Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful I didn't have a nervous breakdown when I read THIS (excerpt below).

"Serious attacks by patients on their mental health providers are rare, but they do happen, although usually in institutions that see more seriously ill patients.
A psychiatrist in Omaha died from head injuries in August, several days after a patient with a grudge and a history of violence attacked him as he arrived at a medical center."

I know. I'm obsessing.

What?

I love when a candidate gets on TV and says "I'm Blah-de-Blah and I APPROVE this message."

And then they proceed to deliver the message.

Does this strike anyone else as, well, freakin' WEIRD???

HC Books on the Web

Harper Collins to Offer Free Books on the Web.

It'll be interesting to see if this increases their sales (hopefully there will be a follow-up to this). I'm not an ebook person myself. I like to hold them, lug them around, bend back the pages, sneak peeks at stoplights, crawl into bed with 'em. I'm not alone in this respect, according to an AOL poll:

"How do you prefer to read books?

The old-fashioned way, page-by-page 94%

Read, what's that? I prefer audio books 4%

Using an electronic format 2%"

Now a poll of my own: Was this a BOR-ing post or what?

_____ No

_____ Hell yeah!

"Typical" characterics of YA?

Pubrants has an entry that lists the 25 Most Common Things You See In YA Literature.

Gotta admit, I'm guilty of 3:

#17 – Parents who are professional writers or book illustrators (Shawna's mom is a photographer/illustrator)

#12 – A dead mother (if she dies IN the story, does it still count?)

#7 – Fingernail biting (Martha)

OK, guys, be honest: how many did YOU hit? And will any of this make you think twice about your current wips or future projects?

Phyllis Witney 1903-2008

Acclaimed novelist Phyllis Whitney died yesterday at age 104. The author of more than 75 books, she'd been writing professionally since the 1940s and was working on her autobiography at the time of her death.

Note: to give you an idea of how "old" 104 is, Miss Whitney divorced her first husband back, um, around World War II!

Whitney, once dubbed the Queen of American Gothics, holds a special place in my heart. I became addicted to her romantic suspense novels shortly after high school, and sucked them up one after the other. One in particular, The Winter People was my favorite--Beth surprised me a copy of it (copyright 1969) several Christmases ago. Rereading it, I found it tame by today's standards (where little is left to the imagination, especially when it comes to s-e-x) and the heroine not as...mm, shall we say strong? as those in more contemporary fiction. But still a very suspenseful story with a disturbing climax.

I loved this quote in the NY Times article (link posted above): "Ms. Whitney ascribed her success as a writer to persistence and an abiding faith in her abilities. 'Never mind the rejections, the discouragement, the voices of ridicule (there can be those too),' she wrote in Guide to Fiction Writing. 'Work and wait and learn, and that train will come by. If you give up, you’ll never have a chance to climb aboard.'"

Goodbye, Phyllis.

Friday 5

1. Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy BIRTH-day, dear Beth, Happy Birthday to you! XOX

2. My orders are in file. I have close to 68K. LOTS of cutting needed (fun) and LOTS of adding needed (more fun). One thing I need to add is a believable plot. Or semi-believable. Or just a plot will do.

3. I had breakfast with Pamela today! Stuff French toast! Coffee! Writer talk! Wonderful!

4. Molasses lives. Turds abound. Purell makes a very poor pesticide. I'm considering Aquanet.

5. I have some totally awesome news I'm not quite ready to share. Details to come (and if anyone sees it before me, please let me know!)

??????

"You are ready to make a clean break, with today's New Moon Eclipse in your 7th House of Relationships. You are standing at the beginning of whatever is next. But don't think about leaving anything behind; focus on what you need to attract into your life. Anything is possible, so don't be afraid to act on your desires.

OK, not gonna think about that...

What I am going to think about is the fact that I have scenes and scenes and scenes written and none of them strung together in any constructive way. Three files. 30k+ words written in sequence. Two other files with, well, just scenes. Because this was an old NaNo project, the idea was to get the words down and not worry about editing.

In retospect, not the smartest move.

Goal for tomorrow: Sit down, open all three folders, and try to put these scenes into some kind of sequence. Because we are talking about roughly 50K, this is not going to be a simple task.

Remind me again why I refuse to outline?

Re: Heath

Once I herniated a lumbar disk. For two weeks I was bedridden, immobilized by pain. I had to pee in a Dixie cup because I couldn't sit down. The docs gave me Motrin and muscle relaxers, till I finally had sell my soul for a crummy Darvocet.

Heath Ledger, OTOH, died from an overdose of OxyContin, Valium, Vicodin, Restoril, and Xanax.

Nobody has mentioned that he had any pain issues.

I agree it's a tragedy. But WTF?

Obviously I should have shopped harder for a more understanding physician.

Another Loooong Day

All I can say is: FAT FREAKIN' CHANCE.

OK, I like mornings. It's my most creative time of day. But NOT to have to make myself look human, get into the car, and drive anywhere.

When I was in high school I used to keep my alarm clock in the kitchen. The only way I'd get up in time for school was to have to jump out of bed and race downstairs to slam off the msuic. My parents did NOT appreciate waking up in the morning to "Bennie and the Jets" blasting full volume.

This morning my TWO alarm clocks went off fifty-seven times before I finally crawled out of bed at 6:30. I showered but didn't bother to wash my hair. Yes. I went out in public with DIRTY HAIR.

Sometimes I gross my own self out.

I left the house at 7:02 and

1. stopped for gas
2. drove to work and arrived at 7:50
3. went to my PCI class where I learned I am so not allowed to kick anyone in the nuts even if they're beating the sh$t out of me
4. left at 4:25 still wondering if I'll be able to not kick somebody in the nuts--I mean, we are talking self-presevation here
5. drove directly to the grocery store, got there at 5:05, and loaded up
6. came home, unloaded groceries at 5:30
7. threw a chicken (unnamed for a change) into the oven
8. blogged and surfed and emailed till 8:00
9. ate chicken
10. baked cookies from 8:30 till 9:15
11. ate cookies
12. began writing this post as I'm watching South Park

How can I possibly still be awake?

Oh! Beth and I went to see The Eye. We were supposed to see Juno because it's one of the Oscar nominees. But both of us were in the mood for "scary" and we LOVED the Gin Gwai, the original version.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do. Not. Waste. Your. Money. The best part of the movie was when the MC was having all those visions that no one else could see and she became completely paranoid and depressed. It kind of opened my eyes to some of the things my truly paranoid patients experience. I can't imagine living through that kind of terror, and having no one believe you.

But as for the rest of the movie...bleaughhh! Talk about a lame, cop-out, totally Hollywood ending.

To tell the truth, the film lost me right off the bat when they expected me to believe that this American girl received a bilateral cornea transplant from a dead girl in some obscure little Mexican village. Yeah, I'm so sure that peasant girl was on the national registry. Puh-leeease!

Bullying, and a Bit of Self-Disclosure

Judy Gregerson posted a great link on her BLOG to about bullying.

These are some of the things they suggest you tell your children:

"If they see someone else being bullied they should always try to stop it. If they do nothing, they're saying that bullying is okay with them.

"The best way to help is probably to tell an adult. It's always best to treat others the way they would like to be treated.

"Show the bully that they think what they're doing is stupid and mean. Help the person being bullied to tell an adult they can trust."

For those of you who work in the school systems...are these some of the things kids are taught right off the bat?
I hope so. I hope it's ingrained in them from pre-school on.

I have to admit, I've been on both ends of the bullying spectrum. Growing up, we were taught in Sunday School to be kind to others--but the actual "bullying" issue was never addressed by name. It was never addressed in school, either. Bullying was rampant and little, if anything, was ever done about it.

This is embarrassing to admit: But when I was in 3rd grade or so, there was another girl in my class, Sharon, who was very heavy. Other kids made fun of her. Once, I joined in.

I made her cry. And I felt horrible--I deserved to feel horrible--and I never did it again.

I felt guilty about it for years. Yes, I carry baggage around forever. :) Even though I moved to a different school the following year and never saw Sharon again, I never forgot the look on her face when I called her "fat."

What goes around comes around. In 8th grade it was my turn. And trust me--not that ALL of you don't already know this--junior high school kids are a helluva of lot meaner than third graders. Girls who had been my best friends in 7th grade suddenly turned against me in 8th. Although it was never physical (except for one close call) they made my life holy hell for the next 2 years. Even now, decades later, I look back on this as one of the most disturbing experiences in my life.

Did *I* tell anyone? Well, one teacher called me up after class and asked was everything was okay. Was I haveing any problem with anyone? Was there something I wanted to talk about?

To this day I'm grateful she noticed, and took the time to reach out. But all I did was stand there and shake my head. The last thing I wanted was to be known as a ratfink (yeah, that was the word of the day). I denied it all. She sighed and let me leave.

I did tell my parents who gave me the standard advice; "Just ignore them and they'll leave you alone." Yeah, riiight. But that's exactly what I did. I was the epitome of self-control. As far I was concerned, those girls didn't exist.

Did it work? Nope. Although I refused to respond to anything they said, ignoring their behavior didn't stop the bullying. It didn't make them go away and leave me alone. It didn't make them respect me. It just went on and on and on and on throughout the rest of 8th grade and pretty much through 9th.

By 10th grade these girls lost interest in me. In fact, one of them and I kind of "made up" in high school though we were never as close as we'd once been. And we never discussed what happened! Talk about "denial" in its purest form.

What I got out of this experience was a greater appreciation for the feelings of others. I'm aware of it all the time, always wondering how my words will affect others. This is mostly good because I do go out of my way to treat others with respect. It can also be bad, because at times I hold back on my own feelings because I'm afraid of coming across as a "bully"--even when dealing with idiots who seriously need to be "told off" (no, I don't mean my patients, lol, I mean other people in general--and I hope nothing I write in this blog ever offends anyone to the point of no return). I think I'm very attuned to people's emotions. Sometimes too attuned.

With my own kids, I made it a point to teach them right from the start to NOT gang up on other kids. To my knowledge they never did. But I have to admit I never thought to tell them what they should do if they noticed it happening to someone else. It's not enough to simply not join in. But I can also see how some children might be afraid to take a stand out of fear that these bullies might turn on them as well.

What are your thoughts? Do your children come to you, as teachers or even parents, to let you know one of their peers is being bullied? How do you handle it? What advice do you give?

Friday Thought

Today I finished the two-day psych course. At the end of today's lecture, Sister came in and did the Blessing of the Hands (annointed our palms with oil and gave each nurse a blessing).

She said: "God created man in His own image...and all of you are seeing God in His ugliest disguises."

WAR!

I found the assmole's nest right behind my desk! I bombarded it with Purell hand sanitizer. Ha. Take THAT!

Something tells me I'm gonna have one seriously PO'd mole on my hands.

Random Wednesdayness

1.


2. "You are at the beginning of the next chapter of your life, so observe what's in front of you and don't try to navigate by looking in the rear view mirror."

Ya think?

3. No new is...no news.

4. I'm taking a two-day psych certification class tomorrow and Friday. Of course I doubt they'll let me take the certification exam since I've only been a psych nurse for, ummm, 8 weeks? Then Monday I have to go to a class to learn how to deal with psych emergencies, e.g. patients, visitors, or fellow employees (oh, no, that never happens) out of control...or when you're 2 seconds away from losing your teeth--or your life--because a patient goes off on a murderous rampage. I wonder if self-defense is included in all this???

5. The mole and I are officially AT WAR! OK, it was "cute" for a while. We even gave him a name: Mole-Asses (thanks, Brian_Ohio). But Molasses is definitely getting too big for his furry britches. He's taken over the household. I need a trap. Or another cat.

6. I thought about going to Borders today. But that would involve, yanno, putting clothes on, brushing my teeth, maybe slapping some coverup on my latest zit... Nah, too much effort. So I'm working at home today.

And I DO mean working!

Not "Thinking" About Writing

I remember when I was four years old, and climbed up on a table in the basement, for whatever reason. The table toppled and I landed on my head. I spent the next few hours puking my guts up and screaming at my mom who woke me up every hour because she'd been instructed by the doctor (who made house calls back then) to NOT let me sleep more than an hour at a time.

I wonder if that's the reason I have trouble making decisions. For instance, I'll be in J.C. Penney and see three purses I like. Which one? Which one? I'll stare at them for fifteen minutes, then walk away without buying any of them. And God, don't get me started on the bra department, cuz you have to, you know, usually try those suckers on. I could spend six hours in the fitting room staring at my boobs. Not a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

I used to be this way with my writing. OK, three FABULOUS ideas...but which one do I work on?

I can't decide, I can't decide! So I'd end up working on nothing. But hey, I'm "thinking" about it--doesn't that count?

No. It's doesn't.

Happily, I've (recently) gotten over that. I've shelved Nikki for now (for reasons I can't explain) and had a brief moment of panic. If I don't work on Nikki, I have to work on something, right?

Let me think about this...

No, "thinking" about writing doesn't count anymore. Thinking about writing doesn't make you a writer. People who "think" about writing are a dime a dozen.

Writing makes you a writer. So I'm either going to:

1. Not write, and forget about being any kind of a writer

--or--

2. Stop thinking and be a writer

So I took the plunge and leaped back into my paranormal. Truthfully I've tinkered with it off and on (in rare moments of boredom) but only to tweak what I've already written. Yesterday, however, I hit a (new) coffee shop, parked myself there for three hours, and wrote 1200 new words in one sitting.

Yeah, it felt good. :)

38120 / 100000 words. 38% done!

What's strange is that this was originally a 2005 NaNo project. I'd hit the 50K mark, but somewhere along the line I guess I did some serious chopping. Still, not shabby.

I'm wrapping this thing up by the end of the year. And I'm announcing this here so six months from now when I'm whining or procrastinating or "thinking" too much, you can all send me some well-deserved cyber kicks-in-the-butt. ;)

New Toy to Cheer Me Up

I slept till 11:15 a.m. this morning. Now I'm sitting here drowning my sorrows in hot-from-the-oven, greasy, yummy, chocolate-chocolate-chip muffins.

I thought about writing, decided my keyboard sucks rocks, so I ran out to buy a new one. When you're used to a laptop, the traditional ones feel like you need a hammer to effectively hit the keys. Plus there's nothing like spending money to pull you out of a crappy mood. I love my laptop--but there's some nice about cozying up in a warm, tiny room with the door shut and candles burning and fewer distractions, which is why I'm trying to use my office more.

I bought a Logitech 600 (NOT cordless) and it's sooo nice. I feel like I have to reach farther to hit the keys, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. $30 at Office Max. Don't ask me what all those thingmabobbers are at the top of they keyboard because I have noooo idea and I sure don't plan to touch them. But the keys respond well to a very light touch--not like a laptop, but better than what I had.

Now I'm thinking about writing again...

Back in Sync

36198 / 80000 words. 45% done!

(Let's see how long it takes before this word meter disappears)

As Promised...

"Potation" of the Week

If this dude ever saw the state of my house, he'd NEVER trust me to "choose the finnishing details" of his stories.

P.S.

"Jon Stewart has been set to host the 80th Academy Awards® telecast, producer Gil Cates announced today. This will mark Stewart's second stint as Oscar host.

“'Jon was a terrific host for the 78th Awards,' said Cates. 'He is smart, quick, funny, loves movies and is a great guy. What else could one ask for?'”

Uhhhhhhh................maybe Billy Crystal??

Those Hollywood folks never ask for my opinion. :(

Anyway. According to Showbiz Tonight, the Awards ceremony WILL go on whether or not the writers' strike is settled.

OMG, do you know what this means? They'll be picketing the Red Carpet!

The Show Must Go On. Or NOT.

The Oscar nominees for Best Picture have been announced...but will there actually be a show?

It's been a long-time tradition with Beth and me to see every nominated picture--cramming all of them in as fast as we can--and then watching the Oscars together, sometimes alone, sometimes with family and friends. If the strike isn't settled, there won't *be* a show this year.

Weirdly enough, I almost don't care because for the past several years the Academy Award hosts have SUCKED! OK, I like Ellen and wasn't "bad" last year. But what about Jon-omigod-puh-leeeeze-wake-me-up-when-this-boring-show-ENDS-Stewart for instance. And Chris Rock, probably the worst WORST WORST host of the past 80 years.

I know I'm living in the past, but: Come back to us, Billy Cyrstal!!! Please, please!!!


photo source

And of course there's all that political BS. Hello! Can we have three hours of simple "entertaiment" from you people without bringing in Iraq and Bush and how the end of our planet is just around the corner? I'm sick of it. Give me glamour, the glitz, the gowns, the goof-ups. Give me the hunky guys in tuxes. Let me see what these actors really look like while I'm still picturing them as the characters they played. Give me the People Behind the Scenes nobody ever gets to see, and show me the screenwriters behind these wonderful movies. I don't need to hear anyone spewing their venom. I get spewed at enough, thank you very much.

Still, it's hard to break a lifelong tradtion. So I'll probably go see the nominated pictures anyway, and if the show goes on, chances are I'll watch it. If not? Oh, well. Rock on, you writers!

Nominations for Best Picture:

Atonement

Juno

Michael Clayton

No Country for Old Men

There Will Be Blood

Yee Haw

It's official. I'm a total hillbilly.

My rear car window won't stay up and I've been told it'll cost over $200 bucks to fix it. Oh, I don't THINK so, not at this time in my life.

The cure? DUCT TAPE!

Now I'm driving around the neighborhood with a paper bag over my head.

HoRoScOpE

"Although you may be hesitant today, don't turn away an offer because it doesn't seem good enough. Even the best opportunities won't shock and awe you with their potential, yet they will probably be very promising. Make no mistake; you will have to work harder than you think to make it happen. But the results will be well worth it."

Offer?

WHAT offer?

I have nothing pending in the book world. I'm not taking that Craig's List job. Nobody is about to stroll in and rescue me from the asylum. Oh, and since I'm already married, it seems unlikely some ravishingly handsome multi-billionaire'll slip a rock on my finger and sweep me off to his Swiss chalet/Irish castle/French villa (I almost wrote "French vanilla)/Hawaiian condo-on-the-ocean anytime soon.

I seriously need to quit reading these things.

P.S. It's 2 a.m. I'm sitting here alone, in the dark, watching a semi-scary movie. So far we have mysteriously exploding lightbulbs, a weird talking doll (of course the kid's parents don't believe the doll is really "talking" to her) and some dude chipping away a brick wall to see what's behind it.

Yeah. Like none of THAT has ever been done before--bleacchhh!

I'm In!

Any freelancers out there interested in a COOL WRITING JOB???

I know I shouldn't laugh, but:



WTF is "potations"??? And isn't "Hummer" a car?

My friend Kathie and I chuckle over these on a regular basis and I'm thinking of making this a weekly feature. Let's see, we have Monday Memory, Tuesday Teaser, Thankful Thursday, and the Friday Five...how about Witless Wednesday? Nah. Maybe I'll just do a Potation of the Week!

Because I just looked it up:

Main Entry: po·ta·tion
Function: noun
Pronunciation: pO-'tA-sh&n
Etymology: Middle English potacioun, from Middle French potation, from Latin potation-, potatio act of drinking, from potare to drink -- more at POTABLE
1 : a usually alcoholic drink or brew
2 : the act or an instance of drinking or inhaling ; also : the portion taken in one such act

Yep. This'll work. :)

Edgar Nominee: S. A. Harazin

Congratulations to S. A. Harazin whose YA novel BLOOD BROTHERS has been nominated for an Edgar Award for best young adult fiction.



Shortlist:

Rat Life by Tedd Arnold (Penguin - Dial Books for Young Readers)
Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney (Random House Children's Books - Delacorte Press)
Touching Snow by M. Sindy Felin (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing - Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
Blood Brothers by S.A. Harazin (Random House Children's Books - Delacorte Press)
Fragments by Jeffry W. Johnston (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing - Simon Pulse)

GO, Shirley! :) xox

Where are you Guys????

I haven't been able to get at my friends' pages on Live Journal since early this a.m. Anyone else have this problem? Once again I'm falling behind on everyone's posts. I'm in withdrawal! And where are my Blogger friends?

Oh, wait. I don't have any. They're all over at LJ!

*I've* been up since 4:45 a.m. and I'll be on my way to work in an hour or so (expletive deleted). My next day off isn't till Wednesday! This new schedule + rotating shifts has me too confused to remember what day it is. I'd hoped to get some writing done today, but why bother when I have to work? I can't concentrate, plus I've been known to be late because I can't always tear myself away from the keyboard in a timely manner.

Instead of writing, I finished The Pact by Jodie Picoult--the second book of hers I've read and, yes, the second one I hated to put down.



Also read this month--









--which is a pretty good start for the new year (for me).

PS: I don't do reviews--but this was a GREAT BUNCH OF BOOKS!

Five for a Friday

1. If Lindsay Lohan has to spend two days working in a morgue as punishment for her DUI conviction, I think Britney should hang out with me at work for a couple days so she can see what happens to people who refuse to take their meds.

2. Beth and I saw Atonement last weekend. Why can I not sit through a movie without mentally editing it (which is exactly what I do when I'm reading a book)? Good story, but some scenes really went on waaaay too long. In my next life I want to be a film editor, m'kay?

Next movie on our list is Cloverfield although that hand-held camera business might make me barf.

3. Every progress bar I use ends up defunct, so here's my new one till this one disappears, too:
NIKKI

30975 / 80000 words. 39% done

4. Bumper sticker of the month:



5. Does anyone besides me think Tom Cruise is just a wee bit off the wall?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I hate day shift.

Nobody in their right mind gets up at 5:15 a.m. and GOES anywhere. I'm awake every hour during the night, looking at the clock, thinking, "I have to get up in four hours...I have to get up in three hours...I have to get up in two hours...I have to get up in twenty minutes..." By 5:15 I'm exhausted--and *then* I have to:

1. Get up
2. Turn up the heat beacause hubby prefers to sleep in an igloo
3. Make coffee
4. Shower
5. Dress
6. Drink coffee and smoke
7. Dry hair
8. Drink coffee and smoke
9. Put makeup on
10. Start car
11. Run around like an idiot for my purse, keys, coat, badge, money, cell, coffee mug andanythingelseIcanthinkofandIalwaysforgetsomething
12. Leave at 6:15 Drive to work in real TRAFFIC

By the time I get home (around 4:30 p.m if I'm lucky) all I want to do then is collapse. I could seriously go to sleep the second I fall out of the car into my driveway. But all that means is that 5:15 a.m. tomorrow will roll around even sooner. :(

(good thing nobody expects me to cook dinner)

So I'm forcing myself to stay awake (and American Idol tonight is my incentive). Did you BELIEVE that goofball with the Princess Leia 'do??? O vey.

Tuesday, No Teaser

It was actually a pretty crummy writing day. First of all, not enough sleep. But I had to get an early start because I'm working day shift tomorrow (grooooooooooooooan) which means beddy-bye time NOT at 3 a.m. (like last night).

Second of all...you know how you start writing something new and you totally loooove it and spend hours and hours simply basking in your own brilliance?

Then a few days later you're like: What the hell are you writing??????????????

I'm somewhere in between.

On the plus side, nobody at work tried to kill me lately, no rodents scampered over me in my sleep, and American Idol starts tonight!

I MISS MY CAT!!!

This morning, lying on the couch, I was awakened by my cell phone vibrating against my butt.

Except...my cell phone was sitting in front of me on the coffee table.

Which meant something else was vibrating against my butt.

Then that same stupid mole (the one that hoarded all the bird food in my stereo speaker) shot out from under the couch and raced into my office where I'm sure he's still chuckling his furry head off.

Oh.

My.

God.

I had a MOLE on my ass!!!!!!

How happy am I that I don't sleep in the nude?

Reaching for Sun

Fellow Bloomsbury USA author TRACIE ZIMMER was awarded the Schneider Family Book Award for her beautiful free verse novel, REACHING FOR SUN. Congratulations, Tracie!

For a full list of award winners, check out BECKY'S BOOKS.

Plugging Away

24,477 Words/80,000K GOAL

OK, I dropped my goal from 100K to 80K. If I go over, I go over. But no way will I go under.

Reviewing what I've written, the problems I see are:

1. Too much backstory (solve-able).

2. I'm not quite sure I've found Nikki's "voice" yet (eventually solve-able after a few drafts).

3. I can't for the hell of me write in past tense (dammit, I'm gonna make this solve-able if it kills me).

4. I think I rushed some of that backstory, too. If this is to be a stand-alone novel, I need to rethink the way I exposed the truth about Nikki's sister (solve-able, with some work).

5. This is *not* a problem, per se (unless I make it one) but it's hard to see Martha from Nikki's POV without Nikki coming across as a total bitch. I have to "switch sides" so to speak (solve-able with a LOT of work).

So far this is the most challenging story I've attempted so far.