What Inspires You? What Makes You Tick?

Thought maybe it would be nice to write about something for everyone for a change, and not just writers. So, what to write about? Hm. I'm not sure. I'm not so sure I don't wax redundant all the time on here, anyway. I know I think about motivation a lot, and along with that, inspiration.

Maybe inspiration could be the topic. Everyone is inspired in life. Everyone has goals.

What are your goals? I'd be interested to know. But I'd be even *more* interested to know what is behind them, what inspired them.

Today a nice lady from my exercise class, Lynn, was asking about how to sell greeting cards. At least, I think that's what she asked me. She started out by saying, "You've published a book, right? Well, I'm working on these greeting cards, and I had some questions about it."

That, of course, led to my diarrhea-of-the-mouth speech about the publishing industry. I think by the end of our 3o- or 40-minute discussion, I'd probably just succeeded in thoroughly confusing her! I'm still not sure what she expected from the conversation, but now that I've thought about it a while, I think I know what *I* meant by it!

There are so many aspects of "greeting card writing." She had had a successful salsa (and cookie and chips) business, where she had to do a great deal of marketing. She told me that she really didn't want to go that "full bore" into marketing the greeting cards. At that point, I must admit I wondered if she was driven enough to stick with her new dream. On the other hand, there are plenty of us who would rather write than market. That's what agents are for, we think. But just get a publishing contract and you'll find yourself doing a lot of marketing, anyway!

I guess what I was trying to get a feel for as we spoke was, what were Lynn's goals with the card business? Did she want to reach for the stars and knock on Hallmark's door? Or would she be happy soliciting to several contacts she had made in the gift store market while she sold her salsa?

She said she was enjoying her retirement. So if she is enjoying her retirement and she doesn't want to do that much marketing, then maybe placement of her wares in local stores is the way to go. And again, "enjoying my retirement" makes me wonder just how long she'll stick with her new goal of selling greeting cards. Gosh, I'm such a skeptic! But I've seen people come and go in the writing business. It can be grueling. You can feel at times very alone, and at times like a very bad writer. It's hard to get the positive vibes you need, to keep the creative juices flowing. Will Lynn be able to keep herself pumped up? I hope so. I like to see people follow their dreams. That's inspiring for me.

Then we talked a little about why I write, and why my buddy Marlean creates and sells her calligraphy (commissioned through a fine stationery store.) We both told our new creative friend that we pursue our goals mainly because we love doing what we're doing. We don't do it for the money. Marlean's calligraphy is a very slow process. I'm a slow writer. We couldn't ever be properly compensated for our time, unless maybe she was Donald Trump's personal calligrapher, and I was the next Nora Roberts.

Uh oh. I'm back on my favorite topic, writing. But I really think you can learn a lot about life just by comparison. In any job you do, if you don't love it, will you do your best? Will you do it for peanuts? Will you keep doing it day after day, hour after hour, and be contented?

What inspires you?

Some people are inspired by money, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some people are inspired by fame. That's cool, too. Others are inspired by learning, by a need to fill a hole in their lives, by the success of others, by the *greatness* of others, by music, by beauty, by good weather, by the need to prove to themselves they can do it, and the list goes on and on.

I probably confused the Lynn the greeting card writer by throwing out all the options to consider, like whether or not to join a critique group of her peers, or license her work before putting it on a website, or if she should send it out to editors before she gets too much feedback.But I think what I was trying to say was, "This is what the business is like. Now, what are YOU like? Can you handle criticism? Can you take rejection? Are you willing to be in it for the long haul? Would you do it for free, forever, if you never got paid? Do you love it? Are you doing it for your relatives and friends, or for Hallmark, and does *that* even matter?"

It all boils down to, what inspires you? What are your motives? What is the carrot that's dangling in front of you?

I love people. I love to try and figure out if I can answer those questions about them. It fascinates me to the extent that I spend a lot of time watching dippy reality shows, gorey murder tell-alls and reading People Magazine. I want to see reactions. I want the blurted feelings. I want to know the real you. Scary,right?

What makes you tick? Is it obvious? Could I figure it out right away? Probably not. We're layers and layers of feeling, memory, emotion, upbringing, opinion, hormones, chemical balances and imbalances, genes.

Fascinating stuff, eh?

Well, back to trying to at least figure out my characters. I'll work on *you* tomorrow!

Reworking a sweater and reknitting a scene

Just a quick blog about what I've been up to lately. The *really* quick version is, too much Goodwill-diving! I've developed a thing for running up to my new Goodwill store and bringing back "orphans." This is sometimes good and sometimes not. I recently found a wonderful vintage sweater, all furry with mohair, and so cute, with its little rows of bobbles up the front plackets. It had some slipped stitches that I figured I could easily pull back up with a crochet hook. I'm pretty good at fixing things like that. Unfortunately, once I got it fixed, I realized one sleeve was really threadbare. What a shame.

I just couldn't give up right away. I kept that sweater lying around in a basket while I contemplated how to fix it. I was thinking maybe if I took the sleeves out, I could somehow re-knit them with the good yarn and eliminate the threadbare part. But that would probably mean short sleeves. What good is a short-sleeved winter cardigan?

Still, I started taking out the sleeves. But see, you can't really do it just like that. Sweaters are assembled in parts that interlock like a jigsaw puzzle. Once I began taking the sleeve seams out, it messed up the collar and the front a little. Soon I'd *really* created a lot of work for myself.

I gave up. I threw it in the trash atop some gooey stuff, so I wouldn't be tempted to take it back out. I knew I had enough projects around here without having to worry over that pesky one. I would list them, but let's just list the really important one: finishing the manuscript I'm working on! The others are mostly needlework, which takes a back seat to writing.

I don't know what it is that makes me want to fix things like that sweater instead of going out and buying one, but I think the fix-the-orphan urge helps me a lot with my writing. It allows me to rewrite and rewrite until I get things straight. You can pull the stitches out of a sweater, or toss out the batter and start the cake over, or you can hit the delete button on a scene.

Maybe what drives me is the need to get things right. "Do your best," we're told. Maybe that's what it is.

Sometimes, just as you end up ripping out part of the neck edging as you try to rework that sleeve, changing a few paragraphs will change the direction of the written scene to such an extent that you're actually rewriting the whole scene. Or maybe the whole chapter. But that's a good thing, right? In my experience, it's a rare revision that isn't a *better* revision.

When would I toss out a whole chapter? Ha! Usually if it's the FIRST chapter, which always gives me a run for my money. Sometimes that thing gets morphed two or three times into something entirely different than what I first dreamed it would be like. But what's the most important chapter in a book? The first one, I do believe.

Lately, as I've worked on revisions on this partial that were recommended by a Harlequin editor, I keep reading other Superromances and trying to see what they're doing right. I think I need to cut out some of my hero/heroine's yammering about other people, places and situations, and cut to the meat: the romance. For some reason (my mainstream storytelling nature?) I like to layer and layer the story. And really, what is the reader picking the book up for? The *love story,* Melissa. The love story.

Sooo....back to cutting out what the grass looks like, and how the house needs paint! <>

Mel: "But, that was a *great* descriptive passage!"

Critique partner Jen: "Mel, what does the *reader* want?"

Thanks for getting me back on track, Jen!