Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Social Worker in Print Form

My goal when I was in college was to save every abused child in Indiana.

Didn't. Quite. Happen.

I discovered I was also very good at counseling domestic abuse victims, but when my senior year rolled around, I was so stressed from working a full-time waitress job and juggling 18 credit hours in order to graduate, I lost my fire.

I just wanted to finish the romance book I had been writing for four years and work some mindless job that didn't require me to THINK!

Couple my first job that I loved (except for having to drive in snow and ice, lol...) with an emotionally controlling idiot and you have a recipe for disaster. So after getting out of that situation, I decided to write about the experience, and it proved to be very theraputic.



But my counseling training is still swirling up inside my brain, and now whenever I write, the strangest twists come out. In Wild At Heart, it was the issue of attempted rape, which has now been changed to simply a breaking and entering, alongside a secondary character dealing with a gambling problem and needing an intervention.













Teacher's Pet
(arriving soon from Freya's Bower) deals with sexual harrassment and the issue of extreme emotional damage.














Appetite For Desire (arriving in September from Secret Cravings) seemed 'normal', until a character mentioned his ex had an eating disorder and was determined to foist it on the kids. All She Ever Wanted is a modern Romeo/Juliet problem, in which if you've read it, know that it does have a different ending than Shakespear's














One current wip seemed perfectly normal, until the heroine revealed why she reacted so negatively to a stranger's kiss. I was thinking maybe he simply reminded her of someone in the past? No. All of a sudden, it turns out she'd been raped as a teenager! Whoa...where the hell did THAT come from??

For the record, I've never been in that situation, nor has any of my friends been through this. But the past couple of Jody Picoult books have, so maybe my brain is wanting me to wear my social worker's hat alongside the one which says 'Author'.

Sigh...I'll continue to write and see where this takes me! Wish me luck...

7 comments:

  1. Isn't it funny where our minds take us? Your books sound fascinating and I'm glad you decided to finish that romance novel:)

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  2. I just noticed the other day that most of my male main characters are these tortured hero types. I don't even know any tortured hero men! It's definitley interesting where the muse leads us!

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  3. Your books sound very interesting, Molly. I love plots that deal with issues facing women. I'm sure your many, many fans would agree. :)

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  4. Great post. The mind is a great thing.

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  5. @Paris: That book turned out to be not 'romance' but 'women's fiction'. And the one with the 'theraputic' aspect? Book #4 of AU, still waiting in the wings for #3 to be accepted first.

    @Miranda: My early ones seem to all smoke. Funny, when you realize I have asthma! A 'what-was-I-thinking?' moment:)

    @Tina: Thank you:) Always thrilled to find someone who doesn't mind a little realism mixed in:)

    @Harlie: That's the truth!

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  6. Isn't the mind wonderful. This morning I woke up at three oclock with the basic plot of a new book after I finish the current WIP. Thought I was too wrapped up in the current one, called Double the Trouble, but no, my brain thought differently.

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  7. I have several of your great books! I have thoroughly enjoyed the ones I have.

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