Another Portrait

I know, I do a lot of art, but...this is my new online little sister. She's awesome, but don't ask me for information about her.

I ruined it completely. She is much prettier (and for once, I mean that in a purely big brother sense). Considering I did it from a low quality webcam pic, I think I did okay.

Roleplaying

I'm sorry I haven't been posting here, but since a little ways into January, I haven't quite been myself. I haven't been able to add to Synesthesia since my muse kind of...well, it's not important at all to my readers, so I won't continue the thought. I'm still not quite in a writing mood, so this won't be an incredibly long post, but I thought I'd like to direct you to a research paper someone from the Roleplayer Guild wrote on how roleplaying improves one's ability to write.

Role play affects Writing

Though I'd like to point out that the title, with Role and play separated, should have been "Role Play Affects Writing", as titles should have capitalized initial letters (with exceptions for articles).

Not a creature was stirring, not even Mouse.

I may have to use the headline in a new story (or possibly novel) I'm writing, as the main character (or at least a very important one) is nicknamed Mouse.

Why am I telling you this? Because I want to give advice again! Mouse was actually inspired by an advert (yes, Mouse is inspired by Alexi Wasser, but changed to my liking of course). You may ask why that's important, but it's really not. So why am I including it? To say that characters can come from anywhere. It's kind of like trying to find the perfect actor for a role in a movie, is it not? I mean, all you need is a very basic description and flesh them out as you go (or start out with a fully fleshed out character in your mind and describe them little by little to the reader). All you need is a good source (even just your brain, but I've found -at least with my writing- that charaters I generate with no inspiration are kind of pathetic, shallow, and boring).

Pick traits you like, but make sure the character has a few flaws. I think I've said this before, actually, and got argument from people because I used the word humanize and someone talked about a whiny cthulhu being a horrible character, though I NEVER said you had to make them human. I meant humans have flaws, so make your character, no matter what they are, have at least one flaw (preferably a personality flaw, though physical flaws are okay to an extent, but it would have to be significant enough to be used as a plot device).

Also, make sure your characters have names that tie in with your story. You don't want one named Brawn Thundereagle, another named Staxonailienude, and another named James. That's just ridiculous, see? The only time I can see that being okay is in a time-compressed world with extreme sci-fi and fantasy, but I could only see it work as a comedy. Feel free to prove me wrong. I'd love to read it if it's good enough.