TGIF! Lets dive into sharing five random things about our week. Mine is pretty random

1. It’s hot! It’s going to cool down a but for the next few days.
2. Wednesday, I picked up one of my daughter-in-laws, and we met Turbo and his mom at a small zoo. It was fun, but a lot of the zoo was still closed, which they didn’t mention on their website. However, Turbo was happy. Especially since his aunt bought him a popsicle and a toy. I mean…that’s a pretty awesome day for a three year old, right?
3. When I dropped daughter-in-law off at home, I went inside for a few minutes to play with her dogs. Seriously–never mind that my son is working from home, I went in to see the dogs. Then I was half way out the door to leave when I hear a voice behind me, “Mom I came out of my office to hug you.” Um…oops In my defense, I know how hard and long he’s working to finish up this marathon tax season, and I wasn’t going to bug him. I figured once tax season is over, then I’ll bug him tons. But still what kind of mom doesn’t even realize her son is standing there waiting to hug her goodbye????
4. My shorter haircut is a mixed bag. I like it sometimes, other times it frustrates me because my hair is fine and–this is a quote from my hair dresser– “flippy”.  I think what she meant to say was it’s a fine, wavy undisciplined mess that thinks a style is just a suggestion and it can do whatever the hell it wants. All I know as the sleek cute style I came out of the salon with is a distant memory.
5. I yelled at my yoga teacher last night. I mean, she tells me to get into this pose and my muscles are screaming. And then she’s all chipper like… “Now that you have your foundational pose, lets try to bend into a pretzel while keeping that strong foundational pose even though your legs are burning and shaking and your liver is twisting like a corkscrew and you’re about to black out. Okay, now breathe.” Breathe? BREATHE!!!! So I yelled at her. Then I army crawled down the stairs because my legs were sobbing noodles and ate an ice cream. FYI, my “yoga teacher” is a you tube video and I think she laughed at me. Sadly, I’ll do it again tomorrow night. Someday, I might even get out of the beginner classes

That’s my five random things, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Just a warning. It looks like the Goodreads Review Blackmailers are back. They target an author, emailing her that if she does not buy their review service, they will troll her with one-star reviews. They follow through. This has happened before and is happening again. I’m sure it’s  being done on other platforms too, this is just the one I heard about yesterday.

The author targeted is doing all she can, including contacting the FBI cyber crime unit and other law enforcement agencies. Because I heard about this in one of my private author groups, I’m not going to name her, but I just want you all to be aware of this blackmail.

And if you see this happening to your friends, please, lets do whatever we can to help them. We are a strong when we stand together, and we have to fight this blackmail bullshit.

I’m so furious. And so tired of evil trolls making hard-working, honest people miserable. But one thing I will never tire of is supporting my friends and authors.

It’s a new week! And I have to start out by apologizing for not answering comments on Friday. I read them on my phone but didn’t get to my desktop to answer. My bad, but I loathe trying to answer on my phone

I hope everyone who is a Mom had a great Mother’s Day!

The weekend was good. Friday, Turbo and his mom came over to hang out. That boy melts my heart. He takes me hand and asks me to play with him…and that’s what I do. Of course, Turbo loves going to “Maggie’s house” and spends a lot of the day playing with her. One of his favorite things is her “zooming” up and down the stairs. By the time Turbo went home, both Turbo and Maggie were exhausted, LOL!

Mother’s Day was nice. We went to breakfast, then I came home and made an apple pie to take to my mother-in-law’s house later in the day. After that Youngest and his wife came over for awhile, they are always fun to see. Then we headed out to Wizard’s mom’s and spent a great afternoon with her and some family. She seemed to really enjoy a homemade pie. I just wanted to take her something even though she’s at a place in her life where she doesn’t need or want much.

How was your weekend?

TGIF! Let’s share five random things about our week.

1. I saw Biker Witch yesterday, and enjoyed that.
2. I also tried to look for pictures from our bedroom and that was a big huge fail. I’ll get something eventually. But I ran around wearing myself out when I’d rather have been writing.
3. I jinxed myself, and my neck, shoulder, and arm are acting up with some radiating pain. Who knows why, it was just kind of an off week overall, and I cleaned plus yoga, so maybe I overdid. There was no specific moment where I felt any injury or sudden pain. Plus it’s hot and humid, so…it’s a mystery. I’m trying to rest it a little through the weekend but honestly, I suck at that, LOL!
4. Maggie chased corner cat out of our back yard, then stood on the hill and did this tiny little “Arf” at the fence the cat escaped over. I cracked up. I mean she did a great job making the cat leave, but her bark was about as scary as a rabbit’s sneeze
5. The plan is for Turbo and his mom to come hang out with us today! Yay!

I hope all the mom’s out there a special Mother’s Day! Now I’d love to hear five random things about your week!

Originally Published on MurderSheWrites Blog May 16, 2011 and slightly edited for this posting.

IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER MOTIVATION

I was judging some contests recently, and it got me to thinking about something. For a book to work, character motivation is crucial.

Character motivation is the “why” factor. As writers, we are promising our readers answers that we often don’t get in real life. Readers needs to know why. Character motivation is the driving force behind every decision and choice the character will make. Plot and conflict are just as vital, but if the motivation is not there, then characters become flat and one-dimensional. And we get things like the Too Stupid to Live heroine. Here’s an example my older novella, GOOD, BAD & SEXY.

A heroine leaves town and goes to a resort, missing a court date for an Assault and Battery charge. One that should have been cleared up pretty easily if she had just gone to court.

Too stupid to live, right? Why would anyone want  to read about her?

But what if the woman has a stalker and no one believes her? Not even her family? In fact, what if her family has a history of not believing her? What if she is being proactive, protecting her life while trying to find out who is stalking her?

Okay, not so stupid now. Once we understand her character motivation, we can understand her decisions. And in fact, we (hopefully) begin to sympathize with her and root for her.

But that’s just the beginning. We must keep going deeper to the internal conflict. For the novella, I showed Lexie always rescuing her family. When her mom had a heart attack, Lexie rescued them by taking over her mom’s wedding planning business even though she hated it. Because this was a novella, I didn’t have a lot of room for long backstory, but I made sure to show a pattern of the family using her while ignoring her dreams and fears (like a stalker).

For Nick, I had to motivate him as a loner. So in his backstory, he was involved with a woman in trouble. Nick had sworn to protect her, and failed. Instead he watched her die. Never again would he fall in love and fail someone. Never. And he fights the growing need to protect Lexie—until he realizes that this woman is smart and protecting herself.

Once I have those, I can figure out their internal conflict which usually stems from a character’s deepest fears. So we know Lexie has an unsupportive family, right? They use her, never caring about her own goals. Guess what her internal conflict is as far as love? She’s looking for love from a man who will support her dreams, or believe her when she says she’s in trouble.

And for Nick…this is too easy. His deepest fear is failing someone else he loves, so he can’t fall in love. Nick is all about one-night-stands, and no long term relationships.

Now their romantic conflict is clear: Lexie wants long term, deeply supportive love—the one thing Nick is afraid of. He’d been there, done that and has the emotional scars. Nick will go to any lengths to avoid that pain, while Lexie will go to any lengths to avoid being used and discarded.

So when Nick, a bounty hunter, goes after Lexie to bring her in for a missed court date, and finds out that she’s not too stupid to love, but too smart to die…he comes face to face with his deepest fear. A woman in trouble, one that he quickly grows to care about.

Back to the contest entries I judged: One was so good, I am still thinking about it weeks later. That is some great character motivation!

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: My book wasn’t working, so I went back to the beginning…

I hear all of you who know me screaming, Stop! We’ve heard it a thousand freaking times.

My ideas always start out as one thing and then they come alive, and go through a series of bloody battles we’ll call growing pains as they mature into the story they that is meant to be. That’s when they are no longer mine, but living creatures fighting for what they believe in and need to survive and thrive. The problem is they are like teenagers who keep secrets and make me go through a thousand wrong guesses (easily 100 pages of manuscript) that end badly before I finally pry the truth out of them.

My inefficient process drives me out of my mind. And yet I love it…when I don’t hate it. I’ve long stopped questioning where ideas come from. Instead I try to embrace them with gratitude, load up my determination and buck my metaphoric seat belt for the ride.

One silly Maggie story. We’ve only been down going on a morning walk because it’s hot in the afternoon. Yesterday the weather cooled a bit so  after lunch while Maggie was in the backyard, I went upstairs and grabbed my walking shoes. I dumped them at the bottom of the stairs then went to let her in. She got half way across the room when she saw my shoes. Surprise and excitement hit her so hard, she Tigger Hopped the last three steps to my shoes. Then she did a crazy Chihuahua wiggle dance that made me laugh.

Dogs are so sweet with their unabashed joy for the little things.

How was your weekend?

P.S. 4 more days to enter the Savaged Illusions Giveaway here!