January 20, 1946

You probably have heard of Susan Vreeland (January 20, 1946); her The Girl in Hyacinth Blue (1999) made a splash. What Love Sees is her first novel, published in 1988. This story, based on actual events, involves a couple who are both blind, raising a family on a ranch. This is the context of a scene where we read, "Feeling for the pan of soup, she found the cat on the counter, her head in the pan. ... She pitched the cat as hard as she could outside."

A Guardian review of another Vreeland book, The Passion of Artemisia (2002) (about a 17th century female artist) points out:

'It is a truism that, with writers who are gifted but not the best, literary quality often is in inverse proportion to plot or storytelling. This month's best debuts are cases in point....
The author describes herself as being like 'a painter who clothes figures from centuries earlier in the garb of his or her own time', but here it is their thoughts and attitudes that are anachronistic...
Artemisia is far too much of a feminist to feel the shame of being raped - which even our enlightened contemporaries often cannot help feeling. Then, when a sucker is found to marry her, she is surprised and disillusioned to discover that he was after her dowry. Theirs becomes a Ricky Ricardo-and-Lucy union: a painter himself, he is jealous of her talent and success.
Then there is Artemisia and pal Galileo, appreciating the higher things as only geniuses together can do. And finally her attitude to being an artist: that art is a high calling worth sacrificing other parts of life for - in an age that regarded it as jobwork. She is such a genius that she anticipates the Romantics by about 150 years....'

The writing habits of Vreeland are interesting if not unexpected. Here are details from an interview, slightly reformatted:

....
'Are you a daydreamer too?

I sometimes work myself into a quiet mental space whereby the next chapter of a novel will come to me, or the next thing a character says or does.'

'Have you always wanted to be a writer?

No. The urge started in 1984 when I was forty.'

....
'Where do you write, and when?
I have a beautiful office with wood built-ins. From my desk, I can look through the glass French doors onto a patio. When? Morning, noon, and night, my dear.'

'What is your favourite part of writing?

Rewriting.'

'What do you do when you get blocked? 

Change activities, while keeping the chapter that comes next floating in my thoughts.'

'How do you keep your well of inspiration full?

I remind myself to listen to the one divine Mind of the universe which is offering me ideas and directing me. I deeply feel gratitude to this source for what I've just written.'

'Do you have any rituals that help you to write?

I try to do some reading of a spiritual nature in the morning before I start work.'

'Who are ten of your favourite writers?

Virginia Woolf
Shakespeare
Robert Frost
Sena Jeter Naslund
Stephen Dunn, poet
Emily Dickinson
Emily Carr, Canadian painter
Harper Lee'

'What do you consider to be good writing? A delicate touch of imagery, a compelling story, a handful of themes that resonate currently even though the work may take place ages ago, an appealing voice, an occasional surprise.
....'

Even bad writers make good stories.