Flipping Nora!

Just got back from a trip (see below) and wanted to report my reading. I've tried "Queen Nora's" books a couple times before, once as Nora Roberts and once as J.D. Robb. Couldn't get past the first chapter or two on either.

For some reason I recently put out a call about a Nora recommendation, and discovered that people—or at least the ones who responded to me—thought her Chesapeake Bay series was her best. The best of that, people said, was the first volume, Sea Swept.

Said volume has been sitting on my TBR pile, frowning at me for some time now. I finally determined to face it, come what may, and used it as my traveling book for flying to Tennessee. (Couldn't use my Kindle because the electronics gag order kicks in when things get scariest.)

And I loved it! I noted the head hopping—kept to a minimum—and some passive sentences. But I also tried to notice the exacting word choices, the volume turned up on full for what others would write as ordinary circumstances. She molds her characters expertly and there's an honesty in her writing that I've found only (so far) in SEP, Julia Quinn, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Jenny Crusie.

So when I finished that book and faced another set of flights, I couldn't see myself reading Robert McKee's nonfiction Story. Instead I went to a bookstore and found Vision in White, which is vol. 1 of Nora's "Brides" quartet.

An added perk was the free bookmark I got with the book: that advertising Dr. Sanjay Gupta's House Call CNN TV series. Stick it behind the cover, and suddenly our headless bride smiles out at us.

I dislike the headless torsos on romance novels. Perhaps it comes from a rule we used to have at Adam & Eve, in which such were prohibited because they depersonalized the model and made them into an object. Objectifying was a no-no in those days.

I understand that this technique in romance is to make the main character more identifiable to the reader. Theoretically they could look just like the reader, or be the very image of their fantasy, like Joan Wilder's blurry Jesse cover images leave a lot to be filled in by the reader. But in looking at this cover I know that I am not a slender, youthful, stylish blonde. (Note: the heroine of this book is a rather skinny, short-haired redhead anyway.) I do not resonate in any way with this cover and in fact am a bit repulsed by the headlessness. So thank you, Dr. Gupta!

Vision in White is also excellent. It too teaches us about what its lead characters do for a living. In Sea Swept, we learned how to design a boat. Here, we learn how to do a wedding shoot and then process the photos with Photoshop. It's a very satisfying character story as well, but while I've ordered vols. 2 & 3 of the Chesapeake Bay series to see how the overarching plot works out, I'm not going to read vols. 2 & 3 of this series. But I will order vol. 4, Happily Ever After, which should be Parker's story. I want to see how she'll break away from her tight schedules.

Have you ever had second thoughts about an author? I can recall trying The Curse of Chalion THREE times before something clicked and I could not put it down!

The Tennessee Waltz

Last Thanksgiving we moved our parents to Jackson, Tennessee, where they can be near my sister and her family. Since then they've lived in three places: a temporary place, an independent-living place, and an assisted-living place just down the hall from place #2.

Looks like they'll have to be moved again, this time to a nursing home.

But getting to them is now much more of a chore than it had been. Now it requires air travel (since trains don't travel east to west in most of the US). Air travel and I don't get along too well, but I'm getting better at it or maybe the planes are.

But arriving in Nashville, which is about 3 hours from my sister, I wondered: where do people meet each other in the airport? To me, it seemed the baggage area was the logical place, but my sister was nowhere to be found. I dragged out my cellphone, which I've used all of maybe 3 times since I got it (I don't understand cells!), and cursed that I hadn't packed the instruction book. Still, I got the phone to say, "Hello?" before a call blanked. So someone somewhere had gotten it. I tried Karen at home and got my brother-in-law, Bruce.

He explained that she'd gotten her times mixed up. Instead of my landing time, she had been operating by my take-off time four days from then. She'd realized her mistake and taken off 1/2 hour before my plane was slated to arrive.

And she made it only an hour late. The cops ALL must have been looking the other way! Perhaps the sonic boom distracted them.

I was starving; I was outside the security area. All there was left was a rinky-dink restaurant. (Tootsie's) I ordered an $8 chunk of iceberg lettuce and some dressing and sat down to wait. Soon a young, lanky guy in cowboy hat and boots saunters up with a guitar, sits down about ten feet from me, and starts tuning up.

There was a stage there. It pointed at the exit from the security area. I now noticed large speakers on the ceiling.

Well, he begins to sing a song about wantin' to be a cowboy so he could get all the purty girls. I'm not sure, but I think he had a nice voice and could play well. The speakers were those that muffle the sound so it becomes kinda wa-wa-wa. I wondered why such speakers were allowed within twenty miles of Nashville, but there they were.

Loud volume and I don't get along, so I didn't finish my lettuce and got out of there. Downstairs, back in the baggage area, I managed to read some more of my Nora Roberts book. I've never been able to get into her stuff before (under any name), but this book was very good. (I've ordered 2 of the sequels.) On the trip back to NC I realized that reading McKee's Story wasn't going to keep my mind off my imminent demise from falling from the sky, so I got another Nora book and man, was it good! Now I understand why she's the queen.

Anyway, we got to my parents' place and discovered that Mom pretty much stays in bed in a semi-trance all day (she has no control over lower digestive functions and has to have the nurses wash and dress her). This drives my dad crazy. She'll get up for meals and therapy, but sometimes not even that much. Dad is confused and angry most of the time. He can't get the remote on the TV to work, and so watches (snoozes in front of) bad TV because he can't figure that hitting the "up" or "down" buttons will let him change channels. Sometimes he hits numbers and gets something new that way, but he doesn't know which channels he gets, so it's hit or miss.

I took Dad shopping/riding and put up some drapes, pictures and a clock for them. I also put up a calendar next to a new white board because Dad used to love keeping track of things, writing down appts, etc. He liked this. Four hours later he hated, hated, HATED it, and how could I have possibly imagined it was a good idea???

These are all symptoms of their different forms of Alzheimer's. Judging from Mom's condition and Dad's inability to do simple tasks like the remote, my sister and I think it may be time to move them to a nursing home. The doctor says that Mom certainly belongs there, but being without Mom would drive Dad crazy, so they should go together.

I took Dad to the Steak & Shake and had one of the best burgers of my life. Yum! He didn't like his tea (too sweet) and tried to get the waitress' attention. "HEY, BLONDIE!" he yelled. Luckily, his yell is just a croak these days (COPD), so she didn't hear, and he got mad when I chastised him for being rude.

We went to my sister's house for dinner one night. Karen and Bruce are trying to sell their house, which is a modest place in a modest neighborhood that looks like it might have been built/last decorated during the Eisenhower administration. They've filled it with big-ass furniture. Lots and lots of big-ass furniture. Which makes it look tiny. This is not helped by having about fifteen people (on average) living and/or passing through the place, along with assorted pets and lots of toys for the grandkids. The front door is blocked because there's furniture in front of it; the dining table touches the patio door.

Somewhere in there is likely a nice starter home, if people don't mind the fact that the toilet chugs like a train starting up, or that the lights keep flickering.

They cannot figure out why it doesn't sell, and blame it on the big military installation in town that's closing. I keep saying, "Stage your house! Don't forget the curb appeal!" (The latter of which can't be seen because there are eleventy cars parked in their drive and on their front lawn.)

Well, we got some visiting done, I met my new niece-in-law, who is valiantly trying to hold that baby in for another two weeks, at which point my nephew's health insurance kicks in, and I made M&D's place slightly more homey, for however long they'll be there.

Let me just mention that the staff at their place are all SAINTS. Utter and complete SAINTS.

Said goodbye to M&D, hopped in the car with Bruce, and he drove me back to Nashville. Two and a half hours early. Oh well, I got my walking in.

Also had lunch at the airport because Bruce wasn't hungry and didn't want to stop elsewhere beforehand. I went to "Tennessee Tavern," which advertised that it has that famous BBQ that they make in Memphis. I hate BBQ and so ordered a cheeseburger and tea.

Oh, so that's where all the pink slime went. The so-called burger ($16) was huge, tasteless, and had no texture to it. I took a sip of the nearly-transparent tea and set it down. "Can I get some real tea?" I asked the waitress.

"That's instant," she whispered, looking at my glass.

"I know."

This place, named after Tennessee, didn't know how to make instant, much less real iced tea. They managed to get me some ginger ale, which helped settle my stomach. (I'd been traveling with the help of Pepto. Great timing, intestines.)

Part of my walking took me past a TN tourism place that was spotlighting Moon Pies as part of the culture. An older/mature woman, dressed to the hilt, stood next to a display and picked up a box. "Moon. Pies," she said wonderingly. She examined it like she was at a museum. Perhaps she thought it came from the moon.

The display didn't mention RC Cola anywhere. What's up with that?

On one leg of the plane trip back, I sat behind a row that included two very young kids (5 YO?) who'd never been on a plane before. "Look how far down!" one shrieked as I clenched my seat's arms, helping the plane stay in the air. They were so excited by every aspect of flying that I tried to remind myself that one of the purposes of coming back during this era was for me to delight in the technological changes. Having 4 flights within days of each other helped me figure out the various motions that a plane goes through that is normal for it and not something to review my religious standing over.

Still, when the little girl squealed, "I see another plane!" all I could think of was: Mid-air collision ahead! Goodbye, world!


But we had a crazy pilot on the final leg, cracking jokes and such. The plane itself was a friendly one. (Always check your plane's attitude before boarding. I once encountered a plane that said, "I feel sick," and sure enough, within five minutes a repair crew had scrambled to begin working on it. We got another plane.) The pilot warned us about approaching turbulence, and I imagined us going down a bumpy road. Not bad. Not bad at all.

But I hope I don't have to make a trip to TN for another year!

The Business of Art

Who in their right mind would schedule a full-day Business of Art seminar on a Monday? Idiots. Maybe I could arrange a day off from work next time they did it, but I was too busy now.

Then I got the email that said that there were still seats available at this Saturday's BoA seminar. Saturday? I double-checked my calendar. Idiot! I signed up.

The Visual Art Exchange of Raleigh, the go-to place for area artists, was the sponsor. They'd recently moved from City Center (I think it's called) to the "warehouse district." Uh oh, downsizing. But when I arrived in the deserted neighborhood (sue me; I figured out a short cut and arrived quite early) I discovered that their place is actually larger than what they had and that their foot traffic has doubled. Within an hour there was no parking to be found and the few homeless people I'd walked by had been replaced by bustling, everyday pedestrians.

The seminar schedule was loaded and policed for time. We covered: What are galleries looking for? How do I work my portfolio? Is there some place that will help me design my website? Where do I find exhibition opportunities? Should I teach? How do I promote myself? and What the heck is Etsy? The schedule thus covered everything a professional artist needed to know, except how to handle a street festival and the like. For that, Jerry's Artarama holds classes by M. Theresa Brown and Steve Filarsky.

I returned home with acres of urls which advertise all kinds of opportunities for shows and galleries seeking new artists, at both state and national levels. This was aided by having a panel on which we had two opposing gallery reps. One's gallery specialized in corporate clients, and we learned how to Google for the kinds of subjects and colors that corporations want in their offices. With them you're matching the furniture and decor, not creating the next Picasso. This busy gallery said they had almost zero walk-in traffic.

The other gallery specialized in regional art and, due to their downtown location near hotels and the convention center, specialized in walk-in traffic, people looking for art done in NC that they could take back home. I'll certainly be checking them out!

The most fascinating part of the day to me was the section on portfolios. I'm anxious to present myself to large galleries. I've been told my work is at gallery level. But I discovered that one has to show consistency in one's work. I need to have a series—done recently—of from 10 to 15 pieces. This way if a customer comes in and likes my style, but doesn't quite like the painting they're looking at, the gallery can take them aside and show them similar paintings that might be just what they're looking for.

This is what you spotlight in your portfolio. But the portfolio has other things in it as well:

• An Artist's Statement
• Your resume, listing lots and lots of recent shows. Uh, I'll have to work on that as well.
• Bio: I have a really snappy bio, invoking how my hometown was the scene for one of the Nineteenth Century's most famous cases of spirit possession. Unfortunately, this seminar said that bios need to be one paragraph.
• Your artwork: the 10-15 paintings talked about above.
• Business card, press clippings, etc.
• Probably a CD with your portfolio on it, to leave at places. (One person later in the day gave a horror story of how, even though she'd left SASEs with her portfolios during a PR effort that had her sending out twelve at once, galleries had kept and lost ten of hers. Better to lose a cheap CD than a $42 portfolio.)

In addition to this portfolio, you need to have:
• A CD of said portfolio, as noted above. This can also have additional folders containing other series you have going as well as a folder called "Sold Work." Word docs should be saved in pdf form.
• An online portfolio containing all of above. This way if you're communicating via email, you can just use the url and people can check your stuff out immediately. Since your resume and/or portfolio pages will have your phone number, I think that making this a private page on your website—not one listed in your menu—would likely be a good idea. Keep the weirdos at bay, and all that.

And of course your portfolio needs to be kept up to date.

Guess I'll have to join the VAE. I've been thinking for years about doing it. Once you've joined, you can have your portfolio critiqued, and gain access to a site that has every worksheet from every seminar they've put on. There are other perks involved as well.

I'd hoped to have the art section of my own website updated by the end of this weekend, but the seminar cut my time available by half. Even so, I have one page finished. I'll announce on Facebook when it's all done. Give a yell if you can't access anything or something looks odd.

The Bladder Games

Recently I both discovered and finished the Hunger Games trilogy, and have been awaiting the movie’s release with excitement. The previews looked great, even while I had no idea that Suzanne Collins had co-written the screenplay.

For the first time I actually asked to leave work early so I could catch the 12:30 PM show today. “K,” my supervisor economically emailed me, so I tried to keep watch of the time this morning. Scarfed down a lunch earlier than normal, then wrote a response to someone and...

It was noon! I ran out, jumped in the car, and cussed at myself for not leaving earlier. It didn’t help that one of the lights out in the middle of nowhere between Hillsborough and Chapel Hill had been mis-programmed so it gave the busy highway a short light and the empty road that crossed it, the long. Or that the idiot in front of me turning left didn’t pull the hell out into the intersection so they might actually turn sometime this century. Come on! Come on!

I squealed into the strip mall with the theater and noted that there was no line. Whew. Trotted over, flashed my pre-paid ticket, and went inside. Hit the bathroom, got a “medium” non-caffeinated drink which looked to be about two liters, and, steeling myself to fight for a seat, went inside the theater.

It wasn’t that bad. I scored a fair/meh seat. It was on the side and not at a good vertical angle, but this theater is not a particularly good one. Good enough.

They hadn’t started the previews yet. After a while, when the “Movie trivia” slides had started repeating, someone two rows in front of me started grumbling that it was past 12:30. “Start already!”

The murmuring of the crowd increased. A guy down the row from me became louder. When someone commented, he said, "What do you expect? They gave me a barrel of Coke to drink! I'm caffeinated!" and pointed to his empty two-liter cup. Everyone laughed. Finally a lady from the staff came in and said they were having problems with the projector. It would just be another five minutes.

I’d only taken two sips of my drink, but thanked my lucky stars for the wait because I had to hit the bathroom again. In the lobby I heard the lady tell another staffer, “We need to talk to the company now!”

I relayed this to my rowmates when I returned, telling them that I didn’t think “five minutes” was going to hold true. We waited some more. And some more.

The Coke guy got up and went out into the lobby. When he returned he said that he’d spoken to the ticket taker and she said that the projectionist had quit the previous night.

About that time a slide came on the screen saying, “Job opportunities. Apply at the front lobby.” A few people commented about that.

Well, more people went out to the lobby. I hit the bathroom YET AGAIN. (I hadn’t drunk much this morning, really!) We all compared notes:

Apparently the projectionist had indeed quit the previous night. Also apparently the only thing one has to do to run a digital “projector” is to hit a button. That is, after one has keyed in a code to unlock everything.

They had a code and it wasn’t working. No one at “the company” was able to find the correct code. But they’d get it, they promised. They were going to skip all the previews so we’d still get out at about the right time.

So we sat. I got up to stretch and noticed that all the seats behind me were empty. The lobby was filled with people getting free passes, some of whom were strolling toward another theater. We had been in Theater #1. Theater #4 was scheduled to start the movie at 1. They had just now finally gotten the previews to begin. Everyone was crossing their fingers in hopes that the movie would be able to be shown, but they couldn’t guarantee it.

Of course that theater would be filled by now. It was a teacher’s work day and there were lots of kids available to go to the movies. But (after a bathroom break) (I know! I know!) I ambled into the theatre to see if I’d be able to find a seat.

Not only found a seat, but a very good one. This was much better than Theater #1.

Saw a couple previews, the last of which was for the final Twilight movie. Are they still making those? It was clear that the audience did not approve of things Twilight, and I had to laugh.

Then the screen reminded us of its parent corporation and without missing a beat, went into Hunger Games. Hooray!

Wow! What a great movie! Except that about thirty minutes in, my bladder berated me for those few sips of fruit punch. The tension just added to the excitement, right? And after it was all over, I raced into the ladies’ room and—do you recall the Tom Hanks peeing scene from A League of Their Own? I expected Rosie O’Donnell to congratulate me after I was through. Whew!

(And now that I'm home, my bladder is operating quite normally, thank you.)

I want to see the movie again, this time in a primo theater when I can relax and enjoy the details. I think they missed firing the cannon a few times there, that kind of thing. WRAL had a feature about the filming in which they said that Katniss ran across a waterfall near Brevard and had to be on some kind of rope device to pull it off. I don’t remember that from the movie.

The forest scenery looked like what I see from my house, except for the mountains and waterfalls. Every time Katniss fell or rolled down a slope I gritted my teeth. “Ticks!” I thought.

You should see the movie. It's a two-Kleenexer. You might be able to get through the goodbyes at the beginning, but when you-know-who dies, you're going to need tissues. And I think they cut out some of the epilogue. I'd check, but I've loaned my copy to someone. Guess they want movie #2 to really concentrate on the setup of their world and the beginnings of rebellion. (Though they began that here.)

Kids far too young to see the movie were in attendance en masse. One older kid sat behind me. "Kill him! Kill him!" he hissed audibly as Katniss battled a female opponent.


Hey, I found a quote I want to include: Jennifer (Katniss) (Did you know that “katniss” is the common name for the plant sagittaria, which is named after Sagittarius, who is the Archer? Cool!) Lawrence described the HG trilogy as holding up "a terrible kind of mirror: This is what our society could be like if we became desensitized to trauma and to each other's pain."

Exactly. I despise the desensitization we’re being exposed to these days. What do you think about that? Do you have another idea about what HG is?

Here's a great review by one of my favorite reviewers. And this one has some excellent points to make.

I also want to point out to those nay-sayers who preach that a female protagonist cannot helm a successful action movie: nyahh!

When Will I Ever Learn?

Over the decades I've had a LOT of work done around my two houses (owned one at a time) and in their yards. Boy, can I tell you stories about the loser contractors—and even THIEF contractors—I've hired!

As a matter of fact, I've got a novel kinda started that incorporates a few of the more colorful stories. Someday I'll get serious about writing it. (Since it's a contemporary romance instead of sf/f, it will have to wait a bit.)

Last year was, I thought, my tenth here in this second house. Turns out it was more like the eleventh or twelfth. Either way, time to get some serious work done. You know, fix the place up, start on some of those dream projects.

Last Nov.-Dec. I had work done on the interior front third of the house. Well, third more or less. I had the awful excuse for wallboard stripped, new wallboard put on, crown molding and baseboard trim. I straightened out an angle in the living room where a entertainment center had been built into the original house. This also repaired the giant hole left there by the old-style TV that had to go.

Some of you may have heard the story about the carpenter who took forever to get the job done. One day he decided to get to a part of the job that he'd told me wasn't going to be attended to for another week and a half. (Else I would have cleared things off before he got there.) When I returned home, half my Wonder Woman figurines and the shelves they'd been on were on the floor. A couple of porcelain pieces lay there, shattered.

No note. No phone message. No attempt to clean it up. I called him and **I** was the one who had to broach the subject, because he acted like nothing was wrong. Then first he blamed the shelf that he had neglected to check, even though he'd been pounding on the other side of the wall it was mounted on. Then he blamed me. A few days later he finally said, "Sorry."

Needless to say, he bought replacements.

But before he'd started the job I'd insisted he draw up a contract stating precisely what we'd agreed to and how much it would cost. (I should have included a finish date.) So I felt good about hiring him, and will never, ever hire him again.

The painters who finished up came with a very professional contract as well as work ethic. When they broke my porcelain faux-French phone, the one guy immediately came to me and apologized profusely. They deducted the cost from the final bill. Lovely.

So three weeks ago I call up a landscape place who's done minor work for me before. I had a number of projects I needed done, and one was to take down the giant mural/backboard I'd had built on the property. Carpenter bees had taken it over, a huge buck had gotten caught in the netting, and basically, it was rotting away, no matter how many times I had a waterproofer come out and work on it. (Picture of it in post-buck days at top of column.)

I led them around the yard, pointing out the more minor stuff. "Uh huh, uh huh," the boss guy said. He was really interested in how many cement blocks had to be moved from this one patch I wanted cleared.

Okay, I finished showing the work. He huddled with his assistant for about fifteen minutes and came back with a price.

"Fine," I said. "Please give me a contract listing all this and how you're pricing it."

"Oh, we don't need a contract," he laughed.

"I watch People's Court all the time. Judge Milian says always get a contract for any job that's a lot of money. This is a lot of money to me."

He laughed some more, assured me that the price was for the whole thing and not piecemeal, and that they had all the details. They could get it done that week. Wait. They were working on another job. Would I mind if they worked on it that Saturday? Sure. Reluctantly, I let them go away with no contract in sight.

So today, three weeks later and not a Saturday, they came by. And missed a number of jobs. Did one absolutely wrong; I'd showed them three times and explained how the last guy had done it wrong, and they did it the exact same way.

It's frustrating to the max. You'd think I'd know by now. Well, I do, and I share it so you will know as well:

FROM NOW ON, NO WORK WILL BE DONE WITHOUT A DETAILED CONTRACT BEFOREHAND!

So if you hear me bitching about something else that I didn't get a contract for first, yell at me or hit me on the haid. Please.

It's a Contest!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Applesauce and Moonbeams

by Carol A. Strickland

Giveaway ends March 16, 2012.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Yoiks, and Away!

I've taken a day off so I can try to finish my wip (work in progress). So of course I'm procrastinating. After I finish checking Facebook and all the news sites, then Facebook again and maybe they've updated the news... I can sit here and stare beyond my computer, to the strip of cork and thumbtacked material that runs around my home office.

Behind the computer I have posted the Best of the Best writing advice I've latched onto over the years. Okay, it's just the Best of the Best that I remembered to write down or print out. Most, but not all, concerns writing. So here are some bits of wisdom for your perusal:

(From Elements of Fiction Writing: Scene & Structure, by Jack M. Bickham.) The elements of a scene: Goal, Conflict, Disaster. The elements of a sequel: Reaction (emotion), Dilemma (thought), Decision, in that order.

A long, color-coded listing of how to mark up one's manuscript using the EDITS system. This is from Margie Lawson. She teaches this intense system on how to check your manuscript, and it's pretty darned eye-opening. There's a workshop on it alone, but I ran into it when I took her "Empowering Characters' Emotions" workshop.

A sheet of paper that says:
CHARACTER
CHARACTER
CHARACTER
I'm a plotter at heart and it took me a LONG time to get it through my head that character is the heart of a great book, not plot.

How do they FEEL about that?
Emotion is key to showing character. Otherwise you end up with "characters" like Wonder Woman [see blog below], who have no emotional reaction to anything. They are cardboard cutouts.

What's the story about?
After you finish your first draft, sit back and ask yourself: what's the story really about? Sure, these folks go to the moon and shoot the alien zombie invaders, but isn't it really a story about the importance of family? How can I emphasize that? Which leads to...

As with so many things, YOU HAVE TO EXAGGERATE.
This is not real life; this is drama. In drama there's a purpose to everything. There's a theme. Bring it out. Make your characters and their situation high contrast so that it imprints on your readers' minds and embues the book's theme with more meaning and vitality.

A long quote from Jennifer Crusie, one of my favorite authors:
"It's not that they're [hero and heroine in a romance novel] opposites and hate each other, it's that they're different enough to challenge each other's world views, and because of that, their attraction to each other becomes a demonstration of their characters. Or to put it another way: interesting characters like people who challenge them and make them grow, not people who reinforce them as they are and help them stagnate.

"But even more important is the other half of the key to this dynamic: the opposite character traits give the romance crackle, but they're only skin deep. When you reach the bones of the characters—the stuff that keeps them upright and moving through the story—you find that the lovers are actually two of a kind.

"Your lovers spark because they're opposites on the surface, but they love because they're twin souls at heart. Peel back the surface and find where they connect, and your reader will believe your romance really is forever."

Let's see... Here's a chart from the Plot Doctor, aka Carolyn Greene, who might still teach her method here and there, but I can't find her on the Web.

This is a note from Virginia Kantra, who should know a little something about writing:
"...I have a little mantra:
"If she can think it, she can say it.
"It's better if she says it to the hero.
"It's best if they fight about it."

WHY SHOULD I CARE?
What is it about this situation/character that draws me in? Your primary goal in writing is to get your reader deeply within your story and keep them there. If they care about what's going on, they'll remain.

STORY
is more important than
PROCESS
Oh, how I love showing process! Such a bad habit.

An IDEA
+
EMOTION
=
something readers can relate to
It's all about keeping them in the story.

And some words of general wisdom and encouragement:

From Calvin Coolidge:
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

From Marianne Williamson:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Whew. I feel like going back to writing now. But first I want to know:

What's on your wall? What do you keep around yourself to keep you on track and motivate you?