Chloe....

There you have it.  The name of the first character I am creating.  She is complicated, and I am not through with her yet!  Since I decided to approach this as an exercise in both blogging and novel development, I must say it is a much tougher task to take on.  I could blog endlessly about the mundane happenings in my daily life (which aren't really that mundane, since I like to have a lot of humor in my life), but I get that some people don't get that or want to hear about it, which is why I chose the word mundane.

Word choice - as I am going through this character developing exercise, I see the word choice is of the utmost importance!  When other people read your words they take on whole new meanings and characterizations.  I'm always disappointed when I read a book, and I have the character all filled out in my brain, then they make a movie about the book, and the character is not the one I read about.

I think that is one reason the Harry Potter series was so successful.  The characters on the screen and the characters in the book really felt the same to me.  The Twilight Saga falls short of this.  Bella, I think, is close to what I expected from the book, but other characters, not so much.  We'll see now that she is a vampire, if the transformation is worth it, and at least the author is having a say in it.  The Vampire Diaries, well that series was written a long time ago, and the book and the show might as well be day and night, because they are different stories.  Just like True Blood & The Sookie Stackhouse novels are so different.  (It's hard to keep up when you've read the books way ahead and they are just going off into the ether with the story-line.)

I will keep these things in mind for my own stories.  I will want to make sure if my stories are good enough for the big time, that I get to exercise a level of control on what my story becomes.  I've started reading more writers' blogs and websites, which quickly educates you on how easy it is to lose your own story.  I think that is a sad situation, and one that in a digital age will be important to learn to navigate.

Well, I'm off now.  Chloe is still a work-in-progress, just like me :)

Blog now, write later....

I've tried a couple of blog posts, not much follow through on those.  I always wanted to be a writer, and here  is the golden ticket to doing that, yet I squander it.  Well, no more....I'm taking up this blog, and I intend to start that novel that has been in my head since high school.  I think the motivation to do the blog will help motivate me to get writing other things, so annoy me, bother me, tell me to write anything...something, and I will try to oblige.

The trouble with blogging is what to talk about without rambling.  I'm currently reading the new book by Deborah Harkness, "Shadow of Night."  Seems very good so far.  I really liked her first book, so I think this one will be better.  I should be done with the book by the weekend, so perhaps I'll muse about it in the next blog.

Switching gears, as lately I have been reading apocalyptic fiction, my favorite genre (since reading Alas Babylon in 10th grade).  I have stumbled on an author who is mostly only putting out ebooks that I like very much.  His name is Thomas Sherry, and here is a link to his blog - http://deepwinterstory.blogspot.com/.  His Deep Winter series takes place close to home for me, and it hooked me.  I read another ebook only called "77 Days in September."  It is interesting as well, if you like this sort of ohmygodtheworldiscomingtoanendorsoitseemsstory....it was really hard for me to type that incorrectly!

I'm not a doomsday prepper...or at least I don't think so.  Although, I do watch all those shows.  I like to be prepared for stuff, and sometimes our commute (110 miles one way over a mountain pass) necessitates that I be that way to some degree.  But, I do like reading and learning about survival situations and strategies, and somehow that ties in to me liking apocalyptic fiction.

Now on to that novel....it seems like the hardest part of starting it, is thinking up the names of the characters. I know that writers draw from their own experiences, but when I start to name a character, and then I know a person with that name, they seem to start to define the character in my mind, which is not what I want to happen.  I guess my first exercise is going to be to come up with the main characters names and try to make them into the flawed human beings we all are...the good, the bad, the ugly.

If you've read this far, well, "Thanks!"  I'll leave you with a poem.  I wrote this particular poem the day after the Tsunami in 2004.  I think perhaps reading between the lines of this now, that it surely applies to the political climate of the day.



Can you believe...
150,000 people died yesterday
Can you believe...
All it took was one big wave

Do you take the time to care?
Or are you glad that you just weren't there?
A billion dollars pledged to make it right,
does that lessen the loss or anyone's plight?

We can carry on disaffected
everything in this life is subjective
If you knew someone there,
you'd take the time to care
If you were running for your life
you'd understand their strife

How will we pull together
How much will we grow
How much can money fix
If unity doesn't grow

Politics and red tape
polluted and diseased
washed away in the blink of an eye
aimless wondering of the deceased

Pictures are left to remind us
of the horror as it swept
Running children...running children...
how many of you have wept..

It's an overwhelming feeling,
When there's nothing left to say
You have to move mountains,
Just to carry on another day
Tears dry up, and prayers ring up
Just for a little hope
Everyone gathers all their strength
Just to help some of us cope

In a world that seems so big,
it can suddenly be so small
all it takes to divide us up
is to build...back..up..the....wall


Copyright Cheryl Thompson (2004)

About that time

Just a few words to get this blogging started!