to people. That totally matters. No really.

And furthermore, depending on the writer, I've forged some really interesting connections with some of these people. For instance, my new best friend is Sarah Prineas, who is the author of the amazing Magic Thief series, but also has a new book just released called Winterling (subliminal advertising, you should totally buy her books, they are MADE of awesome.)

Last summer, Sarah was helping a friend with an upcoming book release by passing around copies of his ARC. I volunteered to read it and start an ARC tree where I read it then send it on to the next person on the list and so on. For the uninitiated, ARC stands for Advance Reader Copy, sometimes also called Uncorrected Proof. It's a paperback copy of a book available for generating buzz about a book prior to its formal release. I've been visited by the ARC fairy a few times this year and it's fantastic to read a new book before it's in wide release, very cool! So my new best friend naturally took me up on the offer and I got to be introduced to another new author, my new best friend's friend, Greg van Eekhout.

Then, the oddest thing happened. I read Ship Breaker, which honest to goodness was the best book I read in all of 2011 (you will have to note that I first read Magic Thief in 2008, so it was not among the contenders for my personal favorite of 2011), and in reading the acknowledgements (because I always do such things) I noticed that Paolo Bacigalupi happens to *also* be friends with my new best friend Sarah Prineas. SMALL WORLD! (or, well, small speculative fiction in the US for middle grade/YA readers world. Yep.)

I absolutely adore getting little snippets of writing life from these authors I've befriended. It's so cool to see the pictures of Kevin Anderson and all the storm troopers (people who make their own costumes, these folks are hard-core and apparently all live within driving distance of major bookstore locations throughout the U.S.) that show up for his book signings, or to see the backstory to elements of Mary Robinette Kowal's regency series (first book Shades of Milk and Honey, second book Glamour in Glass coming out soon.) They're Jane Austen-style stories but with magic. And Mary, in an odd and interesting twist, also makes her own costumes though in this case she makes period-accurate regency dresses, hats, etc. She's incredible.

So, my advice to you fan-girl (or boy) or aspiring author (or both) is to go forth and seek out your favorite authors online and see what develops. I hope Karen T. Smith is one of them! 

How to Market Your Book on Twitter

Of the 280ish people I follow on Twitter, approximately 95.89% have a book to sell. So far, three of them have sold to me. Here's how they did it, and how you can too:

The Life of the Party
Twitter is an Internet cocktail party (or fraternity party, depending), and everyone's invited. You meet and greet and see if you have anything in common. You converse. You crack jokes. You tell very short stories. Would you go to a party and just start talking up your book to anyone you could corner? (Don't answer that. Make a mental note of what the "correct" answer most likely is and vow to do better next time.)

(Disclosure: The idea of me, moi, Sarah McCanless, giving advice on working any kind of a party, even a virtual one, is beyond ludicrous. Proceed at your own risk here.)

Twitter's no different. Tweet something interesting, personal, informative, or useful. Something someone else may actually want to read. Something you didn't tweet 10 minutes ago. Something that could spark a conversation, make me laugh,  make me want to know more about you, or make me want to share something in return.

Stephen Blackmoore (@sblackmoore) is not only consistently friendly and funny, but he’s also semi-local. I learned through Twitter that we have both had tree roots destroy our sewer lines, and we talked about the rapid changes in South Bay real estate and demographics over the last twenty years. It was good cocktail party conversation... and suddenly I found myself buying his book, City of the Lost, the day it was released. Zombie pulp noir is not my usual reading genre, and yet this book has made me laugh out loud more times than I can count. It ROCKS.

Be Nice

I may not know parties, but I like to think I know nice. Still, I’ve stumbled on this fundamental rule when I forgot that tongue-in-cheek doesn't always come across when your communication consists of an avatar and 140 characters. I was quick to apologize, the offended party remained offended, and I may or may not have sobbed like a crazy woman because it was a hormonally vulnerable time and it turns out I’m rejection-sensitive even with total strangers online. (My husband has been instructed to neither confirm nor deny.)

After my (alleged) meltdown, I tweeted something about feeling guilty for screwing up my manners. Ryan Smith (@spinningcook), a follower I didn’t even know I had, sent a nice reply that put a smile on my face. We had a pleasant exchange, I followed him back, and he made it onto my radar.
I always remember kind words. If he comes out with a book someday, I'll buy it simply because he struck me as a nice guy. Although it's a definite bonus that his blog on cooking and kids is full of helpful tips.

Be Nicer than You Have to Be
I no longer seek out literary agents on Twitter. I realized that we are not friends, we are not going to be friends, and I'm not interested in the game of trying to be noticed without being obnoxious, especially when I don't have a book on submission. Deidre Knight (@DeidreKnight), however, is the nicest agent I’ve come across on Twitter so far. She's the only agent I've ever tweeted who actually replied, and who seems willing to engage in fun conversation with the commoners. (I’m sure there are more like her and I just haven’t found them.) When I discovered she was also a romance writer, I knew I wanted to read her books, and now Butterfly Tattoo is loaded on my Kindle and just waiting for me to find some time. I don’t even know if Ms. Knight represents my genre, but I do know that agents have a bazillion followers and she's nicer than she needs to be.

Reply vs. Retweet
Retweeting strokes my all-too-human ego, and so I do appreciate it. Replying, though, is more. It's conversation. You reply, I reply, and pretty soon we're talking. If I’m not following you, I’ll start. You’ll be on my radar. If we talk about cat barf, I will think of you next time my cat barfs. You've infiltrated my subconscious. Then, when you have a book out, I’ll think, that’s the cool tweep who chatted with me about barfy cats. Maybe I'll look into that book.

Blog
(And tweet links in moderation.)

Author D.M. Kenyon wrote a blog post about women learning to fight that resonated with me, and I told him so in the comments. His thoughtful reply explained how the post tied to his YA novel, and with that I was sold. (Sadly, those comments were lost when he had to change blogging platforms.)  I’m reading The Lotus Blossom now and I'm blown away by the authenticity of his voice and the way he sneaks in brilliant bits of Zen philosophy through a teenage narrator. I didn't buy it because he advertised it. I bought it because he had something interesting to say.

And what about my blog? I don’t keep score, and I don’t want to spam the world any more than I want to be spammed... however, if someone actually takes the time to read one of my posts and let me know what he or she thought, I get warm fuzzies all over. Warm fuzzies have been known to inspire book purchases in the past.

Does all of this sounds like a lot of work? Like you have to actually build relationships with individuals, one by one? How on earth will you become a best-seller this way?

You won't.
 I  have more books than I have time to read. I don't use Twitter to buy books; I go to meet people, have interesting conversations, and experience a virtual cocktail party without having to wear heels. I go to pretend it's a good hair day and make small talk I don't get in person because all the moms at school are glued to their iphones, checking Facebook.

So if all this seems like way too much work on Twitter for a possible handful of sales, then I say congratulations, young Jedi. You are now ready for the lessons I’m not qualified to teach. For those I send you to the Red Pen of Doom (@speechwriterguy) and his brilliant post: The Twitter, it is NOT for selling books.


Go read that now. There will be a quiz. Answer the questions correctly and you just might sell me a book someday.

Stubbornness

 Work on the volcano/demon story continues.  I've worked through most (but not all) of the large questions of the story, and have moved on to Serious Outlining Phase.  Still some character work to do with the villain, but I remain optimistic at the moment about my chances of completion, and the story as a whole.

Distraction remains a problem. I keep coming up with new ideas to try to get myself to 1)settle down, 2) start writing, 3) keep writing.  Over the years I've been writing, I've come up with a dozen ideas to get myself to sit down and concentrate.  But no technique works for long.

In that way, my mind is kind of like the Borg. I think up one way to avoid distractions, and it works for a while. But soon, the brain develops resistance, and then suddenly starships are exploding and I'm back to watching YouTube videos of baby birds.

 PERSISTENCE IS FUTILE

That's a form a flightiness, but for me, it's usually stubbornness that gets in the way of the creative process. For one, I can get very, very attached to particular words or phrases.  You know, the ones that appear late at night when I've had several cups of tea* and too little sleep.  They can be very lovely words, but when I catch myself wanting to keep a scene in because of one or two great sentences, it's time to let go.

And then there are those scenes that just don’t work.  I do undergo several stages of outlining, and can get very used to the way a certain scene fits in the story, and am thus reluctant to let it go, even if it's not working outt.  It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that if I have trouble writing a scene, it generally means the scene is boring, and that there is room for improvement.  If I'm not excited to write a scene, why should it even be in there?   But sometimes I've been working on the scene long enough that I can't envision any other way for the story to progress.  In those cases, I make myself list the goals of the scene.  Usually, there's only one or two, and with a little brainstorming, I'm awash in new ideas for how the scene could change and improve. 

Despite those solutions, I still have problems with stubbornness.  I can be especially slow to adopt new ideas and techniques, no matter how rational they might seem on paper.  But eventually, I do get it.  So what's taking so long?

Sometimes I visualize my subconscious as being made up of complex steampunk-style machinery.  When that excellent new idea is rejected by my stubborn conscious brain, it gets tossed behind the hamsters on wheels running my daily thoughts and goes into a little bucket.  The bucket slowly disappears up into that complex machinery.  There, I can only assume that it has to progress through some lengthy path filled with lots of bells and whistles and gears and pulleys. And possibly more hamsters on wheels.

Finally, out of nowhere, the idea will reappear, and suddenly it will seem the most fantastic thing ever.  And then I'll start exclaiming about this idea, and my friends will be all, yeah we told you about that six months ago.

There's probably a lot of ideas rattling around up there right now, making their way slowly through my subconscious, and taking up the important brain machinery that would otherwise allow me to recall where I put my keys.

Not  that stubbornness is an entirely bad thing.  It keeps me going when I'm down, and when I want to give up because a deadline is only 18 days away.  Nope, my stubborn brain says.  Can't give up now.  You want this too much.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing after all.

*Tea is definitely my writing brew of choice.  I discovered long ago that anything over one glass of wine = terrible writing and zero ideas.  It was rather comforting to know that I wasn't going to end up like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writing my most famous work only after a drug binge**.

**Not actually comparing self or writing skills to Coleridge

Fashion! Politics! Persuasion!

I admit I'm a news junky. I love reading the stuff. So it was interesting to read this fluff piece (BUT please don’t read it until you finish the quiz below) that compared the fashion acumen of the spouses of Republican candidates.

From the article, I’ve made up a little quiz. Can you match the author’s fashion appraisal with the candidate? (all quotes are taken verbatim from the article except for making them gender neutral)

The participants: Ann Romney, Callista Gingrich, Mary Kaye Huntsman, Anita Perry, Karen Santorum, Carol Paul, and Marcus Bachmann (Michelle has since dropped out).

The statements:

1. Though this candidate is the youngest of the potential first spouses, “they seem determined not to show it.  They favour quite a dated style: bright suits with shoulderpads, and somewhat frumpy court shoes.”
2. “In terms of style they have it spot-on…a sharp sartorial instinct ensures they are always occasion-appropriate too.”
3. “…The least showy…their look is not a manufactured one – dresses are chosen because they flatter their shape, and they are probably favorurites that they brings out time and time again.”
4. “In a manner that is easy when one has plenty of money, their style is effortlessly low-key.”
5. “They could have been the grande dame of the GOP wives/husbands. Instead…they take a back seat from media attention.”
6. “We never see them dolled-up – or even on the campaign trail for that matter.”
7. The last participant has a bio blurb, but as far as fashion, the author has nothing to say.

As you tried to figure those out, what opinions were you forming in your head about each person? Did terms like ‘easy…money,’ ‘frumpy,’ 'dolled-up,' or ‘sartorial instinct' (yes, I had to look it up, too – it means having to do with tailoring) help to guide what you thought of the person?

(Quiz answers, since I hate scrolling to the bottom. Romney: 4; Gingrich: 1; Huntsman: 2; Perry: 3; Santorum: ; Paul: 5; Bachmann: 7.

The pen is mightier than the sword because it can sway opinion. By picking a few details from complex lives, and by carefully choosing the vocabulary used to divulge those details, a writer can lead readers to view people and events in a certain way. (This occurs all the time, not just in politics, but where anyone has strong feelings - objectivity is a myth) Anyway, this article got me thinking about how readers also come to form opinions of characters in literary works.

As writers, we have quite a bit of control over what opinion the reader will have of our fictional characters. Perhaps one of my favorite types of story is one where I have one kind of sentiment for a character at the beginning, and then find my opinion changing drastically as more of the character is revealed.

Pride and Prejudice does this masterfully, I think (as does Harry Potter). And I did mean to reread all of P&P so I could point out examples chapter and verse, but alas, Melanie has got me so consumed with Burn Notice I haven’t even fed the kids in days, let alone read anything. Sigh.

Jane Austen employed several techniques that successfully swayed her readers into an initially skewed view of the characters. Here are a few.

1. Let someone else’s opinion inform the readers. Only a few pages into the P&P there is a dance. Although Mr. Darcy is described as a ‘fine, tall person, having handsome features and a noble mien’ (not to mention that 10K pounds a year), it is only a few pages later that the Lucas and Bennet ladies get together and we hear their opinion that he is utterly disagreeable and prideful. Readers tend to immerse themselves in a story, so unless they have a cause not to, they generally believe what other characters say about each other. This can lead to delicious misperceptions that color events and prejudice the reader.
2. Keep a distance. I have seen books in first person that were able to fool the reader about even the narrator, but it’s easier if the reader is not in the character’s head. Then his actions can speak louder than his motivations. Which brings us to…
3. Actions speak louder than words. My, wasn’t Mr. Wickam dashing? Wasn’t his manner affable, gentlemanly, and everything Mr. Darcy was not? 
4. Use mannerisms. Reticence, shyness, blustering, twitches - mannerisms can be used to prejudice readers into a certain way of thinking. Mr. Darcy was so vilified at the beginning of P&P because he wouldn’t dance with anyone. Even though Jane tried to explain that he was only comfortable around intimate acquaintances, his mannerisms were all anyone (including the reader) needed to form an opinion.
5. Lastly, use setting to your advantage. The effect of this has been somewhat diluted because of all the juxtapositions UF uses, I think, but we are often lulled into believing certain things about people by where they are found – bars or palaces, torture chambers or homesteads. Familiar haunts can tell the reader a lot about a character, or lead them astray if needed.

~Susan

The Other Reason I Sometimes Don't Write

We all know I love Vampire Diaries which sometimes keeps me from my writing. But there is another thing that constantly takes me away, okay three things.

An awesome husband who is immensely supportive. A pale-blue eyed girl who is a fierce Karate girl and has the sweetest heart I've ever known. And a tiny brown eyed girl who loves pigs and whose eyes blaze when you cross her and gives the best kisses when you please her.

My little brown-eyed girl is in the hospital today. Nothing too serious, but serious enough that it has me thinking about what is really important.

I would love to be a published writer. To make up stories for a living. I love reading and writing and sharing these stories in my head.

But the biggest bonus to being a professional writer is being able to work from home. To be there when my kids come home from school. To take breaks with them to work on homework. To be a mother and a writer.

So I don't regret time lost by playing evil princesses (yes some princesses can be evil) or cuddling on the couch watching an episode of My Little Pony for the twentieth time or all the cookie making and outings and birthday parties for stuffed animals.

Because the only thing I've ever wanted to be more than a writer is a mother.

~MaryAnn