Musings of a Lonely Writer! ----- Living Vicariously Through My Characters

I’ve wanted to write a section like this for a while but have put it off, until now!

So today I am going to talk about living vicariously through my characters. I admit as sad as it is that I do tend to live vicariously through my characters in many ways. They are everything that I am not. They tend to be extroverts, vocal, strong, sassy, bold, say it as it is kind of characters. They have many flaws but for the most part they are exciting, adventurous, fun people. I’ve seen the dangers though of living through a character full time so I obviously know the line between reality and my characters lives (I call- characteralities) but I always think theirs lives are so much more fun.

I am the total opposite of them. I am an introvert and people tend to call me shy. Sometimes I don’t like to talk and other times I do. I will talk a lot to people I know well but they also know sometimes I just want to listen but not put much into the conversation. Sometimes around people in large group settings I like to just be ignored, be a viewer but not a participator, but then I am sad when I am ignored, I know crazy right, lol!

I hate social situations, don’t get me wrong I have friends and always have but I hate social situations such as parties. At parties I don’t spend all my time with my friends, I usually wind up sitting alone bored out of my mind and just wanting to go home.

Also I am way better at talking to people online. I can put myself out there a bit more because I am not in front of them. When I am talking to people face to face I get nervous, my face reddens, I get sweaty a bit and am at a loss for what to say but afterwards I think of a ton of things I should have said and want to kick myself for not saying it and being more open and sassy as my comments I think of afterwards would be just as sassy as some of my characters can be.

I didn’t start this post out to make it sound depressing! I just want to make a point that as a writer we often tend to be lonesome people because writing is usually a lonesome task. I talk to my writer friends about my stories but for the most part it is a solitary endeavor, which often times that solitary part of writing goes into our day to day lives. However the majority of writers are extroverted, talkative people and don’t have the same problems as some writers do.

I think maybe my overactive imagination and writing has been an escape from problems and things going on in my life in the real world. Going into a fantastical setting or just simply somewhere else in a normal setting on earth has been a way to explore other ways to live, through those characters adventures. It has been a hindrance in a way though because I think of my characters and their stories far too much, even in social situations and it leaves me completely unaware when some guy shows an interest in me too, lol! My friends will tell me of some guy that was checking me out or clearly flirting and I am totally at a loss because I didn’t realize it.

I know it is sad but my characters are more real to me than real people sometimes. I know that is probably not healthy but like I’ve said I know where the line is to reality and I don’t live too much in a fantasy world. Though I’ll admit I love to daydream and regular dream about my characters sometimes. In my dreams I am my characters and I love it.

I don’t think it is all that bad to live a little in a characters shoes as long as you come back to reality in the end, lol!

 I think it would be fun too when ordering coffee or drinks or something to give a characters name instead of yours or introduce yourself to a total stranger you won’t ever meet again and give them your characters name, though if you do meet again and tell them the truth they may think your crazy or a liar. Then again it may be the start to a fun new friendship, who knows and I am not responsible for any outcome should you do so, lol! Though I will say never pretend to be a character when the stakes are high and you have to tell the truth, don’t pretend then!

 I often think too it would be fun for one day to dress, talk, and act like one of my characters as a sort of experiment into how others view me and how I feel afterwards about that character. Though I’m afraid I will end up viewed as crazy or eccentric, I have been called eccentric before. I wonder if pretending to be one of my characters would give me the courage to be bolder when I am just me, hmm, I might try it and I will definitely fill you all in about it and may show a few pictures of what I will look like as one of my character, lol! :~)

I am hoping what I have written maybe helps others who feel similar in even a small way. I hope what I wrote makes since as I was kind of all over the place, lol. I hope too that I don’t regret writing this but I try not to regret any posts I blog about.

If anyone has any similar experiences with living vicariously through your characters or have times where you are lonely and think it is because of being a writer or an introvert or simply want to just tell me anything leave a comment in the comment section of this post. I would love to hear from anyone!

This has been Musings of a Lonely Writer and until next time I send my best regards and say Keep Writing, Keep Inspiring and don’t forget I don’t think it’s all that bad to live in your characters shoes for just a little while as long as you come back to reality in the end, lol!

Edit: June 14, 2015

I think in a way that readers get to explore and sometimes get drawn into and live vicariously through a fictitious character as well but they have the advantage of talking to others about the wonderful or scary or fun or adventurous characters they read about. Since writers are privy to worlds, realities and characters that others haven’t gotten to really explore yet is what also makes us writers feel different, lonely, and often a little odd for living in that reality too much. Others don’t want to hear often about characters that the rest of the world hasn’t gotten to read about yet. 

 

But being privy to worlds others haven’t explored yet is what I think makes writers lives even more special. We get more than a readers glimpse into these characters realities. They tell us their tale and we tell others what they have to say. I know they are not real but when I tell others about them I often say they tell me their story and I get a weird reaction but I laugh because it does feel as if the characters are letting me tell others about them. I don’t think that is unhealthy because doing it that way allows us to go at a story in a unique way.

Dark and Light Blue Flower Ribbon Head Band

I had wanted to make a headband to go with my new blue and white maxi dress so when I was looking at Michaels I saw a pack of light and dark blue felt flowers with little blue gems in the center of the flowers. The colors of the flowers match the colors of my dress so I bought them. A while later I bought the ribbon as I realized white would look better than the other color ribbons I have at home.

It took some thinking to decide on the design I chose but any design will work. I attached the flowers to each other and the ribbon with hot glue. I attached each center flower to the ribbon first and then I attached the edges of the other flowers carefully to each center flower. Then I quickly hot glued the attached flowers that needed to be glued to the ribbon.

I really liked the out come and have already worn it. I am still a tad nervous the flowers will pop off as it was a bit difficult to hot glue them without making a mess to the top of the flowers. Felt flowers are hard to work with, easy to hot glue but hard to get excess glue off when you mess up.

Oh and by the way the picture of how I put the pony tales at the end to make it more maneuverable is the way I did on the other ribbon head bands as well.

 

Michaels- One Pack of Light and Dark Blue Felt Flowers- $1.50

Dollar Tree- White Sheer Ribbon- $1.00

 

Jergens Natural Glow Turned Me Orange and Streaky

I bought a small trial size bottle of Jergens Natural Glow sunless tanner moisturizing lotion just to see if it would work on me. I tried it on my arms, neck, and by mistake my face, it was a doh! stupid moment for me, lol! The second day after streaking and becoming orange on day one I tried it on my belly to see what it did there. On both days it turned certain areas orange and streaky and others nothing happened.

On my face around the forehead and by the eyes it looks like foundation that isn’t smoothed out. Between the eyes it looks like an orange dot that makes me look like I have a uni-brow, lol. My neck got really orange and streaky. I didn’t take a picture of my stomach but it made really dirty orange spots like I had dirt on me but I obviously didn’t as I put the Jergens Natural Glow lotion on after a shower. Oh yeah I applied it just like a lotion as it said to do but it had a weird reaction on me, obviously.

I don’t know if my skin is too light or I applied it wrong or it just doesn’t work for everyone. My sister who is as light skinned as I am had the same reaction before. She didn’t tell me about her reaction to it until I had bought the small trial size and tried it on myself. I am glad I didn’t buy a huge bottle or I would have gotten in contact with Jergen’s for a refund because it didn’t work on me but fortunately I only paid $1.97 for a trial size. I still feel it was a waste because I don’t know what to do with the trial size bottle now; I don’t want to just throw it away.

The orange spots have gone away now after a few face washes and showers. My mom keeps pointing out she can see orange around my neck but I don’t see it.

So I don’t know how well it works on some other people but I warn anyone who tries it to try it on their stomach or a place on their body that is covered by clothing just in case it turns them orange or streaks. Don’t put it on your face like I did, I am just glad it didn’t turn my whole face orange or streaky.

Oh and by the way the pictures don’t look half as bad as they did in person! Oh and enjoy the picture that shows the bags under my eyes, lol! And the popped eyes look, lol!

 

 

 

 

 

Edit to the post Celebrities Pretending to be Writers!

**This below is what I put on the edit to the June 10, 2014 post titled, Celebrities Pretending to be Writers! If you want to see the entire original post about the following book go to this link-

http://tabularasacoker.blogspot.com/2014/06/celebrities-pretending-to-be-writers.html

**

Okay so I had read comments about this book where people said they thought maybe people were being harsh and exaggerating the badness of this book so they read it only to prove it wasn’t very good indeed.

Well I vowed after writing the original post that I would pick the book up and read the first few pages which I usually do to see if a book interests me. I thought too maybe people were just you know exaggerating or hating and to be honest on my post I said I didn’t read it and never would but curiosity got the best of me, lol!

So a few days ago while at the local Books-A-Million with my mom I decided to try and find the book while I was in the Teen Books section. Since I write Young Adult Novels I like to see what is new and fresh and occasionally love to read some.

Usually when I see a book I read the first page to get a view of if it will draw me in. Since I am dead broke right now books are a luxury so I don’t buy even the ones I love, instead I put them on my To Read in the Future list, which I will admit is growing longer by the Day, Week, Month and Year, lol!

Okay so I assumed when looking for the book that there would be more than one and it would be easy to find even it has been out for a year now. I looked and looked and finally found it, they had only one copy there on the self.

So I picked it up and while standing there I flipped to the Prologue and began to read. I honestly expected it to surprise me and be good and make me want to read more. About one paragraph in I didn’t care why the character was digging to the surface of earth that they didn’t think people survived, or I think so as I kind of skimmed. So I thought maybe it is one of those Prologues that are kind of boring, though I admit I love a Prologue in books and heck I write seriously long Prologues for my novels but some Prologues can be boring so I skipped to the first chapter.

So the first page annoyed me. The writing was flat and just boring. Some words didn’t make sense or were spelled wrong and a few paragraphs should have been two paragraphs instead of one, they were way too long. Plus there was an area that had way too many and’s repeated. I can’t remember the words used but it was like this:

First part of sentence then Word and Word and Word and Word. – Didn’t look right to me, there should have been commas instead of ands. I just put in Word in place of the actual words I can’t remember, lol! Sorry it’s been a few days and I forgot!

I would have written something like this though much more polished lol! This is just my example not taken from novel- The heart of the dwindling fire mesmerized her senses as she watched enthralled by the smoke, ashes, embers, and the crackling logs.

Okay so I skimmed to the next page and couldn’t be bothered to care as the feel of the words didn’t feel right. You would think with the publishing house, editors, and ghostwriters they had that the book would be engaging, well written, and well edited but it didn’t feel that way. So I skipped to the end page and was like oh great there probably will be a sequel as others said.

I put the book down and went onto other books as I wanted to browse more engaging novels before my mom finished and was sure to ask if I was finished as I can be a lengthy browser at book stores. I can literarily spend hours browsing and occasionally buying, lol!

The cover wasn’t impressive, the story theme is over done, the wording was mediocre, there were grammatical errors, and it just wasn’t something that made me want to read more.

I really did go into it wanting to give it a chance but I didn’t care for what I read at all. I am sure maybe someone else may like it but I didn’t care enough to read more or put it on my To Be Read in the Future list.