Characters' desires

Dear Reader,
For you to enjoy a book or any other type of story, do you have to know what the main character wants or desires?

What is the character's desires in your favorite books and what are the titles of those books?

And other writers, how do you chose to express your characters' desires?

Characters' habits

The best way to change a bad habit is to change it to a good habit. We are creatures of habits might as well have many good habits vs. having many bad habits.

I think when I notice a character in a book having a habit, good or bad, it make them more human and real.

I often write my heroes running their hand through their hairs when nervous.

Dear Readers,
what habits do you notice in books or real life? If you are a writer what often show up in your books?

Rewriting- my first mistake

Turned out the best first step to rewriting a novel is to take a break from the first draft. *Laugh* I knew this but I didn't give myself a break. I jumped right in and started trying to fix the first problem I came across. A bad begining. Then in turn I decided I need to start over and just write the story again. I didn't give my story a chance before I decide to change the whole thing.

Last night I read in an article on the Writer’s Digest website that you need to take two weeks, at least, off from your first draft. A month is better but who can wait that long? The article was titled "Revising Your Manuscript"

So I'm not to think about Keep Faith for two weeks. No more trying to change it, for now. ;)
Then once the two weeks is over, I'm to read my story as if it's a book I just brought. And go from there!

Oh my the way, for Lent I'm staying about from reading others' blogs. So my Internet friends I'm be back commenting on your blogs after Easter!

So
Dear Reader
What do you do to remove yourself from your first draft?
or
What do you do to escape the world about you?

Are your characters normal?

I heard this Title of this book yesterday, "Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them" by John Ortberg. I laugh everytime I think of it. I haven't read it but I bet its funny.

Anyway,
Are your characters normal? I hope not! I hope they stand out and have something loveable about them, hero and villian.

So Dear Reader
What not normal about your characters?
And yes I'm trying to answer that story about my own characters. Luke is the flirty, charming bad boy who might turn out good. Marty is .... well I'm having a harder time getting to know Marty. I don't want her to turn out like me, I want her different. I have a bad habit of creating heroine who have my personality traits, so I'm working on that. Starting with Marty.