who's who

I really hate it when people try to guess who's who with the characters in my stories. Like, "Oh my gosh, character X must be Real Life Person Y, they're exactly alike,"—stuff like that. My characters are not real-life people. Yes, I often give them some characteristics from people I know, because hell, I want them to be believable. But that doesn't mean I base an entire character off an entire real-life person—that would feel so wrong to me. I have to get in my characters' heads, have to be each character, know their every action, thought, feeling, life story, the works. I know most of my characters better than I know myself, in some cases. To make one in the image of someone I know in real life would be creepy, for one thing. I would feel dirty, poking around in their private thoughts and feelings, even if it was stuff I'd made up. It would feel to me like the ultimate invasion of privacy. And then if the character did something really bad, I'd feel awkward for writing about someone I know doing something so bad, even if no one else knew the character's "identity."

So, in short, if you're one of the people who do this, don't. It won't get you anywhere.

On a completely different note, get ready for a bit of TMI: I have a blister on my right instep. Me being the OCD idiot that I am, I couldn't leave the damn thing alone and I picked at it until it got infected. Which really hurts. So I've been limping around the past few days only putting my weight on the ball of my right foot or the very outside of it. Consequently, my right ankle hurts like a bitch. And, since I've been favoring my right foot so much, my left one has been working overtime and also kills. And I have ballroom tonight. Somebody shoot me now.

But, on a lighter note, I also have a handbell choir meeting tonight, which should be fun. So, yay.