Taking a Stand

Hello, blogosphere! Glad to be back. Sorry about the whole no show, no write the past month or so. I've been *gasp* outlining. "But, you've never been a big outliner before! You're more of a pantser!" Yeah, about that. Recently, I've been doing tons of research for a new WIP. It's an adult manuscript, like I mentioned before and this is the first week I've actually started writing it. I'm on chapter two and am lovin' it. And even though I've got all the main points outline, my creativity is still overflowing to the pages. I might've made plot points, but there are still plenty of things to add that spice up the pages. And they're not spicy, but HOT (at least to me). Why? Recently, I took a stand on this manuscript. I decided what's worth fighting for, what's worth walking away from a job for, and what's worth turning my world upside down for. In the end, I came up with serious emotions and passions and figured out how to get them in the manuscript--and on every single page.

I've realized that if I'm writing, I MUST know the battles my MC would fight and why she would fight them because, if not, there's no reason for others to cheer on my new MC. 

The sound of victory...

... Or, in my case, the end of the school year. The next three months will be filled with writing, beach, eating, writing, sleeping in, writing, and oh yeah writing. Seeing as I haven't post since, oh, five thousand years ago, I figured I mine as well post this for myself. More accurately, to get my writing & blogging back on track.

What's been going on since my last post? I've been studying like crazy to make sure my college scholarships will still be available come fall semester. And I've been doing writing, but to be perfectly  honest it hasn't been nearly as much as I used to. Same goes for reading. I've been a real slacker lately (tsk, tsk, tsk) and my WIP has been postponed because of it.

On a good note, less writing has given my mind more time to imagine characters and plots and chocolate scenes (you know, the ones you can see yourself writing before the plot is even fully formed). And, it even gave me a blogging idea (which I'll et to come next week.) 

So, that's a summary of Ashley's Hectic Life. Hopefully, with school over, I'll have much more free time to do the things I've been begging myself to do.

People DO Have More than One Side

Fact of life. 

Everywhere you go, there is someone around being rude to someone else. Random strangers will give you dirty looks for no apparent reason, dogs will pee on your lawn, police will be jerks and hand you a speeding ticket unless you look like Marilyn friggen Monroe, and there will be that one jerk who women just fall the **** all over. Oh, and there will even be that one coworker who fails to wear a skirt that actually her ass. Yes, you women out there should no by now that showing crack at the office is not cool. And, no matter who you are, you've developed your own terms for certain types of people. I don't care if you've never even said your terms out loud, you've made them up or gotten them from somewhere. 

And, eventually, your environment breaks you down. The term is called "having a bad day," and it's something many people have. So, why can't characters?

Everyone has their off days. And, I recently read the third book of a series that the MC had a really bad day. I mean BAD. Her entire day took place in less than 12 hours, apparently. Loved seeing another side of her and could totally understand why she was so much more fed up with life.

Then, I went to Amazon.com. (Quick shout out to those who, like me, enjoy checking out the reviews of recently read books to see if what you thought worked and didn't lined up with how most reviewers felt.) And, the negative reviews of this book were ASTOUNDING.

Pretty sure my jaw drooped at that point. Many people said the MC was out of character. But, to me, I felt her slightly more pissed off view of the world was more than just with what she had to deal with. 

So, here's my question (one that I suddenly realized I have no idea what the answer is):

At one point does a character go from being in a bad mood to being out of character? In other words, how long can you readers put up with a characters unusual yet justified attitude before feeling like the attitude is no longer justified? How long do you think a character deserves to feel a certain way about something before shrinking back to the old personality and getting things done, so to speak?

And, on the opposite side, how long do you feel like a character in a book can act the same way without eventually feeling flat or like he/she hasn't gone through enough character development?