Saturday, April 24, 2010

Inspiration


See that upside down girl?  Well, she's mine.  And she is truly an inspiration.  She, who is terrified of heights, jumped out of an airplane today as part of Operation Freefall, a fundraiser for the organization Speaking Out Against Rape.  Two of her friends, Michael and Jessica, jumped right along with her to show their support.  (We should all have friends like that!)

We writers are often asked where we find our inspiration, if we pattern our characters after people we know, and where we come up with our ideas.  Thanks to my daughter, her friends, and so many other people, I find inspiration everywhere.  If I choose not to focus on the positive, I can find other characters and behavior about which to write, too...  Life is, after all, made up of endless perspectives, good, and evil.

Today, I am inspired by the brave and courageous souls associated with SOAR.  If you'd like to learn more about Laurie and the many others who raised over $100,000 in the 10th anniversary of Operation Freefall to help victims of sexual assault, click on the link I've provided below. 

FYI, Laurie was the second fundraiser nationwide and I couldn't be prouder of her - not only for helping others but for so courageously sharing her story, as so few rape victims do.




Saturday, April 3, 2010

The Best Laid Plans...

Life does have a way of interefering with all the things a person wants to do, doesn't it?  This year, I've been deliberately focusing on what I want to do.  Unfortunately, no one else seems to be sharing my passion.

Time management has always been one of my strengths.  And the key part of the previous sentence is its tense:  some version of the past.

So, realizing I need to work on self-improvement in this area, I took a hiatus from my Author Exchange Blog, arranged stuff at my day jobs (I own two businesses) to help me meet my goal (which included a move of location and some rebuilding to include an on-site conference room to save me lots of travel time), and am in the process of getting down and dirty with my schedule to accommodate the time my bank book requires me to attend to my businesses and commercial writing and the time my heart requires me to spend on my fiction.

Your positive thoughts and prayers are most welcome.