From Twitter 06-28-2010

• 07:48:26: @TezMillerOz We can only hope! I for one welcome our new cephalopod overlord
  
• 07:58:38: I love how all Midnattsol songs sound like they're about Lord of the Rings, even when they're not
  
• 08:03:11: It's like how all Ramstienn songs sound like they're about cannibalism even when they're not
  
• 13:10:34: Reading Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely, which has finally pulled me out of my post-Unholy Ghosts reading slump
  
• 13:15:09: @zoewinters Or an ob/gyn coming home and saying to his wife "if I have to see one more vagina today..."
  
• 13:42:21: @brian_ohio Haven't read it, but I was put off that kind of mash-up book by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
  
• 14:15:28: My ordeal is over! The touchy-feely temp is gone and my hair can go unmolested
  
• 14:54:53: @dbridger Not by my hand, but I suppose we can't rule it out...
  
• 15:00:03: @dbridger You ain't see me, right?
  
• 16:30:18: Aw, Yvette Fielding is quitting Most Haunted. Where do I apply for that job?
  
• 18:36:18: RT @RichHL: “@Scriblit: Seven Brides, One Cup #pornmusicals @richhl” Ewww! Funny, but ewww!
  
• 20:15:03: Oh dear. Thought I'd recovered from Friday's bout of illness. Turns out I'm actually much worse
  

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Writing Meme Day 27 - Looky looky

27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.

Well, that's a tricky one. Appearances are important to me as a reader. I like to have a strong mental image of the characters I'm reading about, but I hate it when an author spends pages and pages lovingly describing a character's hair, eyes, clothes, facial hair, nail varnish, boots, perfume... etc... And I especially hate it when authors do this via the medium of a character studying themself in a mirror. Subtlety is okay, people!

As a writer, I have very clear ideas of what my characters look like, but I don't want to bludgeon my readers over the head with my version, because of how I feel as a reader. And chances are, my idea of what they look like will differ wildly from yours anyway. Since my characters' appearances very rarely have any major impact on a story, I just don't worry about it too much. I mean, I know that Ethan has a constant five-o-clock shadow and rumpled clothes, but those things are hardly essential to the reading of the story, so why spend a lot of time discussing it? I have a bit of a private joke about how Scarlett is a redhead, but does it matter that she has a name is also her hair colour? Probably not.
 
Anyway. I honestly don't spend an awful lot of time "designing" characters. Usually a mental picture of them comes to me without much thought: either the appearance is triggered by the name or vice versa, and that's all there is to it.

( Questions under the cut )