On Weather and Writing

I've been intermittently watching the newscasts about Sandy, the scary and unpredictable super storm hitting the eastern seaboard even as I write this. 

It's amazing that three separate weather systems have converged to birth such a storm.  According to the news I've heard, never in recorded history has a nor'easter, a tropical storm, and a hurricane come together to form one immense weather event.  In a way that's so frightening, I can hardly stand it, but on the other hand, it's also very compelling to watch Nature at her most powerful.  Comparatively, we're just wee little humans at the end of the day, aren't we?

Stay safe, people.  I hope you all have a place to hunker down...

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In between storm updates, I've been working on research and chapter outlines for the start of NaNo on Thursday.  I'm trying a new writing thing this year; at this point it's fifty-fifty how I feel about it.  I'm doing a story outline, a chapter synopsis, then an outline of each scene within the chapter.  And holy crap, I feel like I've already written half the bloody book before I've even started!  I don't know how far I will take this--so far I've spent the whole afternoon outlining the basics of four chapters.  Frankly, being a true **pantser, this is way more work than I'm interested in doing, but I'll persevere just to see if it makes any difference in the long run.

A particular defect I see to doing this outline business is I fear the sudden bursts of illumination that I usually get **writing by the seat of my pants, will get buried under outline details or lost in the forethoughts.  Time will tell.

There's one cool thing I've done in this preparation process that has been really helpful: I went on a quest to find pictures of my main characters.  I spent some time last week searching the internet to score the perfect face for each one.  I have now attached the photo to the character back story files, and honestly, that little trick has already done wonders in getting to know my "people."  (Huh.  Either I'm having a deja vu moment, or I've already written about this.  It seems familiar...and isn't that a weird sensation?)

Anyway.

Here is my main man, Daniel Valentine...I looked at dozens and dozens of faces and couldn't find him.  Almost giving up, I decided to go one more round.  And there he was...

 

 

This is my main woman, Lily Chareau...and this is totally, exactly, how I imagined her...

 

Lily's best friend, and a key player in the story, Katy Montgomery...I knew she had a long, thick braid, but I didn't know she was so incredibly cute...

 

And Wink, another main guy to the story, and someone who could mean much to Katy... 



 

...assuming she survives Jude, the very, very bad boy with his personal and deadly agenda...
 

 

And there you go, the faces I have put on my characters.  Seeing them in real life--so to speak--has really helped me get inside their heads, know them better.  So, regardless how the outline experiment goes, I will definitely be using this character photo technique again, for sure.

 

Besides, if nothing else, I can drool.  A lot.  While I'm working, of course...