Great Forbes Article on What Makes People Excel

Thanks to my buddy Carla for telling me about this article. I was very intrigued when she mentioned it because lately I've been trying to figure out why some people are motivated and others aren't. Having teenagers does tend to make one ponder such issues. Anyway, this article is applicable to all sorts of things in which one may excel. I was pleased that it validated what I've said about writing. Many times when I've sat down to write, I don't really want to do it. It seems like I'm not getting anywhere, or I don't understand what the plot needs, or why the character comes off as sort of flat. Well, this article says, "Quit complaining and keep at it. The more you do it, the more you'll learn. Push yourself! Reach for higher achievement, and guess what? You can be great!" It also says people weren't *born* to greatness. They worked for it. Even Tiger Woods. Wow. Even Tiger?

I like knowing things are "do-able" for all of us.

It *is* funny, though, how in the end of the article the writer confirms what I feared: even though the experts have figured out that working hard will get you to great places, they haven't figured out why some are motivated and others aren't.

Dang. I guess I'll have to research that some more.

So in order to constantly get better at this writing business, I'll keep trying to learn more, to practice more. I've seen the process work, as I have a friend who has a highly successful family. Every single one of them has achieved great things. They practice what this article says to do, and I'm convinced it's worked for them.

Anyway, here's the link:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391794/index.htm?postversion=2006101915

My New Website!

It has been a while since I posted. Sorry about that. I've been a little snowed under, with Mom sick this fall (she's fine now,) remodeling the master bath, Christmas decorating and shopping, etc,...

Now the bath is nearing completion and so is the shopping. And *my new website* is up! You'll find it at: www.melissabeck.com Please check out what my website designer created for me. I think Heidi is a genious, a goddess, a...what else was I supposed to say, Heidi? Just kidding! The truth is, I love what she did for me, and I love working with her. Visit her webspace at www.xuni.com and you'll see why I chose her to do my site. She truly is special.

What else is banging around in my head? Oh, yeah. My editor tells me our publishing house's site will be up very soon. Can't wait!

I hope you are having a fun holiday season. I know this time of year can be very stressful. I confess I've had a few meltdowns. Just this a.m. I was holed up in a downstairs bathroom, trying to shinny into my exercise outfit. Suddenly I hear the upstairs bathroom tile guy in the hall right outside my door going, "Hello? Miss?" Now, I know it's his job to finish *our* job for which we hired him, but I'm more than ready for this renovating to be finished. After all, it started the day after Halloween. We had a brown paper "path" taped with blue painter's tape in our front hallway for Thanksgiving, and now we'll have a white Christmas thanks to sheetrock dust!

And the final thing on my mind today is, why am I so behind with my writing goals? I know I've been discombobulated with all the stuff going on around here. But that's not a good excuse. All over the world, people are busy and they're still grabbing writing hours. So I'm just vowing to get my writing in every day and get back on schedule. Are you having difficulty writing lately? If so, please post and maybe we can start a discussion on ways to rev up our creativity engines. I'll take any suggestions you'd like to toss my way.

I have a bunch of stuff in my office that shows who I am. One of my recent additions is a tissue box that I bought at Goodwill. It's in the shape of three stacked books--War and Peace, Tom Sawyer and Moby Dick. How cool is that? I love it!

I also have a little metal grinning gat, about three inches high. He sits on the desk and his tail is a spring that you're supposed to stick a pencil in. He's a pencil holder, but I have a skinny makeup brush in there for his tail. It's lightweight, and if you put anything much heavier in there, he'll tip over. I paid 10 cents for him at an estate sale. What a deal.

My friend Denise gave me a cool notepad holder. It's ceramic and it's the Eiffel Tower. She knows I enjoyed Frank's and my trip to France a few years ago. The tower holds two pencils, and the sides hold two square erasers. There's a notepad on the front and one on the back. The notepad covers have miniscule maps of Paris on them. The pencils are also wrapped in that map paper. I won't ever use my Eiffel Tower supplies. Who'd want to ruin them? Too cute!

And I'll leave you with this newspaper clipping off my desk. I like to clip neat sayings and quotes, life lessons. This one was from a graduation speech. Apparently I clipped the author's name off it!

"Expect everything of yourself; there is no limit to what you achieve if you put no limits. Do not ever put any achievement out of your purview if it is something you might want. Keep your childhood dreams with you as an adult. They are a reflection of how your soul is trying to guide you in life. Failing is OK. If you try 10 times, you mail fail nine of them, but it is only the one success that counts. Use outward goals to direct your progress, but remember that ultimately, the path you take is more important than the end you reach."

Talent Versus Mediocrity

Procrastinating from finishing up Ch5 of my new manuscript. That involves working a few Dell Pencil Puzzles. My faves are the anacrostics. They're hard, though. Do you do puzzles? Do you do them in pen? I do. Sometimes, especially with the anacrostics, I have to write really dark over my mistakes!

I just finished a quotation puzzle with a great quote by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes.) Here it is: "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius."

Have you ever recognized genius in your field of pursuit? I have. I've picked up a book to read and gone, "Wow. This writer is great. What the heck am I doing, calling myself a writer? There's no way I can ever be this good."

On the flipside, have you ever known a very mediocre writer who thinks he or she is great? She typically either doesn't listen to critiques or makes excuses for why she isn't going to change her chapter (ex: "Everyone but one critiquer loved that little plot twist.") This type generally doesn't understand her rejection letters, either, and brushes them off with "Well, obviously the editor didn't get what I was trying to do." Instead, if she'd only listen to the editor's advice, she would improve her writing.

Egos are pretty powerful things. What is yours like? Are you talented but you feel mediocre next to genius, so you tell yourself, "I'll never be at that level" and don't bother to push yourself? Or are you mediocre, and happy with that? Whichever you are--talented or mediocre--what if we went to the next level? What if the talented writers pushed for genius level work, and the mediocre for talented? Man, could we ever put some powerful books out there!

How long did it take Edison to invent the light bulb? It took me fifteen years to sell a print book. Who knows what all I'll have learned in the next fifteen? Gee, I sure hope I've improved fifteen years' worth by then. ; )

My Newspaper Article

Here's the newspaper article about my book. Double click on the newspaper to enlarge it to readable size (I think. It may or may not enlarge from here.)

I'M IN THE NEWS!

Today I made the local newspaper. My photo and an article about my upcoming book appeared in the Neighbor Newspapers. I'm a teensy celeb around here! LOL

Yesterday, the husband of one of my BFFs had his obituary in the paper.

I was thinking about the dichotomy there, with the "birth" of my book and the death of this really great man. Both were unexpected events, in a way. Well, we were both working toward those conclusions, in a way. I'd wanted to sell sooner, and I'm sure Bob wanted to live longer!

Life is crazy, isn't it? Crazy and amazing and wonderful and scary and a wild ride at times.

The thing about Bob was, he always seemed upbeat. I didn't want to look at him in the casket, because I wanted to remember him with that teasing light in his eyes. It's too bad more people can't be like that. Now, maybe Bob had his darker moments. But if I didn't know it, I'm sure a lot of other people didn't, either. There's something special about a person who brightens peoples' days just with a "Hello, Melissa" and a friendly, open expression.

A book is coming out. It'll be around a while. Well, probably a lot longer than many, since I'm getting *tons* of author copies. Bob will be around a long time, too. He touched too many lives not to be remembered fondly.

Hug your family members. They're far more important than the business of writing. I do it because I hope to touch people with my words. But real relationships that involve laughter, compassion, friendship--now, *that's* da bomb.

Synopses, sucknopses, stinknopses!

UGHUGHUGH!!
I do not enjoy writing synopses. They sound so "canned." So sterile.
So why am I tearing my hair out over one at the moment? Well, because I went to the Romance Writers of America conference and met with the Harlequin editor I'm courting. She asked me to send her all that I have right now of my work-in-progress. I came home all excited about that invitation and began making the revisions to Ch1-Ch4 that my great critique group had suggested. That went fast. Certain that my synopsis was in awesome shape, I opened it and began to read. Gross. Bad. Writing.

I don't think I've mentioned what I'm writing, since I said I was writing The Perfect Wife. Well, that didn't get past Ch1 before I decided to write something else. The manuscript I'm writing now is called His New Family. The hero lost his son last year to a sudden illness, and his way of grieving is to pull up the tent posts, move and start fresh. The heroine is a spoiled rich girl with a mission: to show everyone she's worth more than the family name. But her *current* mission is to help an accident-impaired friend keep his bar afloat. She just doesn't realize the hero actually owns that bar and it's part of his "healing mission" to close it.

You'd think it'd be easy to just list the hero's and heroine's goals, motivations and conflicts, filling in emotional growth and finding great plot points to ratchet up the whole deal. But sadly, it's not. It's just as frustrating as the first time I tried to write a synopsis. It has taken me all week and I'm still not there. It's holding up my progress, and stopping my partial from being sent to the editor.

Tomorrow. I'll finish it tomorrow, or else. I really want to get back into the story. I'll let you know how it goes. I guess the key to a great synopsis is to know when it's great. I hope I have that epiphany tomorrow. Do you hear that, writing gods?

A Great Writing Article

Just read a great article that someone sent (via a writers' loop) on writing. It's about writing for yourself and writing or publication. The article's author explains that writing isn't just about sitting down and writing a story from your heart, free-flowing, if you really want to sell. I guess some people get lucky and do that right off the bat. But I do believe the majority who sell do so by studying the marketplace and providing what's needed/wanted at the moment. The article writer goes on to say that you *can* write for yourself, but do it with journals, little stories, letter-writing, etc,.. If you want to play in the sandbox with the big boys, though, she says you have to bring out your big shovel and dig hard. Hm. Let's explore the sandbox analogy (not hers but mine) for a moment. Picture yourself climbing into a playground sandbox. There are other kids there, digging away. Some are building sandcastles outside of the box, with the sand that's over there, and they're on their own. In their own little world. It's a nice castle, but who cares? Nobody in the sandbox cares, and as soon as they leave, it'll get kicked down. I see those "players" as the ones who dabble at writing, who never really study the market because it's "art" they're creating. Or it's just something they're into so they can hang with the other kids on the playground. Then there's the aggressive guy in the box, having a great time bombing everyone else's creations and just building away. Flinging sand. That's the author who is soaring, who doesn't seem to have any trouble at all, with sales or with ego. Everyone admires his confidence and his great, innovative creations as they quietly dig around him. One of them copies his methods, or tries to "apprentice" alongside him to pick up on his success vibes, and soon others do, too, and they're succeeding with their sand, with their own castles and motes, and even filling some sand holes, to make ponds and rivers. They smile. They've caught on.

Be the one who catches on. Watch the big guys. But go at a pace of digging that's comfortable for you, and created things of your own design, but *similar* to what's needed out there. Don't build a sand goat if nobody in the box likes farm animals. You'll catch on sooner or later. Better sooner than later, but hey, I was a slow digger. I believe it's more about staying in the sandbox. The ones outside aren't getting it. I've seen them drift away from writing. Don't do that. You'll have more fun if you stay in the box, and eventually, you'll get the chance to fling the sand, to really play and have fun, without being called out by the playground monitor!

Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.burningvoid.com/write/2002/self.php

I Sold The Daddy Issue!!

Can't believe I haven't posted this! Been busy writing, though, between vacations.
Anyway, I sold The Daddy Issue to Premium Press America.

It's so exciting!! And I have a cover already! Here's a photo of it:

Isn't it the coolest?!

Many thanks to my editor, publisher and the marketing department at PPA for such a great cover.

Well, it's back to writing for me. I hope I have people looking at my blogs. Hmm. If you do look, please post a comment so I know someone is reading.

Thanks!
Mel

P.S. I'm really into promo and marketing right now. Look for my ad in Romantic Times Magazine in October, along with a review of my book. And I'll be interviewed on www.romancejunkies.com in October, too! Looking forward to it.

Monday Update

Today is a new day for me!
My crit partner Paula has directed me to screenwriting expert Michael Hauge's worksheets.
I'm hoping they'll help me figure out my GMC's for my new manuscript, The Perfect Wife.

I also got a rejection from an agent today. Racking those up. One of these days, I keep telling myself, they'll come asking for *me!*

Then I received my scores from the national romance writing contest, the Golden Heart. Soulmates didn't do all that well. Bottom 50%. Well, I only had a rough draft of it when I entered. Now I feel much more content with the first 1/3 of it that has been rewritten. But still, it needs work and thought. I stopped on it to pursue this new idea. Daddy Issue, on the other hand, scored in the top 25%. I'm happy with that! That's pretty darned good, and shows my writing is competitive.

On the non-writing end, I'm very sore today from gardening for 7 straight hours. I went to aerobics, did a kick and almost landed on the floor, it hurt so bad! I wish I was in my 30's again. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just turn the clock around?

I'm watching Dr. Phil now. The guests are a man and wife who are haveing marital issues. The husband hasn't worn his ring in two years because he says the marriage isn't the way it should be, feelings-wise, for him. He's a country singer. His wife gets mad at him for having girls flirt w/him in the bars, and she slaps him! Nice relationship. He says he knew at the altar that he'd made a mistake, but afterwards, he'd never felt so in love. These people are confused! Dr. Phil is telling them the wife's jealousy is a power thing. Well, duh! Of course she's trying to control him. Dr. Phil: "If he's gonna cheat on you and leave you, he'll do it." How true. He says you can't keep a fence and keep him in. Right. It's LOVE that keeps the jealousy out of the relationship. Love and mutual respect. I wonder if they'll get it right or if they'll keep fighting and end up divorced, with a two-year-old to split their time with. I'm thinking it might be the latter. Too bad. Marriage takes work...lots of it!

Well, off to make a meal for my hubby. Why is he ALWAYS hungry?!! The way to a man's heart really IS his stomach around this house.

What It's Like to Be Me

First of all, to be me, you have to be sleepy most of the time. I drink a lot of coffee to combat the drowsies. I don't know why I'm sleepy a lot, because I'm usually out like a lightbulb and dreaming each night. I think I should go to bed earlier. Getting up at 7 doesn't cut it, either.

It's almost time for Body Pump, which is a class where you lift weights to some good music. In other words, it's choreographed weightlifting. I've been doing it twice a week for about 10 years.

I just discovered, though, by taking my sister's boot camp in Boca, that I need to do more cardio. Writing involves a lot of sitting. So does needlework, which I really enjoy. So it's important to get out and stretch the legs pretty often.

Tonight I teach Disciple Bible study, which is a program for reading the Bible, developed by the Methodists. It's very good and the workbooks and discussions push you to think beyond the obvious. It's also very time-consuming, requiring reading, taking notes and in my case, teaching from 7 to 9pm on Tuesdays. We will finish up in about 5 more weeks, and WOO HOO, I'll be glad for the break.

This is a typical day for me. Frank is out of town again, this time M-W in Orlando, to meet with advertising customers Disney and Harcourt.

Seems lately we're either on the road together w/the kids, or he's on the road alone. I'd like for things to settle into something of a routine around here!

Better run! Time to make the lunches for the kids and then get ready for Body Pump.

Trying to Post Photo

Hi, again,
Trying to figure out how to post a photo on here. May take a minute!

Yea! It worked. Here I am with my hubby about two summers ago. I tried to upload another photo, but it didn't work. Will do one more recent the next time. I like this photo, though.

Back from Florida Sunshine

I'm back from the sunshine and heat of Florida and ready to get back to my writing. The only good thing about the 14-hour trip home was that I had plenty of time to work on the skeleton of my new manuscript. Gonna hit the keyboard soon and tap out Ch1, since I now know where I'm headed and with whom!

I'm waiting to hear how Soulmates fared in the San Antonio Romance Authors' Merritt Contest. I finaled in it, and now Johanna Raisanen of Superromance has judged it and given it a placement. Eek! She rejected a sub in November, so I'm really interested to see how she liked Soulmates. I've stopped on that ms at Ch5 because I was concerned that it wasn't an emotional enough story for Super. Anxious to get busy with this new idea, which a Super author pal helped me brainstorm. She felt I needed more of a sense of desperation in my setups, which would make it more emotional. That was just the advice I needed, and I ran with it for creating the new ms idea, tentatively titled "Ain't That Lonely Yet."

The title comes from my latest fave Ipod download, Dwight Yoakum's song by the same title. Great angsty ex-lover song. Great lyrics.

Also waiting to hear from Premium Press America on The Daddy Issue. I hope they like it! They got it on 3/28, and said it takes 4 to 6 weeks to review. Cross your fingers for me. : )

Okay. Off to write.