I'm Suzanne Flaig, author, editor, avid reader, former piano teacher, rollerskater, grandmother and great-grandmother. My alter egos are Missy Jenkins (protagonist of the Missy Jenkins musical mystery series) and Rachel Yost (protagonist of a forthcoming Amish mystery novel). I've been writing and editing for over twenty years and hope to share some of what I learned along the way. My friends call me Sue. I hope you will, too.
Inviting you into my brain is my way of warning you of my schizophrenia - writing-wise, that is. Left brain, right brain. I'm a writer, so when I'm writing the creative right side runs the show. I'm having loads of fun, inventing characters, putting them in interesting places, and getting them into and out of difficult situations. Then, suddenly, I'm faced with a manuscript that must be edited or critiqued and my serious left brain breaks through, forcing me to buckle down and concentrate on grammar, style, sentence structure, etc. - all those important details that are necessary to make a good story better, and a better story great. That darn left brain! But what would right brain do without her?
Schizophrenia rears its crazy head in many ways. Sometimes I'm Suzanne, sometimes I'm Missy, sometimes I'm Rachel. Sometimes my mind is grammatically correct, and my speech behaves like a proper lady. Sometimes my Pennsylvania Dutch roots push up like beautiful yellow dandelions and I "chust" can't help myself from ending my sentences with a preposition. An added layer: as a foreign language major in college, many years ago, there are times when an English word eludes me because the French or German word pops in first.
So, that's me in a nutshell. Or should I say, my brain in a bowl of mixed nuts! But really, there are a lot of tasty morsels if you care to join me. I'll share what I've learned about writing and editing, music and mystery, skating and life in general.
See ya later,
Sue
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