Extraordinary
Women

  • Diana Gabaldon

     

    Brilliant author of the historical sci-fi adventure, Outlander books, novellas, and graphic novels. Herself, as fans call her, creates strong, loving, companionate female characters that span time.

  • Katherine Johnson. Dorothy Vaughan.        Mary Jackson.

    These brilliant African-American women worked as mathematicians and aerospace engineers at NASA and were referred to as human computers. Their work was instrumental in the successful launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit.  

  • Rose Antonia Maria Valland

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    Rose Antonia Maria Valland (1 November 1898 – 18 September 1980) was a French art historian, a member of the French Resistance, a captain in the French military, and one of the most decorated women in French history. She secretly recorded details of the Nazi plundering of National French and private Jewish-owned art from France.

  • Hedy Lamarr

     

    Beautiful and talented actress. Brilliant inventor. She may not have literally invented WiFi, she did invent an important precursor. In collaboration with George Antheil, Lamarr patented a frequency-hopping mechanism designed to keep Nazis from intercepting Allied transmissions during World War II. Not only is it impenetrable from a security perspective, it is the foundation used to develop Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

  • Margaret Atwood

    A Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayists, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. She has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 non-fiction books, 9 collections of short fiction, 8 children’s books, and 2 graphic novels.  A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.

  • Rear Admiral Sandra Stosz

    Rear Admiral Sandra Stosz

    Rear Adm. Sandra Stosz became the first female superintendent at any of the U.S. service academies. A 1982 Coast Guard Academy graduate and a surface operations officer with 12 years of sea duty, Admiral Stosz has plotted a course that includes many firsts for women in the military. Her performance in previous assignments as commanding officer for recruit training at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, N.J., the Director of Reserve and Leadership, and the commanding officer of two cutters, has demonstrated a commitment to building a diverse workforce.

  • Nancy Grace Augusta Wake

    Nancy Wake

    Nancy Grace Augusta Wake (August 30, 1912 – August 07, 2011), also known as the “White Mouse”, was one of the most decorated secret agents of the Second World War. By war’s end in Europe she had become famed as a resourceful, dauntless Resistance leader, who topped the Gestapo’s most-wanted list and had saved hundreds of Allied lives. She parachuted behind enemy lines, dodged bullets many times, rode a bicycle 250 miles to alert the French resistance to the Normandy invasion, was involved in ambushing German convoys and destroying bridges and railway lines.

  • Temple Grandin

    Temple Grandin

    Temple Grandin (born August 27, 1947) is an American doctor of Animal Science and professor at Colorado State University, bestselling author, and consultant to the livestock industry in animal behavior. As a person with high-functioning autism, Grandin is also widely noted for her work in autism advocacy and is the inventor of the hug machine designed to calm hypersensitive persons.

  • Bessie Coleman

    Bessie Coleman

    Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an American civil aviator. She was the first female pilot of African American descent and the first person of African American descent to hold an international pilot license.

  • Erma Bombeck

     

    Mrs. Bombeck was thirteen when she wrote her first newspaper column. Her syndicated column, “At Wit’s End,” was directed to the lonely plight of stay-at-home mothers and appeared in more than 900 newspapers. She spent twenty-seven years writing 4,500 columns and 12 books that touched the lives of an international audience of women, men and children. She was still writing her column and developing a new book when she died from complications of a kidney transplant in 1996.

  • Sally Ride

    Sally Ride

    Dr. Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) from Los Angeles, California, was an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut. She studied at Portola Middle School, Westlake School for Girls, Swarthmore College and Stanford University, and earned a master’s degree and PhD. Ride joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983, became the first American woman, and then-youngest American, to enter space. In 1987 she left NASA to work at Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control.

  • Carol Mutter

    Carol Mutter

    Carol A. Mutter (born December 17, 1945) is a retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant general. She is the first woman in the history of the United States Armed Forces to be appointed to a three-star grade. She retired from the Marine Corps on January 1, 1999. Her last active duty assignment was as Deputy Chief of Staff, Manpower and Reserve Affairs (DC/S, M&RA) at Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

  • Betty Reid Soskin

    Betty Reid Soskin, the country’s oldest active ranger in the National Park Service, turned 100 years old Wednesday, September 21, 2021.  She’s a published author, a songwriter-activist, a businesswoman and now serves in the National Park service as the country’s oldest ranger.

    The century-old ranger leads tours and public programs, sharing her experiences and observations at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond California. In celebration of her milestone birthday the National Park Service created a special limited-edition ink stamp in her honor.

  •  Carol Burnett

     

    A comedian with a decades-long career. Her own beloved comedy TV show, a number of feature films and on Broadway. A published author and known to help young comedians starting out. She has been the recipient of numerous honors. American Comedy Awards, Emmy and Golden Globe awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Kennedy Center Honors, given to the creative minds who influence American culture with their art.

  • Antonia Novello

    Antonia Novello

    Dr. Antonia Coello Novello, M.D., (born August 23, 1944) is a Puerto Rican physician and public health administrator. She was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as fourteenth Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993. Novello is the first woman and first Hispanic to serve as Surgeon General.

  • Pvt. Minnie Spotted Wolf

    Minnie Spotted Wolf

    Private Minnie Spotted-Wolf (1923 – 1988) was the first Native American woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. She enlisted in the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve in July 1943.

  • Sergeant Kimberly Munley

    Sergeant Kimberly Munley a civilian Department of Defense police officer at Ft Hood credited with stopping the firing rampage of an Army Major within a few minutes after he launched his attack. Munley, a 35 year old petite mother of two, put her life at risk and drew the attention of shooter. She fired and took the man down. But not before she was shot three times. Munley is credited with preventing many more deaths.

  • Rosie the Riveter

    Rosie the Riveter

    Rosie the Riveter is a cultural and feminist icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and war supplies.

  • Wives of Police Officers, Firemen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines.

  • World War II Women Airforce Service Pilots

    World War II Women Service Pilots

    A few more than 1,100 young women, all civilian volunteers, flew military aircraft — including the B-26 and B-29 bombers — as part of the WASP program. They tested newly overhauled planes, towed targets to give ground and air gunners training shooting — with live ammunition. They ferried new planes from factories to military bases.  Most importantly their service freed a male pilot for combat duties.  The WASP expected to become part of the military during their service. Instead, the program was canceled after two years. Thirty-eight WASP members lost their lives and one, disappeared while on a ferry mission. In 1977, for their World War II service, the members were finally granted veteran status by Congress. Brave woman all.

     

  • SPAR Olivia Hooker: First African American Woman in the Coast Guard

    Olivia Hooker

    In February 1945, Olivia Hooker was sworn in by a Coast Guard officer, becoming the first African-American female admitted into the United States Coast Guard. Hooker joined the service to become a SPAR (Semper Paratus Always Ready), the acronym used for female service personnel during World War II. She remained in the Coast Guard until the war-time SPARs were disbanded by mid-1946. Dr. Hooker later earned a doctorate in psychology had a distinguished career as a professor.

  • Marjorie Harris Carr

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    (1915-1997) an American environmental activist. She is best known for leading the fight against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Cross Florida Barge Canal. Carr and her colleagues won a temporary injunction against construction of the canal in January 1971. Days later, President Richard Nixon halted construction of the canal.

 

 

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AN AUTHOR’S GMC

 

Successful books and  successful writers have Goals, Motivation, and Conflicts.

Think about it. We use GMC to build our books. As writers we are no different from the characters we set up in stories. Writers have Goals just as our characters have. We have the Motivation as to why we want to achieve our goals as do our characters. And we have the internal and external Conflict standing in the way of achieving our goals preventing us from reaching those goals. 

 

It is proven individuals with goals are significantly more successful than those without. Think of your writing career as writing a book. Do your characters wander around a story doing nothing? Nope. Your characters have purpose, a story goal. If a character’s goal is to be the president of the US, she will have to do some things, have a plan, take steps to reach that goal. What happens in a book is plot. What happens in your life is planning. As authors, we want to write the best book possible, be published, have bestselling books so we take steps and make plans in order to be successful. Ding, ding, ding. GOAL.

What’s your plan to reach the goal of writing that great bestselling book? This is important. It’s said that the main reason primary goals fail is because there are no secondary goals made. By this, I mean if your primary goal is to write a book your secondary goal could be to put your butt in the chair and write so many words every day. You may say, “well, duh, of course.” But, you would be amazed at how many people do not make secondary goals. To me this is same as saying you want to go to Paris and standing on the curb in front of your house expecting a A380 to land and take you there.

To reach your primary goal and keep you on track develop daily, weekly, monthly, yearly goals. Be realistic. Be honest. Remember life can and does reach out and head smack you. Forget what your friends are doing. Decide what it will take for YOU to reach your goals. Don’t say you’re gonna write 5000 words a day when you know you only have time to write 500. You may discover reaching a goal can mean making a decision about what you need to give up. How many times have you said you don’t have time to write? Examine how you use your time. Perhaps cutting down time spent cruising the Internet or, hours watching TV.

 

Our characters goals are define by what they want and why.

A writer’s reason, or motivation, for writing and being published is important to acknowledge. Do you write for fame? Fortune? To be labeled a successful author? Because you’d die if you don’t write?

If it is fame and fortune take a step back and define what fame, fortune and successful author means to you. As in a book, motivation has a direct effect on your goals.

Is your motivation to see your print book on the end display at a brick-and-mortar store?

Goal. Research editors and publishing houses.

Motivation. You want to prove to all the naysayers who said you couldn’t write a book that you can and did.

Goal. Save money to rent a billboard and take full-page newspaper ads to say nanny-nanny-boo-boo to all of them.

Motivation. You promised your dear great-auntie you would write and publish the family history and self-publishing is the way you’re going.

Goal. Find a good editor. Learn about e-reader formatting and research cover artists.

What I’m saying is different motivation requires different goals. In a story, a character’s motivation keeps the middle from sagging. For the author, motivation keeps you from sagging in the time between you finished the book and it is published. It’s that time when you’re looking for representation and a publisher to buy the book or working hard at learning the ins and outs of self-publishing. No sugar coating here, it’s hard and staying focused and motivated is extremely important.

And now we come to…Conflict. We are told conflict, conflict and more conflict is what makes a good story. Conflict, conflict, and conflict in a writer’s life is not be the best thing. Unless of course you are a person who thrives on conflict. But, let’s face it, we all have conflict in one form or another. A day job sucking the life out of you. A day job, and caring for a family while you write. BTW if you do, I am in absolute awe. Family and friends giving you grief about your writing. A new baby, children home sick, or both. A daily battle with the fear of failing, or being successful. Maybe the evil internal editor follows you everywhere. Whatever it is, you are not alone. We all fight the enemy called conflict and totally eliminating it is not possible. In your story, your H&H work hard to overcome their conflict. Writers are not different. Work hard to identify your enemy. Adapt, improvise and overcome. Yeah, that’s what gung-ho marines say and it works here cause our battles are just as intense as theirs. Never underestimate your enemy. (Yes. I write suspense/thrillers)

You are the Hero or Heroine of your own story. Use Goal, Motivation and Conflict and ensure your very own successful happy ending.

Have Primary and secondary goals.

Define your motivation. Believe it will happen. Believe in yourself. YOU_are_a_writer.

Identify your conflict and make a plan to overcome it. Don’t let life ambush you.  

                                          Happy writing,

                                                                  Rita  

 

   

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