Category: writing

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A Matter of Perspective

I volunteered at an Autism Awareness 5K this morning. I probably could’ve run it, but – since the tan lines from last summer’s ankle brace still haven’t faded –I’m babying my ankle this year.

St.Matt and my SIL were running, they had maps of the course in their race bag, along with sneaker chips, safety pins, number and Powerbars.

I had a bright yellow VOLUNTEER shirt that clashed with the khaki capris I’d tugged on at 6:45.

“I’ve got just the spot in mind for you,” said one of the directors, a very nice man I’d never met before.

“Not at the water station?” That’s where I’d been told I’d be situated during volunteer check-in.

“Nope, I need you somewhere else.” He smiled at me in a confident way that made me wonder if rumors of my cheering-prowess had made their way all the way from Boston to Buckingham, PA. Or perhaps he was just wowed by my post-massive-coffee confidence and energy.

Either way, I ended up mid-hill at an intersection were runners would pass me three times. As runners headed down the hill towards me, I pointed them down a side street. They would run a loop and come back towards me and I would point them behind me, down to the bottom of the hill, where they would run around a cone. Finally they’d run up the whole hill and disappear around the corner they’d come from. This was not a little hill.

For 30 minutes before the race I was alone on it. The 24 oz coffee I’d so quickly finished suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea. I had to go and I was bored. I practiced my hand signals – 1st the cul de sac on the left, then down behind me, then up the hill – this was interesting for about 24 seconds.

I tweeted a bit, played some music on my phone, and bopped around in the middle of the street to entertain myself – looking up when I heard giggles and finding two kiddos watching me from a neighboring yard. Apparently I was entertaining them too.

About 20 minutes prior to the race, a runner on a warm-up loop approached me: “So when I reach the first time, how far into the race am I? How far is that loop? When I pass you coming up the hill, how far to the finish?”

I realized I didn’t know. I’d gotten in the truck with the director, been deposited in the middle of the course and I knew nothing but my own immediate intersection.

It’s all a matter of perspective and until I flagged down a bike cop doing a pre-race lap of the route, I didn’t have any. The cop rattled off the stats quickly: “They’re about two miles in when they reach you. It’s about point-4 miles down that loop,” he pointed left. “Then point-4 for them to come back out, and about two-tenths to the bottom of the hill, from there it’s about a half mile back up the hill and to the finish line.”

I nodded and absorbed his facts: 2 miles, 4/10ths, 2/10ths, one-half. “Thanks. And is the rest of the course flat?”

He grinned as he positioned his feet back on his pedals, “Nope, this course was designed by someone with a sense of humor. But you’re smack dab in the middle of the biggest hill.”

Perspective.

While I didn’t move throughout the race course — I pranced around my intersection and cheered, pointed, encouraged, clapped, and pointed some more — I needed the officer’s knowledge to give me perspective. It helped me to know where the runners had been, where I was sending them, and where they were going after they passed by. I was asked for these facts by more than a few ready-to-be-done runners, especially when I pointed them up the hill.

Perspective

Writing’s like this too. It’s not enough to concentrate on a single scene. No matter how critical a plot juncture, the writer needs perspective. I can’t – for a moment, paragraph or page – forget where the characters are coming from, or where the plot is headed. Each scene and chapter should be crafted with a purpose: to propel the characters towards the end. When I lose sight of this – lose my perspective – I may craft scenes that are fun or witty or tell interesting background, but it’d be like asking the runners to do the hokey pokey around the traffic cone at the bottom of the hill. It interrupts the stride and slows down the pacing. More than that, it’s distracting.

I don’t always draft in order – sometimes I drop myself off at a plot intersection where things are happening from many different angles – but as long as I keep my attention focused on where characters and plot lines have been and where they’re headed to, I can keep cheering, pointing, encouraging clapping, and pointing some more.

Luckily, while writing I don’t need to wear day-glo yellow, I can usually dance without inspiring giggles, and I have bathroom access.

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Hubris & Bitter Irony

Today’s been a day to survive and endure so that it can become tomorrow. I have to keep shrugging off the guilt-cloak that accompanies getting what you indiscriminately, casually wish for. I didn’t cause this – it’s just an awful coincidence. Why do I assume responsibility for things I can’t control?

Three years ago when we decided to get a second puggle, the breeder sent us eight photos and told us to choose the future-Bruschi-Schmidt.

St. Matt and I agonized over the pictures. I wanted them ALL; he wanted #512 or #514. I wanted a boy to balance Biscotti’s pink-collar’edness. He pointed to #’s 512 & 514.
In the end we chose 514 to become our Bru-pup, but what if 512 had become Bruschi Schmidt instead? We wouldn’t have ended up with a dog whose tail wags in his sleep, who Hoovers his dinner without chewing, and whose extreme underbite causes ‘Elvis lip;’ those characteristics are unique to 514.

And #514, what would’ve happened to him? I like to think he has the best possible life as a Schmidt puggle: full of tormenting Biscotti, Doggie Day Care, a garden to snitch green beans from, and two humans to snuggle each night.

But maybe that’s not true. Maybe 514 would’ve been better off named Otis Magee, living with a retired librarian in Wyoming or equally happy as Zeus Foster with a California family of four.
I shouldn’t fool myself into thinking 514’s happiness depended on me choosing him over 512, or assume that 512 is miserable because we didn’t pick him.

My hubris continues into teaching; I manage to convince myself that I’m the best one to teach ‘my’ kiddos – and I’ll come to school sick because I hate turning my kiddos over to a substitute.

I lose the perspective: I only get to borrow these little ones for nine months – same as the teachers before me, same as the ones they’ll have next year. They’re aren’t mine at all. If any of the ‘Schmidties’ had been placed in room 201 or 203 instead of my room, they would’ve been just fine. The fact that this group of kiddos is on my roster means I’ll love them and I’ll teach them to the best of my ability – but it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have succeeded without me.

And as a writer, the things I scrawl on paper can’t cause things to happen – so amid all the other emotions I’m processing today, I shouldn’t add guilt.

But I have, because the irony’s too bitter not to leave me guilty.

In TBALMCSAP the protagonist deals with something awful, something I’ve luckily never had to experience, and that has required much research. Yet, even in my gratitude, I’ve often thought: God, it’s hard to put myself in that position and I have so many questions, if only…

Today I was handed a cursed opportunity to find answers because someone I love was dealt the same situation as my MC.

It’d be hubris to think I caused this, but the guilt lingers. I wish I’d never wanted a clearer ability to empathize and I half-wish I’d never written the MS. My first instinct on hearing the news was to barter: I’d scrap the writing project indefinitely if everything would work out fine in real life.

But life doesn’t work like that – my writing neither caused this, nor can it affect the outcome. I can tell myself this, I can write it, I can call it hubris, but there’s guilt nonetheless.

There’s also wisdom; in this case not mine. It came from a wise friend, who reminded me that my research for the book prepares me for what’s to come and equips me to be a support system. Rather than abandon TBALMCSAP, she pointed out that it’ll be richer for this experience and may someday be a resource for someone learning what I learned today and going through this terrible experience.

I know she’s right, and I’m tugging at the strings, but right now my guilt-cloak is terror-tightened and laden with research notes.

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Hijacking the NTB

We had an addition put on our house this fall. They took the roof off our Victorian and turned our not-quite-walk-up attic into a third floor master suite. We did some rearranging of the second floor bedrooms during the process too. My one request during the whole ordeal (okay, I had more than one request, but the one thing I was truly adamant about) was that I get built-in bookshelves and a writing space.

 
Up until that point I wrote in our living room which, since there are people and puggles ‘living’ in it, is not a convenient place to write. I would also occasionally take Huey-the-Laptop and write in the dining room, or if it was nice out, write on the patio. Since most of my writing time occurs while other living things are sleeping, the living room was not the worst place to write – but it’s far from ideal.

So, bookshelves and a writing area. St. Matt agreed. The floor plans cooperated too; the front of the new bedroom has a dormer that’s 10 feet wide by 5 feet deep. It’s all windows and has an amazing view. If the blueprints were treasure maps (which St. Matt told me repeatedly they were not, despite all the X’s and dotted lines) then this would be the area pirates would be fighting over. St. Matt gave it to me. I set to work designing my desk – six feet long with room for a window seat on the end. He said sure. I added drawers and bins to my drawings. He said sure. I asked if we could make the surface out of one of the antique doors that had been removed during the process. He said sure. I asked if he was capable of building all this. He said sure. I got excited.

The contractors left and we moved into the addition on 12/23. St. Matt has been busy. I still have no desk. My bookshelves are framed and exciting, but the shelves aren’t in yet. (This has not, however, stopped me from piling books in them and having endless conversations about which books I’m going to select to come upstairs).

Have I been nag-y, pest-y, or whiney about this? Nope. I know, shocking isn’t it? Before you decide I’m lying, here’s why.

I have hijacked the room-that-will-be-a-nursery-if-we-ever-have-kids. Since that’s a long title, I’m just going to call it Nursery-to-be or NTB. Why this room? Because I had a brilliant idea while painting it post-construction.

Like most of my brilliant ideas, this one has an aspect of fortuitous accident. We were in Lowe’s (Home Depot?) AGAIN and St. Matt was doing something boring. So I did what I always do when I’m bored in a hardware store: go visit the paint guys. And that day someone was asking the paint guy about blackboard paint. I decided to eavesdrop. Having purchased his blackboard paint, the other customer left and I chimed in: “That’s pretty cool. If I didn’t hate blackboards with an unnatural degree of loathing, I’d get that.”

Paint Guy: “You hate blackboards?”
Me: “Yup, and I’m a teacher, go figure.”
PG: “So what do you use in your classroom?”
Me: “I have blackboards, I just won’t use them. I have the kiddos write the date and we stick stuff to them with magnets. I also have a Smartboard.”
PG: “Do you hate whiteboards too?”
Me: “Nope. Those I like.”
PG: “Well, they make Expo whiteboard paint too, you know.”
Me: mouth open.

We left with four containers of it.

St. Matt: What are you going to do with that?
Me: Paint, duh.
St. Matt: What are you going to paint?
Me: Don’t worry, I have a plan. (It should be pointed out these are the same words I used to reassure St.Matt when I dropped tweezers in the toilet, when I also did NOT actually have a plan. I wonder if he realizes when I say: Don’t worry, I have a plan, he should actually immediately become very, very worried).

Back to the NTB… In typical my typical insomnia productiveness, I painted it while St. Matt slept. Boy was he surprised in the morning! It has light green walls, a mini-mural in the closet, a blue clouded ceiling, and yes: the clouds climb down off the ceiling and become white boards on the walls. This is my childhood dream come true: walls I can write on without getting sent to the naughty chair.

These walls are where I storyboarded TBALMCSAP and this is now where I like to write, curled up on the bed in the NTB and facing my color-coded-by-character walls of awesomeness.
If we ever have a reason to use the NTB as an actual nursery, I’m in big trouble. Maybe we could put the not-yet-an-issue-baby in another bedroom. Or maybe, just maybe, St. Matt could finish my writing desk…

… And the still-in-the-distant-future-baby could sleep under that while I continue to hijack its room.

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Headphones?

As I drove to work on Monday I slipped a new CD in the dashboard stereo – the car speakers haven’t played anything else since. For four days of commutes to and from the school, I listened to the song “Sunrise” from the In The Heights soundtrack. If St. Matt reads this he’s going to roll his eyes, and offer a prayer of thanks that we do NOT carpool.

I do this frequently. Find a song that embodies an aspect of my WIP and play it exhaustively until that scene is finished. The first time I listened to this song I wanted to pull over and shout: “Eureka!” The issue I’d been having with my ending – resolved by a show tunes duet.

Only, I couldn’t resolve it because I’ve been in my self-imposed WIP separation period. So instead of opening my writer’s notebook and scrawling or opening a computer file and going tappity-tappity-tappity, I’ve listened and listened and listened.

By the time I allowed my fingers to fly across the computer keys this morning, the scene was mentally written, revised and fairly polished. I listened to the song on loop as the words bled onto the screen, and then another five times for good measure once my fingers stilled. (Thank God I remembered to get the CD from my car, St. Matt took it today ‘cause I was out of gas). Now “Sunrise” can be retired until I reach that scene on my next sweep through TBALMCSAP.

Musically I’ve already moved on to my next TBALMCSAP theme: Thriving Ivory’s “Angels on the Moon.” This one doesn’t go with a particular scene; it embodies a relationship between two characters. As of right now, its play count on iTunes is 37 – and I only downloaded it Wednesday night.

Does this surprise me? A little. It probably shouldn’t since St. Matt turned to me with near frenzied eyes last night and begged: “Headphones, please, headphones. Or a new song.” And that was probably after only repetition 18 or so. (Wimp). It surprises me only because I stop noticing what’s playing around me. I’d notice if the music stopped or changed, but I don’t tire of or flinch away from monotony of my choosing. I love it.

Even better? Twenty days, weeks, or years from now, if I hear “Sunrise” or “Angels on the Moon,” I’ll be brought right back to that scene and how much I enjoyed writing it.

Do you care, about all the little things or anything at all?
I wanna feel, all the chemicals inside, I wanna feel
I wanna sunburn, just to know that I’m alive
To know I’m alive
Don’t tell me if I’m dying, cause I don’t wanna know…
Play count: 43
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Maybe we shouldn’t talk to each other for a few days…

Were you good at maintaining a post-break-up cooling off period? If you had a spat with a friend and she hung up on you, did you wait for her to calm down and call you back?

I failed at both of those things: over-anxious to go from kissers to companions, I’d want to call and hang out while battle-scarred heart tissue was still exposed; I’ve never handled tension well either, I want things resolved and reassured before the fight’s begun.

Mostly, when I love someone, I want him/her near me.

Granted TBALMCSAP is not a best friend, boyfriend, or even human – but the two weeks of self-imposed separation have been hard on me.

I’ve missed my WIP; missed the characters, had songs I wanted to share with Gyver (we’ve got similar taste in music), and comfort I wanted to offer to my conflicted MC. My finger’s twitched on the mouse, itching to click the ‘open’ icon; I’ve wandered into the spare bedroom and stared longingly at my storyboards, written in color-coded marker on whiteboard walls. In a show of impressive self-restraint, I’ve steered my mouse away and refrained from paging through print-outs.

It’s not permanent, I’ve told myself. It’s better in the long run. I need distance to gain perspective and clarity. I’m not ready. Strangely enough, these words would apply to post-break-up scenarios as well – is that why they’re familiar?

Two weeks – they’ve passed in a blur of insomnia, Jace-flavored Distraction Fairy’ness, caffeinated mornings, midnight workouts, and catching up on grading.

I’ve got big plans for tomorrow. Plans that include not changing out of my pajamas or eating anything that requires cooking. Plans that include turning the ringer off on my cell phone and selectively answering e-mail (so if you’re curious about if I really love you, tomorrow’s a good day to drop me an e-mail).

Before you write this off as a self-indulgent waste-away day, let me correct you; It’s a self-indulgent day of all-consuming revisions.

It’s rare that I can find a whole day without commitments, interruptions, or company – and this one’s timing is fortuitous. It’s been two weeks since I finished the first draft of TBALMCSAP, I’ve suffered through my forced separation from the MS, and now I’m ready and able to belly flop in – purple pen at ready.

My first revisions are brutal – they’re comprised of amputations, reconstructions, and -dectomys of all sorts. There’s a reason I don’t use red pen – I can feel my WIP’s non-anesthetized pain – I don’t need a bloody visual.

So while St. Matt’s at work, while the puggles are snuggled in sunbeams (*please, please, puggles – feel like sunbeam snuggling tomorrow*), I’ll be pajama’d and purple-pen-prepared to tear down and build up.

Let me at TBALMCSAP – I’m ready. I’ve missed you.

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My So-Called “Real” Life

On Twitter today I noticed this acronym: IRL. At first I thought it was a typo for URL, and then using my best teacherly context clues, I decoded it: In Real Life.

But as writers, don’t we have a different definition of real life than others do?

It’s not always my house in Pennsylvania, my mischievous puggles, or my saintly husband that seem the most real to me. I’ll go for a writing-run and come home not knowing which Doylestown roads I paced down, but with images of fictitious East Lake blurring past my footsteps.

There are days I’ll shave the same leg twice and emerge from the shower with my head still sudsy but full of conversation between my protagonist and her love.

Yesterday I looked up from writing – and just a blog, not even TBALMCSAP – and turned to St.Matt and said, “Hey, if you want to go for a run, you should go before it gets dark and then we’ll do dinner.”

“Tiffany, it is dark. I already ran and I cooked dinner. I ate sitting right next to you, don’t you remember?”

I didn’t. But should I admit that?

Should I confess that sometimes the settings, people, and stories in my head seem more realistic than the ones playing around me in 3-dimensions? That chasing Distraction-Fairy-Jace to Idris taints my dreams and re-directs my thoughts until I find myself surprised not to find runes carved on my own skin? Or that my kiddos’ discussions about the characters in Angie Sage’s Magyk infiltrates their math class, recess talk, and casual conversation until we’re all wishing for a cat/duck or a messenger rat? That I broke my heart and sobbed early morning tears for my main character but rolled my eyes at the co-worker drama that unfolded a few hours later?

I’ve always struggled with this – the real versus the envisioned. My imaginary friends required places at the dinner table and had an alarming habit of ducking out of the way so my dad had to make at least three attempts before he could nail them with goodnight kisses. I caused a minor scandal at the grocery store when my five-year-old self started bawling and screaming at the shopper who’d hit Harvey with her cart.

The bewildered woman looked around, “But I didn’t feel anything. Where is he?”

“He’s around the corner crying and bleeding,” I bawled and the woman went wide-eyed and white faced.

My mother, frantic at the sound of my howls, then embarrassed as she tried to reassure the terrified, apologetic shopper she hadn’t run-over my younger brother, lashed out: “Tiffany Allison, Harvey is NOT REAL. He’s imaginary. You MADE HIM UP.”

If I’d been the recipient of the cart collision, it couldn’t have hurt more than those words.

But it didn’t stop me from making things up – from creating, imagining, and living dual lives: one corporal, one mental.

It’s possible I’m alone in this. Doubtful, but possible. Even if I were,, however, I wouldn’t feel lonely. How could I? There are stories to live and create, both IRL and IMH.

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He’s definitely NOT wearing a tutu

When I pictured the Distraction Fairy – which I frequently do while being distracted – I always pictured a her. And she had a pointy chin and ears, blonde hair, wings, wand, the whole sparkly shebang. Come to think of it, she looked remarkably similar to Tinkerbell, only she wore pink instead of green and obviously she has a tiara.

That’s not how I picture the fairy anymore. If you read yesterday’s blog you know that my Distraction Fairy is currently named Jace. And even though he is a blond, Jace would not don pink ruffled chiffon or a tiara for anyone. He’ll sulk, he’ll pout, he’ll be all-around angsty, but he’s not putting on a skirt.

At least he didn’t in Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones…

I don’t know about City of Ashes or Glass yet because I don’t have them YET! Despite having finished book one in The Mortal Instruments Trilogy before going to bed, I don’t yet have numbers two and three.

Frustrating, I know! I turned the last page, looked around and noticed that it was dark out. I looked at the clock: 2:30 AM. Was my first thought: ‘oh geez, it’s really late and I should get to bed’? Nope. It was: ‘aw man, it’s hours before the bookstores open and I can call around to see who has the second and third books in stock.’

It’s quite possible that at this point I became a Distraction Fairy and peppered poor Emily Hainsworth with endless questions, predictions, and what-if’s about the rest of The Mortal Instruments Trilogy.

I take this to be evidence for why I need a Kindle or Sony e-book reader. With a few simple buttons I could have been blissfully re-engaged in Distraction Fairy indulgence.

I presented this argument to St.Matt when I woke him up at 3:30 AM. He disagreed. He thinks this is evidence for why I shouldn’t get a Kindle or Sony e-book reader. Let’s quote him, shall we? “You don’t need anything that’s going to make you sleep even less than you do now.”

Point taken.

But doesn’t he realize the Distraction Fairy flew away as soon as I ran out of pages to read? And then what was left? An overwhelming, itching desire to dig into TBALMCSAP revisions and not emerge for days, which isn’t an option right now.

I can do this.

It’s only an hour ‘til I go pick up doses two and three of the Jace-version of the Distraction Fairy and only two days ‘til I can bleed purple ink on TBALMCSAP.

As for St. Matt’s suggestion that Distraction Fairy take the form of culinary masterpieces or a spring cleaning binge, doesn’t he know the fairy can’t hold a wand and cook/clean at the same time? (And I seriously can’t picture Jace in a French maid’s uniform… guess I’ll have to wait and read).

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Me, Made of Wonder

Today I’m off to Books of Wonder in NYC to see an amazing *dazzle* of YA authors. (A dazzle is really a group of zebras, but I’ve always wanted to use it in the ‘group’ sense, so we’re pretending it works. Maybe one of them will be wearing black & white? I’ll keep you posted).

Whenever I go to New York, the song from Annie pops into my head (geez, I wonder why?)

NYC, just got here this morning,
2 Friends
5 Authors
1 ME
Oh, NYC, I give you fair warning,
Up front, with squeeing, I’ll be…

I’ve got the last sixth of John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines on my iPod to keep me busy on the train so I don’t drive St.Matt or the-other-Tiffany nuts. And snacks. And books and my writer’s notebook.

But who are we kidding? When I’m this hopped up on excitement, pesting is inevitable.

Don’t worry, Petunia’s coming too, so Tweeting will continue. Pics & updates later.

***Post-Wondervent Update ***
I have photos, stories and wonder… but they’ll have to wait until tomorrow (Blame BEDA, I need 30 days worth of material, people)
Also blame one of the 3 new pairs of shoes I acquired while grocery shopping yesterday. Wearing new shoes to walk around a city is never a smart idea. Wearing new heels while walking around a city is just plain stupid.
I’m putting my stupid feet up and beginning one of my newly signed books.
See you tomorrow….
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Restless ME Syndrome

I have RMS. It’s a second-cousin of Restless Legs Syndrome. This one is Restless ME Syndrome and it has one cause: forced separation from my WIP.

Last Sunday I finished my first draft of TBALMCSAP. ~*Hooray*~!

But then comes the waiting… I like to think waiting two weeks between writing the last word on a draft and beginning revisions gives me a bit of detachment and objectivity.

Or, I like to think that when I’m NOT in the two week waiting period. Waiting stinks. Stinks like sixth graders post-recess in May.

I’m itching to crack open the file. I’m craving the feeling of my purple editing pen against still-warm-from-the-printer pages.

And I’m telling myself: no. wait. be patient. (Apparently I don’t know myself very well)

So what do I do in the meantime? There are still 7 more days ‘til I’ll let myself play with TBALMCSAP again; I need something to fill up the hours that normally would have been spent defining the W in WIP.

I signed up for BEDA. I stocked up on books. I made the haircut appointment I’ve been forgetting to schedule since October. I’m attacking piles of grading. I’m in negotiations with my ankle about running without pain. I’m heading to NYC tomorrow to see an A-squad of writers (which, let’s be honest, is only going to make me more anxious to tackle TBALMCSAP). I’m filling hours and counting them down.

But mostly, I’m driving St. Matt nuts because the only real cure for RMS is writing.

Seven days…

Suggestions/ Distraction Fairies welcome.

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Lipgloss and Lylas: Thoughts on Fifteen

I read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton today. I’m not sure why this book took so long to reach the top of my towering tower of TBR. And before it’s asked, I haven’t seen this movie either. I’m not sure I want to – the book was so visual that I don’t know if I want my mental-movie changed by actors. And Tom Cruise… eh.

As I was paging the “Bonus Materials” in the back of my copy, I was shocked to read in the author’s interview that she was 15 (15!) when she started this book.

At fifteen I was writing love poems to the boy who sat across from me in chem. And notes I folded into intricate triangles and passed to friends while the teacher pretended not to notice – these were also mostly about the boy who sat across from me in chem, or whatever my mother had done to annoy me that morning. I wrote some papers too; most memorably a re-write of the ending of Chopin’s The Awakening. (In which Edna dies during a trans-Atlantic crossing while having Robert’s baby – I think I have a copy somewhere, perhaps someday I’ll offer it up as a giggle-instigator).

At 15 I was not writing well-crafted literature that tackled important social issues. Thirteen years later, I still haven’t yet reached a point where I can read my diaries from those years without flinching. I just wanted to know if we were going to the North Shore or Rockingham mall on Friday, what the newest flavor of Lip Smackers tasted like, if Bailey was going to hurry up and dump Sarah on Party of Five, and when the cutie in chem was going to look my way.
I’m 28 now, able to drive myself to the mall on whim (though it’s no longer that appealing), able to purchase (and constantly lose) all the lipgloss I want. I recently found Party of Five in the OnDemand menu and couldn’t suffer through a whole episode. The chem class cutie? I haven’t talked to him since before my wedding five years back.

I’ll never be a teen success like S.E. Hinton – I can’t go back and change the silly girl I was or the superficial drivel I wrote, and I don’t know that I’d want to. I couldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t been her. My life hasn’t been all sugar-sweet, neither now nor back then. But despite that, I’ve clung to optimism with stubborn tenacity.

Is my writing still sometime only puddle-deep and topical? Sure. Sometimes. But don’t let that fool you – there’s a lot going on underneath the shiny reflective surface.