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It only seemed appropriate that a story about hitting the road have a car that made a statement. The 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442, a muscle car, fit the bill. I spent a lot of time researching muscle cars but kept coming back to the Olds. Classy. Roomy. A gas hog, which made it easy to work in another given on a road trip: numerous bathroom breaks.

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Father, Son & Grace

Anton Chekhov is famously quoted as saying that if there's a pistol hanging on the wall in the first act, it should be fired in the next act. In other words, everything that's introduced in a story should have a purpose. When I introduced a pirate in my story, it wasn't with the intention of putting the pirate's dad through an emotional wringer. But then a real-life experience from my past took over.

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Father, Son & Grace

I started driving motorcycles (a Honda 50 step-through) when I was nine years old. As I grew, so did the motorcycles I drove. But none of them were Harleys, and none of them had a sidecar. So when Ray's '69 Olds dies along the highway and he finds himself the owner of a Harley Softtail with sidecar, I realized I had some research to do. One Saturday afternoon my husband's older brother pulled into the driveway on his Honda Gold Wing, and it had a sidecar. I climbed in and learned first-hand what it felt like to be ballast.

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One of the many things that struck me as amazing when I met my brother-in-law for the first time was his ability to disappear into his room and re-emerge a short while later dressed as one of the characters he'd just watched on A-Team. His toy box was full of "props" that helped him transform into any character he chose. I don't know if he ever watched movies with his mother, but it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine he did, and to put that to use in my story.



Father, Son & Grace

Nearing the end of the second week of National Novel Writing Month, my story slowed to a crawl and I struggled to keep the required word count momentum. Then came a motivational email from Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo. I no longer have the email, but it said, in essence, that if you were stuck, put a pirate in your story and keep going. That's what I did.

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When I began writing this story, my preconceived ideas about who the villain would be were two-dimensional and, quite frankly, boring. But then this pathetic, desperate looking man drove on scene in his vintage Mustang and my stereotype character jumped track, making way for a guy I had a whole lot of fun developing on the page.

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Ray, Benny, and Grace's road trip has been anything but boring so far, but they haven't had a lot to laugh about. Then they drive through the Oklahoma panhandle, where pig farms abound. One of my critique pals is big on making sure I remember to include smells in my story. This scene is for her.

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Benny isn't the only character making split-second decisions that take the story's plot in an unexpected direction. I struggled with justifying Ray's response to what he believes his son has done, fielded questions from my beta readers that had me think and rethink the validity of his decision. What it ultimately boiled down to is panic, pure and simple. When people panic, anything can happen.

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Benny's favorite action movie character is the Terminator, played by Arnold Shwarzenegger. He envisions his dad as the strong, invincible hero to his John Connor, the boy who befriends the Terminator and saves the world. But it's the movie Thelma & Louise that launches their cross-country journey into a string of misadventures and a route unplanned. Avoiding Texas is just the beginning.

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Benny isn't like other boys his age -- not because he has Down syndrome, but because he has the ability to sense other people's thoughts. He's not able to do it on command, and sometimes he doesn't hear the words right, but as Grace soon discovers, he can also be uncannily accurate.

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