Shades of Character...

Do you realize this is the most consistently we have all shown up – in real time – since the beginning of this blog experiment? Even at the start we drifted back to our own clocks within a mere few days. Now, we are not only here, I see everyone has come prepared. Lovely fire, Professor – thank you for that. And Ann: hot chocolate and cinnamon bread… I see we are back in each other’s graces, again.

"It helps to have a topic we are all not only interested in, but dedicated to."

Yes, well, it’s a large topic. We could spend an entire year on it and still not cover everything. But for this particular little study, let’s start off by defining exactly what it is we are looking for. I believe the original aim of this project was to uncover certain secrets that we could apply in a general way to any piece of writing, and come out better for it. Literally speaking. So… what exactly IS a literary character? What is the basic definition of one?

"I think they’re ghosts."

"You know, Lilly, I had the feeling the minute I got here, you were in one of your moods. Why bother to come at all if you’re going to play the advocate the entire time? Stretched out on the couch that way with an ice-pack on your head and a heat-pad on your feet – don’t think I didn’t notice while I was pouring the chocolate that your cup was already a third full of brandy!"

"I’m sorry, Ann, but I’ve just had a near death experience and I’m not quite over it, yet."

"My dear, you were never once in any real danger of dying."

"I don’t believe you, Professor. A current of so many millions of volts passing through my brain – I feel like I’ve just lived through the mother of all shock treatments!"

"Good lord, Professor – how could you even think of doing such a thing to our Lilly!"

"That was one of Tesla’s most popular experiments. The fact that one could electrocute something with a few volts, but the passage of millions through the body at the right –"

"Tesla was a lunatic! I don’t think I like him at all anymore."

"Lilly, were not your very words that you wanted to feel what it was like to be an inventor?"

"You know perfectly well what I meant! It was the character of an inventor I was interested in. I wanted to see if I could put myself in that place for a bit, so that I could better understand the inner workings of the captain from my manuscript, since he is something of an inventor himself!"

"And so you have."

"I have an infuriating buzz, that’s what I have! From my head to my toes and back up, again, like some pulsating –"

"It’s the brandy, if you ask me."

"I find it amusing that the first to the forefront on our study of character should be the absolute worst aspects of our own. Marvelous cinnamon bread, Ann. I must confess, half the reason I come to these meetings is for the treats."

"Well, not for the company, God knows."

"Lilly, if you could make a little more effort not to be insulting. I’m sure the Professor was--"

"I move there should be rules to this study. And that we forego the demonstrations."

"Any study without experimentation can never go beyond speculation."

"I move we let D. Ann Graham decide. Where did she go?"

"Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s watching."


What’s happening on the farm today: Day five of the freeze and still no power outages for our area. Wonderful. I have discovered that my expensive Sorrel boots I brought from Alaska have been serving as apartment housing for mice. Lying for months in the wooden shoebox on the back porch, the left was designated storage for various nuts and bits of dog food, while the right was the sleeping and entertainment area. What do mice do for entertainment? Let’s just say that besides chewing half the tongue off that expensive leather, they also did extensive damage to the shoestrings and felt liner. But who wants to haggle when one is due out in the barn in morning temperatures that are still in the single digits? I dumped out the stash and wore them anyway.

Habit status: Day 6, second round (and another setback)