Saturday, April 2, 2011

Pleased to meet you...I'm your maker!

I'm a bit excited because I met my character this week. I must admit that I've felt like a bit of a writer-fraud lately. I've been so bogged down with day-to-day life and exploring so much great information on the web (tweet, tweet!) that I've neglected the act of writing creatively. Oh dear.

Anyway, after a few disheartening blinking cursor / blank screen moments, I discovered that pen and paper are where it's at. I'm talking about BIG paper - lots of it! Here's the product of a huge mind-purge that took place yesterday.
I did not know there was so much inside my brain! Wow, it felt good to get that out!

When I started scribbling I didn't know what I was trying to achieve, but I kept an open mind. I even asked my four-year-old to throw some scenarios at me - this was actually a lot of fun for us both! One thing led to another and I ended up meeting a character who I'd like to find out more about.


My next step will be to fill in a 'form to form a character' courtesy of Rachel Vail who I met at the SCBWI conference in LA last year. Characters complete statements such as 'I wish I weren't so...' and 'The worst thing that could happen to me right now is...' It hadn't occurred to me that this was an important step before putting a character in a story. It feels a bit foolish to admit that, now! Oh well, I have learned at least one thing about writing in the last twelve months :) 

Do you have a similar way of meeting the stars of your stories? How do you know where to start?

4 comments:

Melissa Gill said...

That looks like a really fun project. I'm glad to see you back in the blogosphere. I've been on hiatus for the past few weeks. I'm back this week and my Wednesday feature will be back to "What I Love About You Wednesday." I recognize each of my followers each Wednesday. And this week I'm featuring, YOU! So check it out on Wednesday.

Caz Williams said...

Wow, thanks for that, Melissa - looking forward to it! Woo hoo!

Patti said...

I came over from Melissa's blog.

Lots of times when I'm stuck on the computer I use pen and paper to think things out and see the big picture.

I have to say the best way for me to get to know my characters is to write their story.

Claudia Zurc said...

Hi Caz,
I hopped over from Melissa Gill's blog. Nice to meet you. I just became your latest follower. A dear friend of mine, and fellow writer, has written two children's books. She's been shopping around for publishers. I write literary fiction. No matter what genre we write, in the end, we're all writers. Hope to see you in my neck of the woods ;)
Cheers!