Dear Author,
Yes I broke my promise to my dad. So what! I had a chance to do something important to me for a change and I took it. I am sick and tired of trying to be like Mr. Perfect. Gag! Besides, now that we’re moving, he’ll never know about it, will he?
Unless you tell him. And you better not. You know what happens when people snitch. You remember what happened, don’t you? Uh huh. I thought you might.
How about helping me pack up my room now?
Your MC
Dear Word Person,
Do you have ANY idea how important Mr. Mac was to me? You don’t, do you? If you did you wouldn’t be trying to make me leave the yard. Mr. Mac was the only one who understood me. He didn’t care about my, well, you know. It didn’t matter to him. For someone who reads a lot of books you’re not very bright, are you?
Disgruntled and dirty character without a name to call his own
Dear person who is ignoring me,
I refuse to call you the author of my story because you’re not working on it. It’s cold out here. I’m hungry. Max doesn’t look too good. There’s a lot of blood from where, well, you know. I’m pretty sure his leg is broke too. But you don’t care about any of that, do you? The gypsy lady would help, I know she would, but I think they scared her off for good this time.
What am I supposed to do now?
Max’s protector
Tell MC that you’ll help him pack his room if he’ll wash the dishes for you.
(No, my characters never agreed either. But it’s always worth a try!)
Good idea. I wonder if I can get him to finish the weeding?
Now why on earth didn’t I ask my character who lives in a world where the plants can kill you to do my weeding? Weeding my yard should be easy, compared to all she has to deal with!
LOL – plants can kill you? You know, when I read about your characters it makes me want to read fantasy, or at least YOUR fantasy. Normally not my genre but you make it sound very interesting.
Your post made me feel better.
I’m still getting the hang of living with characters. I thought I was going crazy when they started talking to me. I mean, whose in control here? Maybe I don’t need perscription drugs after all. š
PS- I’m on assn 10 which is a MG novel. š
Oh yeah yeah yeah for you and assignment 10. Wow! You have been working so hard. I feel bad that I haven’t been able to give you all the support I wanted to. I am grateful that you have stuck around to read my posts.
As for characters, I find them soooo much easier than plot which I consider a four letter word.
You shouldn’t feel bad. If not for your initial encouragement to take the ICL course I’d still be sitting around thinking about writing. ICL led me to moderate an online critique group. In the last year I’ve taken local writing workshops, joined SCBWI and now lead a local SCBWI critique group as well. I participated in NaNoWriMo, wrote a MG novel and attended my first SCBWI conference where I had my first professional critique. If not for that one little comment from you I dont think any of that would have happened.
You did enough!
Thanks.
have a good writing life until I see you at Asilomar! š
Wow! I hope those answers got as many ideas popping in your brain as they did in mine. I love all the you know whats, although maybe those are driving YOU crazy! š
You know, it’s really funny because I start off to write a generic note and then the ideas just appear. So then they lead to more ideas. The ones I wrote this morning floored me.
Now if I could only manage the amount of time needed to write more than these short snippets.
Very cool.
*wishing I had a heater blowing on me*
I just love these letters. Maybe one of the WIPs is meant to be written in letter form????
Maybe so. The plant one will be an illustrated journal of sorts but I have no idea how that is going to work.
It’s been a good exercise to keep me connected to words when life is taking them away from me.
Sheesh, but you have interesting characters!
Thanks. Now if I could only buy a plot I might be able to make a book. People are easy for me – it’s the making something happen that gives me tons of trouble.
Yea–they talked back! I spend most of my time wishing kids would *stop* talking back to me…but I’m glad your character kids did!
I remember wanting that silence when the kids were little but right now I’d give just about anything for more voices in my head to silence all the real life crud. š