Just in case it wasn't clear, I really am feeling good about this. To have three complete strangers who don't know or care anything about me read my work and get positive reactions from two out of three is validating.

Heh. Susan, you were totally clear, and I'm with you, you should feel validated. Plus, all feedback is useful.

Speaking of which, two big errands to run today plus cleaning the house, but also I need to be writing and editing today, so please do kick me out if I'm in here for more than a few minutes (I do check between bits).

I finally got a thought.

Ten times

During open heart surgery, three times. Waking from each death cursing the doctor who brought him back.

A stroke, twice. “I want to go home,” he said.

Congestive heart failure, 4 times. “Is this your fault? Did you pray to bring me back?”

In a fetal position, curled over his favorite La-Z-Boy, once. Alone. Finally free to go.

I dream of the funeral, over and over. In my dream, he sits up from the casket and laughs his caustic Muttley snicker. “Suckers,” he crows, and points at us, the body of us. We should not be sad he is gone.

Oooh, nice.

Jeepers. Deena, that's brilliant.

Anyone got any suggestions for how to improve my skills in writing action?

Dialogue I'm good at. Introspective narration, where I turn my viewpoint character loose and let him/her tell the story? Easy-peasy. Action is tougher. And the more removed the action is from my personal experience, and/or the harder it is to intersperse with dialogue or introspection, the harder it gets.

Any ideas? So far I've thought of analyzing action portions of my favorite books and pulling out my DVD collection and watching to see what kind of visual details most draw my eye.

Jeepers, Susan, I don't know, because I'm one of those certifiable freaks, a process-free writer. But I have found that putting myself briefly into the fictional shoes of the different characters and emotionally experiencing said action for a few seconds is a damned sight more effective for me than trying to just describe it as the Invisible Overlord of the book.

Not always comfortable, mind you, but effective. You wrote a drabble a while back, in which your heroine shot a French soldier and mangled it, leaving him alive and in agony. If you expand that scene and wear her muddied dress, what is she feeling as she sees him approaching, when she lifts the gun she was never trained to use, when the recoil knocks her back, when she hears him scream and fall?

We know that when her companion comes up and finishes the job, she falls down retching. But if you're in her shoes, what do you experience?

I guess it's a form of channeling.

Christ, Deena . . .

Thanks Susan and Deb. Working on being able to write like that all the time.

My most effective writing occurs when I channel a character as Deb describes.

eta: heh. I like that response from you, Connie.

Channeling a character - this can't be stressed enough - is not always pleasant. I had major trouble finishing Eyes in the Fire - the last eighty pages were so tough (my three main characters, well, it wasn't a happy ending), I went and lay on a beach in Hawaii because I'd start shaking every time I tried to write it. I came home and did it, but you can't just sit at a remove and play God: a book written with the emotions of the characters are, to my mind, the only ones worth reading. And that means breaking down a wall that aint always easy or pleasant to break down.

It's one of the reasons I almost never reread "clever" books. Oh, look, I can see the author, jerking the characters around rather than actually investing herself or himself in their lives, their feelings, their triumphs, their failures. No thanks.