[stylist] sharing

[Debby Phillips]

One of my favorite authors (especially when I was younger but 
still I like her) is Beverly Butler.  Beverly may not be alive 
anymore, not sure.  She is a blind author.  She has written a 
couple of books where her main character was blind, Light A 
Single Candle and Gift of Gold, I think.  She has written that 
other books with sighted characters, but her descriptions are 
mostly non-visual.  (I believe she was blind from birth).  I 
never felt like I was missing anything, because her descriptions 
are so very clear.  I can't write visually because I don't "know" 
what I'm writing about.  I once wrote a story for an English 
class with an apple-cheeked woman.  I knew it meant that she had 
red cheeks.  But my teacher said that unless I really "knew" what 
an apple-cheeked woman was like, I shouldn't write that way.  If 
I write about a sunny day, with the sun shining warmly down like 
a smile, I can relate to that.  But if I write: "The day was one 
of those days when the sky was as blue as forever" I would just 
be writing words from "pictures" in my mind, but I don't know 
what it really means.  (And yet in a way Can do.  I don't exactly 
know how to explain that.  Oh well.    Debby