character thursdays
I gave myself the serious creeps this morning. Last night during the break in class, I was describing for Jill some of the problems I've been having in my story -- specific, technical, crime-scene kinds of things -- places I need to do some research, that sort of thing. Jill mentioned having seen a place on Ashland called U Spy Store; to the surprise of absolutely no one who knows me, I checked them out on the web first thing this morning. Take a look, then come back. Wow, huh? I glanced at all the tabs, selecting the obvious "books & videos" for my initial exploration. Yikes. I hesitated to click through any of the titles, afraid that the very act of googling "spy" and "store" together had won me free entry onto somebody's list. I'm sure that hitting that particular website elevated my IP address in someone's estimation. Imagine if I'd bought something! Seems like (best case) law enforcement types might hand-deliver books of that nature. Want to tell myself to get a life, right about now. We did a fun exercise last night in class; working with a character who's not yet especially prominent in the manuscript, we were asked to write a first-person monologue in which the character discusses his/her biggest flaw. Then, the second part, we had a best friend/spouse/co-worker (whatever) describe what s/he thought was the first character's biggest flaw. What a great way to learn about characters. I spent the morning reading the one of the two stories that'll be workshopped in class next time. I'll miss that class, so I read a bit extra-carefully and wrote copious notes. Lou wrote a beautiful piece in which an 89 year old woman confronts death and wins. Awesome.
