So Much Blogging, So Little Time [II]

Did you miss me? The last blog (that I finished about five seconds ago) wasn't about very much besides my school life. What I think is much more interesting is my writing life, so that's what this blog's about. First, the writing meme questions:


Tell Us About your First Story or Character:
 Do I have to? My first stories were so bad. At the time I didn't think so, but I know they were now. By the standards I've set for myself and my writing now, that is. I care a lot more about my writing than I used to. Before a couple of years ago, writing was just an escape from the endless flashcards my Dad would shove in my face because I hated (and still do) math and because I wasn't good at it. (I'm still not.) I do remember always liking to write, though. Before I knew how to read, apparently I'd stolen a copy of Zombies of the Gene Pool from beneath our table where it was keeping a leg up.


Somewhere there's pictures of me trying to read that book while holding it upside down. 


I was always friends with older girls who liked to write, so we'd sit together and I'd scribble on pieces of paper and call it a story while they wrote actual stories. So my first "stories" weren't anything other than scribbles on a page. In second grade, I wrote a story about a super-dolphin named Flipper. I think his name was Flipper, but I don't remember. I'll call him Flipper for now. He had to save his other dolphin friends from a net. I stood up one morning in class and read everyone my story. My next story was some weird cross between the original ASPCA New York show on Animal Planet and JAWS. I don't think I read anyone that one.


Next came a story about a guy who rode a dragon through space on some quest and then some generic fantasy quest through a world that I made up. I remember handwriting about fifteen pages of that one.


The first story I ever finished was a terrible piece of AFI (the band) fanfiction that I never talk about. It was exactly 100 pages when I ended it. I went on to write more AFI fan-fiction and it's that fandom that I credit with teaching me how to write. I don't write much of it anymore because I don't have the time or inspiration for my own original stories, much less fanfic. 


So that's how I started writing.


Who are your Youngest and Oldest Characters by Age? Who are they by when you Created them?


If secondary characters count, my youngest character would be Isi, Felix's little sister. She's anywhere between 6-8, mostly because I haven't decided on an age yet, and I only ever use Felix for roleplays. She's also one of my newer characters. I created Isi and Felix in late May, to write with a friend and her new characters, and because I wanted to write a character who was a streetfighter and he needed a softer side. My oldest character is another one that I used only for a roleplay that's pretty much dead now; I affectionately call him Hades, because he's the craziest character I've ever written and the reincarnation of the Greek God. His real name is Dr. Hayden James, though, and he has awesome blue hair that matches his Porsche. He thinks he makes up the dead people talking to him  and secretly adores Harry Potter. I think he's around 45.


If we want to go by when I created them, I created Hades last summer. He's definitely not the oldest, though. I don't have very many old characters. I tend to abandon the ones I've had for a while if I don't like them, just because of how I originally created them. They're constantly going under revision because I want to create the best characters possible. If a character is an idea, then it'd be Connor from Shadowplay. I had the idea for him in sixth grade. Maybe that's why I hate his story line so much.


The character I created most recently is Janus.


Now that those are out of the way, the fun part of this epically long blog post!

The Labor Day Weekend Write-Off

You know you want to do it. If you're curious, here's the thread on Nathan Bransford's forums, and here's the thread on the NaNoWriMo forums. They say pretty much the same thing, and you don't need to be a member of either site to see the threads, but I figure that people can use some variety in their lives.

The rules are simple: 

1. Choose your poison plot/story/WIP
2. Set your word goal for the weekend
3. Write all weekend
4. Stop midnight on Monday
5. Congratulate yourself on writing however many words more than you would have on a normal long weekend.

Personally, I'm going to work on When the Storm Birds Fly, and I hope to reach 15,000 words by midnight. Is anyone else interested?