SLO Nightwriters: A Writer’s Process

by: Elizabeth Roderick The story: Mental health professionals are required by law to keep patient disclosures confidential, yet the law also requires them to “warn and protect” anyone their patient is likely to harm. A Duty to Betray plunges Dr. Ricardo Ruiz, a young psychologist just beginning his career, squarely into the middle of these two seemingly irreconcilable legal obligations. Set inside the famed Camarillo State Hospital on California’s Central Coast, A Duty to Betray draws the reader into this legal, ethical, and ultimately moral dilemma when Mr. Tran, one of Dr. Ruiz’ patients, reveals a potentially lethal secret during therapy. Cat and mouse confrontations between the two thrust the “tell — don’t tell” conflict into sharp definition since Dr. Ruiz knows that, either way, his decision will have deadly consequences. Q: Did you construct an outline for the story of Duty to Betray at any point in your process? A: Yes, and it changed about 10 times. John Irving says that writing is architecture; Margaret Atwood says it’s organic. For me it’s both (but the true joy of it is in the latter). Q: Is there anything that happened in the story that surprised you? Something you hadn’t planned? A: Yes—that it happened. Q: What is your editing process? A: I usually warm-up by reviewing the previous days work; however, if I find I’m spending a lot of time on editing, then I’m procrastinating. Editing is easy; writing is hard. Q: What is your favorite scene from the book? Which was your favorite character, and why? A: Mr. Tran is my favorite character—I enjoyed writing every single scene that’s told from his POV, largely because I did it in second person, something I’d never done before...

The limitations to confidentiality in the therapeutic relationship

Broadcast date: 12/02/2014 “To protect the client, the public and the profession, there are certain limits to confidentiality in the therapeutic relationship. But do these mandates do too much or too little in safeguarding the rights of those they were designed to serve?” Listen to the interview with KCBX public radio here:...

SLO Nightwriters Review

January 13, 2015 SLO Nightwriters Review By Jan Alarcon, Psy.D. The general meeting began at 6:30pm.  Our speaker, psychologist Dr. Kelly Moreno, wrote the psychological, legal thriller A Duty to Betray that pits a gifted young psychologist against a diabolical but brilliant former patient he suspects of faking psychosis.  Kelly Moreno started writing this book 19 years ago, received more than 80 rejection letters, and burned through three literary agents before a small publishing house agreed to print it last September. Dr. Moreno is a professor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, I bet a favorite among the students, his style being down to earth and approachable.  He encouraged us to find a book whose style we love and use it as the starting point for our own creation (his was Love’s Executioner: & Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin Yalom). He invited us to look for inspiration while engaging in physical activity, such as running on the beach (“each pound on the sand jiggled loose a deeply-blocked thought”), and ask for advice from published authors that can help us take our writing to the next level. Catherine Ryan Hyde (Pay it Forward) challenged Kelly to write part of his novel in the second person, and everything changed for him after he tried this. Last, most heart wrenching, he reminded us that, once your story is published, it is no longer your own—you cannot rewrite it, even the parts that you wish you could, and you can’t control how people will respond or interpret it. Dr. Moreno inspired me to write courageously and to embrace whatever challenges and roadblocks may...

My Duty to Alert You About ‘A Duty to Betray’

Published in The Daily Nexus December 7th, 2014 at 7:00 pm by Nadine Bedwan Kelly Moreno knows your brain. Prior to penning his first novel, a revenge tale entitled A Duty to Betray, Moreno led a long career in the field of psychology as a professor at both UCSB and Cal Poly SLO, amongst other universities in the nation. His latest endeavor is authorship. Manifested in this tantalizing thriller, the psychology professor proves the capacity to consume your brain. His psychological knowledge is evident in the novel’s suspenseful plot, which is eerily interwoven with lyrics from The Eagles’ “Hotel California.” The song is rumored to be a reference to the Camarillo State Hospital, which later became the campus for CSU, Channel Islands after being shut down in the ’90s. It is not by mistake, then, that the story takes place at the Camarillo State Hospital in these final weeks. The plot follows a young, well-meaning psychologist working with patients at the hospital as he deals with the chaos surrounding the final weeks of the hospital. Adding to his already stressful agenda, a sly and angry past patient has found his way back into Dr. Ricardo Ruiz’s life with underlying intentions to destroy him. Each new chapter keeps readers on their feet, switching between narratives following the protagonist Dr. Rick Ruiz, his vengeful patient Mr. Tran and the sweet, shy alter-ego cultivated by Mr. Tran, Camille. The presence of multiple perspectives teases readers’ curiosity and feeds their desire to dive deeper into the story. Each chronicled character has a slightly different writing style dedicated to them. Brief chapters swiftly shift between...