I began a new journey yesterday. It was my first day of graduate school. I’m studying for a Masters of Humanities. It will be tough to balance the day job covering TV and Film, writing books and going to school, but I’m determined to make it work.
But that isn’t what I really wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about how the first day of school has all ready helped with my writing. Yesterday the class was all about introducing ourselves. As I read through everyone’s introductions, characters began dancing in my head.
Funny how that works when you are a writer.
While I won’t give specifics, because I don’t want one of my classmates to kick my ass, I did find it interesting that how, from only a few words, you could determine so much about a person. It reminded me of something I heard Janet Evanovich (The Stephanie Plum Series) say about writing memorable characters. This isn’t a direct quote, but it went something like this… She said, a well-developed character has quirks, flaws, dreams motivations and values. …With only a few important words you can know everything about them.
These people in my class, sometimes by how much or little they said, gave me such insight into their psyche. I found it fascinating.
Most writers are people watchers. I know I am. And many of my characters are loosely based on people I know well, or strangers that I meet. The character Aspen, the crazy rich girl who is making the very busy dragon slayer Alex plan her wedding in “Dragons Prefer Blondes” is based on a waitress I met in a restaurant in Austin. Her name was Aspen and she was gorgeous. She was in no way crazy like the character in my book, but her name and petite frame spawned that character in my head immediately.
It’s a habit of mine creating alternate realities for people I meet. It’s something I share with many of my fellow writers. But this whole thing with the first day of class made me wonder what my classmates might think of me. Looking at what I wrote from an objective viewpoint made me laugh out loud. Seems I’m that over-achiever who wants everyone to know just how important she is.
Yes– mortification has set in. While everyone had a few lines about who they were and what they did. I had three paragraphs. In my defense, I’m a very busy person. 
But I see now that perhaps they didn’t need to know everything about my various jobs right up front. It might have been good to keep a little mystery alive.
And don’t get me started on my email to the professor where I spelled the word “class” wrong. Sigh. Not my best first impression I’m sure.
So how about you? Do you people watch? Do you make up stories for the people you see? Have you ever made a horrendous first impression? Please, make me feel better about myself and share.
