by Teri
(Texas)
Question: I am writing a romance novel about a woman who moves to Maui from Omaha after her fiancee dumps her because he doesn't ever want to have children. The heroine is very depressed because she had dreamed of having it all - the perfect job, the perfect husband, and lots of perfect children. Her parents are very wealthy and successful. Her father is a lawyer at a family owned law firm and her mother owns a very successful dress store in a very wealthy part of town. The heroine moves to Maui to start a new life. Her best friend lives there. She has savings enough to last for only 6 months on Maui, so she must find an accounting job soon. She meets a native Hawaiian man that owns his own construction company. She is not interested because she believes she wants a white-collar worker, professional man. She sees having a lot of money, marriage to a professional man, and lots of kids who never want for anything, as success. And success, to her, means happiness. At the end, she discovers that success is being happy, happiness doesn't come from success. She has a job that pays well enough and a husband that loves her and wants the things she wants, including lots of children. What are her external and internal goals?