All or Nothing

By Susan

My husband is a detail kinda guy. He's an engineer, after all. He likes order, and process, and structure. With that said, I realized early in our relationship that he's an all-or-nothing man. He's loyal to his friends for a lifetime, he's a boss's dream employee. As a spouse, he's a fantastic home chef, he loves his children without reservation, and it's fun to watch him dive into a new project--whether that means a 24-hour mountain bike race (he just completed 24 Hours of Moab in October) or planting a garden so we have fresh vegetables and chilies.

Halloween was no exception. For the past several years, he's been out of town for work when trick-or-treating comes around. This year, he decided to use his God-given size and fantastic square head to create the perfect monster. After a trip to Goodwill for the too-small coat and two hours of makeup, he became Frankenstein--the scariest our neighborhood had ever seen.

It wasn't just the makeup or the clothes. He was in-character, lurking behind trees, straight-arming little girls who came too close. He practiced his walk before the sun set, to make sure he had just the right creep factor. ("I don't want to appear too zombie. Am I walking too zombie?" he asked.) All or nothing. It's the only way to go, for him.

It made me revisit some of my own characters in my current manuscript. Which one would go all out on Halloween? Would my protagonist organize her research papers, or scatter them wildly? Did I know the motivation for each character? I wasn't sure I knew the answers to those questions. Do I know my own characters as well as I know my husband?

I decided that if I didn't, I'd better get to know them, and quickly. Because with the characters we create, it's all or nothing, too.

With my newly-found critical eye, I've also spent some time reading a fellow writer's latest manuscript, and I've turned the microscope on her characters as well. By page fifty, I wasn't sure if I knew any quirky traits of the main players. Even if two characters have the same profession, they don't have the same personalities. Which one is the life of the party, who is the wallflower? What traits set them apart?

If you don't know your characters inside and out, sometimes they get unruly and you're not sure why. It might be because you don't know them well enough. It didn't surprise me that my husband decided to Frankenstein-up his holiday. And I couldn't imagine him doing it any other way than exactly how he did it. (What other man would spend two hours on makeup?) I knew it because he's my spouse. And the only way to know our characters is to view them the same way.

What I Learned From Picture-a-Day

by Joan

Every morning of my son’s senior year, I downed enough coffee to perk me up to take a decent picture before he ran out the door. Occasionally I'd review them, but at that point the experience of the moment outweighed the end product.

Here we are a month after the last hug I’ll have for a while and sometimes I revisit those images when I’m missing Austin the most. What I wouldn’t give to see his nose in a magazine or newspaper next to a bowl of sugary milk, to welcome him down the stairs, willing to pose yet again, to see his proud smile showing off the place he will call home for the next four years.

Scrolling through the images now, I notice subtle differences over time: increasingly tired eyes from late nights studying, overdue haircuts, and as the year progresses, diminishing stress levels as college acceptances arrive, relief when a final choice is made and finally, celebration after the last test and graduation ceremonies.

Yesterday I had a brilliant idea. It would make much more sense to get a daily picture now, while he’s half way across the country! So I texted him:

“Can you text me a picture?”

“Sure, why?” (attaches image, though his back is to the light and it’s not a great shot)

“Cause I’m blogging about how we should have done a college picture-a-day project since now I can’t see the real thing every day. And by the way, Dad says the picture will come out better if you face the window instead.”

“I’ll agree for the picture, but let’s not make this a habitual thing.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that!” Dang, I guess he won’t go for it.

“Haha, okay, here you go.”


It won’t surprise you to know I hope my husband and I have done a good job. I get a kick out of revisiting the past year and miss Austin's face every day.

If I’ve done my job with my manuscript, readers will want to revisit the images of The Architects at Highgate. (Yes, beta readers, I realize adding an “s” does not adequately change the title!) They will fall in love with my characters as the story unfolds, yearn to know what those characters are doing long after they close the book.

As I add the finishing touches I need to ask myself: After living with Gabriel, Luca, Janey and Aidan over the course of the book, have I left my readers wanting more?

I won’t have more pictures-a-day of Austin this year, but most days we text and we talk to him via FaceTime once a week. Yesterday he said he bought some cereal and, in my mind’s eye, each morning he reads the school newspaper next to his bowl of sugary milk. And next month I’ll get a real hug.