Welcome Wednesday – Getting Political
Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!
This Monday was President’s Day, and we’re in the middle of the 2016 Presidential race, so let’s talk about politics today. Or, at least, let’s talk about how you deal with politics in your books. Authors, post in the comments and tell us if you deal with any political themes or characters in your books; or tell us how, or if at all, your own political views come out in your writing.
I’ll begin…
I try to keep my own politics out of my books (if yo’ve read any of the books, you can tell me whether you think I manage that or not!), and for the most part I also don’t deal with politics within the world of the Dream Series. There are a couple of exceptions, though. In book three, DREAM CHILD, the plot involves a corrupt Congressman who’s being blackmailed by a mobster. And in book nine, FEVER DREAM, the antagonist of the book is a (not at all thinly) veiled take on the disgraced ex-Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer.
Here’s an excerpt from DREAM CHILD, where Sara and her daughter Lizzie sit down to dinner with said corrupt Congressman…
“I’m a Congressman. Do you know what that is?”
Lizzie answers immediately. “We saw it today! That’s the big white building with the big round top and the statue at the very tippy-top.”
“That’s where I work,” Pete agrees. “But do you know what we do there?”
Lizzie shakes her head. I’m sure she got a running commentary about it from her grandmother, even if it probably all went in one ear and straight out the other. “Didn’t Grandma Helen tell you about it, when you were out today?”
“She said a lot of stuff,” Lizzie admits, then she concentrates, trying to remember anything that Helen told her. Compared to ice-skating for the first time, I’m not surprised that nothing else really stuck with Lizzie. But I’m wrong. “She said – she said – that’s where they tell everybody in the whole country what to do.” She fixes Pete with a very serious stare. “Is that your job? Do you tell everybody what to do?”
Pete grins. “It’s a little bit more complicated than that.”
Lizzie has an immediate answer. “Com – com – comlickpated is what Mommy says when I ask her and she doesn’t want to tell me something.” I look at Pete apologetically. I guess I’ve kind of raised a monster. On the other hand, she is sort of right. It’s my own fault – if I don’t want her asking difficult questions, I shouldn’t bring her with me to the hospital.
“There’s no getting anything past you, is there?” Pete says, still grinning. “Let me explain it this way. Your parents don’t tell you what to do every minute, but they make rules for you so you’ll be safe, and healthy and so you can grow up the way you should. That’s kind of what the Congress does, except for the whole country.”
Lizzie considers that. “Like no ice cream before dinner and no running in the street and never ever ever ever touch the ox – oxy – oxygen machine?”
And now it’s your turn!
(when you’re done here, please stop by Exquisite Quills, where there are daily memes just like this one and plenty of fantastic authors you can discover!)
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