I've been waiting on Spring... Longing for the weather to vastly improve, and just when the sun is peeking through, the trees are swaying to the breeze..BAM!..that's when Mother Nature decides to play her cruel trick on me! I wind up running back upstairs to throw on a scarf, wool jacket, and boots. It can be a bit of a hassle...it can be downright annoying. Last week it was hail, this week a cold storm is headed our way. Thankfully I work from home...for now. I used to hate Mondays and having to get up at the crack of dawn to drive an hour and a half to work. I dreaded those mornings and although I haven't worked for 'corporate' in over a year now, I still can't seem to break the habit. I'm up at 7:00 or 8:00 AM and no amount of persuading my body to stay in the warmth of my bed helps. At least I'm not up at 5:30 AM like the first six months..so it does show a bit of sleeping in.

But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk characters. Whenever a story morphs in my head, I already know what my hero and heroine looks like. I know how they'll act, react. I know their very deepest secrets and I know what's their hearts desire. I was working on my YA and it occurred to me that I am not in control of my writing. Mr. Right tells me my technique is like a ping pong ball. Wherever the ball bounces is the direction of my writing. You see, the ping pong stopped at my screenplay. Most of yesterday I worked on my treatment and part of the story. It's really good and most likely I'll be finished with the screenplay before I finish any of my other projects. Maybe it's inherently a mechanism in my brain that is able to revert to my previous life when I wrote screenplays. It just clicks and I can't stop seeing the movie. I especially like visualizing my h/h and it helps move the story along. I know she has long black hair and he's got dark brown hair with rugged good looks. She's more polished and he's kind of rough around the edges.

Anyway, my question to you is...Do you know your characters before you write them? Do you find yourself stifled when you don't know what they look like? Or do you write your story and then figure out their looks while you go? It's always fascinating to know how a writer thinks.... Happy Monday!