{"id":3940,"date":"2016-12-16T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T14:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/?p=3940"},"modified":"2020-12-09T22:15:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T22:15:43","slug":"finding-yourself-in-a-book-why-i-wrote-blind-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2016\/12\/16\/finding-yourself-in-a-book-why-i-wrote-blind-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Yourself in a Book: Why I Wrote Blind Spot<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the age of three, I was fascinated with books.  I lived in the outskirts of Fairbanks, Alaska, in a wooded area far from the city, and I loved that I could read about girls like me living vastly different lives. With a book, I could travel to real and imaginary lands, hang out with aliens or gnomes, solve mysteries alongside detectives and amateur sleuths…. Anything I could imagine, I could experience inside a book. Then, at age 14, I was diagnosed with a juvenile form of macular degeneration, which basically creates a blind spot in your central vision. I struggled with how I and others perceived me; naturally, I turned to books for help.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I started by checking out every book I could find with a character who was blind.  This was the early \u201980s, though \u2060\u2014 there really wasn\u2019t a lot out there.  Besides the Helen Keller story and the Little House<\/em> books, I think I only found two with blind characters. Unsatisfied, I moved on to any book with a character who had a disability. The more I found (or didn\u2019t find) the more frustrated I got because not only were a lot of the books I found rather boring, but also it seemed that every book shared the same two characteristics.<\/p>\n

First, each seemed to be written for the \u201cable-bodied\u201d and served as a sort of handbook on how a person with a disability does things differently \u2060\u2014 how she uses her hands to read instead of her eyes; how she reads lips instead of using her ears, etc. The second frustrating attribute was how the person with the disability was portrayed.  She was always a nice, sweet person who let the misunderstandings and insults roll off her back; she was the super good person that the other characters wanted to be like, the one that had everything under control and was wise beyond her years. To my dismay, she was a person I could not identify with at that point in my life, and it left me feeling abnormal and empty.<\/p>\n

Where were the books written for the girl who was struggling with her disability? Where were the books about the angry, depressed girl who didn\u2019t know how to let stuff roll off her back? Where were the books about the not-so-sweet, not-so-nice girl who lashed out at everyone who meant well? As anyone with an acquired disability will tell you, you go through a process similar to the grieving process when you lose a physical ability. You experience denial and anger and depression long before you ever reach self-awareness and are able to accept yourself.  You push away the right people while clinging to the wrong ones. You often give up on the right things while trying the wrong things. In a nutshell, having a disability can mess you up emotionally \u2060\u2014 so where were all the books about that?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I never found any, and subsequently never found \u201cme\u201d in any books. That\u2019s why, decades later, when I decided to \u201cwrite what I know\u201d and have a visually impaired protagonist, I revisited that part of my life to figure out exactly what I wanted \u2060\u2014 and didn\u2019t want \u2060\u2014 that book to include. I wanted first and foremost to write a thriller that would be engaging and keep the reader turning the pages, because why write a book that isn\u2019t engaging? But beyond that, I knew I did not want it to be an \u201cissue\u201d book that would mimic those \u201chandbook\u201d style books I found in the \u201980s.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBUY ON BOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tBOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t& support independent bookstores\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/article> \n\n\t<\/center><\/div>As I began writing, I realized I wanted this story to be for the angry, lost teen I was back then. I wanted to write about a real girl with real emotions struggling in a world that too often is unforgiving to those who don\u2019t fit the right mold.  I wanted to write a story for that girl who already knew what it was like to have an impairment, who already knew how cruel the world can be, who already knew she didn\u2019t always react the way people expected. Basically, I wanted to write the book that said \u201chey, it\u2019s okay, you\u2019re okay \u2060\u2014 now stop wallowing in self-pity and take a look around you.\u201d<\/p>\n

What I came up with was Blind Spot<\/em><\/a>, a YA about sixteen-year-old Roswell Hart. Roswell is so desperate to prove she is \u201cnormal\u201d despite her visual impairment that she is oblivious to everything going on around her. She trusts the wrong people, pushes away the right ones, misses the clues and the signs \u2060\u2014 and suddenly \u201cwakes up\u201d in the middle of a nightmare in which she must prove her innocence in a classmate\u2019s death.  Blind Spot<\/em> is the book I would\u2019ve wanted to find when I was 14 \u2060\u2014 a page-turner that kept me up all night while giving me a glimpse of myself in the process. I hope it does the same for others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wanted to write about a real girl with real emotions struggling in a world that too often is unforgiving to those who don\u2019t fit the right mold. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":4089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[57,527],"tags":[310],"genre":[5],"age_category":[8],"disability":[68],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3940"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7083,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions\/7083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3940"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=3940"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=3940"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=3940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}