What Did I Ever Do to Deserve This?

Notice the very important message on Laurie's left hand?  She's referring to me.  This picture is a reminder that I should NEVER underestimate the power of a word or the importance of a relationship.

Laurie jumped out of an airplane to raise funds for a an organization that's very important to her, and while the day had tremendous meaning for on her so many, many levels, she still spent considerable time thinking about me.  Wow...

When we write, even those of us who write plot-driven books and stories, the fundamental messages we send are communicated through our characters--via their motivations, fears, memories, loves, hates, and relationships.  Our fictional relationships need to reflect the powerful emotions that drive them in order for us to impact our readers--the way real people impact us in real life.

I spent the first part of this Mother's Day missing my mother; I spent the second half of it being so greatful for the fact that I am a mother.

May I Quit My Day Job?

If you're my husband, you're screaming out loud:  No!  No!  Absolutely not!  He figures my royalties need to equal the current income earned at  my day job before I can even THINK about quitting.  (He may have a point.  Maybe...)

If you're my 80-year old father, you're saying in a very controlled, but quite loud voice:  Are you out of your mind?  You see, he's the insurance man who got me into the insurance business (I own and operate two insurance businesses), and he wishes he'd worked for himself instead of a large insurance company.  He thinks my day jobs are nirvana.

If you're Delaney, Charlotte, Max, or Grace, your thinking inside your furry little head:  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Do it NOW.  Spend 24 hours a day at home with ME!  My puppies and kitties love me better and more affectionately than most people I've known.  (No one else has ever greeted me at the front door, EVERY DAY, when I come home, wiggly and kissy.)

If you're me, you understand--intellectually--where Stephen and Dad are coming from.  But emotionally, you're right there with the critters.

I'm spending several hours a day at my writing lately.  I'm doing some insurance writing at the office, more of it at home after-hours, and my fiction at home after hours.  Sometimes, it's VERY difficult to drag my mind from my writing to focus on stuff like getting payroll out on time, arriving on time to meet with clients, and going to bed at a reasonable hour.

I've always been a little obsessive-compulsive with my writing, but it's getting worse.  It feels like a good thing (that's the emotional side) but I'm wondering if it really is.

Are you O-C about your writing?  Do you think I'm going nuts?  (Of course, you notice that I've asked you folks, who are mostly other writers, instead of a shrink.  But I figure you'll understand better.  Right?)

How to Get the Creative Juices Flowing

My blogging buddy, Bill, whom I've mentioned before, illustrates a terrific example of creativity in the most recent post on his blog.  (I'll give you the link later, so as not to encourage you to click away from me!)

He yammers on in his post about the way he routinely attributes human qualities to inanimate objects, such as vitamins and toilet tissue.  His blog post is hilarious and brings to mind the way children can take a mundane event and spin a wild tale.

Which, in turn, leads me to think about free-association and how we writers can utilize the same creative skills when the failure to come up with a single good idea plagues us.

Gabriele Lusser Rico wrote a book called Writing the Natural Way, which focuses on right brain/left brain issues and how a method of free-association she calls clustering helps writers access their creativity.  It is possibly one of the best books I've ever read. By using techniques she recommends, or by following Bill's example and pretending to be a pretzel and imagining what will happen when some human's hand reaches into your home (er...bag), you can access creativity you never realized existed.

When my children were very small, the four of us used to climb onto my bed before bedtime, and create stories.  One of us would begin with a premise:  Once upon a time, a gerbil escaped his cage and climbed into a bird cage inhabited by...  Another of us would continue the story and we'd take turns, transforming a silly premise into a wild and hairy adventure.  Much like the story I tried to get going several blogposts ago with the handsome couple sitting on the bus.  The assassin is my son's girlfriend and the handsome guy is--you guessed it--my son.  (Thank goodness they both have good sense of humor and love me!)

What do YOU do to get those creative juices flowing?

P.S.  Here is the link to Bill's funny blogpost and to Gabriele Lusser Rico's website.

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.

Speaking Out About Rape

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.