Me in Book Characters Tag

So here's the first tag of this year...thanks to Ben from Showers of Blessings. :) I had never heard of or seen this tag before, so this was pretty interesting.

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the creators of the tag. (No idea who, tbh)

2. Thank whoever tagged you. (Ben)

3. List 5 book characters who you are most like and explain why.

4. Tag your friends!

So, for fun, I asked my siblings to do this for me. If I did it myself, I might end up picking characters I wished I was like, instead of being painfully honest...

Here's what they came up with (with my comments in bold)...

One - Janner from The Wingfeather Saga

Because I'm the eldest, the one who's gotta deal with all the misbehaving siblings. I may struggle with how it seems like I never get what I want because it goes to my siblings or how I have to give up things to they can do what they want, but ultimately, I love them and would die for them.

Yeah, that'd be convenient for you if I died in your place, but does anyone ask what I think about it? No....

Honestly, though, I relate to Janner soooooooo much.

Two - Valentine from Ender's Saga

Does it bother anyone else when the books in a series aren't all the same edition/version??

The kind one, the too-emotional-but-that's-a-good-thing one, the one who keeps my siblings under control.

What does that say about y'all, my siblings?

Three - Lina from The Books of Ember

Talk about mismatched.... *sighs*

She has her own goals from the start, though it might not seem like it. Actually fairly organized, though it might not seem like it.

Okay, didn't really see that coming. But she was my favorite character. I loved how she took care of her granny and her little sister and then got a horse in the end. :)

Four - Rinna from Forest Born

Ah, yes, any excuse to show off my hand-painted edges...

Country, down-to-earth, forest born for sure. Quiet, so people may not always notice me.

I have always loved Rin. While I can relate to the other characters (Isi, Enna, Dasha, even Razo) I especially loved Rin's story. How she felt invisible, how she knows she can use her words to get her own way, how she loves playing with children, and just enjoys being at home in the woods.

Five - Leia from Star Wars

(Hey, they're books, too.) *everyone is panicking* Julian: somebody's gotta save our skins! *proceeds to back the flatbed load of round bales down the driveway*

*laughs* Okay, that's pretty funny. I've always seen Leia as kinda bossy, but I guess...yeah, I can be bossy, too. Very "well, somebody has gotta do it, guess it's gonna be me".

Hope y'all enjoyed that...I won't tag anyone, but if you enjoyed the post and want to try to that yourself, please, be my guest!

Beginner Writers - Fanfiction and RPGs

So I'll admit. I write fanfiction.

From time to time.

I usually write tiny one-shots. I might watch a movie or read a book and think, hey, it'd be cute to have this thing happen. I don't publish it anywhere, I just keep it to myself in a Scrivener document.

Okay, so I do have a fairly decent sized story of some Blades of Acktar fanfic centered around Harrison Vane pulling a "didn't actually die" move, but besides that, the Scrivener document is mostly one-shots.

But I've seen a lot of folks do this as well, especially with online RPGs being so popular. I think a number of people have gotten their first jump into creative writing by starting out with an RPG. So that's pretty cool.

Last summer I wrote a story with my 6 year old sister (Sister 2), doing it RPG style in a notebook. She decided she was going to write a Princess, so I wrote for the Prince, and we passed the notebook back and forth and scribbled down what our characters would do. (Her Princess captured my Prince and threatened to turn him into a frog if he didn't marry her, and he said he had to ask his parents first, if anyone was interested as to how that story turned out.)

But I think RPGs are a great and fun way to introduce creative writing and practice spelling and grammar. In the above story, Sister 2 got to practice writing and spelling on her own. And she enjoyed it (unlike doing her writing workbooks for school).

Growing up, Sister 1 and I rewrote all The Hobbit movies, complete with a number of added characters, in notebooks. She had always struggled with spelling...but by the end of a couple notebooks, she had gotten waaaaay better, and was also reading more on her own.

I think writing fanfiction (with or without RPGs) is also a good way for people to practice writing different characters (unless they write only one character who is obviously a self-insert, haha).

And even now, when I write my fanfiction, I like to give it a purpose. Maybe write it from a POV that you try to shy away from. Try working on your descriptions or something. Make it a bit of a writing exercise.

But unless you want to have one of the most popular writers on those fanfiction sites (which would be kinda cool, but also kinda weird to have to explain to people), you will eventually have to stop writing fanfic and move on to your own original books.

As a starting point or gateway to writing, fanfic and RPGs aren't that bad. It's a great way to introduce people to writing stories, creating plots, and practice correct spelling and all that jazz. But don't forgot to work on your own stories.

Beginner Writers - Self-Insert Characters

So this month I'm doing another quick little series...this time I'll be talking about the things we do as beginner writers. And I won't just be bashing those things, as I truly believe there are skills to be learned.

But I'd be interested to know how many of y'all also did these things? Did you ever stop, and why? Any advice for beginning writers?

One thing I've noticed a lot of beginner writers do (or my little sisters, when they're telling stories)...is we make the characters after ourselves and friends. I think it comes from a lot of things.

For one, we tend to write what we know. But we're just starting, and we're not familiar with creating characters out of "nowhere" so we fall back to something familiar...ourselves. We want to create a character....well....they're our same gender, same general description (or maybe what we wish we looked like), and probably the same personality (or else what we wish we were like).

The other characters are our best friends. The villain may be that person/sibling we really don't like in real life (he/she is going to be sorry they did that mean thing once they realize they're about to be the bad person in the next bestselling novel, hahaha).

I think it also comes from the reason we're writing. We love reading. We love entering new worlds and going on adventures. So it's only natural that as we begin our own journey as a writer, the main character is "us" and they're going to go on those adventures we always dreamed of doing.

We think "it would be so cool to jump into a puddle and end up in another world" and the character becomes a not-so-subtle copy of ourselves because we're not used to writing from another personality or worldview yet. We're writing how we would see this experience. What things we would notice, enjoy, and fear.

And this is fine. This is good. It's okay to write like this.

Because we're still learning.

Someday we'll get better at describing events, actions, things, places from the POV of a character who sees things different from ourselves. Our creative thinking will have grown with practice, and we'll be able to get into the heads of all kinds of characters.

But for now, leave these beginner writers to their first steps. Let them write for themselves. Let them enjoy that "totally them but with cool powers" character. Let them learn how to describe things and get things down on paper/word doc. Let them enjoy these first books.

Someday they might cringe in horror when they go back to read these first stories. But they'll still smile, because they'll remember the fun they had writing them. Back when writing felt like a superpower, when they didn't have deadlines to meet or certain standards to reach. Back when grammar and correct formatting and character arcs and plots were unheard of. Those were the fun days, yah, my old writing friends?

But make no mistake, beginning writers will have to learn to move on if they want to become published someday. They'll need to learn how to write characters with real problems and flaws. They'll need to learn how to correctly use quotes and when to start a new paragraph.

When I first started writing, all the characters were based off me and my friends. Eventually I realized the fun of making up my own characters, not based off anyone and moved away from copying people. Fast-forward to 5 years later, when I'm letting my mom read the first chapter of Words of Bravery and she puts the papers down and asks, "Now, Marywyn, who is she supposed to be?"

That was kind of humiliating, honestly. Made me so glad I'm no longer doing that, though I suspect some people may still try to read into things and guess "who" the characters are supposed to "be".

I also remember reading an indie book a year or two back, and after reading it, thinking...okay, so the MC in this book reminds me a little too much of those beginning characters my friends and I wrote: she was a little too perfect and powerful, and her chief flaw was like....um, she's awkward and clumsy? And then the villain reminded me of the villain from a movie....and then the characters fall in love. And I put the book down thinking...okay, so the author just wrote a story about "his/herself" convincing the villain from this movie to be good and they fall in love...and the author just changed the names before publishing, haha.

Don't be that person, guys. Because it shows.

Enjoy writing that character that is probably you. Enjoy your beginner writer steps. But do continue to learn and grow and study this writing craft. Become the best writer you can be.

February Wrap-Up

Well, still here. Still slogging through the mud and cold and winter. Trying to find warm days to do things outside whenever possible.

Thankfully we do get some of that in NC. :)

See? Some warm days to get out and hit the trails! (Also, I normally have Pepper in purple...but I'm loving the blue here!)

We did get some snow flurries earlier this month. That was exciting.

Little baby Sir Loin. Remember the baby calf from summer of '19? Well, look at him getting all grown up! (And apparently he wasn't amused by the snow flurries.)

Other exciting news - I GOT A PUPPY!

(Okay, so I didn't really "get" him. There's a pack of local wild dogs that mill around the neighborhood and steal chickens and trash...and whenever I can nab any puppies they have, I usually try to find them new homes...but this one is going to stay.)

Part of my goal this year is to hitch Pepper to the cart and drive him twice (last year was once, and I hit that goal). So I'm halfway to accomplishing this year's cart driving goal! (And I think it says a lot about Pepper that he gets driven so rarely and just behaves so well every time I hitch him up.)

So a friend invited me to be part of her Endurance Team this year....and I said yes. So look for more pictures of Pepper and I traveling and doing some Endurance races together!

Got bored while playing the banjo one night and ended up creating this weird mash-up.

The puppy's name is Max and he is ADORABLE!!

Just LOOK at that FACE!!!

Just...ahhhhhh SO CUTE

Also, airsoft in the snow is awesome!

We got a little more snow later in the month, but it melted after a day. Was fun to drive around in and take pictures of, though!

Snow on the mountains.

More Max. <3

A local friend invited me to ride at her house. Thought she meant riding on trails. Apparently that meant corn fields and bushwhacking through the woods on deer trails, but we had fun.

Also got to check out the train tracks, so that's fun.

Basically, this is the only riding in the snow I've gotten to do this winter...

Went on a hike-and-ride with Sarah and Evan. Basically they hike and I ride, haha. But a fun way for us all to get together and chat about books and life and writing and all that.

River we had to cross. My feet got wet at the deepest part, even though I got to ride Pepper across. Evan and Sarah crossed further downstream. Thankfully this was close to the end, so they didn't have to walk long with wet shoes (though Evan went through barefoot).

The beautiful view from one of the top ridges.

Maybe y'all can't tell, but I'm proud of this boy. 8 miles of mtn riding and barely sweaty. Not to mention being very calm despite high winds and being the only horse in the group.

Anyways, that was the month. Lots of riding. :) And what with the endurance stuff coming up, there are bound to be more pics, lol. But I have been doing lots of writing and editing as well.

And I have some exciting bookish news coming up this month!! So stay tuned!!