Allison Baggio's Blog, page 4

Reading Room

  

I said I couldn't do it, but I finally broke down and read Emma Donoghue's Room. I know I am a little late to theparty on this, as this book has received A LOT of attention in the past year.But, as mentioned in my previous "What Scares You" post, I was, well, a bitscared of reading this book. My fear mainly grew from the fact that thenarrator of the story is Jack, a five-year-old boy who has grown up trapped ina tiny backyard shed with his mother. Yikes! The uncomfortable factor on thatis...

Introducing . . .

Letting Go - Part 2

Over the
last three week, I have been working on my next/final round of edits of Girl in Shades with my Editor at ECW
Press. As I got near the end of this process, I was surprised to feel myself
hesitating to go back to it. This was strange for me, because I am not a
procrastinator by nature. I would rather get things like this done, than have
them hanging over my head.

Then I
realized, that after seven years of working on this manuscript (I started it
March 1, 2004), this could be it! I...

What Scares You Most?

Are
writers compelled to write about the things that scare them most? 

This is thequestion I ask when I find myself researching topics like "Traumatic BrainInjury in Young People" in order to write a story. Why, as the mother of twoyoung children, would I choose to tackle such a subject? Rationally, I knowthat it would probably be more comfortable to not choose these kinds of topics.After all, I avoid TV shows that have been known to show bad things happeningto young kids and I close my eyes...

From There to Here

I really believe that
everyone can write if they practice tapping into the part of themselves that
holds their fresh and creative thought. However, are some of us just born with
a stronger need to write? I think I might have been . . .

 atthe time, but I digress). My teacher did not assign these...

Is that you??

I recently read a novel in which the protagonist suffered from an eating disorder. Upon discovering this, I instinctively flipped to the back cover to take a look at the author, thinking, "Ah, so there is someone who has had this particular eating disorder." I stopped myself. Who was I as a reader, to make such an assumption about an author's life, just because said author has written about a character with a particular struggle?

Then it hit me: Are my readers going to be making these...