Richelle,
quick question:
Is that how you read Jim's books (five pages a day?) 

Great read. Thanks
-paul

So, where do you get your ideas, Jim?  Will Harry and Murphy ever get together?
-Liz

I picked up my copy today at the local Borders.  They had about a half-dozen copies in the Romance section.
-Liz

Have you read Stephen King's On Writing?  It goes into depth on this very issue, as I recall (can't remember which chapter, but King points out that passive verbs are best used in things like non-fiction essays and technical manuals, where you want to retain a certain amount of emotional distance in the writing.)  An example of a passive verb is "The knife was taken from the kitchen table", whereas "He took the knife from the kitchen table" uses an active verb and is thus a stronger sentence.  Personally I don't have a problem with the occasional passive verb, but it's easy to go overboard with them, not unlike adverbs.  I suppose it's something best dealt with in your rewriting process.  Hope this helps - I'm recovering from a nasty bout of flu, and my brain is still pretty fuzzy.
-Liz

Here's a fun test you can take to find out:
http://www.onlyfiction.net/marysue2.html
It doesn't work on all types of characters; for instance Crowley of Good Omens scored a whopping 74 points (irredeemable) and I doubt many of us would accuse the Gaiman-Pratchett team of poor writing technique.  But it's entertaining.  You can try it out on real people, too. 
-Liz

This is one aspect of writing (just about the only one) that has never been a problem for me.  Interesting names frequently pop into my head at random moments and begin shouting at me in their various voices to tell their stories.  I've heard that Charles Dickens used to take long walks around London, collecting interesting and unusual names of people, and writing them down in a notebook for future reference. 
A good source of inspiration for me is street signs.  Several years ago I was driving to Cape Cod when I spotted a highway sign that read Marion/Rochester.  Wow!  What a great name for a character!  I've never actually done anything with Marion Rochester, but she's still there in my head, waiting for the right story to come along.  Maybe she's the crime-solving headmistress of a girls' school out on the Cape.  And then there's Levita Spafford, cobbled together out of a couple of contiguous street signs.  She's the alcoholic matriarch of a dysfunctional family somewhere in the deep South.
Even the phone book or caller ID can be a helpful resource.  Good luck!

Thanks Amber, I'll try that.
-Liz