Awful Personalities

I have an awful personality.

I think I realized this sometime in my childhood. Seriously. A horrible awful personality. I've been trying to fix it, but maybe it's a lost cause.

I talk too much. I'm an egomaniac. I tire easily. I'm a storyboard snob. I have zero B.S. tolerance.

Lately, in my book 'Vampire Kiss' my main character has had a definite personality shift. It's necessary and was part of my storyboards. She's more like the me of now than any other character I've ever written before. Or rather - she's probably what I would be like if I had no safety locks. And I think I've had three readers so far call her a badass. And that's only the beginning of their descriptions of her.

I feel like I've ventured into Harry Potter territory. You know how Harry was all angst-ridden in 'The Order of the Pheonix'? That's my least favourite book of the series. I didn't even enjoy reading about angsty Harry. And yet I ignored the lesson I learned and made my character a ball of fiery rage. What was I thinking?

Yet, I don't know how else a person would react to the situation my girl is in other than getting angry and vengeful. She could shut down. She could endure patiently - but our girl has done plenty of that. At least anger is proactive. At least I find anger proactive. When I get all heated - I go get some work done! Which is what our girl has to do.

I wonder if it's because people want to feel comfortable when they read for pleasure and if their emotions are brought into a realm of deep anger and frustration - that can't possibly relax them after a day of real life deep anger and frustraton.

One way or another - I still have a bad personality. I hope that if I ever make it big with my writing that I never have to do publicity or interviews. I'd likely ruin my reputation as a good author because my attitude is so bad.

Inspiring Edward

Okay, so Reddmummy gave me a good idea. She mentioned that I could get inspired by Edward Rochester from Jane Eyre. No insult to Charlotte Bronte, but when I think of the name Edward, I don't think Edward Rochester takes the cake. Of all the fictional characters named Edward, one shines like a golden ray of wonderful writing. That's right - Edward Elric from 'Full Metal Alchemist'.

I think 'Full Metal Alchemist' is one of the best animes I have ever seen. Basically everything after episode 51 looked to me like an abomination, but that's because episodes 1-51 were so perfectly organized and executed, I was rivited. It's really not often that they put a story together this well for this long - over 20 hours of dramatic, tragic, miserable, yummy goodness.

My favourite parts of the series:

1. When Edward is running from the butcher carrying his own arm. I can feel his fear to my bone marrow.
2. When Wrath first shows up and I'm sitting there thinking, "The colour palat on his arm and leg look like Edward's." I have a great eye for colour.
3. And HUGE SPOILER WARNING HERE: I love the part where Envy stabs him through the chest and pretty much everything that follows afterwards. I know a lot of people crab about the ending - I thought it was perfect.

So, my new desktop and winamp skin will be Edward Elric.

Finding some Inspiration

Normally, I like to have a picture of a character from an anime on my desktop to help inspire me while I write. My four favourites are Kenshin. Here's my favourite desktop for him.
I like Kenshin because he strikes me as dramatic as Romeo without the whiney lovesickness (there aren't near enough combat scenes in 'Romeo and Juliet', but that's just me). When I read Kenshin and he gets all his friends together to tell them why he's being attacked by Enshi and he says that he deserves to be attacked because he killed Enshi's sister - his wife - I nearly come unglued. Yeah, I get inspired by Kenshin.

Next, I love to use this wallpaper of Van from 'Escaflowne'. I like this picture because it's from the manga instead of from the anime and basically makes Van look like a badass, which I don't really think he is.
Now, I've been swapping these two desktops back and forth for around three years. When I have them up I have an orange winamp skin that matches Kenshin's picture and a different one of Van to match this wallpaper (it's the one of Van in the rain from the end credits, just in case anyone's wondering).

It's just that lately, I've been having a hard time finding inspirational backgrounds. I know that technically I'm still writing 'Escaflowne' fanfiction, but honestly - can anyone tell me that 'Vampire Kiss' is very Escaflowne-like? It's not. To me, it doesn't feel like there's one shred of 'Escaflowne' left. It feels like it's own story and when I put a picture of Van on my desktop I think, "'Vampire Kiss' has nothing to do with this character." And I get zero inspiration.

Kenshin isn't as bad, but heck - he's not doing anything for me either. Maybe I need to get a picture of a girl - but who? When I think of my favourite girl characters in anime I think of the women from 'Evangelion', but their stories are all so powerful that I'm scared I'll be affected instead of inspired if I use one of their photos (my favourite is Misato by the way). I don't really like the girls from Kenshin or 'Escaflowne'. I know I've pretty much made my writing name off of Hitomi from 'Escaflowne', but I don't really like her.

I'm going to go give it some more thought and come back and let y'all know. Who would be a good point of inspiration?

Moving my Can Across Town

Earlier this year, I read "Remember Me?" by Sophie Kinsella. I wasn't wild about the book, but the main character loses three years of her memory in a car accident. They just happened to be the three years of something around 26 to 29 (or something like that). Anyway, the point is that the character gets a major jolt as she is teleported from the free and fancy years in her twenties to the responsible ones.

I didn't get it.

There is a HUGE gap in responsibility between mid-twenties to late-twenties. The gap between early to mid isn't as big, but the one that bridges you over to your late twenties IS BIG. I'm shocked.

I'm probably feeling this way because all the things I'm supposed to do before I'm thirty are coming out. Do you know what I was supposed to get done before I was thirty?

1. Finish having all my children.
2. Purchase my first house.
3. Get my first book published.

You'd think I still have three years left. I already feel like I'm running out of time.