Character

Character development is hard.  Ha!  I guess that statement suggests more than one topic.  Developing character as a human being and a child loved by a Heavenly Father is a lifelong effort to be transformed into the image of Christ.  That is definitely hard.  We are so fallen.  I am so fallible.  I so easily fall back into selfish habits and un-Scriptural thought patterns.  Developing my character is a daily process.

Character development as it pertains to writing my novel, well, that is also a daily process.  I am learning something new about writing a book every day.  Today I learned some ideas about how to develop characters.  I am creating profiles for each of my characters.  So far I have two, but there will be more as I go through this process.  Each profile is just a piece of paper right now with everything I can think of about the character.  Their hair color.  Eye color.  What kind of car they drive.  Whether they are shy or outgoing.  Whether they tend to quote cartoon characters. It will take a few days before I move onto the next step.  I’m having fun putting these characters together, though.  It is kind of like describing someone I know who is actually a compilation of a bunch of people I’ve met.  It is like creating a whole new person and getting to know them at the same time.  This is so fun!

And I got to write in the company of beautiful flowers….I love my husband!

Natural Narrative

I’m writing a book.

Are you laughing?  No?

The funny thing about my tendency to announce that I’m taking on a new project is the reaction I get.  No surprise.  I like having mountains to climb. I love having things to do.  I love trying new things.  Most new things.  This month, that thing is a novel.  My momma will tell you that I grew up focused on the product at the end of a process.  She worked so hard to encourage me to invest in the process.  I am so grateful for her work.  I truly love the process now.  Well, I love most processes.

This process, I am loving!  I have actually started my book.  But one of the things I want to get out of this book writing is a better understanding of storytelling and narrative.  So today I studied narrative.  Some people have school books for things like narrative.  Me, I have Wikipedia.  I learned so much about voices and tenses and limitation versus omniscience.  I have determined that I am writing my novel with a Third-person omniscient narrative mode.  Do you know what that means?  I do.  Hehehe!

Research is also making great use of our library.  Dave and I have a ton of books.  There are a couple of shelves of truly good literature and it is such a great resource for someone who is writing a book.  I am able to instantly get examples.  I’m such a home schooler.

Here’s to life long learning!