My Cat Won't Speak to Me

Writers discuss the concepts of GOAL, MOTIVATION and CONFLICT over and over, often abbreviating them to GMC. We sprinkle our conversations with these letters, exactly as people in other professions have their own language. When we are at a writers’ meeting discussing a book, we’ll say, “I don’t know what his goal is.” If I’m critiquing the chapters of a friend, I might say, “I don’t see any conflict.” My husband hates it when, after we come out of a movie, I say, “George Clooney’s actions were completely unmotivated.”

GMC are what keeps our stories moving and makes our characters seem real because, of course, we all have goals and motivation and conflict in our normal lives as well.

I realized this even more strongly when I had to take my little hermit of a cat to the veterinarian yesterday. When we came home from a ten-day vacation a month ago, she had this odd habit of like fabric—the sofa, my arm—then nibbling on it every time I scratched her at the base of the tail. After a week, I realized this wasn’t an anxiety response to the separation but that she had fleas and none of the medications I bought at Walgreens were getting rid of it. So I got an appointment for nine ‘o’clock Wednesday morning to take her to the vets.

MY GOAL: to take Maggie to the vet.
MY MOTIVATION: she seems so uncomfortable.
MY CONFLICT: Maggie hates getting into the carry case.

Of course, Maggie had her own GMC:
MAGGIE’S GOAL: to stay at home on the sofa and have her woman (that’s me) me scratch her back while I read the newspaper.
MAGGIE’S MOTIVATION: she doesn’t like to get in the box because she knows she’s going a place she doesn’t want to go and she loves to sit on the sofa and be scratched.
MAGGIE’S CONFLICT: she’s a very small cat.

Because we are bigger and—only occasionally—smarter, my husband and I got her in the case. She immediately collapsed into a boneless lump and glared at me. The veterinarian says she does, indeed have fleas and gave her a treatment which she did not enjoy.

We have now entered a new phase of GMS. My goal is to bomb the house to kill the fleas, but I can’t because Maggie refuses to come out from under the bed in the guest room. I cannot reach her because this is where I store my books and she has, cleverly, barricaded herself behind those boxes. I’m sure you can guess her GMC.

I wonder how long she will stay there. I think she walked across me last night, feeling safe that I couldn’t grab her and stick her in that box again. But this morning, she’s again under the bed. Still not talking to me. Still didn’t curl up beside me to be scratched while I drank coffee this morning.

I feel so guilty! And lonely.

Excerpt Exchange

We all know that today's authors are required to do their own marketing.
We also know that successful marketing makes consumers willing to buy.
Our consumers are our readers. What do they want?
Read, presumably!
So how do we make them want to read our novels?
We give them some pages and hope they'll enjoy them so much, they'll go out and buy the book!
All right. So far, everything is clear and easy.

We create our websites, enclose our excerpts, and hope that our readers will flock to the bookstores.
But . . . there are only so many readers on our website.
How do we find more?
This is where Fran Shaff's idea came in.
She said: Let's exchange excerpts: I put your exchange on my blog, and you put mine on yours . . . and so we spread the word.

When I read this, I immediately liked the idea and wrote to Fran, telling her that she could count me in.
Only . . . later I realized I didn't have a personal blog! Ooops.
I then decided to open a new chapter on my website called "guests". Here, I placed Fran's excerpt. Fran put mine on her Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace pages.
And then we decided that I would tell you all about it . . . first, so you can go and enjoy Fran's excerpt about Mari's Mircacle on my website (http://www.happybooks.de/37-0-Guests.html)
and second, so we can all start to exchange excerpts! I know some of you have already started. Happy reading . . .