In my short story “In Between”, Martina Glover is in the process of transitioning from male to female. But she’s not a girly-girl. She identifies as a butch lesbian. This leads to problems with her therapist who has strict standards about who should be allowed to get sex reassignment surgery and who shouldn’t. What’s a girl to do?

I want to thank Mila and Jayna Pavlin of the Trans-Ponder podcast for discussing the issues of self-determination and the control of the medical community over trans-identified individuals.

I hope you enjoy the story. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes. And please, leave me feedback!

Tomorrow, I hope to finish working on Chapter 4 in my novel Desert Witch.

When I write rough drafts, I have a tendency to leave out a lot of internalization.  I’m more interested in getting the skeleton of the scene (primarily the action) on paper. But as I was reminded yesterday at my writer’s group, the skeleton isn’t enough. A skeleton with muscles isn’t enough. If I want my scene to really pop, I need to really flesh it out and that means nailing the internalization.

For those not familiar with the term, internalization is when you share what’s going on in your POV character’s head. This is important because it helps the reader see more of the conflict that this character is dealing with and what the potential consequences might be. You can set up foreshadowing and build tension.

Why not just demonstrate that in dialogue and action? Because what a person does or says may be different than what they are thinking. It adds an additional dimension to the character and also the story.

In the prologue of the story I’m working on, my POV character is trying to comply with requests made of her by another character. At the same time, she is trying to figure out why that other character is acting so strange. She comes up with a plan to manipulate the other character, plans that will soon be dashed. Drama! Tragedy!

Providing internalization also helps the reader understand why your POV character makes a sudden change in behavior. If you character has been going along with things, but suddenly rebels, internalization can keep your reader from losing the connection to the character. You don’t want to pop that believability bubble.

Not all stories require a lot of internalization. You will find more in some genres (literary, women’s fiction, romance) than others (spy thrillers, hardcore sci-fi). But more often than not, a little can draw your reader further into your make-believe world.

As I mentioned earlier, writing rough drafts is tough most of the time. So many decisions on what the story should be, how to make it unique and how to tell it.  It takes a while to build up some momentum, but once I do, I find some brief moments when the writing gets a little easier. It’s almost fun! LOL.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve written a prologue and the third chapter of my novel Desert Witch. I’ve also made progress on a short story titled “Chaperone”. I like times like this.

• What does this character want?
• What is preventing her/him/hir from getting it?
• How can I begin the story so that the reader is immediately intrigued?
• How do I introduce the character’s “ordinary world” in a way that is far from ordinary?
• How do I bring these characters to life ?

I tend to go into this thinking that failure is not an option. However, that stifles my brainstorming because I criticize every idea before it has a chance to become something. What I need to realize is that failure is mandatory.  In other words, I have to allow for a whole host of bad ideas in order for me to find the ones that will make my story shine.

Today, I’ve been working on another short story. This one is set in a fictional town in southern California. It’s been like pulling teeth today, but it’ll get easier. Maybe I need another latte.

If you haven’t already done so, please take a listen to “Sappho” and let me know what you think.

You are welcome to download the story onto you computer or MP3 player. You’re also welcome to forward it to your friends. Just don’t change it or sell it.

A little background on the story–This is my first short story in twenty-five years. It was originally written for a contest which gave me the title. My first thought was what if a zealous lesbian parent named her child Sappho. What would life be like for that child? This story is my answer to that question.

I hope you enjoy it!

Sappho is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at dharmashanti @ gmail. com.

I haven’t done much writing in the past week and today was no exception. Among my many distractions (some of which are positive things) are helping a fellow writer get a better understanding of story structure (and getting to know her better–she is so cool), and redesigning my Web site.

The Web site redesign is major, but when it’s done, my site is going to rock your socks off. I am learning a lot about XHTML, CSS, PHP, etc. Much better than the old HTML. Tables are for meals not websites.

Stay tuned!