That's beautiful, Laura.

That's an absolutely lovely tribute, Laura. I wish I'd known her. We all knew she was probably pretty wonderful to have raised such a stellar human as you.

Since it is to be read aloud I made myself read aloud as I was putting it together and editing. I think it flows easily enough to read. People will have to deal with me reading it from paper because I sure as heck can't memorize or ad-lib!

If anyone knows anything about how a bigger record company might acquire a small-but-profitable indie label(How long it takes, sticking points, etc,) you'll really help me get my novel right at last.

Thought I was really going to have a collaboration with another disabled artist, but he read my pitch and was like "That's not really what I do." And, in addition to feeling kind of hurt, part of me was like "I was going to pay you money and you always have a GoFundMe...what you do should be what I do, right now." But is he right? Have I been floating by the seat of my pants too much because I don't really have a capital-V Vision anymore?(although I can't say his is getting results that much more than mine since he's a caricuturist on Sunset Strip, which is better for street cred than commissions.) I've always been interested in a lot of different things and that's what my clips are like, too, but should I have more of a sense of What I Do at this stage?(Except not, say, Ayn Rand companion volumes, obvs...I would do anything for love but I won't do that!)

Does he have a vision, or does he have a marketing catchphrase? If you look back over your work, is there a common approach? (I hate the word theme, it reminds me of Pinterest)

wrod, I know. Even "vision" sounds like I'm gonna be cutting pics out of magazines any moment. I guess it's not the end of the world if we don't work on something together(Damn me for always looking for the cinematic ending) but it does make me wonder if I'd have been a better writer if I had a more long-range view of my work.(Although, pique aside, maybe my instinct that he's playing the grand piano isn't completely wrong,either. Even if the best insights don't usually come with "screw you," attached.)

Ok, I've got a character facing a dilemma about a big secret she unearths while investigating that could have big consequences for the people she's got her eye on. Initially, she was just gonna drop it, and the machinery of bureaucracy would sort of chew them up, and, fade to black.(Which is, I confess, what's probably most likely in real life, without crippled private investigators. Also, she could have angst about how her own ambition turned out badly for someone else.) downside:probably my protag wouldn't seem like a hero anymore, and I want her to...not more than life itself or anything, but I at least want her to get credit for good intentions. Probably would have been easier to write if I hadn't become attached to the couple she's watching(Which would be something she'd need to watch for also, natch.)

I could flip it, and she reports to her mentor(and by extension the insurance company he's employed by) that she didn't find anything and everything with the couple is as it should be.Which I like for making her fairly noble, but it might make her look like a bad investigator, as well as someone that an old friend stuck his neck out for and kind of got jammed. Or some kind of "Rockford" middle ground I haven't found yet...

Could you build something into the story that she could report but that wouldn't get the couple in trouble? . Like they weren't involved in the big issue, but she discovers that they are guilty of something else? It would help to know the big issue—if it was laundering money for the mob, for example, she could omit that, but "discover" that they were tricked into using the business that did the laundering.

That could work...