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DAY 1 Turn The Light On–Developing Alessio Terracina and Della Cartwright
I started writing Turn The Light On in 2015. I wanted to capture the feeling of suspense and passion between a man who was rarely understood and an older woman that had a big compassionate heart.
Two things were important to me when I started writing it:
- The woman had to be an African American,
- and that women of color be able to identify with her. Too often I have heard people speak negatively about the Strong Black Women Syndrome as if we were not women who can feel emotional pain or understand the essence of loving a man.
The male character is an Italian American living in Europe. His job dangerous. His handicap, Asperger’s Syndrome. Highly intelligent, he comes out of an orphanage.
It was hard to write. I put the story aside for months several times. It is not unusual for me to work on three or four stories at a time, so I would work on something else.
Once, I let him tell who he was to a small group of authors. Some liked him, other didn’t. I think that is when I knew I had pinned him correctly. He stirred the emotions of the authors. They couldn’t remain neutral. So, I had given Alessio breath to live, and then, I focused on getting Della together. There, Alessio helped me. He told me the kind of woman he expected, and Della evolved and lived.
Snippet from Turn the Light On
Alessio Terracina knew he was a strange man. Many considered him weird. His stares and silences were unsettling. That he often drifted away into his own world made people angry and afraid. He sat in the far, right corner of Della’s living room. The sudden blitzes of lightning revealed to him where she stood. His war-ridden soul had awoken as soon as she had walked into her apartment. Had she run to him, he would have embraced her and lost himself in her warmth as he held her. But how could she have known that he had been so badly wounded? Getting dismissed from the hospital and then arranging the evening for them, had been his highest priority. He wanted to show her just how much he cared.
He was proud of the fact that the silent moments between them had taught her how to recognize him without announcement. She was now like a part of his team. Only they had learned to recognize where he was. They could precisely pinpoint him anywhere. Alessio smiled, relishing the courage she had displayed by not breaking the silence. She had learned well to respect the intensity of an unspoken word, evoking an emotion simmering between two people … both yearning for acceptance and love. His mind wandered, enjoying the silent waves of intimacy flowing between them as he mulled over her questions. This empathic understanding that they shared, heightened his desire to cover her with his body, and let her soothe away his pain, while he wiped away her tears.
At the age of three, he was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. Alessio had grown up in an environment that rarely understood him – an orphanage. Eight boys at the orphanage had become his friends and supporters. Seven of them were now his teammates, and Jeffrey, the eighth, had become his manservant. Except for those eight men, Alessio didn’t trust anyone, including his higher-ups. He had long discovered that lawmakers and politicians were more interchangeable than the wind, due to their greed.
About Turn The Light On
Would you ever accept a dinner invitation to meet a stranger who never spoke one word to you during your time together? Would you accept that you could not even sit at the same table with them? How about, you don’t even know their name and you continue this “game” for months?
Meet Della Cartwright. A superstar at what she does professionally, but when the tall, mysterious, Italian stranger, Alessio Terracina, enters her world, she begins to question her judgment and everything about her.
In this short story which takes place over the course of one day, this otherwise savvy businesswoman is led into making decisions that could jeopardize her professional life and maybe even cost her her freedom. But the greatest danger…just might be to her fragile heart.
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About Pat Garcia
Pat Garcia can’t remember a day when she didn’t desire to write. At the age of three, Pat wrote her first story. No one could understand it because she hadn’t learned to write. So, she read the scribble on her paper to whoever would listen. Born in Blythe, Georgia, (USA), she is also a musician, singer, and songwriter and has released five CDs.
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