I was going through my Google Reader last week and found an awesome surprise on my friend Becca’s blog. She tagged me for “The Next Big Thing”, and I’ve been having fun hopping around and reading about what everyone’s working on. Since you guys have heard plenty about By Wingéd Chair already, I figured I’d give you a look at a brand new project. So new it’s not even on my WIP page yet. Save your gasps of awe till the end, please. The rules for “The Next Big Thing” are simple: answer a few questions about your book and tag more people who write, whose current WIPs you want to hear more about!

What is the working title of your book?

Right now I’m calling it The Robber Bridegroom because that’s the fairytale it’s loosely following (that and The Singing Bone, but it can’t have two titles). Not terribly exciting, I know, but titles are tricky things for me. Sometimes they’re the first thing I know about the story, but most of the time they don’t show up until I’m halfway through the book (Skin Deep didn’t show up until the last line, obstinate little bugger). At least The Robber Bridegroom is better than Magic Cop which was the file name for years.

Where did the idea come from?

Usually it’s easier for me to pinpoint the idea that spawns a whole book, whether it’s a scene like Blue Fire, or a concept like Catching Cinders. But this one is more of a patchwork of different thoughts and feelings, and it’s actually a really old idea. It’s been sitting in my futures notebook for several years waiting for a story to go with it. I wanted to write about a world where magic and technology have evolved side by side through an industrial revolution resulting in a setting that looks very similar to New York or London in the year 1900. A certain important plot element and its accompanying feelings came from a dream, one of those where I wake up scrambling for a pen. And some of the tone and themes were inspired by Boondock Saints.

What genre does your book fall under?

Young Adult Fantasy with kind of a thriller vibe

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I’d really rather there was never a movie version. Sorry. I write novels, not screenplays.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

A seventeen-year-old cop with OCD must reconnect with her vigilante father in order to catch a serial killer. What do you think? Is this any good? I think it sounds a little generic, and I can’t figure out how to fit the magic in without making it too long.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Kind of a cart and horse thing considering the stage of the project, but I’m nothing if not goal-oriented. I’d really like an agent and a publisher. I’m good at the writing stuff, but the legal and marketing stuff? Yeah, not so much. By Wingéd Chair is currently on submission to the first batch of agents, so we’ll see what comes.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Um…wait. It’s supposed to be done? Heheh. This is my newest project, and I haven’t actually started writing it yet, just getting it all in order. Lots more research than any of my others so far. But if it follows the normal patterns then I’ll get most of it (at least 50,000 words) on paper this November for Nanowrimo, and then I’ll spend the next two or three months hemming and hawing before I write down the end. I’m not sure why but this always happens.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Hmm. I hadn’t actually thought about this yet. I’m going to go with Tamora Pierce’s Terrier (because of the cop element and because Tamora Pierce is probably my deepest influence) and Maria V. Snyder’s Poison Study (because there are some lovely secrets and horrible pasts to conceal and discover and Snyder pulled this off with gut-wrenching style).

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Same thing as the rest in the Valeria series. I feel a need to read (and consequently to write) about unlikely heroes, characters who don’t fit the mold yet who still reach out and touch something in all of us.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

This is my first novel to feature a character with a disability entirely different from my own. Aschen, Merry, and Anwen all have trouble walking. Kallan has what we would recognize as OCD. So not only does she have to overcome a questionable past and a manipulative (and slightly psychotic) father, she also has to work around obsessions and compulsions that continually screw up her attempt to straighten out her life. The prospect of writing Kallan is both exciting and terrifying. I can’t wait to meet her.

This is an excerpt from my novel, By Wingéd Chair, one in a series of posts in which I try to show how I use disabilities in my writing. Click here for my intro to the series. This passage comes directly after last week's excerpt. Merry is still getting used to traveling with Lans, Vira-we, and Whyn.

I tried to ignore Whyn and wheeled myself closer to Vira-we's pile of blankets. From there I could lean down and tumble off the chair and onto the ground. Down was easy. Getting back up, however, was going to be the problem.

I suppressed a grimace when I realized I’d have to sleep in my damp clothes. Ick.

Before I rolled over, I caught Whyn's pained expression out of the corner of my eye. I turned my back on him and curled up as small as I could. What was with him, anyway? When I tried to talk to him, he was downright mean, and he kept giving me these funny looks, like the mere sight of me gave him indigestion. I couldn’t help it if I made people uncomfortable, but I wished they would keep their awkwardness to themselves. It wasn't my job to always smooth things over.

His contempt was excruciating. Whyn was the mage. His good opinion meant so much to me, even though I'd just met him. I'd spent most of my life learning every spell anyone could teach me. But if Whyn was so disgusted by me, what would the mages at the University think?

What did it matter? I hated him. I hated them all.

I waited until the others had settled for the night and Vira-we's breathing was slow and steady behind me, before I let the tears trickle down my face. It was easy to sob without noise. I'd had a lot of practice, after all.

Ooo, lots of goodies in this passage. Something I've noticed about Merry this early in the story is how self-absorbed she is in her misery. She's frustrated and she's bitter, and right now, it's easier for her to continue on that way, so she does. Whyn has his own issues and reasons for those “funny looks”, but to Merry, they are clearly about her. She and Whyn clash so spectacularly and misunderstand so much about each other. Neither of them is blameless, but they're each going to have to move past their own problems in order to see the rest of the world.

Pain can give us blinders so all we see is our own suffering. It can also give us an insight into the suffering of others. I know that when I'm hurting I tend to only see myself, and I have to make a conscious effort to move away from that self-absorption and see that my pain is not only not the most important thing going on, it's not even a drop in the bucket compared to the pain of those around me. I hope that in the future I can remember that.

As always, comments and criticisms are appreciated. What did you think? What did you like, what did you dislike? Did I accomplish what I set out to do?

AE: Some Essentials                                                          AE: A Gentleman's View

Recently, I was reading an article about JK Rowling, and I came across a quote that made me laugh and die a little inside at the same time. I decided I couldn’t leave this rather shallow and idealistic view of fantasy without a rebuttal. Rowling probably isn’t looking for an amateur writer’s opinion, so y’all get to listen to it instead. Rowling was talking about her upcoming release, The Casual Vacancy, a contemporary adult novel, and how she was excited to branch out from the fantasy genre. I guess because she felt restricted. “There are certain things you just don’t do in fantasy,” she said. “You don’t have sex near unicorns. It’s an ironclad rule. It’s tacky.” Maybe I’m taking this the wrong way, but to me, she’s saying sex has no place in fantasy. Really? I’m sure Jacqueline Carey, Anne Bishop, and Marion Zimmer Bradley would love to hear about this rule they’ve obviously overlooked for the last fifty years or so.

I don’t know what rulebook Rowling is reading, but I’ve never felt like sex is taboo in fantasy. In fact, in my experience, it’s a genre where the boundaries can be tested and the envelope pushed without the social mores of the real world getting in the way. I’m talking about books like Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series where magic is not so subtly bound up in sex and gender roles. Or Anthony and Lackey’s If I Pay Thee Not in Gold with a character who’s an incubus until the act of sex transforms him into a succubus. Or there’s Valen in Carol Berg’s Lighthouse duet who is addicted to a drug that converts pain into pleasure (not always in the context of sex, but it’s a good example of the envelope I’m talking about). There’s even a subgenre of erotic fantasy now, as illustrated by Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart.

Wow, from this angle my shelves look positively pornographic. Even if Rowling is talking specifically about the genre of the Harry Potter books, middle grade and young adult fantasy, her claim doesn’t make sense. Middle grade books probably shouldn’t have sex in them whatever their genre. However, plenty of young adult books, both fantasy and contemporary, deal with adult issues. Look at Tamora Pierce’s In the Hands of the Goddess and Simone Elkeles’s Perfect Chemistry. I don’t necessarily think that teenage characters should have sex, but that’s another issue entirely.

Fantasy is by definition fantastic. Full of magic, fairies, wizards, other worlds, whatever floats your boat. But it still has to be grounded in reality. We need anchor points, things we can relate to, otherwise we drift through the story without letting it really touch us. The themes, the morals, the emotions we’re supposed to be feeling sail right overhead because we can’t imagine how it applies to us. I’m not saying sex is required to make fantasy realistic. I’m saying that sex is real. It should be utilized as all other tools and plot elements are utilized: tastefully and appropriately, where a story calls for it.

Excluding sex seems very limiting for a genre that’s supposed to be the ultimate imagination getaway. And it’s naïve and incredibly silly to exclude it just because you think unicorns are too innocent for such worldly pursuits. So tell me, where do baby unicorns come from? And if unicorns are perceptive enough to tell the virgins from the deflowered, doesn’t that mean they’re well aware of sex and all its accompanying drama, if only to choose those who haven’t been touched by it?

I feel like Rowling hasn’t read very much at all in the genre she dominated for ten years. Not really a great way for an author to portray themselves. If she wanted to rectify the situation, I’d recommend she start with Mercedes Lackey’s Fortune’s Fool from the Five Hundred Kingdoms series where unicorns and sex share space in a single scene. The effect is hilarious and not at all tacky. Or even kinky.

This is an excerpt from my novel, By Wingéd Chair, one in a series of posts in which I try to show how I use disabilities in my writing. Click here for my intro to the series. There are two scenes here. The first takes place after Merry has decided to travel with her rescuers and the second is that same day just a few hours down the road.

With surprising gentleness, Lans slipped his hands under my legs and behind my back and lifted me into the air. I stifled a gasp. I'd been lifted by many men: the servants at my father's house, the servants at the school. They had all grunted and hoisted me like a sack of flour. None had lifted me with the ease of immense strength, nor to the height of a tree branch. Lans's arms closed around me, and I felt like a knight as he sat atop his warhorse. Safe, untouchable.

I looked around at the clearing with trepidation. I don't know why I expected a hotel. These didn't seem like the kind of people who would bother with a hotel. But I'd never spent the night outdoors. It hadn't even occurred to me that we might.

I could do this. Everyone else in the world did, why couldn’t I?

The three of them set about making camp with an ease that made me realize they'd been together a long time. Lans erected a canvas tarp so we wouldn’t have to sleep in the rain, while Vira-we laid out their bedrolls, and Whyn built the fire

After dinner, I decided I'd put some things off for long enough, and no matter how embarrassing it was, I needed to take care of them. I inched my chair a little closer to the other woman in our party.

“Vira-we,” I whispered. “Could you help- I mean, I have to go- I mean, I know there's no water closet, but…” My face burned as I stuttered to a stop.

I didn't have to say any more. Vira-we smiled and stood up. “Of course. We'll be back in a minute, boys.”

She helped me push my chair through the underbrush until we were out of sight of the camp. It wasn't at all what I was used to, but Vira-we and I seemed to manage all right.

I've included the first excerpt because I feel I should explain something. Eventually Merry is carried by all three of her companions. However, I want to point out that this only works because all three are warriors. They have the strength to pull this off. Even Whyn, the scholar, has spent the last two years running around the woods doing his share of the manual labor. Just wanted to say that I recognize carrying around over a hundred pounds of dead weight is a little implausible for most people. You'll notice even Lans, Vira, and Whyn can only carry Merry short distances. Not really an important point, I know, but one that comes from personal experience.

As for the second excerpt... I'm a worrier. I obsess over little things sometimes. And I'll admit that every time we're in the mountains I've worried about the bathroom situation. I don't believe every author who writes about characters with disabilities needs to tell us exactly how they go to the bathroom (seriously, it's not that complicated, use your imagination), but I did want to show that I had given thought to the fact that victorian-ish era + wilderness + wheelchair = headscratch. Details aren't required but I'm thinking Merry and Vira found a log that would work nicely. Also I think this shows some growth for Merry who has a very hard time asking for help even with essentials.

As always, comments and criticisms are appreciated. What did you think? What did you like, what did you dislike? Did I accomplish what I set out to do?

AE: Emotional Baggage                                                                         AE: Blinders

The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli When Robin loses the use of his legs, he loses the chance to become a knight like his father. But with the help of a kind monk and a wandering minstrel, maybe he can find his own sort of heroism in order to save the castle.

This is not my usual genre. The Door in the Wall isn't fantasy, it's historical fiction. Nevertheless, there is something magical about this book. Robin lives in fourteenth century England, and at the beginning of the story, he has contracted some kind of illness resulting in paraplegia. You might think that a book about a crippled ten-year-old might be depressing, but you'd be wrong. Because of the way he faces his disability, Robin's tale is fun and encouraging.

He faced challenges but encountered none of the prejudice or misunderstanding that was probably aimed at those with disabilities in the Middle Ages. There was really only once that someone told him he couldn't do something. Not exactly realistic, but this is a middle grade book (geared for kids 9-12ish), so I wasn't expecting really heavy themes. Let's not scare the kiddies with lifelong infirmity, please. However, the theme that did come across loud and clear was extraordinary enough and one that some adults have plenty of trouble with: that when you come up against a hardship or challenge, there is always a way through. You just have to find the door in the wall.

One of the things that roped in my disability-and-all-its-quirks-obsessed mind was the friar who took Robin in and cared for him. Brother Luke not only feeds and bathes him, performing the role of care-giver, but he also massages Robin's back and legs and makes him build up his stamina by sitting up and then swimming. I kept wanting to point and say “Look! A fourteenth century physical therapist.” I don't know what illness Marguerite de Angeli had in mind when she wrote Robin – it could be any number of things from guillain barre to lyme disease – so I can't say how accurate his recovery is, but Robin regains some strength from all this. He can support his weight enough to get around on crutches, and he can swim like a fish (granted, a gimpy fish, but he doesn't drown which is the important thing).

As if care-giver and PT weren't enough, Brother Luke also takes on the role of counselor and occupational therapist. He teaches Robin carpentry, how to read and write, and how to sing and play the lute, giving him some very valuable emotional stability. Robin learns that he can be helpful and useful, even if he will never be a knight. Do you know how long it took me to realize that just because I couldn't be a PT, it didn't mean there wasn't something equally important I could be doing? I'll just say this ten-year-old kid beat me to it.

Sure Robin still frets about whether he can do certain things, and he worries about what his parents will think when they find out about his new limitations, but Brother Luke's efforts have given him a self confidence that would be the envy of most healthy adults. And when the castle is threatened, he steps forward to accept his role. In fact he's the only one with the right combination of skill and innocence to pull off the mission and he embraces it wholeheartedly, saving the castle and becoming a hero in his own right. Oh sorry, was that a spoiler? What? Did you really think he wasn't going to do it?

So you can see why I liked it so much. I thought it was highly deserving of the Newberry Medal it received. In 1949. Did I mention this was written in 1949? Seriously, some of the books I've read from this year aren't this enlightened. You can bet this is a book I'll be reading my kids just as soon as they're old enough to get past all the thees and thous.

This is an excerpt from my novel, By Wingéd Chair, one in a series of posts in which I try to show how I use disabilities in my writing. Click here for my intro to the series. After a run-in with some monsters, Merry has accepted help from Lans, Vira-we and Whyn. But she and Whyn have already gotten off on the wrong foot.

“Here, mushka, I'll lift you.”

I looked up at Lans. He was holding out his arms. “Lift me where?”

“Onto a horse. The chair has to stay here.”

I felt my stomach crawl into a knot, and I swallowed. “What? No, I need it.”

“No wagon,” Whyn reminded me from the other side of his horse.

Panic crept up my numb legs and settled below my heart. I lost control over my face, and my icy protection fell away. I shook my head. “Then I'm not coming.”

“I don't believe this,” Whyn said.

“You can't take my chair away.” The words were torn out of me. “I can't move without it. I can't even crawl.”

I'd never admitted to anyone how I felt without the bulky contrivance my father had invented for me, and I realized how close the tears were to the surface. If I didn't calm down and get the mask in place, I'd never be able to cover up the confession I'd just made. I took a shuddering breath.

“Here, lass.” Lans handed me a clean handkerchief. He didn't tell me not to cry, or to calm down. He didn't utter false reassurances. He just solved the most immediate problem. I used the square of linen to dab at my damp eyes and nose. Maybe it would look like I was wiping away the rain.

“We can bring it,” Vira-we said.

I looked at the quiet tribeswoman and hoped the gratitude leaking out from under the cold defensiveness wasn't apparent in my expression.

“Nara can drag it behind her. We Adhahi do it with our tents, and she's trained for it.”

“We'll go slower,” Whyn said.

“We'd already be going slower,” Lans reminded him. “Will Nara be able to carry both of you and the chair?”

Vira-we was already pulling rope from her packs. “At the pace we'll be going? Of course. And Ax has all he can handle with you and that greatsword, so don't even volunteer.”

I noticed how they didn't suggest putting me with Whyn.

Vira-we started tying ropes to the strange straps on her saddle, and Lans held out his arms again. He didn't ask if I needed help; he was just there waiting to provide what I needed. For a moment, I didn't know how to handle that. I hated having to ask for help, and I hated when people offered it to me when I didn’t need it. But to have my needs anticipated, without drawing attention to my handicap... somehow that was better. I let a smile peek through before I covered it with my usual hostility.

As I go through this series, I've noticed it's harder and harder to separate scenes that deal with Merry's disability and scenes that deal with the emotional baggage that comes with her disability. To me, they're the same. You can't have one without the other so they're kind of a package deal. There are plenty of places like this one where I'm not trying to get across how Merry walks (or doesn't walk) or the specific physical problems and limitations that she encounters. I'm trying to give you a glimpse inside her thoughts, showing how her limitations have affected and even warped her thinking.

Here, Merry is confronted with the possibility of losing her chair, and the thought terrifies her. So much so that she looses control of her carefully cultivated mask. I think her reaction is perfectly natural at this point. The chair is her anchor and her freedom all in one. It's loss would be devastating. Hmm, perhaps this is something to explore a little more later. This is also the first glimpse we have of people who can help her without making her feel inferior. I'll just go ahead and come out with it. Lans is one of my favorite characters.

As always, comments and criticisms are appreciated. What did you think? What did you like, what did you dislike? Did I accomplish what I set out to do?

AE: Common Experiences                                                       AE: Some Essentials

First impressions are everything. At least, that's what everyone says. Now, I don't think that's entirely true. You can recover from a bad first impression...eventually. But I can't deny they're important. Which makes the first line of a novel equally important. Let's say the first page of a book is like a job interview and the reader is the boss. They're saying, “All right, here's your chance. So, entertain me.” That means your first line is like your suit and your smile. Important, right? In The Breakout Novelist by Donald Maass (intense book, I'm sure I'll talk about it at some point) he has an exercise for first lines. He says “Try this at your next critique group session or chapter meeting of your writer's organization: Ask everyone to bring in two opening lines: their favorite of all time, and the first line from their current manuscript. Mix them up in a hat. Read them aloud and ask people to raise their hands if they want to hear the next line. I promise you, you will see the intrigue factor at work again and again – or not!” See, didn't I say it was a good idea to learn from the masters?

Let's do that here. I'm going to take the first lines from some of the books in my library and see what it is that makes me want to go on. Normally, I give authors more than just the first line before I'll put the book down. In fact, I'll usually read the whole thing telling myself it must get better on the next page. That's something I need to work on but not today. Today we're just going to look at the first lines.

“When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.” The Fellowship of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

You know, I respect Tolkein but I don't think this one works. I recognize he wrote in a different time but this doesn't make me want to know more (except maybe how he can be that old, but this is fantasy, the genre is full of ancient wizards and wizened dwarves).

“I'd never given much thought to how I would die – though I'd had reason enough in the last few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.” Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

I'll preface this with: I really don't like Twilight. But I thought it deserved a look since it's so popular. I have to admit, it's not a bad first line. Really melodramatic and a little cliché (not to make excuses, but that's setting the tone for the rest of the book), but I definitely have some questions. Why is she dying? What's been happening the last few months? And what kind of person doesn't think about dying, especially if she had “reason enough”? Well, someone who seriously has no imagination.

“When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.” The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Another popular one, though it can't be because of its first line. This gives me no sense of the character, and I think waking up in the morning has to be the least interesting way to start a story. Though, I'll admit, once I got past the first couple pages, I couldn't put it down.

“Your grandfather,” said Vanyel's brawny fifteen-year-old cousin Radevel, “was crazy.” Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey

This is one of my favorite books but not one of my favorite first lines. This doesn't tell me anything about the protagonist. I know I'm supposed to be thinking “Why is the grandfather crazy?” but what's actually going through my head is “Why is the grandfather important?”. And the thing is, he's not. We learn pretty soon that he's dead and his craziness only matters right here in the first paragraph. It has nothing to do with the rest of the book. Kind of misleading, if you ask me.

“People...they do the craziest shit.” Nightlife by Rob Thurman

This one just makes me smile. As you read on, you realize this is a perfect introduction to Cal's character. And it raises questions. Who are the people and what are they doing?

“That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me.” Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Oh, so many questions. And what a great intro to Ella's voice.

“I am not as I once was.” The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

What a great promise to start a book with. I know right off the bat that this character is going to grow and change and not necessarily in good ways. The tone of the voice is almost one of regret or forgetfulness, but in just a few words it gives us a sense of Yeine's character.

“On my seventh birthday, my father swore, for the first of many times, that I would die face down in a cesspool.” Flesh and Spirit by Carol Berg

This is one of my favorites. How could you not keep reading? The language is beautiful, the sentiment is shocking, and I already have so many questions about the character, I'm not sure which one to pose first. Maybe: What is up with his family? That actually turns out to be one of the most compelling things about the book.

So what I've learned from this exercise is that I expect the first line of a book to give me a glimpse or a sense of who a character is. I expect questions to be raised, otherwise why would I want to go on? And those first words should set the mood or the tone of the entire book. Something I didn't realize before I started was how important the promise of the first line is. In the case of Magic's Pawn, I felt misled. But The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms stayed true to its promise, though not exactly the way I'd imagined. That isn't something you can tell until you've finished the book, but it is definitely something that your readers are going to notice if they go back and read it again. Something we all hope for.

Character, tone, questions, promise. That's a lot to scrunch into one sentence. What do y'all think? Anything you look for in a first line? Did you disagree with any that I talked about? I think these elements are important but writing is still subjective. A line that works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. In the end you need to know what would keep you reading.

This is an excerpt from my novel, By Wingéd Chair, one in a series of posts in which I try to show how I use disabilities in my writing. Click here for my intro to the series. Merry is on her way home after events in Benevere have forced her departure.

The train platform cleared as people ran from the weather. It was just rain. Did they think they were going to melt? I looked around our stop. The town was no more than a way-point on the train line. A few houses and a hotel were clustered around the tiny station. As if mimicking the buildings, a couple young men waiting for the train had sought shelter under the eaves of the ticket office.

One of them looked at me. He had a mop of bright gold hair and an infectious smile. I found my own lips curving upward in response. He was kind of cute. He said something to his friend before he stepped toward us. My breath caught, and I forced myself not to reach up and make sure my bonnet was straight. My heart pounded as he drew nearer…

And then stepped around me to talk to Cecily.

If my legs worked, I would have kicked myself. Why would he be looking at you, stupid? Even if I hadn’t been forced to live my life in a chair, he still would have picked her over me. She looked like a porcelain doll, one that had never been played with, with her straight blond hair and clear skin and big, limpid brown eyes. Like a cow’s.

Sitting next to her, no one would think to look at me with my messy brown hair, muddy green eyes and skin that was prone to spots.

Finally the boy’s friend dragged him away so they could dash through the torrent to board the train. I glared at him as he went by, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“He was cute,” Cecily said. “And charming, wasn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said, lifting my chin. “I don’t pay attention to boys.”

“You will one day.” She gave me a condescending smile. “You’ll meet a boy who’s cute and charming and doesn’t care about your legs.”

My fingers clenched on the wheels of my chair. My mask would protect me. It would hide me from the good intentions of stupid people.

“Oh, do you really think so?” I said, hoping she would catch the mocking in my tone.

But Cecily was about as bright as the cow I’d compared her to. “Of course I do. There’s someone out there for everyone.”

So much for mockery. “That’s complete muck,” I said.

First off, who hasn't had this happen to them? Anyone? I feel like humanity is bound by common experiences and this is one of them. You're standing there and someone waves at you. You look around thinking, he can't be looking at me, can he? But he is. Oh my gosh, he really is. And then you realize his friend is right behind you and now you look like a dork.

Merry's experience has a few other implications. He couldn't possibly be interested in her not only because she's not as pretty as Cecily, but who would want to make eyes at a pair of wheels. And this scene proves that she'll never receive that kind of attention from the opposite sex. Which is okay because she totally doesn't want that kind of drama in her life. Right?

Poor Merry. I spend the rest of the book showing her she's wrong.

As always, comments and criticisms are appreciated. What did you think? What did you like, what did you dislike? Did I accomplish what I set out to do?

AE: Personal Space                                                                            AE: Emotional Baggage

Miserere by Teresa Frohock After abandoning his lover in Hell in order to save his sister, Lucian is left feeling battered and broken by his decisions. His sister, unappreciative of his sacrifices, continues to consort with demons and fallen angels, and now she wants him to use his ability to open Hell gates to serve her fallen master. This is the last straw for Lucian, who realizes that the sister he loved is beyond saving. He wants a chance to correct his mistakes, but can he redeem himself to the order he forsook and the woman he betrayed?

Teresa Frohock storms the gates with her debut novel Miserere. The story drew me in right from the start, giving me a protagonist with achingly familiar wounds and a world I wanted to explore on my own two feet. I really love broken characters with pasts they can't outrun, and Miserere was full of shattered people trying to put each other back together.

One of the things that really struck me about this book was its really unique structure. Normally, a book has an instigating event, something that propels the character into the story, then they go along until something forces them to change their plans. And they go along some more until the black moment, right before the climax and resolution, where everything seems to fall apart and you think they can't possibly win after all that.

Miserere started after what seemed like the blackest moment already happened. Lucian had already put his love and trust in the wrong person and betrayed everyone who depended on him and turned his back on everything he'd had faith in. But the book isn't about how Lucian got to that point. It's about how he pulls himself back from it. His backstory is revealed little by little, and we get to see just how far he fell as we see him climbing back toward righteousness. It's about healing, forgiveness, and redemption. No wonder I liked it so much.

Lucian seems like the character I should be talking about. His disability is plain. He was crippled deliberately by his sister, who wanted to prevent him from running away again. He walks with a permanent limp, suffers from fatigue, and has limited movement in his weak knee. There are several climactic points in the book where Lucian takes up his sword to defend someone and his knee gives out on him at the worst possible moment. I loved that it was in these moments, when he reveals his strength, his faith, and how far he's come from the man he used to be, that his weakness struck him down. Yet even when he's forced to the ground, he crawls toward danger. He struggles to find his cane so he can stand and resume his defense, or he goes straight for his enemies, even while on his knees.

While I loved Lucian for his strength and his journey, it was Rachel who truly fascinated me. Her obvious weakness was the eye she was missing from a demon possession, and she does have to worry about her blind spot while she's swinging her sword around. But what was the most disabling for her was the wyrm's infiltration of her mind. It clouded her thoughts and her abilities, led to blackouts and memory loss, and all in all weakened her in an entirely different way from the physical. Her ability to trust herself and her perceptions was shattered. Her physical blindness was only the outward expression of her clouded mind.

One last thing that blew my mind a little bit was the title. I picked this book up for the title. To me Miserere sounded like misery and that was just too intriguing to pass up. But miserere actually means “have mercy”. Given the characters, the plot, and the themes of this book, do I really need to say any more? Maybe just a little. Holy crap is that awesome.

In some areas the writing was a little amateurish – I could tell this was Frohock's first book – and I felt like some clarity was lost in an effort to spread out the backstory. Despite that, I tore through it in two days, so those must not have bothered me too much. This time I read it as an ebook, but I'll definitely be getting myself a physical copy so I can add it to my collection.

This is an excerpt from my novel, By Wingéd Chair, one in a series of posts in which I try to show how I use disabilities in my writing. Click here for my intro to the series. This excerpt comes immediately after Masks from last week. Madam Francine has just threatened to kick Merry out of school and now Merry is on her way to the museum.

My wheels sank into the thick grass as I pushed myself toward the street, and I struggled to keep my drawing supplies balanced on my lap. It felt like I was wading through the underbrush of a jungle, but I pressed on like a fearless explorer. I liked the image of being a fearless explorer, even if my jungle was just a manicured lawn.

Heels clicked on the cobblestones, and I looked up to see Cecily, one of my classmates, coming back up the street.

“Oh, Merry,” she said. “Here, let me help you.” Her voice was too soft, too sweet, like an overripe apple. Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed the back of my chair and started pushing me down the long cobblestoned street. I bit my tongue before I could snap at her. I wanted to tell her I could push my chair by myself, that’s why it had wheels after all, but I didn’t want to give Madam Francine any more reasons to get rid of me. I needed that recommendation. So I ground my teeth and accepted the humiliation.

It's amazing how people can be so desperate to seem helpful that they ignore things like common courtesy. This scene actually came from personal experience. I use my wheelchair at the airport, and the flight crews are usually really helpful and accommodating, giving me as much time as I need and being patient with all the weird quirks that come with using both crutches and a wheelchair. But they always offer to push me to the plane. I understand why they do, jetways can be really steep, but I'm a healthy 27 year old in a sleek manual chair, and I travel with my own 6'6” mobility assistant. I'm good, thanks.

One trip, one of the flight crew approached as we were getting ready to board. They were running late and he was obviously in a hurry to get me on the plane and settled, but he decided the best way to do this would be to grab the back of my chair – without asking, without even saying “hey, we need to get you on the plane” – and start pushing me.

This is a huge violation of personal space and just plain courtesy. When I'm using the chair, if you touch it, it's like you're touching me. That man figuratively put his hands all over me without asking and then took away my freedom of movement. It's making me clench my teeth just thinking about it. Don't do this. Ever. All right, if the person is careening down a hill into a pit of lava and stopping to ask for permission is going to result in their fiery death, then yeah sure, grab them. But a delayed flight does not equal fiery lava death. If they look like they could use some help up a hill or through a door, go ahead and offer it. They could have been waiting for a big brawny guy to come along and do just that. But don't be insulted if they refuse. Being able to do something for oneself is really important, no matter how hard it is. If they're the ones that ask you for help, even better. They're in a much better place than I am.

As for the flight crew guy, both Josh and I tried to get him to take his hands off me, at first politely, and then not so politely. He insisted that it was company policy to push wheelchairs down the jetway. BS. I've flown a lot, on a lot of different airways, and I've never heard that before. But in this case, all I could do was grit my teeth and bear it.

Argh. Ok, I'm putting the soap box away now.

As always, comments and criticisms are appreciated. What did you think? What did you like, what did you dislike? Did I accomplish what I set out to do?

AE: Masks                                                                                        AE: Common Experiences

I've said before, I don't have a degree in writing. I took one creative writing class in high school, that's it. And I'm not really planning on going back to school. Yet I can study under masters of my craft like Mercedes Lackey, Tamora Pierce, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Terry Pratchett without budging from my library. I can improve my writing by reading and studying the authors I admire (not to mention practicing what I've learned). What amazes me is how many people out there think to themselves “Hey, I could write a book” without having read anything but the morning paper over the last five years. Do you think Jacques Cousteau said “Hey, I could be a marine biologist” without ever having been to the beach? Reading familiarizes you with genre requirements, reader expectations, and above all, feeds your imagination. That last sounds cheesy, I know, but think of it like a linebacker. It can't do its job unless you feed it four course meals full of carbs and protein. Agent Kristin Nelson has said on her blog that she wishes she could demand authors submit a receipt with their manuscripts proving they've bought (and hopefully read) a book in the last month.

You can learn directly from your favorite authors. Study their words, their language. Francine Prose calls this “close reading” in her book Reading Like a Writer (though I don't recommend close reading this book unless you really like literary fiction and classics and/or plan on writing literary fiction).

What books did you absolutely love? What was it about them that made your heart beat faster? Why do you pick that one particular book up over and over again like a favorite blanket? How can you recapture the feeling you get from those pages? Reading isn't supposed to be a chore but if you keep these thoughts in mind as you read, you'll start to see the details that slipped by the first time. You'll notice the mechanics that make the story work this way and not that way.

One of my favorite books is Mercedes Lackey's Magic's Pawn. My copy is worn and dog-eared from so many readings. Finally, I decided to figure out what it was that had captured me the first time I read it as an ignorant high schooler and kept drawing me back over and over. It didn't take long, since I was so familiar with it already (seriously, I read it about once a year). It was the character. Vanyel is strong and appears unapproachable, but as the reader you can see the vulnerabilities that he tries to hide from those in his world. That fragile strength that could break with just one wrong word made Vanyel so real and tangible.

Elizabeth Haydon has written a series that kept me up at night. The Symphony of Ages is a long read, but I found myself losing hours flipping pages. After some study, I figured out that it was one specific plot element that made this such a compelling read. At the very beginning, the two characters cross paths and diverge again, and they go on operating under a false assumption. They believe they've lost each other, but the reader knows the truth. Through three fairly hefty books I watched and waited and squirmed, knowing a secret that was killing me. I could not physically tear myself away from them because I had to see when and if they would learn the truth. Oh, such sweet agony.

These authors are obviously doing something right, and I hope that maybe some of that will rub off on me. I try to take what I've learned from them and apply it to my own writing. Right now, it's just baby steps, but maybe one day, someone will be reading my work and thinking “Hey, I could write a book”.

This is an excerpt from my novel, By Wingéd Chair, one in a series of posts in which I try to show how I use disabilities in my writing. Click here for my intro to the series. This is the first scene of the novel where we are introduced to the main character, Miss Merry Janson.

Madam Francine turned to me. She was too well-bred to tap her foot, but she did put her hands on her hips. “Merry,” she said. “I think it's time we reevaluated your place at our school.”

I crossed my arms and cocked an eyebrow at her, wondering if I was about to be sent home in disgrace. Again.

"Has my performance been unsatisfactory?” I asked. We both knew she couldn’t find anything wrong with my consistent top marks, but I wanted her to say it out loud.

“No,” she said, her eyes sliding away from mine. “Your class work is exemplary, as usual. But your...situation is unique. I'm not sure what your father was thinking when he sent you here. What is it you hope to accomplish by studying with us?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Madam Francine liked to answer her own questions.

She continued as if I weren't there. “Most of our girls leave here with the training to become exceptional wives and mothers. Or, if they haven't received a proposal, they become governesses for influential families. However, I don't see you fitting into either of those roles. You are obviously not suited for marriage, and no respectable family would hire you to teach their children.”

My face burned, and I snapped my mouth shut before I blurted out my dream. Why was I surprised? Most people thought I was useless, and I had trained myself not to let them get to me. I set my face in the cold, hostile mask I’d perfected just for stupid, cowards like Madame Francine.

“My father is paying for my education,” I said. “Not for your opinion.”

I yanked on the wheels of my chair and pushed myself out of the park, not looking to see if she followed. Saints help me, I only had to deal with Madam Francine for another month. Then I could ask her for my recommendation, and I’d be on my way to the University.

These few paragraphs are supposed to accomplish a lot right off the bat. I'm establishing Merry's disability and how the people around her react to it. I'm also introducing Merry as a character and letting you see how she handles the reactions. Which is not particularly well here at the beginning.

Merry's struggles are deeply personal for me (as if you couldn't guess that already) but this is one I was really anxious to get on paper from the start. After my injury, the only way I knew to deal with people, to cope with the constant sympathy and encouragement (encouragement can be strangely discouraging), was to put up a mask. An expression or a personality I could wear that would hide what I was really feeling from the world. My mask was a smile and an eternal optimism I didn't necessarily feel all the time. Merry's is cold hostility. In some ways I think hers is a lot more honest than mine was.

As always, comments and criticisms are appreciated. What did you think? What did you like, what did you dislike? Did I accomplish what I set out to do?

Post it Proudly                                                                                           AE: Personal Space

So I'm posting out of order and on a different day than usual for a special reason. I saw this really cool event going on and decided the timing was just too perfect. Deana Barnhart is hosting a Gearing Up to Get an Agent blogfest. Very awesome and timely. I could have waited to post this until Friday but that's the last day of the meet and greet, and since half the point of this is to make new friends and connections in the writing world, I wanted to get this up a little earlier. Hope y'all don't mind that there'll be three posts this week (oh my gosh the world is coming to an end).

And in keeping with the meet and greet portion of our program, here's a little about me. I'm a 27 year old writer, and I live in Denver with lots of books, a husband and a service dog. If I'm not writing, I'm reading, and if I'm not reading, I'm playing a video game, and if I'm not doing any of the above, I'm trying out something less nerdy. I've been writing since I was fourteen but for the last six years I've been concentrating on retelling fairytales about characters with disabilities. It's been a blast.

-Where do you write?

At my desk in my library, surrounded by books. And in restaurants, at the dinner table, on the couch, at a friend's house, or anywhere else where I figure out what happens next.

-Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?

A bookcase full of writing books and my editorial calendar. And a wall.

-Favorite time to write?

Uh, am I supposed to stop writing sometimes?

-Drink of choice while writing?

Vanilla coke. But I had to cut out caffeine so...

-When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?

No music, no TV. I'm too distractable. On the rare occasion that I'm possessed and I have to have sound, I'll listen to the Lord of the Rings soundtracks. But nothing with words ever.

-What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?

The one that I just finished polishing? Or the one I just thought up and haven't written down yet? I'll go with the first since it's more interesting. I got the idea while sitting in rehab (in a wheelchair) that I wanted to read about fantasy characters like me, so I wrote the first page of what came to be By Wingéd Chair.

-What's your most valuable writing tip?

Just write. It's impossible to edit something that doesn't exist and you'll never get better if you don't practice. Get out of your head and just put pen to paper.

That's it for me. Click here to blog hop.

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow when I start my new series Accessible Excerpts.

I've been thinking about doing a series of excerpts from my novels for a while now, but the argument for whether you should post your work online or not has been raging for even longer. I want a chance to get my work out there, show you guys what I'm trying to do, and get some feedback on it, but I don't want to ruin my chances of getting published later. So I've been checking out all the arguments, gathering opinions, and really thinking about what I want to accomplish with posting my work online. The two sides of the argument are pretty well represented in the article “Stop Being Afraid of Posting Your Work Online” and its counter “Be (Slightly) Afraid of Posting Your Work Online". Yeah, this is frustrating the heck out of me too. If you don't want to read both of these posts, that's fine. The first one talks about how writers benefit from posting their work online. It's testing the market, building a platform and getting feedback that makes the book better. The latter article says that those things are all well and good, but fiction writers should be worried about other writers stealing their ideas.

I don't know about any other writers out there, but I was really insulted by this. I am not a thief. There have been plenty of times where I've heard a pitch and thought (and usually said) “I'd read that”. There have even been one or two that I've thought, “Boy, I wish I'd come up with that first”. But it has never crossed my mind that I should steal the idea - even if I think they're doing it wrong and I could do it better.

Besides, I have way too many good ideas of my own to waste time developing a passion for someone else's idea (not to mention a plot and all that's inherent in writing a book). Are there really good writers that don't have their own projects who spend their time trolling itty bitty author blogs looking for good ideas to steal? That's like being a world famous chef who has no kitchen and no food, so he sneaks into your house to raid your pantry and use your stove. I'm not saying there aren't people out there who will copy something in order to avoid doing their own work - there are, it's called plagiarism - I'm just trying to put things in perspective. And, for the record, everything posted on a personal blog is protected because it's technically been published.

So, let's say the evil supervillain is out there. After he's found my brilliant idea and rubbed his hands together saying “Bwah ha ha”, he still has to write the book better than me (and I use personal experience few others have so now we're talking about a disabled, evil supervillain). And he has to be better at snagging a publisher. Good luck with that one. I've heard lots of “Oh that's a great idea” and not one “I'd love to publish that for you”. He'd also have to be faster, and since I'm in the process of shopping for an agent, that's pretty dang fast.

I guess it's a double edged sword. I want to get some feedback and build a readership, but I have to accept that there might be risks.

All of this is to say that I'm starting a new series of posts. Every Wednesday I'll put up an excerpt from my current work in progress that has something to do with disabilities. I want this to be a chance to look at how disabilities are handled in fiction (especially fantasy), and if you guys have any suggestions or critique, I'm always looking for feedback to make things better. I'm not going to post the whole book, or even whole chapters or scenes. Just passages that highlight something specific that I want to point out. And Fridays will still feature my regular mix of disability topics, book reviews, and writing advice.

So I hope you guys enjoy the journey along with me as I embark on this new endeavor. Have a great weekend and I'll see you next Wednesday.

Over the last few months I've felt myself slowing down. I'm only 27, but ADLs (activities of daily living) seem to take a lot more work, chores are anticipated with a physical kind of dread, and at the end of the day, I'm exhausted after doing nothing more than living. After six years, I think my body is finally tired of yelling at me and has decided to strike until I agree to more reasonable working conditions. I'm not a weakling, but I'm also not a hoss. No extreme sports for this bookworm, please. But when a spinal cord injury laid me out three months before my wedding, I worked my butt off in order to walk down the aisle. And after that, I just sort of kept going on the same way. I stuck my chair in the basement, determined never to pull it out again. That lasted for a couple years until I got pressure sores on my feet. The only way to get rid of a pressure sore is to stay off of it and give it time to heal. Well, it's pretty hard to walk and stay off your feet at the same time, so I caved and brought out the chair.

It felt like a cop out. I mean, I'd spent all this time and energy getting out of the chair and there I was plopping back down at the first little setback. This was totally not true – just another lie I believed. I really did need to get off my feet to heal, but it felt like a step back. What I didn't tell anyone was that under the frustration and depression was a profound relief. Suddenly my feet didn't hurt, my knees didn't crackle and my back didn't ache.

So I started to use my chair for getting around large places like airports and zoos. But it still went in the basement when we got home. After all, I only needed it for long walks, right? There's nothing shameful about that. Except there shouldn't be anything shameful about using my chair at all. Looking at it now, I can't figure out what I was fighting against. Was I trying to prove something? I think I was trying to show myself that I wasn't less than I had been. And now that I've done that maybe I can focus on what's best for me.

The chair makes my life easier. Why would I balk at using just another kind of tool? I buy Pampered Chef stuff all the time because it makes my life easier. I don't say “well, I'm not going to use a knife to cut my vegetables because I want to prove I can do it without”. And then what? I gnaw an onion into submission? See how silly that is? Now that we have a new house with wide doorways and wood floors, I can get around without a moment's hesitation. I don't have to struggle up a flight of stairs to get to my books (halleluliah!). And guess what? I have a lot more energy throughout the day. I can get chores done and still have the umph to sit down and write. I'm not giving anything up. In fact, I'm gaining something. It's called freedom.

It's taken me six years to admit it, but I don't want to walk everywhere. I get around my house with a weird mix of walking, rolling, and crawling. I know it looks odd but it works for me. Y'all are probably thinking “Why was this so hard to admit?” Well, I'm pretty stubborn by nature and sometimes you have to beat me over the head with an idea a couple times before I'll even consider it. This was one of those times. And I find clarity when I write my thought process down, so you get to experience the inner workings of my mind. Lucky you. But in writing this post I realized I'm not trying to justify my choice to you. I'm trying to convince the girl I used to be that it's all going to be okay. That poor young woman who ached to be up and walking for no other reason than to say she could. This is for her.

I promised y'all an update on the new project I'm working on, but after starting it I realized it's going to take a lot more work than I originally thought. Research! And interviews! So I'm postponing the announcement until I've got a better grasp on my timeline. I know, you're sooo disappointed, but I'll have to make it up to you later.

A little while ago, I wrote a post about ways to beat writer's block and a friend commented about how she had a problem coming up with names for her characters. I had a hard time condensing my reply because I felt like I could write a whole blog post on the topic. Well, I finally got around to putting my thoughts on paper, and here it is: "What I've Learned About Naming Characters". Catchy, right? Maybe I should work on "What I've Learned About Titles". Not to freak anybody out right off the bat, but names are pretty important. Whether you're trying to make a statement by hiding subtle clues in a character's name or you just want to come up with something you can wrap your tongue around for the length of a novel, some work must go into the choice. And that work is one of the first things you have to do before you can even get the first draft down. I've found it's very hard to start a novel not knowing the protagonist's name and at least the basics of their personality. For me, the process usually falls into one of three difficulty levels: Easy, Medium, or Cursing at the page. Unfortunately, this isn't a video game where you can just turn the difficulty down whenever the bad guy is kicking your butt. You've just got to deal with what your creativity hands you. Though there are some tools and tricks which can give you a leg up.

Every now and then, a character walks into my head fully formed, wearing a name tag. “Hello, my name is Isol.” For some reason she was holding hands with Anella, so I got two out of that deal. But that's usually only once or twice per book, so for everyone else I keep a list of names I've come across (or thought up) that I like and think “Hey I might want to use that one day”. “One day” always comes sooner than I think it will. So when a character shows up in a scene without a convenient tag, my first move is to my list. Are there any that just seem to fit? I know it's arbitrary, but sometimes it's just a gut feeling. You probably already have an idea who this person is going to be, so find a name that invokes a feeling that matches. In By Wingéd Chair I wanted the leader of their group to be a well-respected warrior, and to me, the name Lans felt big and strong and protective. To contrast him, I wanted Merry's love interest to be a bit more spindly and bookish and the name Whyn made me think clever rather than brawny; exactly what I was going for.

Sometimes you want something a bit more specific. You want names that mean something or sound like they're from a certain place. I like behindthename.com because you can search their database by meaning or by country of origin. In Skin Deep I wanted the setting to have a kind of medieval France/Wales feel, so that's where I got Anwen. Not only is it a pretty name but it's Welsh for “very beautiful”. Fitting for the beauty in Beauty and the Beast. Same thing for Léon. I was looking for something both French and animalistic. Léon turns into a bear, not a lion, but I think the parallel still works.

When all else fails and the character is refusing to give you ID, start with a letter of the alphabet. Have too many K names already? Try a B. Then add another letter. What works? What doesn't? Sound it out until you've got something useable. That's how Merrin, Vinny, and Renny got their names in Catching Cinders. Michael J. Sullivan talked about naming some of his characters this way.

And remember, you're not sitting there with a stone slab and a chisel. If you give someone a name and a few pages later you think of something better, you can always change it. Vira-we in By Wingéd Chair has had three different names so far, and Merry started out as Lori. Although, be careful, because if you slap a temporary tag on someone and leave it too long it might end up sticking like last night's mac and cheese. For five chapters, I didn't have a name for Cinderella's prince (he was particularly picky), and finally, I just threw one at him. It was only supposed to be temporary, but by the end of the book, I couldn't even imagine him with any other name. Vóila, Prince Nickolas was born.

I feel like I should add one more thing since it's my mom's pet peeve, and she's very generously passed it on to me. If you write fantasy and you're into those teeth-cracking, tongue-twisting names (like me), please follow accepted spelling and pronunciation rules for the country of your choice. If you must make up very own language, fine, just be sure everything makes sense and is consistent. No one wants to recommend a book saying, “Yeah, that one guy with the A and all the i's and x's is really cool. Unpronounceable, but cool.”

Go have some fun with it. I think naming characters is one of the most rewarding bits of our art. Seeing a character come to life on the page with all their cool traits fitting together topped with a name like a really great hat. You can't deny how cool that is.

I've got some cool things planned for the near future, so stay tuned next week for an exciting update.

Hazel, the protagonist of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, has been living with cancer for years. She goes through life knowing that death is just around the corner, stalking her patiently. I know I usually write about disabilities, but if dying of cancer isn't a disability, I don't know what is. Now, I wouldn't have said my difficulties are anything like those of someone diagnosed with cancer – I'm not dying of anything; aside from the bum legs, I'm pretty healthy – but I found a lot in this book and in Hazel as a character to relate to. Much of the story was wrapped around Hazel's favorite novel, and she talks about how she feels like the author knew exactly what she was feeling, sometimes even before she could find the words to express it. In many ways, that was how I felt about The Fault in Our Stars.

I watch John and Hank Green's videos on youtube and, holy crap, are they awesome. So, I have to admit, I was worried this book would be too smart for me, like the classics everyone else thinks are amazing while I'm sitting alone in the corner wondering what I'm missing (To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye, I'm talking about you. Don't worry, Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you're fine). But Green's book ended up being my kind of smart. It was about making the best out of crappy circumstances. It was about finding humor where you could, and it was about living with pain. If you've read some of my other posts on living with a disability then you know my philosophy. You know how I try to find things to laugh at, things to take pride in, despite the pain. And Green seems to have hit that nail on it's admittedly narrow head.

And there were plenty of other details that I saw as reflections of my own life. At the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, Hazel worries about holding up all the other tourists while she hauls her oxygen tank up the stairs. If I had a nickel for every time I've worried about the line forming behind me on stairs, my library would be a lot bigger.

She hates the empty words of encouragement everyone gives her, but when faced with someone else's pain, those same substance-less phrases find their way in her mouth. You'd think it would be easy, but it's horrible how hard it is to share comfort for your own kind of pain.

And Hazel knows what it's like to be asked “are you okay?” when you're obviously not. You say “I'm fine”, because it's simpler than “well, I'm dying of cancer, but besides that, everything's hunky-dory” or “well, I'm supposed to be getting married in three months and suddenly I can't walk down the aisle, but thanks for asking.” I've come far enough that now, when I answer “I'm fine”, I almost always mean it. But there was a time when that question stabbed me like a bread knife (huge and serrated) and all I could do was smile through the pain and hide the blood. And just like Hazel and her idolized author, Green has captured that exact feeling of maintaining two faces, one for yourself and one for the world.

I could keep going in the same vein, but the entire point of this blog is not to bore you, so I'll quit while I'm ahead. So after all that, I would like to say this was not on my favorites list – yes, it's a list, there are too many good books to pick just one favorite. I thought the dialogue was unreal, and not in a “hey man, that concert was totally unreal” kind of way. The main characters were way too grandiloquent and verbose. Existentially fraught basketball shots? Seriously, who talks like that? No one. Especially not teenagers. And let's not forget the protagonist is a dying teenager. A bit too depressing for me. A Nickolas Sparks fan I am not. However, I'm not going to deny that the book affected me. Deeply. (Deny? Good grief, who am I kidding. I just wrote an entire post on it.) My imaginary hat is off to John Green for the amazing and almost creepy, stalkerish way he's put my feelings on paper. So long as his other protagonists don't sound like pretentious Harvard professors, I'll definitely be checking out some of his other works.

So, random question: how many books do y'all think are on my favorites list? The person who guesses closest gets a prize: their choice of an excerpt from Cinderella, Robin Hood, or the brand new (translation: unedited) Beauty and the Beast. And for the cheaters out there, the list on my goodreads isn't complete, so tough luck.

We're always told that first impressions are the strongest, and it's true that as writers we need to be aware of what impressions we're giving the reader in the first pages (I'll go into this at another time), but as a reader, I've noticed that there are lots of places I form opinions about a book. Not just the first pages. I often have preconceptions about a book before I even crack the cover. Especially if it's an author I'm familiar with or a subject I feel strongly about. Then, of course, there's whether or not I want to keep reading after the first couple pages, but this one's not as important for me as I tend to be a patient reader. I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt (and another twenty pages) so long as I'm not bored out of my mind or absolutely hating the characters. Now if the story is told by a gruesome serial killer, then he'd better save the cat by page five or I'm putting it down.

More importantly for me than the beginning is the ending. Was it satisfying? What taste did it leave after it was all over? As a rule, I try not to eat my books, but taste is a pretty good word for the feeling I'm left with on the last page. Am I licking my lips thinking Carol Berg tastes like chocolate mousse, something to take my time with and savor? Or am I gagging because Catcher in the Rye tastes like that little green steroid pill I had to take in the hospital, bitter and best swallowed quickly with lots of jello? Those reactions tend to be the most powerful for me.

However, I've noticed those aren't necessarily my last impressions. Books mellow in my memory. I may put it down thinking it was the best book ever, but over time I'll remember all the little things that I ignored because I was so caught up in the story. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be so sucked in that the imperfect details fade away; in fact, quite the opposite. However, I know I think about a book more objectively after my emotions aren't so wrapped around a character and their story.

Which of all of these is the truer impression? I don't know. I thought I'd have an answer by the end of this post, but I don't. If anything, I think I'm more appreciative of the complexity of the novel and its ability to manipulate me better than Pinocchio's puppet master. But is that enough to base a blog post on? I like to make some kind of greater point so y'all will come away feeling like you didn't waste your time. Otherwise it's jut me muttering to myself. Maybe that is the point. If we're going to engage in the hugely manipulative art that is novel writing, we should at least be aware of the feelings and impressions we're trying to make our readers feel with every word we type.

So, I'm curious now, what kind of taste do my posts leave you with? I'm hoping potatoes.

The Broken Kingdoms is the second in N.K. Jemisin's The Inheritance Trilogy. I found the first one, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, well-written and intriguing, so I went ahead and picked up the sequel, and lo and behold, I found another disabled character to talk about. I've got a whole list of books to read because someone somewhere has said they have something to do with disabilities, but I really love discovering them on my own. It's like turning over rocks to find bugs, only a lot less squirmy and squishy. Oree Shoth, the protagonist, has been blind since birth. She can “see” magic, but that doesn't really help her on a day-to-day basis. To me, it didn't feel like Jemisin had an agenda for writing a character who's blind. The disability was just a part of the whole, something that added another dimension to who Oree was. I really admire an author who can take an impairment that affects all aspects of life and treat it as just another character trait. It makes disabilities feel a lot more normal – see, I'm really not all that different from everyone else – and it helps everyone else see disabilities in a different, more intimate way.

Now, I'm not blind, so I don't have any experience to compare Oree with, but from my limited perspective, the details Jemisin provided seemed pretty consistent and thought-provoking. Oree always recognized people by scent or sound rather than physical characteristics she couldn't see. She could tell plants and pigments apart just by touch or smell. And Jemisin did something really cool to highlight Oree's different perspective. There were moments in the book where there was so much magic around her that Oree could actually see, and she marvels at the experience. Things that never would have crossed my mind became the defining details of her narrative. She wonders at things like depth perception, the way her eyes try to focus, and how her hands look. She did do the stereotypical face feeling, and I've heard several people who are blind scoff at this, saying, “No, I don't want to feel your face. Do you want to feel mine?” Oree does it more to tell what emotions people are feeling, but I still wasn't buying it.

Oree really values her freedom and independence. She uses tools and has a routine that allows her to live and work independently. She fights for her freedom and chafes when it's taken away. However, she recognizes that it's okay to need help occasionally. I loved watching as Oree struggled to teach this balance to another character. Maybe because I was almost as stubborn as he was about accepting this simple life lesson. No one can do everything, except maybe Superman, and who wants to be him? Have you ever tried changing in a phone booth? Though I'll admit the flying thing is certainly tempting. Whatever, my point is that I can ask for help without sacrificing anything of myself or my pride.

And Oree had a really subtle strength. There were plenty of moments where she seemed weak, where she accepts all she can do is run away, but when it finally came down to the line there was no one else to pick up the slack, she stepped up and saved the day. There's something about that kind of hero that appeals to everyone, I think. Not all of us are capable of being the big, blond guy with the stainless armor and sword, and the smile that goes ting. Some of us are more like Oree, bruised and bowed, but unbroken, with a subtle heroism if you're willing to look beneath the surface.

Yeine and Oree's stories might be done, but the trilogy concludes with The Kingdom of Gods.

It was a dark and stormy night.

“There she blows!”

Captain Amab clicked his spy glass shut and spun on the tip of his wooden leg.

“After that whale, you scurvy sea dogs. That's the beast that ate me leg.”

The sailors shuffled their feet while the first mate and the bosun looked at each other.

“Is he always like this?” the bosun asked.

“Oh, this is just the calm before the storm,” the first mate said.

“Captain,” the bosun said. “We haven't seen shore in months.”

“Avast that talk. You'll not rob me of my revenge.”

The first mate and the bosun exchanged another look that said, “we're all in the same boat”. Or maybe it was “sink or swim”. They nodded to each other.

They grabbed Captain Amab by the arms and chucked him over the pin rail.

His peg leg disappeared with an unassuming bloop.

“Not so hard after all,” the bosun said. “Turns out he was just a drop in the bucket.”

That was written during a writer's group meeting where we talked about clichés. The general consensus was that they're bad and no self-respecting writer would ever stoop to using them. However, I disagree. I think there's a time and a place where clichés can be used effectively. For example, spotlighting the ridiculous, as seen above. Disclaimer: I'm a sailor and I'd have thrown him overboard too. What is a scurvy sea dog anyway?

The thing is, clichés are cliché for a reason, usually because there's some truth in them. I'm not giving you free rein to go out and use all the same tired phrases and cheesy situations you can think of. I know it's really easy to fall into the cliché trap when creating your characters. Half the work is already done for you when readers can easily imagine the crusty sailor with a peg leg, or the PI with a smart mouth and a drinking problem, or the romance heroine with a sordid past. But readers can also easily get bored with such tropes. Maybe stop and think about what you want to get across to your readers and figure out how you can use clichés without making them cringe and throw your book at the wall.

I write fairy-tales and what's more cliché than happily ever after? One of the reasons I love fairy-tales is because they're so familiar. Everyone knows that Cinderella loses her shoe at a ball. I use the familiar to bring out and highlight the differences in my characters and my stories. My Cinderella doesn't lose a glass slipper, she loses an ankle-foot orthotic. Still just as unique to her (I mean, Prince Charming still has to be able to pinpoint her, right?), but not nearly as uncomfortable as glass footwear. Or what about a character that twists clichéd metaphors or uses them wrong. A guy says, "I beat that dead fish to death". Tells you something about the character, doesn't it?

I also write about disabilities. Just like everything else there are clichés associated with the handicapped, and like I said, they're clichés because they're at least a little bit true. My characters have the expected feelings of anger, bitterness, and uselessness because I had to go through those myself. But I try to write beyond them as well. There are deeper reasons behind the emotions that are far more interesting to read about than just “she's angry because she can't walk”. We're capable of feeling so much; can you really justify assigning just one emotion to a character? My Maid Marion is angry, yes, but it's a mask to hide her self-loathing and protect her from pity. She hates the people around her for not understanding her and then hates herself for hating them. So I've explained the cliché and moved past it, creating a deeper character we can understand and relate to.

So before you ax everything that sounds even remotely familiar, consider how clichés could actually help your writing.