{"id":1376,"date":"2006-04-25T05:27:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-25T05:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/04\/juicy-new-project\/"},"modified":"2006-04-25T05:27:00","modified_gmt":"2006-04-25T05:27:00","slug":"juicy-new-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/04\/juicy-new-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Juicy New Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been writing my novel<\/a>, so my energy has been going into that rather than the blog. That is a good thing, however, because I need to have a big writing project<\/a> again; my emotional and creative energy have been so scattered and shredded lately. I met with my editor last week for lunch and although it was great seeing her and catching up, and talking about potential projects, I walked away a little shaken. This is because she had listened to my new autism book proposal, and she told me that it was a “smaller book” than MPWA. Translates to = narrower market, paperback original, smaller advance. “Why don’t you write about ______?” she suggested, a topic that we both knew that a friend of mine is working on and trying to sell. This felt lousy to me and, although an interesting topic, I could never do that to a friend. <\/p>\n

BLAH. Back to square one.<\/p>\n

But by Saturday, my head was back with Natalie and her boys, Nick, Henry, and Dan. Nick is very sweet and severely autistic, Henry is also a wonderful boy but struggling with drugs, and feisty Dan is struggling with being the youngest in a family that is very challenging. Natalie is separated from her husband Todd and is beginning to see other men. Her husband finds out and things become very<\/span> complicated<\/span>. My agent is discouraging me from going the fiction route; so much harder to sell. My editor: definitely not their kind of book<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But while doing an excellent workout on Saturday, I thought of the twist that I think will make my book interesting and edgy, and of course it has to do with playing around the edges of traditional marital fidelity, and keeping a family together in emotionally trying circumstances. Here’s a new excerpt:<\/p>\n

Nat dialed the pizza place the moment she got in the door. \u201cHenry!\u201d she called with the phone on her ear. \u201cAre you going to eat?\u201d
\u201cYeah!\u201d
Henry had stayed home from school today because he\u2019d been so sick last night. Nat had had to force him. He claimed he was fine, but she thought he looked green around the gills, as her mother used to say. Must have picked something up at Todd\u2019s.
\u201cNick, will you come in here and help Mommy with the table?\u201d
Nick got up from his spot on the couch and pulled a napkin out of the drawer.
\u201cThere\u2019s more than one person eating, ya know,\u201d came Dan\u2019s voice out of nowhere.
\u201cDan, where are you?\u201d
\u201cIn here.\u201d
Nat looked around the kitchen, under the table, but couldn\u2019t find him.
\u201cHere.\u201d
The voice was coming from the slats in the louvred pantry closet. He couldn\u2019t possibly fit \u2013 she pulled the door open and Dan came tumbling out. \u201cOw!\u201d
\u201cWell, honey, why were you in there? You\u2019re too big for that.\u201d
\u201cI like it in there. I can be a spy. And let me tell you: that guy does NOT know how to set a table.\u201d
\u201cWell, why don\u2019t you show him?\u201d Nat asked, running out of patience. She got out the juice and the salt.
\u201cHey, I thought we were doing that!\u201d
We. She liked that. Dan and Nick, doing something together. She smiled and stepped back from the fridge. \u201cOh, sorry. Didn\u2019t mean to get in your way. Go for it, guys!\u201d
\u201cYes,\u201d said Nick, hurrying to pull out one more napkin.
\u201cYou need three<\/span> more!\u201d shouted Dan.
Nick put the napkin down and brought his palm down hard on Dan\u2019s head.
\u201cOw! Stop that!\u201d
Nick kept hitting in a blind rage, and then started biting his own arm as Dan began shrieking and crying.
Nat came running in from the dining room. \u201cNick! Nick! Sit down,\u201d she pointed at the floor. \u201cTime out.\u201d
Nick sat down immediately but kept biting his arm.
\u201cCalm hands, Nick. Calm hands.\u201d
\u201cThat guy is a stupid idiot freak!\u201d Dan was rubbing his head. \u201cI\u2019ll never forgive him for this! Never! I’m telling the President!\u201d He stomped out of the room.
\u201cIdiotfreak whoooom,\u201d said Nick, covering his eyes. \u201cSorry I yelled at you.\u201d
\u201cOh, Baby,\u201d Nat said, and started to cry. \u201cOh God. I can\u2019t do this. I can\u2019t do this.\u201d She balled herself up in the corner by the pantry door and just cried. After a while, she became aware of someone standing right next to her, completely quiet. Nick.
\u201cCrying,\u201d Nick said. \u201cMommy sad.\u201d He was peering down into her face. He put his hands on her cheeks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been writing my novel, so my energy has been going into that rather than the blog. That is a good thing, however, because I need to have a big writing project again; my emotional and creative energy have been so scattered and shredded lately. I met with my editor last week for lunch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-mc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}