As a writer, I constantly have to guard against a tendency to be too nice to my characters.

Go nonfiction. Real people are so much easier to be mean to. They give you so much cause.

Go nonfiction. Real people are so much easier to be mean to. They give you so much cause.

Eh, I'm a fiction writer. It's the only way to have a head full of imaginary personalities and still be sane.

Go nonfiction. Real people are so much easier to be mean to.

Yes, but unlike fictional characters, real people can hunt you down and sic dogs or lawyers on you.

Yes, but unlike fictional characters, real people can hunt you down and sic dogs or lawyers on you.

They can go right ahead. Act a fool, get a chapter. That's my new motto.

They can go right ahead. Act a fool, get a chapter. That's my new motto.

t predicts massive influx of lurker email in Allyson's box

DH says he's a cynic, and that a cynic is a disappointed idealist.

I deemed myself a "cynical idealist" years ago. Metaphorically, my rose-colored glasses are broken.

Never say I don't climb right back on the horse that threw me:

I spent a stray half hour today while Annabel was napping looking up info on every RWA contest I could find throughout the year, trying to get a feel for which might be the best fits for my work. I really wasn't planning to enter anything else until sometime in 2005, when I came across the New England Chapter's First Kiss contest, with a deadline of Nov. 1. "Hmm," read the thought bubble above my head. "AmyLiz specifically praised the first kiss in the castle tower in Lucy's book. And you yourself think the near-kiss in Anna's is the most romantic and sexy thing you've ever written. All you've got to do is make it into an actual kiss instead of just 'lips so close their breath mingled', and it's eligible. And the final round judge is from Warner. You'd love to be published there."

So I promptly fired off an email to the contest coordinator to make sure I wasn't limited to just the one entry.

And then I looked at my score sheets from yesterday a little more closely, and it's not quite as horrible as I thought. The scores are disappointing, but the comments were broadly positive--one judge praised my style and liked my heroine, the other just said I needed to do some polishing and tighten up my synopsis a whole lot, but to keep at it. And with one or two exceptions, the criticism was all for areas I already suspected needed work. I'm just trying to reconcile the decent feedback with the less-than-decent scores! But I'm feeling cool enough about it to sit down and write thank-you notes tonight.

Patches

She slides the film casually, easily, up against a backlit screen.

"Here."

I stare at it. In my day, I've had polio, pneumonia, cancer, bones rebuilt using plastic, reversible osteoporosis. This is the first time I've ever seen MRIs of my brain.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"Those white patches." She points, showing me, damning me. "Those are typical lesions for someone with multiple sclerosis."

Seven discrete patches. Each one indicates lost myelin, nerves dying, pain and disability and a long slow march to nowhere.

"So." She mistakes my lack of reaction for calm. "Let's discuss options."

Apparently, I killed the thread.

Sorry.

I was just offline for a few hours.

That's a very powerful piece, deb.