The great thing about living at the border between two states is that you can attend two kick-off parties without much trouble. That is, if they're scheduled at different times. Of course, once I say that, someone might ask--if it's so easy to get from one party to the other, why didn't the municipal liaisons try to organize one big interstate party? The more people the merrier, right?
Well, I'm one of the municipal liaisons. And I did bring that suggestion up once. But there are logistical problems involved even though there are only seven miles separating the two towns. And besides, this is my first year as an ML and I'm very leery about stepping on other more experienced MLs' toes. Yes, all the other MLs in my region are nice, but on the boards, I've seen instances where some people--in completely different regions, to be clear--have bristled when they perceive that their authority has been "challenged". (The previous year, I've heard of rumors that there was an attempted coup in some other nearby region--geez, and I thought Nano was politics free.) I've read posts where people call leaving MLs as "leaving a power vacuum" with the implication that MLs are in some position of power. I suppose some people do like taking charge of other people. I just happen to view myself as the person who posts stuff in the local events calendar. (The other MLs did strongly urge me to become an ML last year, but I didn't feel comfortable enough to do it because at the time I had just moved to the area.)
Anyways, enough of that rambling. The kick-off party in my town was very cool--until another writing group kicked us out of the meeting room. I suppose we could have tried to get them to do Nano as well, but I'm a little too polite to go proselytizing. At any rate, the party was larger than I had anticipated--thanks to the flyers I posted around town earlier in the month. I went to the other kick-off party in the neighboring town as well and stuck around to play the hilariously funny 1000 Blank White Cards Game which has turned into one of their annual traditions. All in all, a good Saturday where I got reacquainted with returning Nano-ers and met some new ones.
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If you've gotten through the above post thus far, you might be wondering, where the heck are the pirates? Well, it's more about character development. Specifically development for one of my characters.
While doing background planning, some people like to find pictures of their characters. Primarily, this means finding pictures of movie stars that match up to who they have in mind. Most of the time, this method doesn't work for me because I picture my own characters in a way that is unique to them--they are not copies of any real people. But sometimes it is useful to browse pictures--be they people or places or things--because it might spark an idea.
This is where the pirates come in. I've only seen the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but that got me to thinking about one of my characters. He's scruffy and compelling in this weird way. Quite kooky but also deceivingly harmless. And then I thought, well, what if he's also a pirate? And that, somehow, made a disturbing amount of sense.
Hehe. I just posted my own entry about picking photos for my characters. I always steer clear of movie stars. I used to find pictures of people in magazines, but that was when I was in my late teens and read a lot of them. Even then, I didn't knowingly pick a celebrity. That would be too weird, like I was writing a story FOR that actor, instead of writing my own story.
