Violet Wilson

[This is the novel about the single mother of Sam, who is 7 years old in this scene. It's already established (or will be once more of those scenes are written) that he's musically gifted. Prior to this scene, he was trying to learn to play violin, but his 7-year-old dexterity couldn't keep up with his perfectionism; he couldn't stand the sound of notes not being exactly in tune, and he also couldn't tolerate the sound being so close to his ear; he wanted the violin to sound like it sounded when he listened to a recording or to a person in front of him on stage. So Larry, his uncle, installed a fairly standard program on the computer that lets Sam play music on a keyboard and have the notes he plays write themselves on a staff, where he can then edit and play back the phrases in the "voices" of whatever instruments he wants.]

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The random detail about getting ice cream ended up leading somewhere I'm not altogether unpleased with.

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This chapter didn't go where I intended it to go. Which makes me feel like one of those stereotypical flighty artsy-fartsy writers, except I like where it went.

[Reminder, since it's been a while: Trudy is blind, but when she and Amy touch, she sees what Amy sees; Amy, who is aphasic, understands language only when the two are in contact. Susan in their foster mother, who knows none of this.]

( Chapter 8 behind the cut... )

Two scenes; "Adam" in the first scene is Trudy's social worker. ( Read more... )

I almost always write scenes in order, not skipping over anything, but I decided to go against every fiber of my authorial being and go straight to the pivotal scene. So I've skipped over the scene where Trudy meets Amy — who is nonverbal but does babble with speech-like cadences — most likely insults her, gets reprimanded by the foster parents, and just in general is a bitch and gets called on it, despite having just tried to kill herself. Anyway, I want this scene to be confusing, since it is from Trudy's point of view and makes no sense to her. But I don't want it to be too confusing, or at least not too infuriatingly confusing. So I welcome critique on whether anyone has a clue of what's going on, and if not, whether you are okay with that for now.
( And: scene: )

The intro to a YA novel I haven't worked on since 2002. Apparently I only wrote half this one scene at the time, then kinda dropped it.

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