I need to remember to send this to Kimberly and so I am pasting it here...bc it made me scream

I'm not quite sure how time goes by so quickly. Suddenly it's another month and the rent is due and you have a million things you're not ready for and so on.

I don't mean to neglect LJ like this, it's just the days fly by!

(didn't get to post yesterday)

9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.

I guess they just sort of come to me. Either a phrase will get stuck in my head and a character will develop from there, or a theme starts first, or a scene, or a voice, or a certain point I want to make. Characters just sort of appear after that.

And then I pair characters to make sure there is a good balance and that people compliment each other.

Then write out some sketches to get their traits, history, likes/dislikes, and motivation down.


10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in?

My current main character is being brainwashed by a cult, that's pretty dang weird.

In a different story one of my characters (who is a bit of a crazy recluse) thinks a boy who lives in his building is the 2nd coming, and ends up being accused of molesting him, though it's not true.

8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?

I guess I mainly write literary fiction, at least I hope it's literary.

Other than that, I dabble a bit in sci-fi.

I read boring things that other people apparently run screaming from...the classics *gasp* as well as REALLY dorky sci-fi and some non-fiction.

7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?

If I'm writing at home or at a computer at the library, I listen to classical music. Music with words tends to distract me from what I'm writing.

Re: the 2nd part of the question, not really for my characters, but the current piece I'm working on was inspired by Elvis Costello's A Good Year for the Roses. Not that anything that happens in the book matches with the lyrics, it was just the last line of the chorus sticking with me. Without that song, this work would not exist.

6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol' pen and paper?

I really like the write-ins that my Guild does. They are extremely helpful and productive. But don't happen very often.

I have trouble writing at home bc there are too many distractions: the internet, the tv, the dog, other people, my bed...it's just too much.

So I tend to go to coffee shops or the library to write.

I've started doing the first draft in pen and then typing for the 2nd (and subsequent) edits.

Time of day...hummm...I guess technically I could be more productive in the morning, given the right circumstances, but really on my own I never get up just for funzies so, evening?

5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?

There is a three yr old boy in one of the works I toss around all the time. He has no name as of yet, but is nicknamed Tommy (it wouldn't work in the actual text, it's just a place holding name right now).

In the same text is a hilarious old woman named Ruby who has had more husbands than you can count and wears crookedly painted makeup.

Gosh...I guess these people are the oldest too as far as constant work that is as of yet unfinished. Newest would be the characters in the old fashioned side show that I just started putting together bits of on the first Thursday of this month.


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I haven't had any time to read my flist or comment on posts, sorry, just got home and am now going to bed :/

4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!

When I was a kid I wrote a story about a bullied duck who couldn't swim and so he learned how to water ski and then everyone loved him. It was awesome.

I also drew pictures.

3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?

I'm VERY picky about my character names. They have to either have a specific meaning or the characters have to name themselves. Ideally, both happen. If I don't have the correct name for a character I will write whole chapters leaving _____'s where their name would be. I did that with my current work. A character named Foster was left as a blank for months because I could find nothing that fit him. Eventually when going through a name site I found Foster, a pretty rare name that very much seemed to fit him. As a bonus it means "forest" and he is a bit of a lost soul and kind of rough around the edges so forest also works for him. It stuck very well.

You know when a name is right or not right. If it's easy for you to forget, it's totally a wrong fit. And if it doesn't fit into the other character's dialogue, it's out.

The best names are ones that have meaning behind them, though. I use name sites a lot to verify meanings so I don't misname a character, and I recently purchased this book: http://www.writersdigest.com/article/WD-character-naming-sourcebook/ which is totally invaluable and incredibly interesting.

Places are the same. If you need to create a place name there should be a meaning behind it. It should flavor the setting, and it should feel right.

That's the key to everything, feeling right. You may not be able to tell why something is off, but you should be able to tell that it IS off. One name rubbing you the wrong way can kill an entire book.

2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?

In what I'm currently working on:
3 main
3 important secondary
1 important minor

Males, I always prefer males. Probably part of my shallowness, like when watching TV and movies, it's just extremely hard for me to find female characters interesting. I also tend to write in a male voice, but people always assume it's female bc I'm female. That really annoys me, btw.

Out of the 7 characters listed above only 1 is female and she's in the secondary category. I actually might classify her as important minor if I thought more over it. It takes a long while for her to be introduced. Yeah, ok, change that to:
3
2
2