Last Born Children

Last born children fight hard to get noticed.  They are often the class clown, the maverick, the life of the party.  Their older siblings consider them spoiled.

Characteristics of the youngest include:

Careers include “On stage” professions – TV announcers and anchor people, salespeople (because of their ability to manipulate people).  They like jobs where they can work alone and do things at their own pace.

Why?  Parents are “taught out” and let the kid fend for himself.

They are suckers for praise and encouragement.  Their attention-seeking antics can be turned around with a “I’ll show them” attitude.

Famous last born children include Howard Stern, Jay Leno, Danny DeVito, Steve Martin.

Only Children

If the first born child is pressured to succeed, the only child is the mega first born, squared.  They are super perfectionists, super reliable, super scholarly and any of the other super*latives generally applied to the first born.

How an only born’s personality is molded depends on why he’s an only.  If his parents tried to have other children but could only have one, all their energy and attention is heaped on him.  He can become very pampered and spoiled and may have problems in later life with self-centeredness.

If he is an only child because it was a conscious decision of his parents’, he may have grown up with a very structured, disciplined expectation of being the “little adult.”  Resentment at being deprived of his childhood might cause problems.

An only child’s personality can swing from responsible, upstanding citizen to scared and rebellious because they’re not in as much control as they look.

Onlies tend to be critical, often lonely, and have difficulty relating to peers.

Careers include those similar to the first born child: law, medicine, architecture.

Famous only children are Robin Williams, Tiger Woods, Brooke Shields, Carol Burnett.

Twins

Twins can take on any of the other birth order’s characteristic, so it is hard to describe them, but there is a distinction on which of the two is the leader.

The leader’s traits:

The follower’s traits:

Twins may have identity issues, not feel unique, hide behind their twin’s shadow or feel overshadowed. On the plus side, they have a constant companion, someone who understands them.  They are confident, multi-taskers and want to stand out from their peers.

Famous twins include Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, The Olsen Twins, Fred and George Weasley.

Variables

Of course, not every first born is a perfectionist, and not every middle child is a peacekeeper.  You can use these variables to think outside the box when it comes to adding depth to your characters.

Parents

The marital status of the parents is important.  If your character’s parents are married, separated, divorced or remarried, it will have an effect on him.

Parenting style is also critical.  A strict parent has different expectations than a more liberal one, regardless of birth order.

Parent birth order can influence a child.  A first born parent will be more critical of their first born child.  A middle born parent will be less confrontational.

Siblings

A gap of more than five years between siblings often creates a “second family” with the new child taking on the characteristics of a first born.

Adoption of a new child rearranges the dynamics of the existing child(ren) as does the blending of two families through remarriage.  Their order is bumped up or down, and resentment at being replaced as the oldest/youngest can cause friction.

A sibling with a physical or mental handicap causes the other children in the family to mature quicker, whether they are older or younger.

The death of a sibling bumps a child up or down.  Children usually take the role of the sibling to keep the deceased child a part of their life.  “Ghost” children occur when a child dies and another is born shortly afterward.

Resources

The Birth Order Book, Why You Are The Way You are by Dr. Kevin Leman

Ancestry.com, the importance of birth order

The Ultimate Personality Guide by Jennifer Freed and Debra Birnbaum

http://www.birthorderplus.com/

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/birtho.htm

Birth Order

Or

Why Your Characters Behave The Way They Do

Does your hero run a large corporation?  Is he a mover and shaker in the business world?  Or is he in a creative field such as advertising or entertainment?  Does he negotiate well?  Speak first and regret it afterward?  Maybe he’s the life of every party.

Whatever his occupation, you can bet his birth order had an effect on his personality and career choice.  First born children generally share characteristics, as do last borns and middle borns. Not all attributes apply to each birth order, but on average studies have shown them to be more true than not.

Today, we’ll discuss the peculiarities of the first born and the middle child.  Next week, we’ll look at the youngest, only child and twins as well as the variables that can affect their behavior.

First Born Children

First Born children usually have the most attention directed at him/her, even before birth, because the pregnancy was a BIG DEAL.  More likely than not, hopes and dreams (of multiple generations) are pinned on them, and they are pressured to perform from day one.

They are their parents’ “guinea pig”, and their parents often overdo and overprotect their first born child.  They first born child grows up faster and are handed responsibility early.

Some common characteristics:

Professions – A higher percentage of first borns are in science, medicine, law, accounting, architecture, engineers, computers, and reporters (except on air.)

He feels he’s the only one who gets things done and is confident in being taken seriously by others.

21 of the first 23 astronauts were first born children.

2/3 of entrepreneurs are first born children.

Two typical types

First born children come in two typical types – compliant/willing to please and assertive/strong willed.

The compliant first born grows up as a pleaser of others.  Since childhood, he was the one responsible to get things done.  His parents depended on him, and it was his solemn duty to not let them down.

Common characteristics of the compliant first born:

The second type is the assertive, strong willed type.  They are the pace-setters and trend-setters.  They have high expectations, not only of themselves, but everyone else.

Common characteristics of the assertive first born:

Famous first borns:

Oprah, Charlton Heston, Rush Limbaugh

Middle Children

Middle childrens’ attitude and lifestyle plays off that of the firstborn child.  Generally, their personalities are the opposite of their older sibling.  If he senses he can compete, he will.  If the older child is stronger or smarter, the second may go off in another direction.

Middle borns may feel like a fifth wheel.  They go outside of their family to create a “family” with friends. Middles are the most secretive of all birth orders, because they feel the world isn’t paying attention and chose not to confide their plans.

They are the last to seek professional help because they consider themselves mentally tough and independent.

They are considered the most monogamous and have a strong commitment to make the marriage work.

Professions include sales, art, advertising, a career that involves negotiating or being level headed and unbiased.

They are tenacious because they’re used to life being unfair.

Middle children characteristics include:

Like first borns, they come in two types.

Type 1:

Type 2:

Famous middle children are Donald Trump, Tim Allen, Julia Roberts, Richard Nixon, David Letterman

Resources

The Birth Order Book, Why You Are The Way You are by Dr. Kevin Leman

Ancestry.com, the importance of birth order

The Ultimate Personality Guide by Jennifer Freed and Debra Birnbaum

http://www.birthorderplus.com/

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/birtho.htm

How to write a book in a month, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month, affectionately called NaNo, is traditionally held in the month of November.  (go to www.nanwrimo.org) .  My writing group unanimously agrees that November is the second suckiest month to write a book (superseded only by December).

Traditionally, we pick the dullest, dreariest part of the year to host our own writing challenge, Winter NaNo.  This month, from the February meeting (2-11) until the March meeting (3-10), participants challenge each other to write 32K words.  No editing, no revising, nothing but pure stream of consciousness writing.  The internal editor is locked in a dark closet, and we all have each other’s keys.  We’re so serious about this, we’re bringing our laptops to the February meeting to kick off the event and will spend a dedicated amount of time writing on our projects.

A minimal donation is made, with the pot split between the organization and one lucky winner.  Writers who can’t make the goal pay a small penalty.

Sharing a goal like this is invigorating.  You know everyone’s in the same boat, so there’s no excuse not to write.  The competition is fierce, especially to be the first to claim “I made it.”

Several NaNo projects written by my fellow authors have been sold and published.  More motivation.

What are you hoping to write this month?  What is your motivation?

Stuck?

If you’re the owner of an iPad, you’re in luck in getting unstuck.  Whether personally or professionally, this app is great for diagnosing your problem, getting to the root cause and giving you manageable, workable action steps to get unstuck.

If you’re a writer, have your characters answer various questions to give you answers as to why they aren’t behaving.

Here are six action steps to take to get you unstuck:

* First, download the program (FREE) and register (you can use your Facebook logon).

*  Pick 3 of 18 cards that best describes how your stuck moment makes you feel, ranging from afraid to up in the air.  Let’s say you pick “Lost” as your stuck emotion.  Unstuck will ask a variety of questions such as “What are you stuck on?” and “I’m stuck because_____”

*  Use the diagnostic tools.  One is a pack of 20 cards with statements on them which you sort into “So me” and “Not me” piles. From your answers, you’ll assigned a category (ie Avoider) and given action steps, tools, tips, and a cyber kick in the butt.

* Set a goal, give yourself a deadline and outline consequences for not following through.

* Post your goals and deadline on Facebook or connect to the Unstuck community for motivation and accountability.

*  Follow through on your plan and get unstuck.

It’s a great tool, and way lots cheaper than therapy.

What things are you stuck on?

Enter coupon code PRICETHAW305 at checkout and receive 20% off your order. The maximum savings for this offer is $100. Sorry, but this offer is only valid in US Dollars and cannot be applied to previous orders. You can only use this code once per account, and unfortunately you can’t use this coupon in combination with other coupon codes. This great offer expires on January 20, 2012 at 11:59 PM PST, so don’t miss out! While very unlikely, we do reserve the right to change or revoke this offer at anytime, and of course we cannot offer this coupon where it is against the law to do so.

I apologize for not having it available sooner.  I thought I’d put it up in October.

On the bright side, “The Apprentice Fairy Godmother” and the sequel to “Elf”, “Robert’s Rules Undone” are also on Lulu.com and can be purchased using the same discount code.

And if you’re the person who recently bought two dozen ebooks of “Elf” for Kindle, I’d love to hear from you!

Buy “Tall, Dark and Slayer” now at champagne books!!

Tanya Eby of my writing group challenged us to write a short story about a Christmas party.  Here’s my entry, starring Gabe and Betty, from Tall, Dark and Slayer, available next week from champagne books.

The only Christmas cards that concerned me two nights before the big day were the queens of hearts, clubs and spades I gripped and the possible straight my ex-lover held.  If he was bluffing, I’d win a pound of cashews.  If he won, I’d have to sacrifice my Kona coffee.  I’d be damned if that happened, so I didn’t have time for distractions like the dozen or so guests – half of them vampires – crammed into my Brooklyn apartment, the rapidly disappearing seven layer dip or Christmas cards.

Not true.  One card preyed on me like a safari hunter on the Kenyan plains.  It taunted me from where it lay, half propped against the toaster, oh so casually reminding me its sender.

Al Banks.  My biological father, although I say it as if I had been adopted and had another dad waiting in the wings.  No such luck.  Al had brought me up on the road as he ran one scam after another, teaching me the tricks of the trade along the way.  I could only imagine what scheme was tucked into the card along with the season’s greetings and pictures of snowmen.

“Your turn,” Vince reminded me.  He snapped his fingers in front of my face.  “Betty, are you with us?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your panties in a bunch.” I laid the worthless three on the table and drew another card, hoping for the elusive queen of diamonds or another eight to make a full house.  I hid my disappointment as a five showed up.

“Call, and raise you a vanilla scented candle.”  I moved the gift bestowed on me earlier that evening to the center of the table.  Hey, I was all about re-gifting.

As Vince drew his card, his face unreadable, the hand of my current lover settled on my shoulder.  I didn’t turn around, but warm fuzzies settled over me.  Gabe had that effect on me.

“You two about done?  Rachel needs a ride home.”

He’d said the words too loud for a whisper as he leaned forward to kiss my neck.  I glanced at Vince and caught the flash of excitement and the even briefer flash of resignation on his face.  Excitement because, strange as it seemed, he’d honed in on Gabe’s sister the minute I’d broken up with him.  All the better for him as she had a ready-made family, and I’d danced around commitment for months.  Resignation – well, now I knew he didn’t hold a winning hand.  Hello, cashews.

He didn’t even try to bluff further but laid down his cards, one short of the straight I thought he had.  He pushed the cashews toward me even as he reached for his coat, slung over the kitchen chair.

“Nicely done,” I whispered to Gabe as I stood.

He placed a hand on my arm.  “You okay?  This party isn’t too much for you, is it?”

How had he picked up on my distraction?  I’d admit I’m not the most social of creatures, but a Christmas party?  Pffft.  A call to the local deli and the help of my best friend, Darcy, who happened to be Vince’s sister and a Vamp, made things easy-peasy.

“Everything’s fine.”   I dealt with vampires every day, but a harmless Christmas card spooked the beejesus out of me.  I kept my gaze from the that portion of the countertop.

“If you’re sure.”

“No problem.  Let me say good-bye to Rachel.”  I loved Gabe, a new phenomenon for me, but I didn’t need him hovering over me like…like a father.

Don’t know what that’s like.  Al hadn’t exactly been the poster boy of great dads.  I couldn’t understand him sending me a card, unless he’d already embroiled me in another of his schemes.  I hadn’t recovered from the con he’d tried to pull over Halloween.  I didn’t know whether to admire or curse his gutsiness.

I found Rachel in the bedroom, extracting her coat from under a mound of others.  I pushed aside a stray pillow and snagged her scarf.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said as I handed it over.

“What?  You need a scarf.  It’s colder than a witch’s – ”  For once, I stopped my stream-of-conscious mouth.  I really didn’t know her that well.

Her gray eyes, so like Gabe’s, locked on me.  “Not for that.  For hosting the party.  We never had good Christmases growing up.  He might not show it, but it does make a difference to Gabe.”

“Oh.  Yeah, of course.”  I recovered quickly.  I’d agreed to a party for selfish reasons.  I’d made it a point to celebrate the holidays since I’d established a permanent place.  Fixing Gabe’s childhood trauma hadn’t occurred to me, but it should have.

“I knew you’d understand.”  Unexpectedly, she hugged me.  “I never had a sister.”

A sister?   Until recently, she’d been a customer, ordering Heat-N-Go artificial blood from me.  I guess it was time I started thinking of her as family.  A disconcerting thought.

“Thanks.  I never had a sister, either.”  I extracted myself as diplomatically as possible and was saved from faking intimacy or saying something stupid by the entrance of two other guests.

Vince’s eagerness to take Rachel home had signaled the breakup of the party.  I spent the next few minutes retrieving coats and wrapping leftovers.  Saying good-bye, surprisingly, hit me harder than I’d thought.  I’d grown to like these people – my lawyer and his wife, Rachel, even Marcus, Gabe’s enigmatic ex-boss.

Gabe closed and locked the door behind the last guest.  I’d switched off most of the lights, only the tree remained on, its twinkling not enough to hide snowflakes swirling outside the window.

He enveloped me in his arms, and his familiar scent of cloves and leather drifted to me.  We stood in the darkness for several moments, enjoying the quiet and each other’s company.  We hadn’t been alone all day.

“You gave a great party, Betty.  Everyone enjoyed themselves.  Thank you.”  He snuggled me closer.

“Hey, Mercer, you’re not going all sentimental on me, are you?”  The party had been a little stressful, the arrival of Al’s card even more.  I didn’t need a lover with shaky emotions to round off the evening.

He chuckled, and I felt the vibration.  “I’m a vampire slayer.  Nerves of steel, remember?”

Right.  Mr. Tall, dark and slayer, international man of mystery.  “I’ve seen your softer side.”

He grunted in a macho, you-are-so-wrong way.  “Don’t blow my cover, okay?”  He nuzzled my neck, and my knees threatened to give way.  “Good party.  Good food.  Good friends.  Thank you.”

“’Twarn’t nothing, sheriff.”  I tried to keep the tone light.  A lump of emotion clogged my throat.

“Uh-huh.  I know you’ve been distracted.”

His hand under my sweater distracted me.  The rasp of his beard against my neck distracted me.  Anything else?  Pffft.  “I can think of one or two ways to make me focus.”

Gabe moved, drawing me with him.  But instead of heading toward the bedroom, he led me into the kitchen.

“I think the whipped cream is gone.  Unless you want to do something kinky with the leftover cranberry sauce, but I’m warning you, that stuff stains like crazy.”

“Betty, you’re a nut.”  He stopped and reached across me.  A moment later, he held up the Christmas card.

Thoughts of romance crashed around me like broken crystal.  “Oh.”

“Time to face the truth.”

“Gabe – ”   I couldn’t understand his motive.  He’d seen the destructive side of my father.

“It’s like pulling off a Band-Aid.  The quicker you do it, the sooner you can heal.”

“I don’t need him.  You’re my family now.  You and Rachel.  Vince, in a weird way sometime in the future.  Darcy and probably Marcus, though I’ll never understand that attraction.”

“Stop babbling and open the card.  It can’t be as bad as your imagination thinks it is.”  He waved the card under my nose.

“Oh, I’ve got a pretty vivid imagination.”  His gray eyes showed no mercy.  I snatched the envelope from him.  “All right.  Al Banks didn’t raise a coward.”

Gabe leaned against the counter, smugness showing in every pore.  He snapped on the light over the stove.

I ripped open the envelope and pulled out the card.  The front pictured two teams of snowmen playing hockey.  I flipped it open to read the message.

A smaller envelope dropped out.  I grabbed it before it hit the floor.

“More trouble.”  It had the weight of an anvil.  Or sword.  Or bomb.

“Maybe not.  Did he write anything on the card?”

“’Sorry I couldn’t be there to help celebrate your first Christmas together.’  A good thing if you ask me.  Not a sentimental man, Al Banks.  We probably won’t see him for a couple of years, or whenever his luck runs out.”

“Such a cynic on Christmas Eve Eve.”

He enjoyed this too much.  I glanced at the stove clock.  “Christmas Eve now.   I suppose I can’t put this off any longer.”

I unfolded the packet and froze.

“Betty?”  Gabe surged toward me.

My hand shook as I held out the contents.

Gabe held them up to the light.  I watched his face change from suspicion to awe.

“Open ended tickets to Hawaii?”

“He does have a lot of air miles.”  I couldn’t believe the old man had coughed up such an expensive present, but he’d always treated me like a princess when he’d been flush.  “I hope he didn’t scam anyone to get them.  They are in our names, right?”

Gabe glanced at them again, then he froze.

“Gabe?”  What had he seen?

I snatched the tickets from him.  The first read Gabriel Hawk Mercer.  The second ­–

“Elizabeth Mercer?”

A smile transformed his face.  I’d never seen him look so pleased.   “I like the sound of that.  A lot.”

Our relationship had never been traditional, why should his proposal be ordinary?  I’d expected panic, but this felt natural and right.

I let the cards and tickets drift to the floor.  I’d pick them up later.  “I do, too.  A lot.”

Family is where you find it, and I’d finally found mine.

(to read how Betty and Gabe met and their adventures to this point, purchase Tall, Dark and Slayer from Champagne Books after 1-2-12.)