Hurdles to Clear & My Characters Are Real Writing Challenge

Last week, my phone decided she wanted to kiss the concrete steps at my mom's house. It didn't end well. She ended up with a fractured screen. Needless to say, life is very dark for her now, considering such a fierce rejection.

Seriously, though, I now find myself short one electronic device. As much as I resisted using an electronic anything for so long, you'd think this wouldn't bother me too much. Alas! I've now come to need every one of the three devices I use on a daily basis. I use each of them for different types of networking and different types of work so it's imperative I get my phone fixed ASAP...which for me means ...maybe in a couple of weeks. *insert silent scream anywhere you like*

Also happening last week, our youngest daughter came down with a nasty cold. We are so VERY thankful it wasn't the flu. But it was still uncomfortable and inconvenient for her and for those of us trying to make her as comfortable as possible.

This week's been better. I uploaded three chapters of Ripples to Wattpad. It's now up to chapter 28. Woot! You can find the link to read it at the bottom of this post.

I know I mentioned in my last post that I was taking part in writing challenges on Instagram. I have really been enjoying those...up until I lost the use of my phone. I do not do social media work on my tablet. I haven't upgraded the memory on it yet and it struggles as it is. I reluctantly, and I must confess, skeptically added IG to my tablet. Not being able to keep up with the challenge was poking at my soul with toothpicks. I could create pictures but I couldn't do anything with them. That kind of a hurdle is super frustrating. I caved. So I've been uploading my challenge photos since two days ago and I'm now caught up. I've decided to start posting them here on the blog as well. It's going to be very busy for the next day or so because I need urls to also post them to Pinterest. *give me a sigh for the great run-around* After that, I'll be back down to the three posts a day for the duration of the challenge. They end on February 28th.

The #MyCharactersAreReal challenge is designed to help fill out character profiles. This is my second favorite part of writing. My focus has been on Ya'el Shirasdatir who is a supporting character in Ripples. She's the main character in book three which I'll be working on for CampNaNo in April. After sharing this one on IG, I noticed I got happy fingers while typing the word taboo. :P Oh, well...and that leads me to the next blog post on progress not perfection. (2-15-2018)

Day 21 - This one was more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm sure my books are all going to be packed with perceived symbolism. Whether I put it in there deliberately or accidentally will be another matter entirely. In this case, Ya'el's leaf pendant (given to her by her best childhood friend) and her tattoo offer hints of the direction her life journey will take. (2-22-2018)

Day 23 - The actual question for this one was more along the lines of whether your character blurted their thoughts out or took some time to think about what they said. Ya'el takes some time to think about what she says. But she isvery straightforward and she is also tactful in most situations. Sometimes, her curiosity gets the better of her and she badgers a person with too many questions. (2-24-2018)

Update (7/8/2020): It was on this time I ate a piece of the "Huh, what?" cake and started sharing multiple posts in a day. Instead of adding them to this blog as I did back then, I'll make adjustments as I go. This way I can share the parts about my writing journey through this portion of my life as a writer without pulling my hair out. May I present the slideshow I recently made? This one includes all of my responses, starting with Day 7 because of the phone issue, for the My Characters Are Real Challenge. This one was hosted back in 2018 by Ellery Mar Connor.

If you haven't read Ripples and you can't afford to buy a copy yet, you can check out the sixth revision on Wattpad. I kept it up on the site. Maybe someone will see it and compare the two, gaining encouragement for their own writing projects.