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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Character Creation

I'm always looking for ways to stimulate my brain. This past weekend, I got a wonderful shot of creativity from an unexpected source.

For the first time in nearly twenty years, I joined a game based on Dungeons and Dragons. Yep, that old role playing game (RPG) that we used to fear would lead the youth of our nation into devil worship.

In actuality, RPGs are an adventure in shared, co-operative story telling. Any author who has co-written a story can tell of the joys of creating a world and quirky characters with another person. I got to have that fun with seven other bright, intelligent, fun people.

Every story starts with a character or eight. Someone with various strengths and weaknesses who gets challenged to push herself. How she reacts to those challenges depend a great deal on her personality traits. Fortunately, RPGs give you a wonderful way to discover those personalities.

Of course, we usually use archetypes (here) or GMC (here). But why not try some thing a little koo-koo crazy?

First, get yourself four six sided dice.




Then, roll your dice.



Remove the lowest number from the cluster.

Add up the remaining dice and write that number down. Do that six times.




Next time - what to do with those numbers!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Another growth opportunity.

"What is the hardest lesson you've learned on your writing journey?"

Oh, ouch. I so didn't want to think on that.

Fortunately, I learned how to deal with rejection early (pro-tip: read Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See).

What should I talk about? The difficulty in believing in yourself? The need to Dare to be Average?

No, the hardest part was learning to talk about my work.

(I just now completely stalled out on writing this, thinking about what I was going to say about talking about my work.)

When you have a dream, you might have to keep it under wraps for a little while - protect it from those who would, in a completely innocent way (of course), say or do things that discourage you.

I got stuck there. When it came time to pitch my book or to ask for help, I would either stall or simply not answer.

I do not recommend this course of action. Once your dream is sturdy, share it.

What is your dream? What are you working on?