Where do those things related to characters come from?

I'm actually not a non-fiction writer. At least I keep telling myself that truth. My first love, still, and will always live in the world of fiction.

Fiction has its uses: No one cares if your details are right. Nobody cares where you did your research (so Wikipedia might just be accurate "enough" knowing my education level that I can skeptically assess some of the entries).

But there is some trouble with fiction: as an author, your creativity is placed at the feet of the world asking the world to believe in your story, even for a few moments.

So I will look back at some of my choices in literary creativity.

"Putting It On The Line" is still my flagship story. Mostly because I have been writing it since I was 14. I grew up with Jessie, though her story started when she was 26, and the story of "Putting It On the Line" didn't manifest itself until I was 21.

But things like her name, I don't know why I latched onto Jessie right away. There were some qualifications. I needed her name to have a diminutive, a sign of affection, and I didn't know how important it was that she have that until much later in my process. I searched baby name books. I did not have much of a choice back then, it was 10 pages in the back of one of our dictionaries. And so I looked, the names A-Z and I ended up finger pointing to target myself. And then up came 'Jessica'.

Things that helped solidify that fact, Madonna has a song that helped in early days, "Dear Jessie" and that had helped things.

Music does help me determine a lot of things about characters, major moods, and directions I want to lead my characters through.

So Music and random picking.

Sometimes though, the character will come to me, their name firmly attached and nothing I can do will change that.

To date: I have never written (and published) someone from my life into my fiction, probably much to the relief of my business partner and some close friends.

Character traits are driven by the character's motives. I have many moments when my characters are very introspective and self-aware. I like those moments, knowing what my character wants and needs. They are truly self-determined and want their goals and whether or not the goal is realized or not is a part of the character's journey.

I spend much time in examining the tradition of the "Hero's Journey". I don't have much formal training in this concept, but it is basic at the core that I know most stories follow this rise and fall of the long story.

I purposely over write. I write about sequences I find that are very private to the character, that I am embarrassed to know about. Usually these parts don't make it into the things that I write, but that's how close the characters and I get.

I find that writing is really the way that my brain processes information because I will get many, many ideas at the same time and they will all converge and writing is the frenzy that happens when there may just be too much. But my mind is always writing, always wanting to be at the computer, watching letters form on the page. It may not be directly cathartic. I'm often as anxious as my characters are. I know better than to stop writing when I am in a groove, too many grammar issues occur and that I will lose track of the real goal.

So I'm back to where I'm headed, writing with the goal of getting the ideas to be clearer.

50,000 Words. 30 Days. 0 Excuses. (Well maybe...)

As a writer, I hadn't cut my teeth on anything serious. I didn't have a genre I was writing for, I didn't have regular discipline.

And then 8 years ago, I was introduced to the idea of NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writer's Month. It was a little idea back then: start writing. aimed for 50,000 words and get it done in November. The idea being, instead of just talking about all the writing you want to do was to make it a priority and just write. And get it out. Make all the ideas real.

For the next 7 Novembers, I wrote like I had never written before. I was given introduction into the world of self-publishing, and then I published 3 books through the same venue.

I went from just talking about the book and being satisfied that the information was out of my head in a digital file. And then, I got to hold it in my hands. That feeling of knowing what it looks like and how it feels to hold the thing I have spent the most time on has never felt any better.

So year 8 is upon me. This is more than 2600 words a day roughly. This is about knowing what works, being committed to the outcome above all else.

I have a few more obstacles this year than any other year. I'm always constantly distracted by a lot of issues at hand. I will finish.

50,000 words. 30 days. 19 days left until I can sign up. I cannot wait to get at this. Even though I don't have a plot yet.

They Aren't Always Good Ideas

My primary training is as a designer. My training had me learn ways people figure things out and how to get the results I wanted. Basically, in the world that I now work in, I'm not only leading the horse to water, salting their food, but there is only one (maybe two) ways to get that horse to the water.

So as I work through new projects to engage my students at work, I'm still a designer.

• Are there too many words on the page?
• Did I call attention to the important details?
• Does the font lend itself to easy reading?
• Is the spacing right?
• How many different ideas am I presenting?
• What are the new words that my student needs to learn?
• (and perhaps the most important question of all) How do I get my student to even care?

This is all secondary to things in a standard classroom. But this is the background of evaluation for each step I'm trying to accomplish.  Meanwhile, I'm also looking at things like, what software do I have available (usually just Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).

And there are good days and bad days. The nice thing is, kids are brutally honest. I will know quickly if they aren't going to be successful at what I have tried to provide.

Bottom line: Project Alpha Volume 3 is being piloted. So far, working well. Need more pictures, need vocabulary highlighted, and now to start ways of assessing if the students totally engaged in the lessons.