Today, I believe I know.

If you’re a writer, please don’t take umbrage to this, but I don’t think there’s one bit of “character creation” that is actually done by the writer. 

Now, don’t get excited.  Hear me out!  

You see, I WISH that there was a character creation process.  I used to think that there was a step by step, “start at point A and travel a tidy little path to point B and end up at a book signing at Border’s” process. 

I can’t tell you how long I searched for “the right way” to create little people for my books.  I read numerous books detailing how to use character sheets and bios to manifest that divine personage..Protagonist.  I read dozens of articles by authors describing how they took bits of this friend and that relative and merged them all into the dastardly Antagonist.  I did research galore, all to no avail. 

I still couldn’t find THE RIGHT WAY to do it. 

All I ended up doing was staring at blank pages or worse writing clichés…the spoiled villainess with daddy issues, the incorruptible heroine who wields a mighty sword.  <insert yawn here>

So yeah.  I’m sorry, but all the filling out of character sheets and Frankensteining together of people we know will never lead to the brilliance of the characters that walk within the pages of books such as “The Lord of the Rings.”  Not that I’m even remotely comparing myself to Tolkien! But someday I wouldn’t mind rubbing elbows with Mercedes Lackey and Jim Butcher, ya know?  But anyway…what’s a budding young author to do?

Listen.

No, no…not to ME.  Listen to THEM. 

Apparently, I’m a little more deaf (read: hard headed/thick) than your average writer. 

No. Really.

It’s taken me years to travel around in a big ole circle just so I could come to the conclusion that I instinctively knew when I first decided that I was going to write a fantasy fiction series. 

We don’t give birth to our characters.  Our characters give birth to US. 

What I discovered was that looking for “the right way” only made their voices harder for me to hear.  It took a midnight shriek in the ear from my antagonist to finally wake me up.   (Special thanks goes out to Malee, Antagonist Extraordinaire of “Rise of the Maiden” – currently being written by yours truly.  That rock to the head did wonders for me, girl!)  Thanks to Malee, I know now that all I really need to do is show up when she (or Chandra or any of the gang) calls me, listen to what she has to say, and take dictation (ie…type really fast!). 

That’s it.  Just listen.  They’ll take care of the rest.

~PJ  

I really don’t know why I’m even writing one now. I don’t have anything especially enlightening to share today, but as I type that, it brings to mind a question that has plagued me since the whole blogging craze started…

Who really cares what I have to say? Who cares what is going on in my silly, insignificant life?

I’m not asking that to garner sympathy or reassurance from anyone who would happen to stumble upon this thing. I don’t need anyone to pat me on the head and tell me that I am indeed “a special little star.” Rather, I’m asking because I really want to know.

Why do people read blogs? And why do the writers of blogs think that anyone outside their circle of friends cares what they have to say?

I can understand an interest in blogs that are ABOUT something…a hobby, a game, a movie, a book, a fan club…but the blogs that are just people like me prattling on about their day…what’s so interesting about that?

Are we all voyeurs at heart, hoping to find some little tidbit in a blog that will make us titter and feel just a bit naughty? The internet is for p0rn?

Or do we scour blogs on the internet hoping to find some little bit of wisdom about life that we have failed to glean for ourselves? Isn’t there supposed to be one sentence that will set us free from all doubt and reveal to us the meaning of life?

Maybe we read adventurous/spiritual/humorous blogs because we’re looking for hope that our lives too can be this fun/uplifting/entertaining? Anyone else need rescued from their 8am to 5pm office job?

Or perhaps we read blogs because we just need that little bit of reassurance that our own boring existence is…normal. Face it. How bored are YOU that you’re reading my blog that is questioning why you’re reading my blog?

So, tell me…

Why do you read blogs?