The Crichton-Carroll Conspiracy

"Give ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.” -Daniel 9:18-19

Behold, I tried coffee for the first time! I'll be sticking with my tea. It tasted like reallyreally bitter tea (ducks as the whole world shouts at me: "YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD IT BLACK!"). Anyway. I'll just go ahead and check that off my bucket list. There. Check.

I was actually up late last night studying for a quiz, and it was exceedingly satisfying for me. I hadn't yet taken enough challenging classes at my community college to really, really call for much late-night studious academia. Finally, it's here! And I'm actually taking classes and

LEARNING things! It's like being a homeschooler all over again!

You know about ninety percent of the world isn't going to process that correctly?

Good morning, Johnny!

And, unless I'm quite uncharacteristically mistaken, didn't I see you up late last night reading "Jurassic Park"? That's not exactly studying, is it?

Guilty. Although, that was after the fact, so moot point.

Anyway, there have been several writing activities that I've been trying out in my English class, which have really boosted me along in my current writing...condendrum.

Here's a list of activities I would recommend if you have some new characters that you need to grow more familiar with (also because I just learned how to make lists on this Bloggy thing, and I wanted to try it out):

1. Would you ever consider writing a story that's all questions? (See what I did there?)

2. Flesh out all of your characters. All of them. What is their exact age, obsessions, ambitions, dominant writing hand, et cetera et cetera et cetera and so forth. You should know more about every single person you create than what ends up on the page.

3. Put your character in all sorts of weird and uncomfortable situations. How does your character react to it?

4. Know your character's past. Give them a spine.

5. Put your character to work. See her moving around and interacting, and learn more about her (or him).

6. Play with your POV! (https://thewritepractice.com/point-of-view-guide/)

7. Make sure all of your characters have a distinct dialogue. One should always know who is speaking, even if the story doesn't tell one who is speaking.

8. Likewise, each individual should be able to stand out in a police line-up. Middle-aged woman with black hair and a pink shirt? Well (dripping with sarcasm), that's original! Middle-aged woman with violet hair growing down to her bright pink rain boots? Now we're talking!

9. And finally, as I've said time and time again, read everything, and learn from it.

My stack of books on my headboard is actually piling up to a hazardous height (alliteration!). I have two large, white hardbacks added to the pile: Little Women, and Jurassic Park. They balance each other out nicely. This is my first time reading the above dinosaur adventure novel, actually. I'm hoping to learn something about building a satisfying suspense for my readers. I'll let you know how that goes. One of the first things (well, maybe more like the third or fourth, but first makes it sound more aesthetically pleasing), that I learned about Mr. Michael Crichton is what I would call a hidden adoration of Lewis Carroll.

Didn't see that one coming.

Why else would he create a character who happened to be called "Lewis Dodgson" (Lewis for Lewis Carroll, obviously, and Dodgson, I'm assuming, for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the brilliant mathematician who eventually become more well-known by his pseudonymous, Lewis Carroll). Then a few pages later, Ian Malcolm rather self-flatteringly refers to himself as being as, "mad as a hatter." Am I the only one making this connection?!

Yes.

Fine. Before I leave, there's one more item I'd like to add to that list:

10. Get into nature. Get your character into nature.

I recently had the privilege of volunteering at a vocational farm and prairie, playing around with raised gardens (which I love), and harvesting wild onions (which I also love). There are all sorts of physical, mental, and spiritual benefits to grounding, and you can add, "writing block deterioration," to that list. Seriously. Unless there are any ravenous, rampaging dinosaurs romping around (alliteration!!). But even then, that might be fun!

You go have your life-threatening fun time, and I'll have my own.

Roger that!