ArtPrize And Weekends

Welcome Back! 

It's Wednesday. Want me to share a secret with you? My weekend technically begins tomorrow after 11:00am. I'm kinda psyched (not going to lie about that). 
I am driving to Grand Rapids to hang out with my very good friends, Angela and Danielle. I think it's been long overdue. I also realized something. I have, like, ZERO pictures of me WITH them. So hello, Lady Penelope (my camera's name)! 
AND since we're going to be in Grand Rapids, I'm going to use my wits and wiles to convince them to go downtown for ArtPrize on Saturday. 

Last year's pieces were beautiful. I loved the glass carousel and the winner of the very first year? Open Water? I loved that. If you stared at it long enough, you kinda started to think you WERE in the ocean. 
I have very high hopes for this year as well. A friend of mine has a piece in ArtPrize. 

Amber is unstoppable with knitting needles! If you're in Grand Rapids, check out her space and vote! 
Anyway, I'm looking forward to going and I couldn't sleep at ALL last night because I keep thinking about it. 
Angela and Danielle and I are going to have so much fun. Look at these cuties!! Don't they look like they're awesome? And go figure, this pic is from the 2011 ArtPrize! *laughs*

Angela (on left), Danielle (on right)

Can't wait to spend some quality time with them! For a whole weekend. These visits are few and far between these days. And I dislike that. 

In case you couldn't tell, this is going to be a lengthy post to make up for the fact that I didn't get to post on Monday. So yay! Get reading! 

Today's Wednesday! As you know. 
So for those who don't know, I've started a section of my blog that will be entitled Wednesday Writer's Workshop. This is the part where I will post a quote from a favorite/famous author and then go into my topic on writing. Last Weeks topic: Getting Started with writing. This week's topic: Characters. 

"The Writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is NOTHING that does not require his attention." -Flannery O'Connor 

Flannery O'Connor (I wish I could have met her)

Characters are the bread and butter of a novel. 
Without a character, what do you have but a setting? For how can you have a plot, even without characters? 
You can't. In every NOVEL in the world, even the obscure Ayn Rand novels, there are characters. What you do with them creates a story. Many authors talk about characters like living, breathing entities. I believe it was Stephen King who said "Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings." 
What he was saying in his book "On Writing" is that you can 'create' and 'breathe life' into your character until you're blue in the face ... but until you actually DO SOMETHING with them, a story will not emerge. 
Personally when I write, I want my character to jump in there. They usually do. 

"Alice was terrified. How had she gotten there? The room was dark and cramped with so many bodies. It stunk of stale body odor and the air was stale and stagnant. They received no food or water, except what was haphazardly thrown into their cage. Alice never touched them, despite her protesting stomach. They were scraps and she wasn’t going to fight the other women for them. Usually, it was something like the crust of a slice of bread or the leftover meat on chicken bones. There was no way that she’d stoop so low."

This is from the very beginning of my novel. I let Alice take over from the first sentence and let her talk. Immediately, what do you see? Alice doesn't know where she is. She describes the room she's in. She describes what her situations looks like. Above all, the reader can see that Alice would rather starve to death than eat the scraps thrown to her from her guards. She's strongwilled and stubborn. 
I choose to let my characters speak and have their way with the story. Others make their way into the story and some live and some do not. But I think that any writer must take their chances with their characters they've created and let them go. Write for them. Create situations and as your situation moves along, let your characters decide what they will do. 

 Say your character encounters THIS (above)! What is your character going to? Do they charge forward into the dark? Or do they pull back and get out of there? Ultimately, that's up to you. If a waning sense of curiosity is pulling at the back of your mind ... let your character go forward. The plot will sort itself out as you allow your character to leave to do what they want. 

This has been another section of the Wednesday Writers Workshop. 
I hope that it was informational and as always, you can take my advice or leave it. Or you can send me YOUR ideas. 

I wish you the best, everyone. Until next week ...
-Taryn