Gainesville, Texas DAILY REGISTER (Sunday, July 20, 2003)
by Jodelle Greiner
Lifestyle Editor
Robin Sutton is many things: wife, businesswoman and firstime author of "The Princess and The Rose." But it's in her role as mother that she's learned the most and indirectly the reason she started her business and became an author. Sutton, a self-described "Air Force brat," grew up all over the United States. Born in Mississippi, she graduated from high school in Houston.
In 1986, she married her husband, ("he goes by Max,") and had her first child, Jonathan, in 1991. Her second child, Jason, made a dramatic appearance and has continued to do so every since. "We had our second one in 1995, moving to Fort Worth. We closed on a Friday, moved in on Tuesday, I had him on Sunday - in an hour and half!" she said, laughing. "And that's only because I held back so my husband wouldn't have to do it in the car!"
After a while, she and her husband started to suspect something was different with their second son. "He wasn't talking, he had no eye contact, he couldn't sit still and do anything," Sutton recalled. "He was about 2, when even the doctors started questioning it." Understanding came when watching a movie. "We were taking him to doctors and what made me think of it was watching 'Rain Man,'" Sutton said, of the movie that starred Dustin Hoffman as an autistic man. "I saw similarities. I sat there and watched 'Rain Man' and I looked at my son's routines. I can't watch that movie now 'cause I'll cry because I see my son.
"Autism is just so complicated and there's so many different levels and no set cause," Sutton said. "You get bombarded with 'change their eating habits' or with shorts, or with this or that," Sutton said with a sigh. "If they come up with a cure, that's great, but we don't know exactly what caused it." She and her husband have taken the attitude, "You've got it. Let's just let his life be the best it can be."
"He's borderline (autistic) and they say he could lead a functional life," Sutton said. "He's a joy. He's in Scouts and he's in school. "He's just doing hunky-dory and I try to make his life as normal as possible. He follows anything brother does. That's why he wanted to do Scout's. Whatever brother does, he wants to do. "Luckily, I've met other parents wit autistic children, so it give you people to talk to. Because it's hard to talk to someone that doesn't have one because they don't fully understand. You can't understand sometimes the frustration."
Jason's condition means he looks at the world a little differently, a fact that Sutton has learned and adjusted to over the years. "They think in pictures. It's like sticking a video tape in there," she explained. "That's why routine is so big, 'cause you break that routine, they don't know what to do, because you broke the video tape.'
"I get to find out what happens all day long because he mimics the whole day at home in the evening. And at school, they said they get the same thing. I said, "Oh goodness, I'd better be careful." Intervention started early. "The county gets involved before they're 3, so they came out and tried to work with him. We lived near Saginaw, which is the Eagle Mountain school district, so when he was 3, he started going to school there. And they had just the dearest woman to work with him; she's been working with special kids for 30 years.
"When she was going to college, part of her report was autism, so she knew how to work with him. She said, if you teach him to read, the speech will come. Just in the first year, he was a different kid." Unfortunately, not every teacher knows how to handle a special needs student."
"His kindergarten teacher had trouble because she would keep changing the routine. Then he'd have a fit," Sutton recalled. "She'd call me, 'I don't know what to do!'" Sutton recounted. She told the teacher, "Well, you changed his routine, there's not much I can do."
"If you change their routine, that's fine, stick with the new one," Sutton recommends. "You can't keep every week changing it because he has no clue then what to do. You've confused him to death." But Jason didn't stay in kindergarten and his first grade teacher was an improvement. "She was very visual, very routine. And we didn't have any problem whatsover," Sutton said. Just as she took control and found out what was best for her son, Sutton is hands-on when it comes to her writing career. "I write under Robin Sutton, which is my maiden name," she explained. "It's easier to pronounce and spell."
With the book published by Milk & Honey Publishing, she has retained control. Of course, that means she has to do most of the work to promote the book, but she doesn't mind. "I've talked to a lot of people and some of those big publishers don't seem to do a lot either, "she said. It took her about six months to write "The Princess and The Rose," but she has no time table for her second book and not set writing schedule. "It just depends on how much time I have," she admits.
Inspiration can come from anywhere. "Sometimes parts of them will come to me, you know how you have dreams and stuff. The next one, a little part of it came as a dream. So then, my brain just started working, well this might work, okay, then we just start writing, then we add to it some more. "Like my next one -- since it is a science fiction and has to do a little bit with Atlantis, the thought of that, I went and got some books on that. Well, that give me little ideas of other little things to add in there, a little more detail," she said.
"I just sit down and get the rough draft idea down," she said. "I'll sit there in front of the T.V. or if I'm bored at work, I'll sit there and do it. I'll sit there with my little laptop and my rocking chair at home and do it."
"Some (ideas) I've had lately, it might be a movie that I see that gives me an idea. And that's happened on two of the ones I'm kind of working on. I might not have an ending to 'em. I'm just going along and the ending might just... like this one," she said. referring to "The Princess and The Rose."
"I had it written and was almost ready to start promoting it, then I changed half the book. I went through and I ended up changing half of it before I had it printed and changed the whole ending of it." And she plans to give back a little bit with all of her books. "Like for this book, one dollar goes to both sons' Boy Scout troops and one dollar goes to my little one's Cub Scout pack," she said. For her next book, she plans to make donations to autism research because of her son. With her working knowledge of autism, would she consider writing a book using what she knows of the condition?
"I probably could," she acknowledged, but right now, it's just a learning process and there are so many books that I'd love to read. One lady wrote about her child growing up with it."
Killeen Daily Herald
Authors, book-lovers to gather Saturday in Salado (Friday, August 1, 2003)
By Bobbi Easler
Salado - Volumes of authors have signed up for the second annual Salado Book Fair, set for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Stagecoach Convention Center in Salado.
"We have 40 authors who have registered and there may be more by the end of the week," event organizer James V. Lee, senior editor and owner of the Salado Press, said Tuesday.
Lee, the author of "Nine Years in the Saddle," arranged to hold this second annual gathering of book-lovers to coincide with the 37th annual Salado Art Fair, which runs Saturday and Sunday at Pace Park.
"With so many people planning to come to Salado for the art fiar, it just seemed like a good time to hold a book fair," he said. "Art and books go together well."
This years title selection includes fiction, history, military history, children, young adult, romance, mystery, poetry and do-it-yourself guides.
Among the more than three dozen writers slated to set up temporary shop in Salado Saturday are authors Barbara Elmore of Waco, who pens fiction with young adults in mind, and romance novelist Robin Sutton of Fort Worth.
......Giving readers a chance to take a mental break from reality plays a big part in the popularity of romance novels, said Robin Sutton. "It's a way for people to escape, just like a movie," said Sutton, a mother and businesswoman who writes part-time. In a field wrought with writers, Sutton decided that she would have to take a different approach with her romance, "Living the life of a Princess," in order to set her work apart from the rest of the pack. "My books are different," she said. "They don't follow the same format that other writers do."
"There has been a lull in readership because the plots are the same but with characters," Sutton said. "My villain is more involved and you don't know how it will end, until the end." "Princess" is Sutton's first book. A second is due out later this year.