Monday, March 20, 2006

Procrastinate? Read Bad Childhood, Good Life



Do you procrastinate?

Authors, does your heroine unconsciously respond to her hero as she did to her father and mother? People often do.

Were her parents constructive and good, and/or annoying, bad, evil? How would she respond in each case, to challenges, now?

My heroine Maggie's parents expect a lot, yet they baby her and embarrass her in front of the hero. But his mother turns into Maggie's staunchest friend and spiritual ally.

When the secondary hero David finds his Messiah, his parents declare, "We have no son."

Later, Maggie deals with a terrible tragedy and loses trust in herself, in love and in God.

How these wounded people finally find love and peace and acceptance with each other is the crux of this sometimes funny story of spiritual warfare set in New Orleans, Pensacola, Israel and Paris.

In her book,
Bad Childhood, Good Life Dr. Laura deals with parents on the continuum, as she calls it, of annoying, bad, or evil.

She discusses how parenting can cause perfectionism, and procrastination!--and how those who do these can turn their lives around.

She wants to help people stop wallowing in the pain of the past, making it worse.

She is against confrontation, but advocates people surround themselves with God and loving, healthy people, loving them back, serving them, and counting their blessings!

As my own precious, late little mom always said,
we are happiest when serving
others.


So, why do some people habitually put things off?

Fear, maybe, looking for nurturing and reassurance, Dr. Laura says, elaborating.

She doesn't mention ADD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or Clinical Depression which can certainly sap one's energy, as well, as one annoyed reader pointed out.

So, not everyone will agree with all she says.

And since she is Jewish, she doesn't discuss Jesus.

Some authors have suggested imagining Jesus standing there with us during troubling events back in our past, loving us through them, perhaps saying that He can turn this around someday for the good.

And the people in stories can influence and help the reader to heal. Click on Read for Your Life for more about beneficial fiction!

4 comments:

Stuart said...

Heya Margo,

I'm a terrible procrastinator. I think it is a mix of being easily distracted by shiny new baubles.

Books like this can always present new ideas and complexities we can "acquire" for our own characters in fiction too. :)

Interesting stuff.

And thanks for dropping by my blog.

Mary DeMuth said...

I'm researching right now for a novel. These are the types of topics I'm learning about, so this was helpful.

Thanks!

Margo Carmichael said...

"easily distracted by shiny new baubles." LOL, I hear ya, Stuart, I relate! My blog being one of them, in my case.

Bonjour, Mary, nice to hear from you over there in France! Glad it was helpful.

Margo Carmichael said...

LOL Thanks, Katy. Don't we all! Now, if only all those savvy editors would quit procrastinating and buy my story! LOL

Oh, this is interesting. My verification letters below are wfixvdu--as in fix voodoo. Or why fix voodoo. Which my story goes into. For which my heroine suffers. Hmm.... LOL