Phantom Waltz by Catherine Anderson

After losing the ability to walk in a barrel racing accident, Bethany Coulter considers herself lucky just to be able to function as independently as she does. She has reconciled herself to never being able to ride or dance or date ever again. But when she meets Ryan Kendrick Bethany begins to hope that she can find love and happiness despite her disability.

I'll start by saying that I've found I'm more critical of books that feature disabilities similar to mine. I want them to be good. I'm invested in their success. So I expect more of them, like a teacher with their star pupil. Or like Scrooge standing over Bob Cratchit's desk with unreasonable expectations. I haven't decided which yet. That's why I was so excited to start this book. A heroine in a wheelchair? So up my alley that it's parked in my driveway and knocking on my door. Except... it wasn't. I think somehow it got the house next door.

Bethany Coulter has an incomplete spinal cord injury at L2. For those who aren't anatomy nerds, that means her spinal cord was damaged at the second lumbar vertebrae, the lowest portion of the spine. If the reference means anything, mine was at T9 (T for thoracic, the middle portion of the spine). One thing Anderson did right was provide a lot of specific details. What bothered me was that most of them seemed wrong for Bethany's injury level and the functionality she should have had. In my experience, L2 is a very low injury. In fact, they don't get much lower than that, which means she should have normal upper body strength and pretty good core balance. So why is she in a power chair? What was her occupational therapist thinking? Power chairs are great for those without the strength and balance to push a manual wheelchair, but they're huge and heavy and have to be recharged every night. It didn't make sense that Bethany used a power chair when a manual one would have served just fine. Unfortunately, this incongruity was present all through the book. Bethany was very clear about how she needed a dressing sling in order to get dressed, and what I can only describe as scaffolding, in order to go to the bathroom.

Now, I know that every injury is different, especially incomplete ones, and my experience is not the be all end all of SCIs. But from the information given, Bethany and I should have been very similar. I know I've never used a dressing sling (never even heard of one), and I don't even need to use the bars in the handicapped stalls to go to the bathroom. At most, I sometimes used a sliding board for particularly tricky transfers, but I eventually gave it away because I stopped needing it. I'd love to read about heroines with such low functionality, but if Anderson really wanted her protagonist to actually need all the equipment she uses, she should have made Bethany a quadriplegic, or at least have a much higher level injury. It would not have changed the story any, and the details would have been correct.

Aside from all that, I had a hard time liking Bethany as a character. She was always telling people about how she wanted to be independent, but she acted so helpless when she was in trouble that I had a hard time believing it. And she was always explaining how hard things were, or how she couldn't do something specific instead of trying to work around her limitations. She did manage some heroics (yay for crawling to save your man while a bear's on the loose!) but in the end it just didn't make up for her overall wimpiness. Maybe it was just that her philosophy was so different from mine. All I know is that I kept wanting to yell at her, “Go for it! You deserve better! Why can't you be with him? He built you a ramp for pity's sake. What better expression of love and commitment does a girl need besides a ramp?” But as usual, my cries went unheeded.

At the last, Bethany did learn that it's better to live your life to the full, accepting the risk that you might get hurt, than to live safe but unhappy in a box of your own making. As far as themes go, this is one I can definitely get behind. I want disabled characters to figure out how to continue doing the things they love instead of sitting around whining because that's what I want for myself. I wasn't an athletic person before my injury so I'm not missing a lot, but I can guarantee that one of these days I'll figure out adaptive sailing because I really want to sail again. Though it might have to wait until we live near some water. It's hard to sail in a desert.

Although I agree with this theme, I want to point out that I think finding a balance is equally important. I can fight to find ways to do the things I love while accepting there are other things that I will never do again. I'm perfectly capable of taking short hikes around the Rockies (so long as I'm okay with being in some pain afterward), but I will probably never climb a fourteener. I'm sure there are other people with disabilities out there who have, but to me, it's not so important. So I'm going to accept it and move on to the things that are.

There is something very important about being able to do things for yourself. We as humans strive for a certain independence and strength, and the more limited we are, the more important our independence becomes. Those of us with disabilities fight for freedom daily, and when we've won it, we guard it closely. I remember when I was first cleared to go to the bathroom by myself in rehab. Before I realized this was something I'd been able to do for years before my injury, I was so proud of myself. I felt like a person again, not that I wasn't before that, but I had regained some of my humanity. With every little task we learn or recover, every little thing we can claim as our own, we collect another piece of our self-respect. So how do we gain our freedom when our very bodies and minds seek to keep us enslaved? There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of tools that help us find our independence, and since every disability is different, the possibilities are limitless with just a little ingenuity. Wheelchairs give us the ability to get out of the house, sliding boards help us transfer, crutches help us walk. Therapists teach us how to use what we have and regain what we've lost. Service dogs give us more freedom and companionship.

But these tools really only cover physical independence. What about the self-enslavement of our thoughts, the murky doubts that wrap us so tight in lies we can no longer reach for the truth? The lies I struggle with are huge, oppressive ropes that bind and choke me. I'm weak. I'm worthless. I can't walk so I might as well give up. But by dwelling on the doubts - no, the lies - by letting them become the biggest things about me, I'm letting them win. I'm letting my disability define me and my relationships and my life.

The thing is, I recognize that there are things I can't do, I'm not trying to deny that. But I refuse to let the things I can't do control who I am and how I behave. It sounds cheesy to say I have to accept myself, but in the end, that's what it comes down to: knowing there will always be things that I can't do, and choosing to concentrate on the things I can. It's a choice, one that I have to make every day, and believe me, it's not an easy one.

I choose to take pride in the small accomplishments of a day done right. I choose not to get angry when I run up against something that trips me (sometimes quite literally). I choose to ask for help when I need it and not be ashamed of those moments. And sometimes I choose to let the day overwhelm me because I'm human, and I occasionally screw up.

It took me a long time and a lot of heartache to get to this point. It took me even longer to learn that my experience is not the ultimate authority. I can talk to other people with disabilities and learn that they have very different ideas of how to get along. Just because I have reached this conclusion does not mean that it is the end result for every one else struggling in this world. I don't want my words to be read as “Kendra's amazing cure for what ails you”, but I do hope that my journey can be helpful to others who carry around lies. You're not alone. You're not beyond hope. You're strong enough to win. Choose freedom.

Griffin Rising and Griffin's Fire by Darby Karchut Griffin has been struggling his whole life to become a guardian angel, but it isn't until Basil, an older angel, saves him from an abusive master that Griffin really feels he has a chance to succeed. Now Griffin must learn to trust Basil as his new mentor and gain control of his magic in order to pass his final trial and become a Terrae Angeli. But it won't be easy with a cute girl across the street to distract him and his old master out to sabotage his training.

Normally, I try to review books that have something to do with disabilities, but Griffin Rising and Griffin's Fire knocked my socks off, and I wanted to tell y'all about them before I went in search of my lost footwear.

I absolutely loved these books. Darby masterfully weaves strong themes like abuse, good vs evil, and healthy relationships with snarky wit and normal teen angst. Her style is light and fun and easy to read without losing any of its deeper meaning, creating a subtly compelling page turner that made me laugh out loud. I kept telling myself to slow down and savor it, but the books ended up in the bathroom with me a couple times because I couldn't put them down even to pee.

Griffin is a gripping character right out of the gate, with his abusive past and his drive to prove himself to Basil. But he isn't perfect. We watch him fail almost as much as we catch those brief glimpses of success. It's hard to have a character who is always trying to do the right thing manage to screw up so often, but Griffin pulls it off with stunning style, and always in a way that had me longing to back him up. Alas, I still have not figured out a way to reach through the pages of a book to claw an antagonists eyes out. When someone comes up with that technology I'll be the first in line.

One of the things that makes Darby's books stand out from every author in the YA crowd clamoring for attention is how she handles a boy's relationship with his role model. Too many teen books portray adults as stupid, clueless, or absent, relegated to roll-your-eyes clichés or conveniently pushed off stage while the teenagers whine that “no one understands them" - a guaranteed ploy to hook younger readers, but still a cheap one. Parents become a fixture, no more exciting or influential than the lamp by the couch. I'm not a parent, but as an adult, I resent this image that persists that I'm too stupid or too lazy to care about whatever problem the current set of teens is solving. Darby's portrayal of Griffin's healthy, trusting partnership with his mentor was less a breath of fresh air and more a gale force wind blowing the competition away. Basil was not only deeply intuitive but also actively present in Griffin's problems while still allowing the teenager the chance to be the hero. Basil is the light that contrasts the dark of the abuse Griffin suffered. He became exactly what Griffin needed to heal and grow as a character.

I felt like the antagonists in both books were a little weak, two-dimensional with no real motivation for opposing Griffin, but, boy, did I love to hate them. Also, I really wanted to see the resolution with Milton in Griffin's Fire, but that ended up happening “off screen”. A little disappointing. I was excited to see the brief nod to Darby's next series with the Tuatha de Danaan. Finn Finnegan comes out March 2013.

Griffin Rising and Griffin's Fire join a very short list of books that I couldn't wait to finish so I could turn back to the first page and read them again. I can't wait for Griffin's Storm, the third book in the Terrae Angeli series, to see Griffin grow even more.

Today was supposed to be the review of Darby Karchut's Griffin Rising and Griffin's Fire, something I've been looking forward to writing for a while. But I really wanted to take my time with it, and between the dog going lame (he's fine, he's just copying me) and my house being on sale, time became that mythical creature you glimpse between the tree trunks before realizing you just ate some bad fruit. So instead I'll talk about writing some more. Y'all will just have to wait with bated breath for the other.  

There's a disease all writers get from time to time. There is no vaccine; there aren't any pills to take. Symptoms include fixation on a blank page, finger paralysis and that nagging feeling that you can't possibly be a writer if you can't think of what to write. If you experience any of these conditions, calm down and take a deep breath. Writer's Block isn't fatal, although it may feel like it, especially if you're depending on your manuscript to bring in the next paycheck. Of course, if you're getting paid to write, you've probably already conquered The Block, so this isn't really for you. But for those of you still staring at the keyboard wondering why your fingers won't move, here are a few treatments you can try.

Take a break. This may seem counter-intuitive – I thought I had to write to be a writer – but seriously, getting away from your work can give you a fresh perspective. Staring at the page is obviously not helping, so go do something else. I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Or if it's the middle of the day, I take the dog out and mull over a problem while he chases the frisbee. Writing is work, give yourself time to rest and recoup your losses. But after your break, be sure to go back to the keyboard. Don't let your frisbee time turn into a sabbatical. You've all heard my 'just write' rant. Take all that fresh perspective and turn it into words.

Prompts anyone? Sure. Why not? Try exercises for writers, if you're into that kind of thing. I thought I wasn't, but turns out they're kind of fun. Maybe take your character out of your book and put them in another. See what they do, how they react. Can you use that?

Try writing by hand. Or if you're already old fashioned, try a keyboard or a typewriter. Changing mediums resets your brain and could jump start something on the page too. I write all my blog posts by hand first. For some reason, it feels less permanent that way. I can just jot down ideas without worrying whether they're really going to work or not. I know that's completely opposite of real life but shh my brain hasn't figured it out yet.

I've heard change locales. Normally work at home? Try setting up in a coffee shop. Or vice versa. Go people watching in a park with just a notepad and a pen. Personally, this doesn't work for me because I get super distracted. I swear I'm writing until all of a sudden, I realize I've been staring at that dog for five minutes wondering if it's owner knows it looks like a pig. But writing someplace else might work great for you.

Outline your characters. Maybe one of the reasons you're stuck is because you don't know your characters well enough to write how they'd react to a situation. Take a moment to figure out what makes them tick. This is probably a good thing to do in general but I try to save it for moments I'm stuck. Digging deep into a character's past and motivations really helps get the ball rolling, Indiana Jones style.

When all else fails, type harder. Yeah, tap the keys so you can hear them click. Don't look at me like I'm insane. This is my default Block Buster. When I'm distracted or feeling like I'm not getting stuff on the page the way I want, I arch my fingers and tap the keys harder, more deliberately. I like how it sounds. It sounds productive. It's soothing and makes me want to write more. Seriously, stop looking at me like that.

There are millions of ways to break The Block and everyone has their own tried and true method. These are just a few that I jotted down one day. Feel free to develop your own. How about it? What do you do to break your Block?

I may not be a published author but I consider myself a writer. I've worked at my craft hard enough and long enough that I think I can claim the title “writer”. I have several complete manuscripts ranging from first drafts to final drafts (final until I decide to tweak it again) and I try to write every day in order to get better. If someone else has a different idea of what it means to be a writer, I'd like to hear it. So what I'm saying is I'd consider myself pretty far along that subjective scale, but I'm still learning. I read a lot, go to workshops and follow blogs that have some great advice for writers. Books and workshops are great but a lot of times you have to pay for them (unless you utilize your library and your local writers group) but blogs are free. At the most you might have to ignore some ads. So I thought I might spotlight a few of my favorites. My Name is Not Bob

Robert Lee Brewer is a father, a poet and one of the editors at Writer's Digest. His blog is chock full of advice for writers trying to navigate the digital world. In April he did a whole month of posts about how to build an online platform. Take a stroll through his archives and you'll find help with things like time management skills, wading through social media like Facebook and Twitter, and what you really need to know about SEO (search engine optimization). Robert's posts were invaluable to me while I was setting up my blog. They really helped me get a handle on what I needed to concentrate on and what I could ignore. I even participated in his April Platform Challenge. I've only noticed a slight increase in my site traffic so far, but I feel so much more confident about my efforts on the web now, and to me, that's worth it.

Writing While the Rice Boils

Debbie Maxwell Allen is a homeschool mom, a writer, and a blogger. Her blog is a treasured resource for people like me who have a hard time finding things on the internet. I don't know what my problem is, but I can never find what I'm looking for. Some people can't whistle. I can't Google. But Debbie makes it easier by finding new, interesting, and above all, helpful tools for writers on the web. Each post focuses on a different topic with several links to great articles that flesh out the idea and really give it some meat. It's like a best of the web for writers. She's also been doing it for a while so you can find just about anything you might need in her archives. As a bonus, I've met Debbie and she's just as sweet and encouraging as she seems online.

The Other Side of the Story

Janice Hardy is a blogger and the author of The Healing Wars trilogy. I like to follow the blogs of my favorite authors and while I was reading The Shifter I looked Janice up. Little did I know that instead of just a well-kept author's blog, I would find an Aladdin's cave for writers. Janice has been blogging about writing almost every day for three years now and you can see her expertise and her passion in every post. She takes submissions from unpublished writers and breads down her critique of their work. She has guest posts by published authors who talk about how they write and manage their careers. Not to mention endless posts that teach the craft of writing to any level of aspiring writer. The amount of information on her blog is a little overwhelming at first (I gave up on trying to read everything and settled on searching for the most relevant posts) but it's worth having bookmarked as a reference.

Just as every writer should have reference books on their desks, I think they should also have a Google Reader full of writerly blogs.

Songs of the Earth by Elspeth Cooper When Gair, a Suvaeon knight-in-training, is accused of witchcraft, he is sure that his life is about to come to a fiery end as he's burned at the stake. But even as all hope seems lost, he is granted a reprieve by a mysterious benefactor. Branded a witch and exiled from the parish, Gair has no choice but to accept help from a man who seems to know more than Gair does about the magic that sings in his veins. Perhaps with his help Gair can learn to control it, harness it and use it to fight for his freedom and a life he never dreamed he'd have a chance to live.

I picked this book up because it is what sparked the Special Needs in Strange Worlds series over at Bookworm Blues. The discussion was excellent, and I really wanted to see how Elspeth Cooper had handled the subject of disability in fantasy.

Unfortunately, as a reader, this book didn't really work for me. I found it really hard to get into, and I had a couple problems with it along the way. I didn't feel like there was a clear goal for the protagonist. Gair is trying to get out of the parish because he has been banished but then what? It seemed like his entire purpose was to stay just ahead of the witchfinder, and I wanted more than that. I crave a hero with a goal I can root for. And Gair just didn't fit the bill. He was rather aimless and a bit dense at times. It took him a quarter of the book to figure out what I guessed in the first few pages. I can see making a reader feel smart, but not at the expense of the character.

And along with a goal-oriented hero, I want a bad guy to hide under the covers from. Again Songs of the Earth failed to deliver. The antagonist didn't even show up until the last few chapters of the book (he made an appearance once early on, but the meeting meant nothing to me because it didn't appear to mean anything to the characters at the time). And Cooper describes him simply as evil. With no motivation and no insight into his character, he ended up being about as scary as a milkmaid.

There was also something about Cooper's style that kept throwing me off. Things that I thought were momentous or interesting were glossed over or treated as ordinary. A new and amazing secret is revealed about Gair without the surrounding drama and fanfare that should have heralded it. Some dialogue tells me it's special, but the feelings of the character and the exposition tell me it's mundane. As a reader, I was confused. What was important and what wasn't? Was I missing something really subtle or was I just finding certain things anticlimactic? Hard to tell.

Putting all that aside (it's just opinion anyway, feel free to make your own) I did enjoy the story once I got into it. I'm a sucker for schools and students in my fiction. Especially if there's magic involved. Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey, Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce, Griffin Rising by Darby Karchut (more on Darby's book coming later). They all strike a tender cord in me and Songs of the Earth was no different. Once Gair reached Chapterhouse, that was where I got hooked, even if I disagreed with some of the choices he made there. I really like classes and teachers and ranks. Sigh. I miss school. Oh stop making that face, I already know I'm weird.

Given my own interests and the reasons I picked up this book, I wanted more discussion about the disabilities, but I think I've decided I really liked the way Cooper handled them. Ansel has severe arthritis, Aysha has a debilitating limp and Darin has diabetes, but these conditions have little bearing on the story. The weaknesses are just another facet of the characters. I'll admit that when I write about characters with disabilities I'm hoping to promote awareness. But Elspeth Cooper said that she had no agenda when creating Ansel, Aysha and Darin. The result is a deeper, more unique and believable character. Not that it's wrong to create a character for a specific purpose. It's just nice to see that people with disabilities can have a place as normal characters filling out and providing depth to a fantasy world.

So while this wasn't my favorite book ever, I think it did have some redeeming qualities. I'm wondering what will happen to Gair, and Ansel, and that healer from Astolan (whose name is escaping me and I don't have the book nearby, sorry). And just for that I'll probably pick up the sequel when it comes out.

My critique partner, Becca, tagged me in the Lucky 7 Meme Challenge. It looks like a lot of fun so here it goes. Here are the rules as I've heard them: 1. Go to page 77 of your current WIP 2. Go to line 7 3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating! 4. Tag 7 authors 5. Let each and every one of them know

I'm working on final edits for my young adult fantasy, By Wingéd Chair. It's about Merry, a teen struggling to make sense of her disability when the local lord tries to kill her father, drawing her into a plot that encompasses family betrayal and otherworldly magic. In order to save the day, she must team up with an irritating outlaw who she doesn't know if she wants to kiss or run him over with her wheelchair, all the while learning to accept her limitations and embrace her strengths.

"I can understand that." And I did. So often it felt like I hated the world, and I had to defend myself against everyone in it. But I hated myself more. I hated the person I'd become.

"I thought you might like to know it's not you, and I'm going to try harder not to be so..."

"Asinine?" I said sweetly.

"I was going to say surly." He gave me a sheepish smile before returning his gaze to the surrounding woods.

The light-hearted moment was gone, and I glanced up to the wagon bed and swallowed. Papa looked too much like a corpse in the darkness.

There's a brief snippet. I got lucky and hit a good excerpt. Let me know what you think. Hm, I guess I'll have to come up with seven more friends to tag.

So agents and editors have the notorious slush pile while writers have the drawer or shoe box full of rejections. Actually mine are in a folder; the hard copies, that is. There are plenty more that are archived in my email, and it's hard to collect the ringing silences that are most rejections today. My friend Debbie posted on her blog on Monday, “How do you react when you hear 'no'? Have you heard it yet? Is it time to start accumulating some rejections?” Well, this question seemed very timely for me, so here's your answer, Debbie.

I first started trying to get my books published when I was nineteen, many years ago now, so I'm pretty familiar with rejections. I had no idea what I was doing, and I made lots of rookie mistakes. I just wanted to get the novel that I'd slaved over for five years out into the world. It's like launching a ship. You smash that bottle over the prow and let it slide down into the water, hoping and praying that it will float, that it will glide majestically out of the harbor on its maiden voyage.

Let's just say, my ship sprung a leak. It's lying on the bottom of the harbor, making a nice home for fish. But that first rejection was like a badge of honor. I was a writer. I had a letter from a publisher that said so. Actually, it said, “Thank you for your submission. We do not feel it is right for us at this time,” but same thing, right?

Now that I've been doing this for years, it gets harder and harder to hear 'no'. I feel like my work is the best it's ever been, and if that's not enough, then maybe I'm just not cut out for this business. I know that's not true, but it's so easy to believe the lie.

After months (years if you count writing the book) of preparation, I sent Kristin Nelson my first thirty pages. A week ago, I got her reply. Since this is a post about rejections, you've probably already guessed she said 'no'. It wasn't devastating, but there was that flash of disappointment and descent into self-doubt. This was my best work and she said 'no'. What now?

Sending your work out into the world is scary, whether it's to a publisher, an agent, or even just a critique partner. As writers, we wear our hearts on our sleeves. We bare our deepest selves right there on the page. With experience we develop a thick skin, a coat of armor.

But every rejection, every 'no' tries to poke a hole in it. When my first 'no' came back, it stung, but I shook it off, saying that wasn't so bad. But then one 'no' becomes ten, and then fifty, and then I realize I've exhausted my whole list of possible agents and editors. What now? How long can I keep doing this before my armor is so riddled with holes, it falls apart? When do I give up on my dream and decide to self-publish?

It's at this point that I have to step back and remember why I write. Yes, my dream is to one day see my name on a book cover. Yes, I want my stories to touch people's lives and change them for the better. I know I'm not the only one who feels these things, but the world isn't going to notice if my book never appears on a shelf in Barnes and Noble. I didn't start writing because I had narcissistic desire to see my name in print or because I had a message to get across. I started writing because I had stories in my head. I kept writing because I realized I loved it. I can't stop putting words on a page anymore than I can stop reading (it's been tried, the result was fugly). If someone was to say, “I can see the future, and you will never be published”, would I stop writing? Hell, no.

So I guess that's my answer. What now? I'll keep writing. I'll keep putting words on the page, keep telling my stories if only to myself (and my sisters who never get tired of hearing them). When I've exhausted my list of agents and editors, I'll send out the next book. I'll keep working, keep making them better. And I'll keep collecting the rejections. Maybe I'll make a collage.

For those who don't know, I live with a disability. I'm used to it, but occasionally I come across something that reminds me of all the things I can't do, and I have to make a choice not to let it get to me. So I try to find joy in the little things. I try to recognize those moments when I realize I have an advantage. Every now and then there are some things that make all this worthwhile, things that make me smile. Wheelchairs. Who hasn't thought it would be fun to tool around in one? You can admit it. Wheelchairs are awesome. And it's not like you can just rent one. You kind of have to have a legitimate reason for one, otherwise it's awkward. Zipping around in my small, fast TiLite is pretty fun. It's the only time I can actually go faster than everyone else in the world. The big open floors at Sam's Club and Ikea are perfect racing grounds (although, you want to go with an able-bodied hubby or friend because what you make up for in speed, you lose in being able to maneuver those big carts around, yeah, picture it in your mind, and now go ahead and laugh, it's okay, I promise). And for me, the chair lets me do more for longer than if I was just walking. A few summers ago we went to Yellowstone National Park, which was amazingly accessible. There were boardwalks everywhere so even in the wheelchair I could get up close and see the paint pots and the pools full of cyanobacteria. I'd never have been able to keep up if I was walking.

Parking. That's the one advantage everyone thinks of. I have a handy-dandy placard in my car that lets me park in those big spots right up close to the stores. Very nice (until they're all taken and I have to park forever away and walk, but that's a soap box for another day). What most people don't realize is that there are several advantages to handicapped parking that those of us with disabilities need. I use all of them at various points. Yes, the location is a big one. If I'm walking then the last thing I want to do before hours of shopping (I hate shopping) is hike a million miles before I even get to the store. But if I'm in my chair then distance is nothing. It becomes an issue of space. Even my little custom-fitted TiLite is too big to get between the cars in the rest of the lot. That's what those hash marks are for (not grocery carts). Oh, and when I'm in the chair, I'm short. Cars driving through the parking lot can't see me, so getting a spot up close keeps me from getting run over. Always a good thing.

Airports. There really isn't anything good about airports, but the wheelchair makes it bearable. Security sees me coming and a special line magically opens just for me. Sure I have to live through a patdown, (chair can't go through a metal detector) but what's getting to second base with a complete stranger in latex gloves compared to skipping that hellish line? I'll take second base, please (even if they don't buy me dinner first). And sometimes Josh can play up my disability and fanagle us bulkhead seats. Seriously, his height should be considered a disability when we're flying anyway.

I'm sure there are other advantages. These are the ones that come to mind immediately. Maybe I'll share them with y'all as I come up with them. Can anyone think of any more? Come on. There are so many crappy things. Let's revel in the good for once.

Eugenides is the protagonist of Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series, and one of my favorite characters to boot. He is our hero, and also a thief. It's hard to talk about Gen and his disability without spoiling some of the twists in the series, but I'm going to try. I re-read The Thief at least once a year. It's an amazing book, but what's incredible is that the sequel, The Queen of Attolia, is even more amazing. And the next one, The King of Attolia, is even better than that. I think one thing that makes the subsequent books so good is the introduction of a major stumbling block to this character who was so incredibly resourceful and infallible in the first.

At the beginning of the second book, Gen is caught and suffers the traditional punishment for thievery. He loses his right hand. Cue the gasps of horror (I'll admit horror was my first reaction, too), but Gen's suffering brings a depth and realism to the series that gives it a place next to Flesh and Spirit by Carol Berg and Nightlife by Rob Thurman. Turner doesn't spare our delicate feelings.

Throughout The Queen of Attolia, Gen struggles against feeling useless. “What can you steal with one hand?” Attolia asks him. “Nothing,” he says. And he believes that, returning home to wallow in loss and misery. He learns to live with one hand, but the process is slow and he ignores everything else that used to matter to him. Gen tries to cover his pain and bitterness with a joke and a smile but still flinches every time someone mentions his missing hand.

It isn't until war comes that Gen remembers his greatest tool is his mind, not his hands, and he must be just as clever and cunning as ever in order to steal peace for his country.

This descent into self-pity until some trigger restores a character's self-respect isn't a new concept. Most of us with disabilities would recognize the feelings that threaten to swamp Gen. But what I love about Megan Whalen Turner is her subtlety. We've already read the first book. We know Gen is awesome and amazing. We had a first person view as he threw everyone for a loop in The Thief (including us) and saved the day. How could the second book have the same kind of zing and pop when we know all that? In The Queen of Attolia, Turner draws us back. She takes us out of Gen's head and lets us watch as he flounders, showing us he's not perfect. We still know that he's amazing, but there is that niggling doubt. How can he pull this off? How can he be better when he seems like he's less? We get to watch as he figures out he's still amazing and proves it to us again.

And she does it again in the third book, pulling us even further back, putting us in the head of a character that doesn't know Gen at all. We read along, biting our nails and falling off the edges of our seats as Gen proves to Costis who he is and what he's capable of. Gen has learned to use his disability as an advantage. Yes, he uses that razor edge of his hook as another weapon, but it's more than that. He manipulates the people around him, he plays up his disability, making everyone believe he's weak and nonthreatening. They underestimate him. Every time Costis sighed in exasperation, I grinned and squealed (I try not to squeal too often, but a good book does that to me), because I knew there was something else going on. I never knew exactly what, but I trusted Gen. He was awesome and he was going to prove it in a completely new and unexpected way. And I wasn't disappointed.

Other characters recognize Gen's superiority despite how hard he tries to hide it. All through the fourth book, A Conspiracy of Kings, Sophos is inspired by Gen. His memories of the thief help him to push on and become a better man. Even Attolia, the woman responsible for cutting off Gen's hand, is changed by him. She is haunted by what she's done and by the end of the second book she is a very real, well-rounded character who has learned from her mistakes. I won't spoil it here, but her journey is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking pieces of this series.

I've seen reviews of The Queen of Attolia that have talked about how well-written it is, how amazing the storyline is, but the reviewers still disliked the book because it was just too painful. For Gen, for Attolia, for Eddis. And especially for the one reading it.

I can understand that. When I first read this book, it bothered me. I appreciated it, but it made me uncomfortable. I had a hard time getting past the fact that Gen lost his hand. He was ruined. He would never be the same again.

I was young. I hadn't had the experiences that make me who I am today. The thought of maiming was repulsive. Hurting or injuring someone permanently was unspeakable. It's still an uncomfortable thing, but I have a new perspective on it. We're all changed by our experiences. Sometimes permanently. It's naïve to think we might skip along through life and come out of the woods in exactly the same shape we left the house in. If you're like me, those changes aren't just to thought process or personality.

Now, when I read this book, I don't think of Gen as ruined. He's different, he's changed, and in some ways he's better. Now, I'm caught up in how he handles and overcomes his own personal hell. I see his strength and the way he adapts. I see that he is disabled but not less.

The change I had to go through to get to this point in understanding was huge. Hopefully the rest of the world can come to see this distinction without sharing all the growing pains. And maybe Gen will help them get there.

I don't like setting. I don't really like reading about it or writing it. Terry Goodkind had those long paragraphs in Wizard's First Rule that described the trees and the hills and how the light fell just so and... yeah, I skipped all those. In a lot of my first drafts you're not even sure where a scene takes place because I avoided mentioning it. My characters could be floating in space – or in a lake – but you have no idea because I haven't described it well enough. Or at all. As a writer, I realized this is probably something I should get over and learn to do, and since I'm trying to write about writing, I figured I'd detail some of the slow, painful learning I've been doing.

Setting is more than just the ground your characters walk on while they're solving the mystery of the painted chicken. Setting can be a critical reason for character development. Miles Vorkosigan would not have faced the same trials or overcome them the same way if his story had not taken place where it had. It can be an active component of the plot. If your novel takes place on a small island during a hurricane, you bet your characters are going to have to deal with all the problems that come with too little space and too much water.

Even if all you want to do is tell a human story while transporting your readers to a beautiful land similar to – but not exactly like – our world, you can't get away with dumping lengthy paragraphs of description where nothing happens into a reader's lap. Those places where the hero pauses in his hike up the mountain to survey the surrounding landscape with it's carefully researched vegetation and painstakingly lyrical prose about the sunlight and the birds- those are the things I skip. I don't care how beautiful the language is, I'm bored. And I'm a writer too, so I know how much work went into that paragraph and how much you love the imagery. But what does it matter if the reader never sees those words because they've flipped ahead to where the hero actually starts doing something besides sightseeing?

I tend toward the other side of the scale. I dislike reading description so much that I avoid writing it altogether. I'll tell you that my characters are sitting in a room or traveling through a forest and that's as much as you're going to get because I'd rather concentrate on why she's glaring daggers at him or the ninja that's about to jump out at them and ruin everyone's day. Readers have enough imagination that they can come up with the setting by themselves, right? Wrong. It's your story. They want to hear and see and smell what you want them to hear and see and smell. So my approach doesn't work either.

Well, then what's a struggling writer to do? I sat in on one of Donald Maass's workshops two weeks ago at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, and he said to throw out traditional description. What? Really? Yup. No one reads it anyway. Well, some people do. But most admit to skipping it.

A story is told from a specific character's point of view (well, usually, there is also omniscient POV, but that's not what I'm talking about). Sometimes there are forays into another character's POV, but every story needs a protagonist. Since the story is already being told from the protagonist's POV with their voice, then the setting should be as well. Show the reader where they are through a character's eyes. Let their upbringing and emotions color the description.

In another workshop, the presenter gave us an exercise: Describe a building from the POV of a girl who just lost her boyfriend in a car accident, without mentioning the girl, the boyfriend, or the accident. This was my attempt:

Black stains crept up the cracked brick walls, and windows stared back like accusing eyes that knew all the secrets of the world. Water streamed from the sky and down the glass, making it seem like the building itself was crying.

The next exercise was to take that same building, same weather conditions, and describe it from the POV of a boy in love, without mentioning the boy or his emotional state.

Water poured down the brick facade, running through the cracks and over the black stains as if washing away the building's dark past, cleansing its iniquities and raising it to new life.

 Now, I could have written it:

 The rain pinged off the dirty windows and ran down through the cracks in the brick, over the black stains.

Can you see the difference? The first two are colored with the emotions of the characters, what they've experienced, how they're feeling in that moment. Instead of getting a boring line about the building – which could be really important, but how would we know because we skipped it – we get a closer look at the character and what's important to them.

If you're writing about a disabled character, this could be especially useful. Instead of giving the reader a lecture about how your girl in a wheelchair is supposed to feel, show them by including details only someone who has to navigate in a wheelchair would notice. The sidewalk is tilted so she feels she has to lean way over to keep her chair from falling over. There isn't enough room for her to get from one side of the room to the other. People's toes are in the way (toes and bookbags, I'm always running into toes and bookbags).

In this last exercise, we were supposed to take a character from our current work in progress and stick them on a horse ranch a half-hour away from the nearest store. Merry is from a fantastical world similar to Victorian England, so I had to wrap my mind around it first, but here's what I came up with.

Manure. Did they really expect me to roll through manure? They knew I steered with my hands, right? “Do you have any wipes?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Well then we have to get wipes. I'm not going any further without wipes.”

“Nearest store's half an hour away.” He eyed me. “Just use your jeans. Nothing wrong with them.”

You may not get a great picture of time of day or what exactly it looks like from this little bit, but you certainly know how she feels about the place. You know she's probably in a wheelchair and which specific detail she's worried about. And as a bonus you can see some of what the secondary character is feeling from the dialogue.

It's not easy. I have lots of places to go back and rewrite or add description from a character's POV, but in the end, your story will be much richer and your reader will have a better idea of who your characters are and what they care about.

Today you can find me over at Bookworm Blues talking about disabilities in science fiction and fantasy. This series Sarah is hosting is an amazing opportunity to promote the idea of disabled fantasy heroes and help people understand those of us with disabilities better. Robert Jackson Bennett opened the discussion yesterday and Carol Berg will be weighing in on Thursday, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the rest of the month holds. Take a minute to check it out. You won't be disappointed.

The problem with having set the standard with well thought out, well edited and well written blog posts is that you have to continue with the well thought out, well edited and well written posts, even when you're tired and the well is dry and the dog is groaning at your feet because he wants to play frisbee. (Y'all might not think this blog is all that, but I do, and you're still reading, so there) But I had a heck of a weekend and the rest of the week stretches out before me like a giraffe trying to reach that last branch, so I'm going to cut myself some slack just this once and talk about one of the reasons why I feel like the antagonist from Zombieland. This last weekend was the Pikes Peak Writers Conference down in Colorado Springs. My very first writing conference. I felt very official. I had business cards. They said “Kendra Merritt: Novelist” so I guess that makes me a professional, right? No? Well, I'll keep trying then. PPWC is considered one of the friendliest conferences in the country, and it really is. I swear every staff member knew my name by the end of the weekend and every published author I talked to was really excited about my pitch and wanted to hear about how it went. For the first time since PT school, I felt like I was part of a professional community. I belonged there. When I tell people that I'm a writer, I get a variety of responses, but the inevitable “Are you published” always sinks my boat. At PPWC it didn't matter that I wasn't published yet. I was still respected for pursuing my writing goals and honing my craft.

Thursday was filled with an entire day's worth of Young Adult workshops. I spent hours immersed in the world of writing and marketing for teens. I met Bob Spiller, author of cozy mysteries who made me laugh so hard I had to excuse myself from his workshop on humor to go pee. And one of our speakers, Darby Karchut, has inspired me to try my hand at books for boys (I don't usually write boy books, but I want to be Darby when I grow up, so I'm darn well going to try). Friday, Saturday and Sunday were other various workshops on writing and publishing. I can't list them all, but I will mention that if you ever get a chance to listen to Carol Berg teach, don't miss it. Or Donald Maass. Dear God. You'll leave with your brain coming out your ears, but it will be well worth the cost of paper towels.

One of the things that makes a conference worth every penny is the opportunity to rub elbows with the giants (and the up and coming) of publishing. And one advantage of being in a wheelchair is that I got into the banquet hall early for every meal, meaning I got to scope out and pick the best seats (hey, I'm not above taking advantage of the disability when I can, I think I've earned it). I sat next to Debra Dixon, who runs her own publishing house, Amanda Luedeke, another agent I'm considering, and Lou Anders from Pyr Books, who kept Josh and I entertained with Star Trek stories all through the banquet.

My pitch appointment was scheduled for Saturday morning, around ten. Perfect for me. Not first thing in the morning, but before lunch so I could actually eat without feeling nauseous. During the first workshop of the day I was actually really nervous. I looked down at my watch and had that moment of panic when I realized I was pitching in less than an hour. This was my big chance, I'd been preparing for months. What if I blew it? So after the workshop, instead of going to another panel until my appointment, I went and sat in the lobby to calm down. Darby Karchut was sitting nearby and I had her book in my bag, so I zipped over to ask her to sign it for me (as distractions go, books are always my go to). She managed to wheedle my pitch out of me (confession: it didn't take much wheedling) and got so excited when she heard about my novel that I forgot to be nervous. I had a great idea that I could articulate and who wouldn't want to get on this train as it leaves the station.

By the time I got up to the room where all the pitches were held, I was still confident (thanks, Darby). As I rolled out of the elevator the coordinator met me and told me she was moving my appointment up to … right then! So I didn't have time to sit and stew in my own juices, and now that I think about it, it was a very good thing I was right on time.

Kristin was very good about putting people at ease and leading with easy questions. She asked how my conference was going, and we gushed about how much we love Carol Berg. And then I gave her my pitch. For those of you that are interested, my first logline was “By Wingéd Chair is a young adult fantasy that is a retelling of Robin Hood where Maid Marion kicks butt from a wheelchair.” Scripted, “Ah”, and my second logline was “It's about a teen struggling to make sense of her disability when the local lord tries to kill her father, drawing her into a plot that encompasses family betrayal and otherworldly magic. In order to save the day, she has to team up with an irritating outlaw who she doesn't know if she wants to kiss or run him over with her wheelchair, and along the way she must learn to accept her limitations and embrace her strengths.” I've thought of some improvements I could make to it but it's too late now. And she said she wants to see it so it must have been all right to begin with. So as soon as I got back from the conference, I went back to work on the first thirty pages of my manuscript, implementing all the things Carol Berg emphasized in her workshop on revision and wrote my query letter, keeping Weronika Janczuk's tips in mind. It's done, it's sent, now all I can do is sit back and twiddle my thumbs and hope that the writing is as good as my beta readers have said (I can't tell anymore, I've seen it so many times it all looks inane to me). Whatever the result, I am one step further than ever, so I'll take that as a win.

I try to have a take home message for each of my posts, but I didn't write this with one in mind. I guess what I learned this weekend was that if you're passionate about something, you're never done learning about it. You should keep getting better, keep honing your craft, and most of all never give up. As Susan Wiggs said at the farewell lunch, “the only sure way to fail is to quit”.

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Every year, I wait impatiently for a certain musical production done by an incredible group of people here in Denver. I buy my tickets months in advance, I plan other events around it, and then finally, I drive downtown and sit in a darkened theater waiting for the curtain to rise. Maybe that paints a melodramatic picture of a sad, obsessed woman who really should take up knitting or something, but that's how much I look forward to seeing PHAMALY. The Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League has been amazingly inspirational to me. PHAMALY was formed in 1989 in response to a distressing lack of theatrical opportunities for physically disabled actors. Every actor in the company has a disability, whether it's physical, emotional, or cognitive. Some are blind, some are hearing-impaired, some have anxiety or personality disorders. Some are even in wheelchairs. Let me tell you, you haven't seen a sword fight until you've seen someone wield a blade from a wheelchair. PHAMALY provides a place for disabled actors to hone and spotlight their skills. And these people are good. The shows are produced professionally and the actors really know what they're doing.

The first show I saw was “Man of La Mancha”. I still have the program gathering dust down in my sewing room (see, I sew, I don't need to take up knitting) because I can't bear to throw it away. Watching these actors – some with disabilities much more severe than mine – sing “The Impossible Dream” filled me with a sense of awe and pride in myself. I left the theater that night feeling more empowered than I've felt in the six years since my injury.

Something about that show struck a deep and resonant cord in me. I once was a little girl who dreamed of being a Broadway star along with being a Disney princess. Alas, that dream will never be realized since I have a voice like a hyena and the sense of pitch of a house with old plumbing (that might be an exaggeration, but it sounded so good, didn't it?). But seeing a girl with paraplegia drag herself across the floor, singing “Aldonza”, in a scene rife with anguish and regret made me look at myself in a new light. I, crippled little Kendra, can do anything. I can be anything. If you've seen “Man of La Mancha”, you know this is the theme of the whole show, but PHAMALY's performance lent it something more, something amazing and all-encompassing. I thought to myself, if she could do that, what could I do? And I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the audience that felt that sense of community and competence.

PHAMALY puts on one musical and one stage play per year. Also they put on original sketch comedy shows periodically. Arielle, Josh, and I went to one of these last week. “DisLabeled” is the new series they are doing out of Boulder, written by the handi-capable actors who perform in it. It was, in a word, hysterical, featuring sketches like “You might be disabled,” (in the style of Jeff Foxworthy) and a sing-along of “Your, your, your row boat. Dyslexia have we”. I particularly liked the blind date between two people with TBI's (traumatic brain injury), neither of which could remember why they were there.

Their purpose is not just to give theatrical opportunities to people with disabilities. They also strive to promote understanding, showing that we aren't unapproachable, we just do things a little differently. At the end of the show, the actors all sat down and answered questions about how they came up with their material and their lives in general. You'd be amazed how easy it can be to find the ridiculous in the mundane.

PHAMALY has come up with what they call Phampathy Cards with sentiments like “I'd have gotten you a prettier card but you're blind so...” and “Have you ever thought of yourself as half NOT deaf?” and, my favorite, “Thinking of you and all that awesome free parking.” PHAMALY treats living with a disability with irreverent laughter that shows it's okay to have a sense of humor, it's okay to look past the big crappy things and find joy in the little quirks of life. This is something I believe is so important to maintain mental health in everyone, not just those of us with more problems than most. We can't pretend we're not different, we can't pretend we don't have a hard time occasionally, but we can reach out to find our similarities and we can smile when something's funny.

On a side note, I've added some things over in the sidebar. If you want to receive updates whenever there's a new post, just click to subscribe.

Moonshine by Rob Thurman

Cal and Niko are back in New York after saving the world from the machinations of Cal's unpleasant relatives. With the Auphe out of the picture, Cal's biggest worries are having to work for his living and keeping his burgeoning love for cute, psychic George under wraps. He and Niko have started their own monster-ass-kicking business with occasional help from Robin Goodfellow and Promise Nottinger, Niko's vampiric love interest. One of their first jobs is an undercover gig with the werewolf mafia, but what seems at first to be a straightforward assignment quickly goes downhill. When George is kidnapped they realize that they're caught up in something far more sinister, and now Cal has to conquer his inner monster in order to rescue her. And if that isn't enough to keep this dynamic duo on their toes, it seems like the Auphe might not be as extinct as they thought.

Cal and Niko are as snarky and bad-ass as ever in this sequel to Nightlife. They might bear scars from their previous ordeal, but they're not letting a little emotional trauma get in their way. Fans of the first book will be glad to see the return of Robin Goodfellow and George, the psychic.

While I love the dynamic between the brothers, it was nice to see Cal operating on his own for a bit in this book. Niko wasn't always there to sweep him out of trouble and as a result we got to see Cal step up and hold his own against the baddies. He even got to do some brother rescuing himself.

Cal still struggles with his nature, but there are some new angles that bring out the depth of Cal's character. He knows he's not a monster – that was covered in the first book – but now he has to overcome some scary Auphe-like rage and emerging abilities that remind him of a time best left forgotten. I'm really impressed with how Rob Thurman has created this character that is so easy to love without shying away from the darker, grittier aspects of his being half monster. I especially liked that Moonshine begins a discussion about Cal's future with George and all the messy possibilities his dual-nature brings up. It definitely is something that would have been easy to glaze over, but Thurman doesn't pull her punches.

I would have liked to see more development of Promise as a character. To me she felt a little flat. She's introduced as a love interest for Niko in Nightlife but not a lot is said about their relationship or how it develops. This is all right at first because it rings true for the style of the book and Cal's limited viewpoint. She has a much more substantial role in Moonshine, but our knowledge of her doesn't really grow with that role. She was just there with very little explanation about her background or why she is with Niko at all. I feel like she could be really interesting if given a chance, but we don't know enough about her to tell. Her interactions with Cal were very promising, and I'm hoping that her character continues to expand throughout the rest of the series.

I'm a big fan of this series. The characters have really stuck with me, and I've enjoyed watching them grow – and occasionally backslide. If you want to find other great books, check out my shelves on Goodreads.

I've realized I'm rather behind. Rob Thurman just came out with the seventh book, Doubletake. I've read the whole series, but as you can see, I'm still reviewing the second one. I'd really like to give a timely review of the newest book, but I'm kind of a completionist, and I feel weird jumping ahead. So what do you think? Should I go ahead and skip to the newest book, or should I plug away and do them all eventually?

Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan is the protagonist of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, a science fiction series that starts with The Warrior's Apprentice and goes through Cryoburn, which just came out in 2010. There are also two prequels, Shards of Honour and Barrayar, that are about Miles' parents that you might want to check out if you're a completionist like me. Miles is the son of a renowned general on a militaristic planet that admires physical prowess and abhors genetic imperfection. So when I say Miles is disabled, you can immediately see some of the struggles he will face. Before he was born, he was exposed to toxic gas which caused brittle bones and stunted growth. As an adult he stands at a mere 4' 9” tall. Miles has to deal with prejudice just for his physical appearance alone, constantly explaining that his differences are due to teratogenic changes, not genetic abnormalities.

But what's even more dangerous than the prejudice he faces is the weakness in his bones. A simple fall will break his arm, yes, but also too much pressure on his chest will break his ribs. Bones are there to give a body structural integrity, and if his break too easily, then Miles can't trust his own body. I have very weak quads, the muscles that keep your knees straight when you walk. So like Miles, every time I stand up in the morning or take a step I have to wonder if my legs are really going to hold me this time. They almost always do, but I've been dumped on my butt enough to have developed that moment of hesitation. Toward the beginning of the series, Miles wears leg braces to help make up for his disability. Another medical torture device I can relate to. Are they very helpful? Yes, of course. Are they also the most annoying and uncomfortable things on the planet - or in Miles' case, planets? You bet your sweet KFOs they are (that stands for knee-to-foot orthotics). So it's no surprise Miles eventually trades out his leg braces for synthetic leg bones that won't break as easily.

What makes Miles such an awesome character and so much fun to read about is his personality, his indomitable nature. He suffers from an excess of both genius and energy and there is no off switch. In The Warrior's Apprentice he couldn't get into the military academy so he started his own mercenary company. Yes, it was sort of by accident, but that's the charm of Miles' character. He plows forward at full speed, only dealing with consequences when they come back to bite him in the butt. He's always telling himself the key is forward momentum.

One of my favorite moments in the series comes in the epilogue of Barrayar. Miles is five and has escaped from his parents to try horseback riding. When they finally find him, he's fallen and is holding his arm. His bodyguard asks him if it's broken. Miles doesn't cry. He just replies “Yeah” and waits while the bone is set and put in an emergency cast. Then he's back up and convincing his grandfather to teach him how to ride properly.

Miles never falls into self-pity - he probably doesn't have time for it, and most of the time the reader doesn't even notice his limitations. And yet, Miles is clearly shaped by his disability. He knows what he looks like, he knows what his weaknesses are and so he pushes himself to be bigger, better, faster. He exudes confidence, radiates loyalty, and in the end those around him are so staggered by the strength of his personality that they can't help but hitch their stars to him and ride to glory in his wake.

That's not to say that Miles is perfect. He fails almost as often as he succeeds, but he does both spectacularly. Instead of playing it safe, he tried to prove himself on the academy obstacle course and ended up breaking both legs, thereby barring his way to the military academy. And while he may not have time for self-pity, he feels guilt just fine. If he's not manic, he's depressive. There is no middle ground.

Somehow it all works for Miles. There is a balance between those times when I want to cuddle him and when I want to smack him over the head. He is one of my favorite characters ever written. I'd read the whole series just for Miles. But he's not alone. He's supported by hundreds of characters just as wonderfully portrayed as he is. I dare not get started on Miles' clone-brother Mark or we'll be here forever. Or his cousin Ivan. Or his mother Cordelia. Okay, I'm stopping now.

All that to say, when I'm teaching myself how to write gripping fiction, I reach for Lois McMaster Bujold. She brings to life characters who take hold of you, who change you. If Miles passed me on a street in Denver, I'd recognize him. Not just because his stature is pretty recognizable, but because I know him. He's a very dear friend who has shaped the way I see myself.

For a while I've felt that I should write about writing: the writing process, writing tips, the dreaded rewrite. I'm hardly an expert. I don't have a degree in writing (just a BS in biology). But I have been doing this awhile, and along the way I've come up with some things that have worked for me. W. Somerset Maugham said “There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” Following that sage advice, I'm not going to try to come up with rules or even guidelines. I'm just going to talk about the things I've learned and you get to listen (lucky you). The first thing I learned about writing while writing is probably the simplest concept, but it also seems to be the hardest to implement at times. The most important thing to do to improve your writing is....write. Just write. Put words on a page. Sounds simple, doesn't it? And yet this is what trips most people up. I hear, “I want to write a book, but I don't know where to start” or “I want to finish my book, but I have writer's block.”

One of the hardest things about writing is putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) when all you want to do is prance around the room in your granny panties because that's easier than staring at a blank page. Yeah, I know all about that. I've been there. Wait, you don't do that? Maybe it's just me. Regardless of how you deal with writerly insanity, blank pages are scary things. I mean, it's just sitting there waiting for you to fill it. Who wants that kind of responsibility? Well, if you call yourself a writer, then you've volunteered for it. So writers, what do we do with a blank page? Anyone? Bueller...Bueller? Well, we fill it with lovely words: poetry that captures the feel of a winter evening, fiction that takes us to new worlds, essays that teach and inspire. What do you want to add to the realm of literature?

“But I don't know where to start,” you say. Don't worry. No one else does either. Start with a sentence. I'm serious. At the top of that terrifyingly blank page, write one sentence.

The dog runs.

Look at that. There are words on that page. You've started. What next? How about another sentence?

The dog runs. But the dinosaur runs faster.

I don't know about you, but that looks like the start of a story to me.

Pantsers (people who write by the seat of their pants) probably have less trouble with this step than planners (people who plan everything before they write). I'm a tried and true pantser. I only outline if I figure out what happens next faster than I can get it on paper. But it's easy to get stuck no matter what your method. I know planners who get bogged down in the outline, wanting to plan out every detail. And they never write a word of the actual novel. Pantsers have problems too. I'll get halfway through a first draft and realize I have no clue what comes next. Or there are people like my sister, Arielle, who get words on the page, even a whole chapter, but they won't move on until what they've written is perfect.

My advice to all of them is to just write. Planners, if it never makes it onto a page, then it's never actually a novel. It's just an idea. Pantsers, do what you do best and just see what happens. Add an agoraphobic assassin, sink the pirate's ship. Run with it. Arielles of the world, write the next part. One chapter of a novel will never be perfect, only incomplete.

Once you're past that first hurdle - when the first sentence is written, and the second sentence, a whole page, a chapter, a book - you're still not done. Yes, there should be editing and revising, but I'm not going to talk about those here. What I mean is that you should still be writing. Hey, don't complain to me, you were the one who wanted to be a writer.

I finished my first novel when I was nineteen. 200,000 words (yikes), and I was so proud of my first draft, I packed it up and sent it to an editor. Here's a healthy tip: don't do this... ever. I also didn't write much for a while after that. Don't do this either. Remember when your piano teacher told you practice makes perfect? Same thing. The only way to get better at writing is to keep writing. So write. All the time. Every day if you can. Need help fitting it into a busy schedule? There are plenty of books to help. Writer Mama by Christina Katz and Pen on fire by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett are two I'm going to look up myself. A friend of mine writes a blog Writing While the Rice Boils. Trouble finding ideas? Use prompts and exercises (Writer's Digest has lots). Do research. Write another novel. Make it better. One of my critique partners likes to say, you can't edit what doesn't exist. I've written five novels over twelve years and all of them have taught me something. Things like don't send a first draft to an editor, and sinking the pirate ship can actually work out. Another big one was trust your readers (little sisters played a part in this one). So brave the blank page. Set off into the unknown armed with only your pen. Almost everyone wants to write a book, but only you writers will actually do it.

Today I want to highlight a really incredible organization, and I can't do that without waxing poetic on my favorite subject: my dog. But don't worry, it's completely relevant because Jonas is a service dog who was trained by Freedom Service Dogs. He is considered a Skilled Companion, which means that he helps me out at home doing things like picking stuff up that I can't reach, carrying my phone around, and fetching my crutch when I've left it in another room. Freedom Service Dogs is a non-profit organization here in Denver that trains dogs and places them with clients who have various disabilities. Their dogs can help with any number of things from bracing and balancing to pushing hard to reach buttons. Unlike a lot of service dog organizations, FSD rescues their dogs from local shelters. Trainers visit the shelters regularly, testing strays for the intelligence and temperament they need for such a rigorous job. It costs FSD $25-30,000 to send one dog all the way from the rescue shelter, through the training, and finally pair them up with a deserving client. While they are very conscientious about who their dogs go to, making sure clients are well equipped to handle the animals, Jonas and I are kind of a special case. When I went to FSD, I wasn't looking for a service dog. I was looking for a pet.

Josh and I had joked about getting a service dog, but I'd never felt right about it. I'm very good about doing things for myself, and I have a big, brawny husband to manage the things I can't. Like running me up several hundred temple steps in Indonesia. Or cleaning out the shower drain. (Stand back, girls, he's mine.) So I didn't want to snatch a service dog from someone who might need one more than me. I just wanted a pet. But with my balance and strength limitations, I needed a well-behaved pet. Our first dog, Hero, was great, but I was terrified to walk her since she had a tendency to take off after squirrels, rabbits, and small children. I'm sure it was hilarious to see me dragged along behind her, but I wasn't impressed with the Marmaduke impersonation.

Several FSD volunteers and staff members attend our church, and from them, I learned that they adopt out the dogs that don't make it through the program. This sounded like a dream come true to me. These dogs already have basic obedience training, with either temperament or health issues that make them less than ideal for service work. When I got on FSD's website, I saw Jonas. [Cue dramatic light from the sky and heavenly choir music.] Jonas was fully trained and placed with a client as a full public-access Service Dog. But due to unforeseen anxiety issues, he was not doing well. He was back at FSD and up for adoption when I found him.

Josh and I went to meet him and everything clicked. Jonas was perfect for me, being very mellow and already trained to walk nicely next to a person with a disability. And I was perfect for him. I don't need him to come with me to scary places like the grocery store or (heaven forbid) Walmart. But with me, he still has a job, a purpose, and more importantly, someone who cuddles with him on the couch. He's my service dog, and I'm his service person. Since our needs matched up so perfectly, FSD “placed” him with me as my Skilled Companion. That means that we didn't have to pay for him (normally they ask for a $300-500 donation for adopted dogs), and we have the support of his trainer for the rest of his life.

Also, I got to go through my own training, learning the secret words that make Jonas do awesome things. I made friends with Bug, Pan, Doppler, Mansfield, Triton and Stryker and the men and women that go with them. Bug, Mansfield and Stryker belonged to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. FSD has an amazing program called Operation Freedom to help pair veterans with service dogs.

Jonas still has some anxiety issues, but he does come with me to church where he gets lots of love and affection, which is his favorite thing in the world... besides squeaky toys. But mostly his job is to stay at home and pick stuff up off the floor and get hair all over my carpet.

So if you're looking for a dog to adopt, or an organization to donate to, or maybe you could use a service dog yourself, check out Freedom Service Dogs. These amazing people have made a big difference in my life.

Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan Royce and Hadrian can steal anything. Want the crown jewels from the capital? They'll get them for you. How about incriminating letters from a locked tower? Consider it done. So when the two men are contracted to steal a sword the night before a duel, they think it's just another job; an easy one at that. But instead of a sword, they find the King. Dead. Framed for the murder, Royce and Hadrian must discover the truth before they're executed for a crime they weren't even paid to commit. Their journey takes them to a secret prison and a mysterious, powerful man who has been locked away for a thousand years. What they learn from him shakes the very foundation of their beliefs and starts them on a path to thwart a conspiracy that began centuries before at the fall of the empire.

I loved this book (or books, since Theft of Swords actually combines the first two books Sullivan self-published, The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha). Sullivan's style is simple and easy to read, while his characters and plots are wonderfully complex. This is epic fantasy at its best. Large sweeping themes, villains with hidden agendas, and characters that have you running to Barnes and Noble for the next installment (actually, running is out for me, so I sat on my couch and rushed it from Amazon).

Michael Sullivan is not Brent Weeks (author of The Night Angel trilogy). The themes he deals with are not nearly as gritty or dark. Royce and Hadrian are thieves, but their story focuses on the bonds of friendship and the overall goodness of their characters, rather than their illegal capers. The darkness in Royce's past creeps up behind him, threatening to pull him back, but again and again we see him choose friendship and the possibility of love.

Sullivan weaves his characters delicately yet deftly, laying down a framework and adding details as they are relevant. He respects his readers, trusting them to pick up the clues that reveal Hadrian and Royce as realistic, heroic, and flawed men. When we meet them in the first scene, they are being waylaid by a band of highwaymen. We know nothing about these two men, but by the end of the scene, it's obvious that they are thieves and they are very good at what they do. Sullivan hasn't told us any of this in words, but we see it in the way they turn the robbery around, giving the amateur bandits advice on how to do it better next time. We see it when they reveal their name, Riyria, and the bandits react with awe and respect, letting them go on their way with their purses and weapons intact.

Royce and Hadrian's individual characters are revealed the same way. At first glance, the brawny swordsman and slinky thief may seem like stereotypical archetypes, but through their actions and their painstakingly unveiled histories, you find they are so much more than what they appear to be on the surface.

There were several sections of description that I skimmed. This was my second read-through, and I remember being bogged down by them the first time as well. That isn't to say other people wouldn't find them fascinating or beautifully written. The places described really are incredible. But I'm the kind of reader that's more interested in characters and how they move through the plot. Lengthy paragraphs that paint pictures of the setting just don't to it for me. Call me a Philistine, but I'd rather be watching Hadrian's superior sword-work or listening for Royce's well-timed comments.

I like to talk about characters with disabilities and there is a really interesting one in Theft of Swords. Unfortunately, all I can say about him is that I'm breathlessly waiting to see more of him in later books. He is a secondary character without a lot of time in the spotlight. And most of the reason he is so interesting is because we know so little about him. The point of his character is to be mysterious. I don't think I can even reveal his disability since it's kind of a spoiler, and Sullivan does it so much better in just a few lines. This makes it hard to analyze him or his disability. Maybe I'll get a chance to talk more about him after I've finished the series.

If you're interested, Sullivan also writes a great blog where he talks about his rise through the author ranks and gives tips for aspiring writers. All in all, I think he has created a masterpiece, joining other names like Brandon Sanderson and Brent Weeks on my favorites shelf. Rise of Empire and Heir of Novron conclude The Riyria Revelations. Speaking of which, my brand, spanking new copy of Rise of Empire is sitting next to me right now, calling my name. “Kendra! Read me, Kendra!”

Sidonie de Villeduval is Yann Margoza's love interest in the historical fantasy The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner. When she was very young, Sido was in a carriage accident which killed her mother and left her with a badly broken leg. Ever since she has walked with a limp. She is treated terribly by her father, mostly because she is a girl and is crippled, but also for mysterious reasons the reader learns toward the end of the book. At first it seems like Gardner commits the cardinal sin of having a character who does nothing through the whole book: Sido lets the story happen to her as if she were no more than an observer. This can almost be overlooked since Sido is not the main protagonist, but a significant reason to read fiction is to read about characters that see, do, and think things that we never will. Even if a character is quiet or shy, they should still bring something unique, surprising, or larger than life to the story. If those qualities are only found in their thoughts, that still says something interesting about the character.

It's so easy to let a disabled character just sit on the sidelines, lending nothing but their presence to the story, and I was worried that this was Sido's destiny. She takes very little action throughout the novel. Mostly she sits in her room like she's told, she says what she is expected to say, and because of the distant point of view, we don't really see what she is thinking.

I relate to characters that are vibrant and swashbuckling, the ones that wear a sword on their hip and wield magic. They call to me, probably because I'll never wield anything more deadly than a butter knife. However, this meek and mild girl grew on me, and toward the end, I realized that her quiet strength and resilience were the crowning points of her character. She lives through some of the bloodiest days of the French Revolution, as all other nobles are hunted and killed. Her survival is a coincidence, but to me, Sido is heroic simply for facing her imprisonment, trial, and truncated execution with dignity and courage. When the streets of Paris run with blood and madness, Sido walks out with her head still on her shoulders.

Perhaps it is her disability that gives her the strength to press on through the howling mob. She's certainly had to live with the pain and humiliation of her father's censure for her whole life. Now, I've never had someone hate me for the way I walk, but in my own past experiences I can see the seed of these reactions. And like Sido, these experiences have strengthened me.

There are other things about Sido's disability that struck a cord with me. Things like how she tries to hide her limp, walking as slowly and smoothly as she can. Or how she loses that highly prized grace when she's nervous. I can relate to that. I once put my crutch down on a rolling chair while in a lab practical and ended up on my butt on the floor. I sustained nothing more than a couple bruises, but my pride took a huge blow that day.

Something that I thought was missing from the book was Yann's reaction to Sido's disability. He never mentions it. Ever. It seems like he doesn't even notice it, which may be the point, but I wanted to see some honest conversation about how Yann felt about it. I feel the least disabled around my husband. He makes me feel like I can do anything and it seems like he hardly even notices my disability anymore. However, I know that it affects him and it's not healthy to ignore it. I got the impression that Yann was supposed to be looking past Sido's disability, and that's sweet. But the fact that he didn't mention it at all seems unrealistic.

I have plenty more to say about this book so check out the full review.