Romantic Friday Writers: Challenge “Surrender”
http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/ This blog has a challenge for writers of romance/love stories to write 400 words on a theme each Friday.  I thought I would participate occasionally.  Today’s theme was “surrender.”  My entry is a 400 word excerpt of a WIP (work-in-progress) that will be going into my Dev Dreams: Volume Two.  *** There are relatives everywhere and no matter which way I turn I can feel the glare from my mother, her eyes continually trying to remind me of her edict: act normal. Even though we are supposedly here to welcome Matt home, no one is paying much attention to him. They are trying so hard to pretend nothing has changed. Uncle Seth has the grill open, but he’s having trouble turning it on. Aunt Kathy and my...
Read MoreThe Trouble With Cure
What’s wrong with cure? Isn’t it a good thing when people get better? In fiction, I say no. Not usually. Here’s the trouble with the typical “cure” plot line (the usual formula of stories with disabled characters, where at the last minute they are somehow cured of the disability). Well, actually, there are a few problems so I’ll break them down: 1) Not realistic. Sometimes people do recover from disabling accidents. Sometimes doctors can fix things, sometimes treatments work. That’s great! But it’s rare. Very, very unlikely. If you go by Hollywood, you would think that sort of thing happens all the time. In fact, they make it seem like people who are disabled just haven’t tried hard enough; with enough...
Read MoreRemember Your First Love?
I didn’t know at the time how little I was, how fresh-faced and innocent. Â Eighteen was a grown up, I was ready for college in a new state. Â I, who had never been kissed, never gone on a date, and never lived away from my parents and little brother. Â I was confident I would make a success of it. I was so ready to make new friends and get started on life that I hardly noticed when my dad reluctantly drove away and left me hundreds of miles from home. I was there to learn, but also to fall in love. Â I had been waiting (not entirely patiently) for years for someone to notice me, to like me, to pick me out of the crowd. Â College was where it would happen. Â In my romantic brain, every man I met might sweep me off my feet, there was limitless potential. Then I...
Read MoreNow in Video!
I haven’t been posting as much lately because I’m putting all my energy into finishing the first volume of my short stories. It should be ready to go to the printers very, very soon! It’s a wonderfully exciting time to be so close to having something completed. I’ve been working on spreading my brand and doing new things to connect with people who will benefit from and enjoy my writing. I’ve started a YouTube channel and I’m putting up some videos of me talking about my writing. So, if you’re curious what I look like and sound like, this is me! (I’m making that face because I’m trying to figure out where the off button on the video camera is!) More at my YouTube channel:...
Read MoreX-Men
To start off, this new X-Men movie {X-Men Trilogy (X-Men / X2: X-Men United / X-Men: The Last Stand)} is wonderful. It’s a tight story, that shows believable ways that the characters would have met, and it continues to grapple with the fascinating philosophical issues all the X-men movies have. It’s a long movie, and I’m glad that they let it be as long as it needed to be. Stories have natural lengths and I think Thor could have benefited from the attitude of letting it be the length it naturally wants to be. Throughout the series I have always seen a lot of parallels between mutation and disability. I think the X-men movies provide an amazing metaphor for the experience of disability, though I’m fairly sure that’s not what was...
Read MoreProgress Trackers
At proofreaders; available for pre-order
What Is Meant To Be
Second draft
Homework & Homicide (working title)
Second Draft
Book Montage
RFW winner October 7, 2011
