Characters

Hi, I didn't realize that it has been a whole month since I last wrote. I've been busy trying to find the best place to put all my kitchen stuff. Yes, all the cupboards have been installed and I've got a temporary counter top. The cement board and tile for the counter will be installed later this week. I'm having issues with deciding the best places for everything, but I imagine that I'll change it all around after I've been using it for a few months.

I spent most of Saturday watching all the Dr Who episodes that I had DVR'd on Friday. It all led up to the introduction of the eleventh Dr Who. Saying good-bye to David Tennent was hard. I think that he's the best Dr Who they've ever had, yes even better than Tom Baker. To me he was all that was good from all the other nine. I know that he studied the other nine before filming began. I also know he'd been a Dr Who fan almost his whole life. So, seeing him say good-bye to has traveling companions of the last five years was sad. I imagine that each time he regenerates he must loose something of himself - or how could he continue meeting and leaving his companions. I'm not sure about the new Dr Who, he seems to be very young, but I'll withhold my judgement until he's been on for a while. Who knows, maybe he won't work out and we'll be onto number twelve.

My son doesn't understand how I can get emotionally involved with TV, movie or book characters. I've tried explaining that when you watch a show every week for a number of years, those actors become like a family. The same with books - sometimes a character comes so close to who you are or has that something extra that touches your heart. That I for one, then have no choice but to become emotional about them and involved in their lives.

To be able to create a character or characters who will touch your readers emotionally is something that I don't think I've quite got down yet - but I hope that I can get to that point eventually. For me, my characters appear in my head and bug me until I tell their story. Sometimes the character is very insistent and gets pushy if I'm not listening to them. I've even discovered that sometimes a character will have such a small quiet voice that they are hard to get down - but in their own way, they too bug me until I tell their story. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm crazy, because I'm not (at least I don't think so). An idea, or a place or an event usually takes root in my subconscious and waits for someone to come along and claim it as theirs. Thus my story begins.

On my first page I took to my writer's group last Tuesday, someone (they didn't sign their name) told me that I'd gone away from my usual character driven story and that I should go back to that as that is where my strengths lie. So, I've been thinking on how to get a character at the beginning who will carry the story (at least for a while). Guess that's all for now - I'll try not to stay away so long from now on.