Spoonie Writer: Writing Whilst Sick

Spoonie Writer: Writing Whilst Sick
 
The term "spoonie" was first coined by Christine Miserandino when she wrote The Spoon Theory. It's a term used by many people who have chronic illness to describe what life is like for people like us. I embrace the term as it's a great way to explain the way I live my life whilst being sick. I am, by definition, a spoonie writer.

In recent pieces on my blog, I have written about what it's like to be a writer and be chronically ill (found here, here, & here). I have never really talked about what it's like to have to write whilst being sick. I've talked about writing whilst having chronic pain or chronic fatigue (found here) but I haven't yet touched on what it's like to be a writer, chronically ill as well as "normal" sick and still having to write.

Right now, I am having a few issues with my chronic illnesses that mean that I'm not having a good time health-wise. I'm having to use my nebuliser to keep my breathing under control, pain meds to keep the pain monster at bay and have just started with a different kind of CPAP machine to help with both the fatigue from sleep apnoea as well as the general fatigue from the M.E. To make things all the more hilarious my body seems to have decided that now would be the best time ever to have a cold/chest infection...again! It's a dance I am very familiar with and one that many people with chronic illnesses will be aware of.

However, the world does not stop just because I'm feeling crap. There are still emails to write, blog pieces to compose and books to start, plan and finish. I can take a few days off, but knowing my body, it wouldn't just be a few days, but more like a couple of weeks. So, if I want to get my books finished and all of that jazz, I have to adapt and write even though I feel bloody dreadful! I don't tell you this to garner sympathy or to win awards (though I did win Gold at the Sick Olympics!) but to show people who may not have seen this side of me, or any chronically ill person before.

I had a friend ask me recently when she was feeling particularly crap, with a cold and chest issues of her own, how I managed to be social even though I sounded, and was feeling pretty bad. My response was simply that if I stopped talking to people when I didn't feel well, then I'd never talk to anyone! There does come a point though when you can't just barrel through it all and I'll touch on that in another piece, but suffice to say, when those times happen, you literally have no other choice.

As a spoonie writer I have had to learn when my body has had enough, when it can literally do no more and is holding up the white flag in defeat. One thing many spoonies are told by doctors and nurses, physios and psychologists is that we MUST pace ourselves. They say that there is no point in spending all your spoons on one day because you feel kinda okay and then spending the next few days stuck in bed with a deficit of spoons because you overdid it. As someone who has been battling chronic illness for all of her adult life, I can say that it's true. Once again I utter the words, it's a balancing act.

On any given day I can wake up and not know how many spoons I'll have. I can start with a good number and then do the wrong thing, eat something that doesn't work for me or push myself a little too far in my wheelchair and BAM! My spoons are into the minus and I need to stop and rest. I can also start the day with so few spoons I don't know how I'm going to get anything done, and then be surprised by how rested I feel after a nap - though that rarely happens. It's hard to hold down any kind of job when you don't know from one day to next - hell, even one hour to the next - how you're going to feel. It's one of the reasons that being a writer has worked so well for me. I can work when I feel well enough to, and I can take time off when I don't feel well enough.

Hang on, I hear you cry, didn't you just say that you have to keep going even though you feel awful? Yes, I did and I wasn't lying. Sometimes there are things that can't be put off. Either a blog post or a book signing or a promotion or a deadline and no matter how understanding people are, you can't just pull out. It's times like those that you do have to weigh up the options and decide if the payback is worth the risk. The majority of the time it isn't, but sometimes you have to do it anyway, just as you would if you were a healthy person who had a cold or infection. The world does not stop or even slow down if you're sick and when you're sick all the time it seems to speed up slightly.

So yes, it's a balancing act and writing whilst sick is something that's somewhat more manageable than other jobs, but still there are so many times when I sit at my desk and all I can think is "I feel crap, I wish I could go to bed!" but deadlines and commitments mean that it's not possible. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

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The Trials Of An Indie Author: Outsourcing Is Expensive

The Trials Of An Indie Author: Outsourcing Is Expensive

When you get published by a traditional publishing house, you get a lot of stuff done for you, as I've talked about in my series of the After Process (links can be found here). When you go with a small publishing press or as an indie author, a lot of things fall to you (again discussed here). One of those things is paying for stuff like an editor, cover art, taxes and all that jazz. It also means that if you want to give away books or any other kind of "swag", then you're paying for that out of your own pocket too.

As an indie author, I've had to find my own editor, who I pay per book, as well as a cover artist, who I also have to pay. I also designed and paid for my bookmarks and all the other giveaways I do for for promotion. Basically, it's not cheap to market your own books and it comes at a cost, one which for some people is not something they are willing or able to do, and I respect that wholeheartedly.

For me it was not an easy choice, but at the same time I didn't lie awake at night worrying about it. Due to my many health problems, I am not able to work to the same deadlines that would be expected of me through a traditional publishing house. Although I do have deadlines I have to meet, they are beyond flexible because I'm in charge of them. 

I try to write four chapters (two of each book) over a two week period. You'll have seen me mention my progress on my Facebook page. Some weeks I do really well and do what I call "bonus" chapters. Other weeks it's a struggle to get the chapters done and I find that when I get into the last hours of the fortnight, I start to meet roadblocks with my writing. It's only when I take the pressure off that I'm able to start writing again. So for me, using a traditional publisher was not something I could do. I made the choice to go Indie and it's not one I regret because it's the best fit for me. Your mileage may, of course vary, and that's great.

The point is that part of being an indie author is working for yourself in many ways. You need to make sure you have what people need to get yourself noticed. So I have swag for giveaways and I offer up free books for both my own and other authors promotional events. It's all about getting yourself noticed and the word about your work out there and into the public eye. I haven't yet cracked the code to instant success, but I'm happy with what I'm doing.

It's not just those things that make being an indie author an expensive choice but the little things that you don't think of, like doing your own website stuff, or organising a blog book tour. You can hire someone to help you and/or do it for you, but that costs money too. I can't speak for authors who are published through smaller presses, but I know that for me being an indie author means that a lot of the final bills rest at my feet. I made the choice and I'm happy with it and for that reason I stick with it, but man, outsourcing is expensive!

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The Trials Of An Indie Author: Sleep Is Optional, Right?

The Trials Of An Indie Author: Sleep Is Optional, Right?

It's amusing to me that not two hours ago I was writing a piece about the trials of a crime writer. I was typing away, happy as a clam, feeling on top of all the work that comes with being both a writer and an indie author. I figured I would finish a chapter or two and then head to bed with a book, read for a few hours and be happily asleep by midnight. Only it seems my body had other ideas. It's now 23:33 and it doesn't look like I'll be getting much, if any, sleep tonight.

It reminded me that I had planned to write a piece on how sleep seems to be optional when you're a writer. It links back to the many hats an indie author has to wear (and I did a piece about that here) and how because we don't have a whole marketing team et al, we seem to have to do the jobs that other authors would be able to delegate. Case in point, it's past my bed time and I'm working on blog pieces and emails. The job is all encompassing and never ending. It feels like every time I've "caught" up with myself, something else comes along and I'm back with a heavy work load.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't dislike my job and I don't resent my choice to become an indie author. It wasn't a hard choice for me for many reasons, the flexible work schedule being one of them. If I lived in a perfect world, I would probably have someone else who could do the 7am starts and the school run, but I don't and I have to do those myself. If I didn't, then I really wouldn't take issue with being up late most nights writing away. Plus there's the added bonus that when I can't sleep because of pain issues or general insomnia, then I always have something to do with my time.

I sometimes joke with my close friends about how my body seems to think that breathing is optional. As a lifelong severe asthmatic, I've had my fair share (and a few other people's fair shares too) of times when it would be a lot easier if I could quit struggling to breathe and still live to tell the tale. Thankfully I have never stopped breathing all together, though I have come close a few times, but anyone who has fought through an asthma attack knows how terrifying and utterly exhausting it is to fight against your body to draw your next breath. The same, in a way, can be applied to being a chronic fatigue sufferer, along with chronic pain. It's exhausting being fatigued and in pain all the time, it saps away at your strength and at times the easiest things feel like you're running a marathon.

No, I don't regret becoming an indie author and I love the many different parts of my job, but sometimes I do wonder if I could get more time to write if I were able to spend less time trying to sort out my whacked up sleep cycle. It feels like at times I spend precious writing time trying to get back onto a normal 'work during the day/sleep at night' schedule and as you're all aware, I'm not good with schedules as it is. The reasoning behind being up tonight is a mixture of pain, general insomnia and the fact that for a good couple of hours I was in the "zone" (a piece about it can be found here). I was worried that if I stopped for even a short break to do something essential such as sleep, that when I came back to it I would be blocked or would not be able to do the scene justice.

Right now I'm working through my process. Just before I write a death or vision scene, I like to give myself time to work through it in my head. Sometimes it takes only a few minutes, other times I stew over it for days. Tonight though, I am very close to being ready to type it out. It won't be perfect, it never is, but hopefully though it will create less work in the editing stage than if I just went straight ahead and opened a line directly from my brain to my fingers and allowed them to type the first things that popped into my thoughts.

We all have a process for how we do things, mine has been honed over the thirteen or so years that I've been writing and I like to think that I'm getting better at it. Time will tell if that's true or not and maybe I'll look back in another ten years and cringe at myself, but for now I'm happy to declare that right now, sleep is optional as I'm off to create someone's last moments on paper. I can sleep when I'm dead, right?

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The Trials Of A Crime Writer: Maybe I Should Get A Hobby...

The Trials Of A Crime Writer: Maybe I Should Get A Hobby...

When you spend as much time as I do thinking about death, robbery, assaults and other assorted criminal enterprises, you start to wonder if it's "normal". The short answer is that no, it's probably not, but then again, when you have a somewhat healthy outlet for those thoughts, is it really that big a problem? I know what you're thinking, acting out any kind of crime that involves hurting someone else is not healthy no matter how you do it, but for a crime and mystery writer, it's the best way I have so I'm gonna stick with it.

I know I'm not alone in this because there are many other crime writers (and even people who aren't) who sit at home and think up ways to kidnap people, hold them hostage, possibly kill them and get away with it. I know that just because I'm not alone doesn't mean I don't have a problem, but for the moment I'm okay with that. While I would never really kidnap someone and play out my fictional story lines, people pay good money to read about them, so I guess it's more the human race that's unhealthy and not just me!

However, I do think sometimes that maybe I should channel my creative forces into something a bit more productive - like cross stitching or scrap-booking. I do play a little Ukulele and I do cross stitch too, but the majority of my life is taken up with either writing, thinking about writing or doing the admin work that comes from being an indie author. (That's a piece for another day!) I find that because of my health conditions, and the debilitating pain and fatigue I experience on a daily basis, I just don't have the energy to do hobbies, uni work and keep up with my writing. I know that it's probably not all that healthy to focus on the two important ones - uni work and writing - but thankfully, I'll be graduating from uni after five years in October and will have my degree. I figure once I'm done, I'll have all the time in the world to write and be able to spend time on less murderous activities.

That's not to say that I don't love what I do, I honestly don't know what I would be doing if I wasn't a writer. After being retired at nineteen and told that I would probably never be well enough to work in a conventional nine-to-five job again, I turned to writing to fill my "retirement" years. At thirty-two now and no better health wise (actually, I'm worse but that's a story for another time), I have found that my time is closely monitored to make sure that I get my required rest time as well as do the best I can do with my writing. I do like to do the occasional cross-stitch and I also love to read during the times I'm not well enough to work. That's another hobby I suppose. I spend a lot of time reading books by fellow indie authors as well as many traditionally published authors too. I like to lose myself between the pages of someone else's worlds, characters and adventures and while I mostly read crime and mystery, I have been known to go for something a little more light-hearted.

When you're a crime junkie like me, you'll find that you see inspiration everywhere. You read a news report about someone faking their own death and you wonder about how you can weave a similar crime into your own work. Same with many other aspects of everyday life. There have been numerous conversations I've had with people that have found their way, in some form or another, into my work. The human condition is that crime happens, the writer's condition is that you see inspiration in everyday life and you use it for the greater good. I'm sure many other writer's will agree with me when I say that although hobbies such as making cards or crafts would be a better use of our creative talent, they just don't do it for us. Our creative flow needs to be in the written word; basically, we're word nerds and proud of it. But maybe I will look into a hobby...

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The Trials Of A Crime Writer: How Many Ways Can You Kill Someone?

The Trials Of A Crime Writer: How Many Ways Can You Kill Someone?

I was thinking about this today as I wrote one of Tara's many visions. I was also thinking about it as I wrote the piece about my search history (found here) and the one about the things I really shouldn't know (found here). As a crime writer, there are some things that cross both of those subjects and then there's others than come into their own little bubble. Working out a myriad of different ways to kill someone is one of those things.

I wasn't always someone who would look at a case on TV and wonder how to describe that kind of murder. I was always someone who liked crime and mystery media - both books and TV shows - but I like to think that I didn't always wonder about death and destruction and the many different ways you could inflict harm upon a person. Of course, my parents would probably disagree as I was always kinda fascinated by death. I would probably have called it childhood intrigue, but it was rather unhealthy.

So, I decided that when it came to writing my own books, I would delve into the dark recesses of my mind and exploit my own little "hobby" and start to put fictional characters through these things. I know that makes it sound like I'm both a psychopath and a sociopath in that I'm admitting that I enjoy putting people through pain and eventually killing them. I'm not, and I can assure you that I'd never actually do this to a living soul.

My biggest problem now is not that I can't get creative with death, murder and all other kinds of grisly things, more that while I am creative, I have my limits. There is only so much torment a human body can bear and bringing someone to the brink of death and then pulling them back is something that you can only do a handful of times before it starts to get a bit ridiculous. I know that when writing the DYING THOUGHTS series, I have sometimes found myself struggling to make Tara's cases both unique yet believable. I don't like to repeat myself too much, but at the same time, these are generally cases that I'm saying regular people in the police force would see and sometimes, let's face it, murder repeats.

For me it's not just about finding a new way to kill someone, but it's also about the killer's motives behind choosing that manner of death. Is it revenge? Spur of the moment? Are they actually a serial killer who has chosen their own mode of operations and stuck to it? How much forensic evidence are they leaving? Why is Mike calling on Tara? Is there another way it could have happened? What would the victim feel and see at this point? These are all valid questions that I have to answer on a case by case basis and sometimes, it's hard to know the answers until you're actually writing the story.

That said, when it comes to the regular cases that Tara works, I usually have them all planned out before I even put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard in my case). I'm a meticulous planner as mentioned before (a piece about my planning can be found here) and so once I've done the chapter plan and know exactly how many "normal" cases she'll work, I make a note card with all the details about it there ready to be used when I come to that point in the story. However, like I said, some details about it all don't come to me until I've got to the point writing where she's about to have the vision (and sometimes it's WHILE she has the vision) and for those things, it's back to my old friend - Google.

Of course though, there are only a limited number of ways to kill someone even when you do get creative. Shooting, stabbing, poisoning, bludgeoning and suffocation are just a small selection of the ways a person can be killed, but if you're going to do all of those things, pretty soon you'll have a dead person with whom you're just going through the motions. As Tara's gift only works until the person expires, I find that there is little need for me to work out all the details of the crime. Mike's job is to find all of that and mine is to plant the seed, which I have to admit is one of the perks of the job.

When it comes to the overall plot and "case of the book" as it were, that's when things can start to get creative. It's not always a murder that runs through the book and sometimes it's not even a crime that Tara can solve on her own with her visions. As she's developed as a character, I've found other ways to keep her focused on what matters - catching the bad guy without getting killed herself. If you look at some of my other books, BLACKOUT or LYNNE & HOPE for example, they both have crimes that would have been outside of Tara's purview and so while I like to give Tara a good murder or two to work through, I also enjoy putting other characters in situations that don't involve blood and gore.

I think it was a friend of mine who said that one of the perks of being a crime writer is getting to kill people for a living...I don't disagree, it's just that with me writing young adult fiction, people kinda look at you sideways when you say you enjoy torturing teenagers! Can you really blame them?

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The Trials Of A Crime Writer: Things I Shouldn't Know

The Trials of a Cirme Writer: Things I Shouldn't Know

As with my last piece on this subject about my internet search history (found here), there are things about certain topics that I shouldn't have any knowledge of. I mean, the average crime reader these days has some idea about Forensics - even someone who casually watches something like CSI or NCIS knows that too. People often say that criminals are getting smarter, but I think it has more to do with the fact that there is often a play book on the TV or online that shows how to do certain things and not get caught.

Now the majority of my books that deal with crime have a murder plot. It's rare that I deal with any other kinds of crime, other than in passing. My latest book, WAITING ON YOU, is one of the exceptions to that rule. While I wouldn't class it as a crime or mystery book at all, it does include some aspects of criminal behaviour, which of course means that you have to either have watched enough of CASTLE or THE BILL to have some idea about what the police would do in those circumstances. It's not all blood, guts and gore.

However, there are some things that I have no business knowing. I touched on it slightly when writing the other piece in this series about search histories. I shouldn't know that there may not be something called the "perfect" crime, but there are possibilities that come pretty damn close. I am an avid consumer of procedural crime show - I love NCIS and CASTLE and will pretty much give anything a watch a few times if it's crime related and has piqued my interest. I also have numerous books on the subject - both fact and fiction and use those to plot murders (I'll have another piece talking about that) as well as what kind of things police look for when they arrive at the scene of a crime.

Due to the fact that the DYING THOUGHTS series focuses on Tara's ability to see the last moments of someone's life, I do deal a lot with the grisly details of death. I have a pretty good idea how long it would take to alert passers-by to a body on a hot summer day. I know the various stages of decomp, and while I'm nowhere near ready to start separating DNA samples and comparing them to suspects, I also have some idea how a crime lab works from my book, LYNNE & HOPE. These are all things that interest me, and are relevant to my job, but still, I wonder how much of it I just shouldn't know!

In one of the books I'm working on now, there have been a string of violent assaults and deaths. While the deaths are pretty straight forward, the beatings and violence have needed a creative mind. I didn't want the attackers to have a plan. I wanted them to try new things and use different weapons, so at one point they will have used bleach to blind and chemically burn someone, another time they will have just kicked, hit and slashed until they were happy with the damage caused. In another work in progress, I am dealing with a series of violent sexual assaults and murders. Whilst I did want an MO for these attacks, I also wanted them to escalate, starting with just kidnappings, moving onto violent rape, and then onto murder.

These are subjects that require a lot of creative thought and I don't know whether to be proud or horrified that I haven't really struggled to think up new scenarios for each of these pieces. There are some parts of the job that make me question the state of my own mind and staring at bodies in different states of decomposition is one of them. I guess you could say that I've always been rather morbid and at least I'm only killing people in print. Still, you do have to wonder. As they say in CASTLE, there are two kinds of people who sit around thinking up ways to kill people: Mystery writers and psychopaths. I think to think I'm the first.

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Author Blog Tour: The Writing Process

 

(Image found here)

Firstly I'd like to thank Kerry Kijewski who invited me to join her on this blog hop. She introduced me last week on her blog here. Here's some info about Kerry!

I was born blind, but have never allowed anything to stop me from doing what I love. I love to write. It is how I express myself and attempt to make sense of the world around me.
I have a Certificate in Creative Writing. I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and am working on my first book. I also write short stories, memoir, and a blog. My motto has always been to share my view of the world with others through my writing. You can find Kerry on her blog or on Facebook, or Twitter.

Now onto the questions!

1) What am I working on?
Right now I'm working on two different books - approaching the end with both. One is a standalone about four teens looking to end a string of attacks and murders within the LGBTQIPA+ community and finding that they themselves may fall victim to them. The second is the sixth in the DYING THOUGHTS series. Tara, having recently gone through a trauma of her own is learning how life changes. She's out of school and in college with her dad rising back up to fame.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
All of my books are young adult fiction and while they don't always stick to the same pattern, they do have their own uniqueness about them. One reviewer of my work has likened me to Judy Blume, where another says my books are little snippets of teenage life. I feel that I have a different perspective to bring to young adult crime and paranormal fiction. I like to go different places than other writers.

3) Why do I write what I do?
I write YA because I love the period in life when you're faced with all these different opportunities but don't have the know how or life experience to make them and know they are the right ones for you. I love being able to send young teens on an adventure and allow them to get to know where they draw the line between right and wrong. How much is too much? When do the risks stop outweighing the benefits? I've always also been interested in some aspects of the paranormal and my writing allows me to explore some of that.

4) How does your writing process work?
My writing process is complicated and easy at the same time. I don't have any set days where I write, I am a uni student as well and that always takes precedence. Some days I'll write for hours, others I'll sit and type a bit here and a bit there. I set myself four chapters a fortnight - two of each book - and sometimes I'll manage them as well as bonus ones, other times it's like pulling teeth to get the words onto the page. I write because I love it, I love creating and I love knowing that people read and enjoy my work. Some days I just have to remind myself to breath, that the words will come and the story will be told. It just takes time.

Now, I've passed the torch to three other talented authors. Their profiles are below.

First we have Amber Skye Forbes, author of "WHEN STARS DIE"

Amber is a dancing writer who prefers pointe shoes over street shoes, leotards over skirts, and ballet buns over hairstyles. She loves striped tights and bows and will edit your face with a Sharpie if she doesn't like your attitude. She lives in Augusta, Georgia where she writes dark fiction that will one day put her in a psychiatric ward...again. But she doesn't care because her cat is a super hero who will break her out.  Check out her website, her blog, on Tumblr, or follow her on Facebook. You can also add her book on Goodreads here.

Second is Erin Rycer, author of "MARKED FILE"

E.J. Rycer lives north of Boston in Massachusetts’ Merrimack Valley with her husband. With his support and the support of her close friends and family, E.J. finally decided to follow her life-long dream of becoming an author.

For updates on upcoming work and to follow E.J.’s continuing journey as an author you can find her online in the following places: Facebook, her blog, and Goodreads 

And finally is Angella Graff, author of the "JUDAS CURSE" series, as well as the "ALEXANDRA FRY: PRIVATE EYE" series. Her books can be found on Amazon here.

Angella Graff was born and raised in the desert city of Tucson, Arizona. She married and became a mother very young, and after getting started with her family, began her University studies where she found her passion for creative writing, history and theology.

She now resides in Tucson with her husband Joshua, three children, Christian, Isabella and Adia, and their two cats, Archive (Ivy), and Lasciel. She prefers to spend her days writing, gardening, and reading non-fiction theology theory books. Angella is also an avid, if not fanatic fan of Doctor Who and BBC Sherlock, which tend to dominate her dry, sarcastic humor, a lot of which is apparent in her writing.

Currently Angella is working on an Urban Fantasy series called The Judas Curse, involving extensive research into Mythos, Christianity and history.

You can follow Angella on Facebook, her blog, or her official website.

Remember to check out these three awesome writers next Monday for their own pieces on their writing process!

The Trials Of A Crime Writer: Search History

The Trials Of A Crime Writer: Search History

I often wonder what would happen if I were to be suspected of a crime, and the police were to seize my computer and check what I'd been looking at. Is the fact that I'm a crime writer really going to answer to their queries as to why I was wondering how much damage industrial strength bleach could do to a person? What about when they discover the pages I looked at telling me what happens in the moments after death? Or the ones about how much acid would be needing to dissolve a body? Or even the ones looking for answers as to whether there is such as thing as a perfect murder?

Sure, I write YA fiction, but that doesn't mean the facts have to be any less accurate! I do wonder though, if I became famous, would I get away with killing a few people and claiming my search history was research? I'm not a psychopath, officer, I was just checking for my latest novel! I also wonder about the times that I've tested a theory. I'm sure those who have written their own crime novels have done something similar. They've handcuffed themselves and worked out how easy it would be to pick the lock, or they've put a tight zip tie binding their wrists and have to stay sat down whilst they slowly saw their way out with a pen knife...or is that just me?

It's all part of the learning curve and while it does take some time, you eventually start to realise that if you were to go on a murder spree, you would probably have a better idea about what to do with the body or bodies than the average person. I won't give you my perfect murder because I might need to use it one day and I find that putting these things online make the lawyers start the throw around the word "premeditated"!

Then again, it's not just the grisly crime stuff that litters my bookmarked pages and recently viewed history. I also have a pretty good idea about how an autopsy is performed, the manner of a corner's inquest in the UK and the pecking order in the CID branch of a police station. I also know, after years of wondering, what CID actually stands for: Criminal Investigative Division, though technically, isn't that the job of every police
officer?

I know where to hide a body to aid decomp, I know how to estimate time of death and I know various other tests to work out drug levels and other interesting facts once someone has died. I know how to hide the taste of certain poisons, or how to make a murder look accidental and I also know that if I keep going, then one day I may end up regretting posting this piece on the internet for all the world to see.

So, let's be honest. I could probably pick my way out of handcuffs and I know how a lock works, but at the same time, it's purely research. I don't intend to break into someone's house and commit the perfect crime. For one, I think it would be a lot more effort than just writing about it. I've seen a lot of quotes about crime writers and their search histories. One that springs to mind is this: "I became a writer because kidnapping people and forcing them to act out your plots is technically illegal". Only technically because if done right, no one would ever have to know!

I've killed a lot of people, all in print, all in various different ways. I have another piece planned about how many different ways you can kill someone. It's rather interesting when I'm writing the case details for Tara in the DYING THOUGHTS series because I don't like to repeat too many scenarios, I like to keep people guessing, which means that I have to go on the internet and search - or at least I do for the ones I haven't already thought of. Be warned though, I may not be a danger in person, but in print? My keyboard is loaded
and I'm not afraid to use it.

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Why Is Representation Important? - The Creative Process

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Why is Representation Important?

If I'm only able to achieve one thing with my writing, I would be happy for it to be the opportunity to show people that they can see themselves in my characters. One thing that's important for all forms of media is that they portray everyday people. Whether they are disabled or able bodied; black or white; religious or not; gay, straight, transgendered or bisexual; man, woman or gender-queer; from all different ethnicities. It's important for people of all ages to be able to read, watch and play media that allows them to see themselves in the story. Representation in the media is important for everyone.

There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about how few female characters there are that are anything but white. Of how many disabled people are equally represented in the films they see, the games they play and the books they read. I could go on and list all the minorities in the world who face oppression and erasure from these platforms, but I think you can tell who I'm talking about. As a white, bisexual, disabled female, I have experienced some of that erasure. While I cannot and will not talk for those who are not me, I can say that in general terms, there is a need to be recognised as a person. That means that there is a need for people reading books to be able to see their own struggles and achievements shown in their genre of choice.

I recently wrote a piece on being a disabled writer (found here) and have spoken somewhat about how young disabled adults and children need to see that just because you have a disability, it doesn't mean your life is over and that you will never amount to anything. As a young adult author, it is important to me that I am able to share characters who have disabilities. As a bisexual woman, I need to be able to do the same there as well. Diversity in fiction is not a bad thing. Why should the default character be a white man or woman? A young black teenager should be able to read a book and not have to accept that they will always be a background character, nor should a gender-queer teenager, or a disabled teenager. I'm not saying that all my characters are from minority groups, but I like to think that there is a mixture of them. I know that one of the books I am working on at the moment has people from a whole array of different ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations. I can't speak for people from ethnic minorities using my own voice, as that is not my story to tell, but that doesn't mean I should ignore their oppression when I write about these characters and so there has been a lot of research involved, including a large amount of discussion with people from minority groups.

I am disabled though, and I do see a minor amount of disabled characters who don't fit a certain stereotype. I can think of three or four of my books that either have a major character who has a disability of some kind and I know that I will continue to write those characters because I feel that it is my duty to show the young disabled people of this generation that there are people like them who achieve greatness and that with a disability, you are not always condemned to living in the background, out of the limelight. I'm not saying all of this to toot my own horn and collect my trophy for making some of my characters deal with disability. I'm saying this because it's high time that the number of main characters in fiction reflect the number of disabled people in real life. The same goes for those who are a part of any other minority.

Representation matters and it's down to people in charge of the flow of media, such as writers, artists, record labels, toy companies, game designers and so on to start realising that it's no longer acceptable to push people from minority groups into the background, to make them 'redshirts', loveless extras, or the butt of jokes. The young people growing up now need to be able to see a character on the screen at the cinema or on the TV or in their favourite book or even simply in magazine adverts and think "that person's just like me!"

It is 2014, the twenty-first century, and racism is still rampant, gay rights are still being fought for, transgendered and gender-queer people are still scared for their lives, are still abused and ignored, and there is still a wage gap between men and woman. Isn't it time we took a step back and thought about all of this? Realised what we are telling the next generation? That unless they are a white, Western man, then they don't matter. Their needs are not important. They don't need role models because they're always going to be "background" characters. Is that really what we should be telling our children? I, for one, don't think so.

So, yes, representation is very important. The internet is full of places to research and opportunities to talk to people from minority groups, and while it is not their job to educate us just because we demand they do, there are still numerous resources to access to be able to write these characters realistically and give the next generation a chance to realise that yes, they are different, but they are not any less important or any less awesome. That's why representation matters to me.

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Being A Disabled Writer - The Creative Process

Being a disabled writer

I don't really talk much about being disabled in regards to my writing. I have done some posts on having a chronic illness (found here and here) as well as having chronic pain (found here). It's not that I don't like to talk about it, just that I write a lot of pieces and don't want to be seen as going on about the fact that I am also disabled.

There is a lot of negativity surrounding disability in the media. Whether it's books, TV shows or films, usually the disabled person is either a minor character or they're the villain, turned bad when their life was destroyed because of an accident/illness that caused them to become disabled. There's a big need for disabled characters who are shown not just in a positive light, but in a general every day one. Disabled people exist and children and young people facing any kind of disability need to be able to find themselves in fiction. They also need to know that just because you're disabled, doesn't mean that you will rot away in a cupboard somewhere and never amount to anything. We need to remove the stigma of disability and show people that we are just as normal as everyone else. We just have additional needs.

I know that in the chronic illness community, there is a lot of talk about how you shouldn't let your condition "define" you, that you should overcome them and be who you are in spite of it. While that is true, there is also nothing wrong with identifying as disabled and not hiding it from people. As you all know, I have several chronic conditions and all of them effect my life, from the amount of sleep I get to the level of pain I am in, and while I do not think that I am my disease, I also see nothing wrong with saying that I am a disabled person; a writer, a student, an amateur musician, but also disabled.

In my uni courses I have done a lot of reading about what makes up a person's self identity. My last course had a whole section on it and the one I am doing right now does as well. I choose to see myself as disabled, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. We should be removing the taboo from the word and we should be allowed to be proud of both what we've accomplished in life - as a student or a singer or a doctor or whatever - but also not be scared to add the words "I'm disabled" into any of that.

I have written a handful of disabled characters, some as main ones and others as minor characters. I have included disabilities that affect mobility as well as other conditions, such as blindness or mental illness. These are all things that affect everyday people and sometimes just looking at a person will not tell you that they are disabled. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to identify as having a disability, but the opposite it true as well. There are writer's in the Young Adult genre such as John Green, who have written disabled characters and written them well. However, for the number of people affected by a chronic illness or disability in the UK alone (over 11 million according to the Fair Treatment at Work survey in 2008), there are surprisingly few disabled characters in young adult or even adult fiction and those who are often have their disabilities hidden or erased. For example, as great as The Hunger Games books are, it's very easy to forget that Peeta has a prosthetic leg after the first book and it's not even mentioned in the movies.

So yes, I am both chronically ill and disabled. I'm not ashamed of it and while at times, I wish for some aspects of my life to be different (who doesn't?), I'm not going to deny it either. I am proud to say that along with being a published author, I am also living with a disability, there's nothing wrong with that.

Follow Joey on Facebook or here on her blog to be kept up to date with the latest news regarding Joey and her books.