Unforgiveable and forgiveness

While the oldest was in a fly tying class tonight, I had the chance to write.
My character is in a train boxcar with a Vietnam Veteran (Hobo) she asks him if he has ever done anything unforgiveable, but still been forgiven. She is thinking about herself.
He tells her a story of a young private that somehow, while trying to strap some grenades to his belt,  fumbles it and knocks the pin out of it while in the middle of camp. He panics and throws it. The grenade bounces off the tent in front of him and rolls over to a table where his captain is writing a letter home. Through reliving the scene before his eyes, he tells how the captain forgave the private, told him 'thank you' for sending him home and that Jesus forgives him too. The captain then reaches upward as if someone unseen is bending down to pick him up and dies.
My character asks if the private ever forgave himself for what he had done. "No, not until tonight. I think it is time to stop running away from forgiveness."

Have you forgiven yourself for things you have done? Or are you still running away from forgiveness?

I pulled the story out again

This weekend I had the urge topull out and look at my main story that I've shoved into the closet for a while. It was a joy to let the character come to life again. I decided to hack out a few parts and concentrate on the story line with the main character. I"ll not bring in the side characters until they are needed. It's easy work allowing the flow of the story to pick up its pace.
Another change was in the name of a character. His name was okay, it worked, but I tried another and it fits my mental picture better for the character. He has more of a toughness about him, broader shoulders to hold up his responsibilities. I think it will bring out his drive and determination. We'll see.

city layout

The layout of the story's city is important. The landscape must fit the storyline. I like it when a book has a map at the front so you can get your barrings on where the characters are located or moving to. I'm working on a story that must have a college campus close enough to the oldest section of a town, yet still have restaurant row, a city park and golf course close enough but not cut off by the creek and a railroad. I can picture the city and university I attended as the perfect place, but getting the haunted house in the right spot is still haunting me.  Keep those street names lined up and straight.

Goals

I've had to face that fact that my goals in life are not lined up as they should be. I'll no longer be pushing to be published each year as a resolution. I'll keep learning, but teaching the boys through high school will be my main purpose for now. If writing is to be, it will come when the boys are leaving the house for their own careers. By then I hope to have made leaps and bounds in the character development, plot design and every other part of writing that needs to be perfected.

Too many hats makes for a headache and heavy heart.  I sent the writing program back today. I believe it was the same lessons I did five years ago with them.

Lets get our goals in life straight before we continue on. God, Husband, kids - these come first. They encompass a whole lot of activity at this point in life.

writing course

Iget to take a writing course. Whoohoo!  It is one offered through the Christian Writer's Guild. Instead of the year long Journeyman course, they now have a 4 month fiction writing session. It centers on the main lessons. I'm excited to work through it, learn a great deal more and see if "Death by House" (possible book name) will take off and get published.

The snowflake is building

I mentioned that I was using a program here at home for writing. THe program is Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Pro. I'm having fun with it. Last night, I stayed up after midnight in awe of how the progam took the synopsis  and turned it into a scene by scene outline.  Today I'll start building each scene.  This program has been a great help so far in organizing this new story. I'll definitely have to plug my young reader story into this program, later, to see if it helps me finish writing that one for publication.

Building a character profile

I'm working on a new story - writing small bits of it while on break at work, using a computer program when at home. Last night, I worked on character profiles. The program asks for height, eye and hair color, favorite book, movie, music, political thinking, religion, etc.  I really noticed a difference in building the character with this program,  it was easier. By defining the character on paper in more detail, I'm able to visualize the person better. By connecting the character to a friends physical attributes for the time being, they are in the room with me living the story.  It reminded me of  building a Wii character on the boys video game.
I think one of the problems with the story I've worked on for eight years or more is that I don't see one of the main characters the way  I wrote her. The red hair is supposed to be an important part of the story that shows her lineage to the first king. I don't see her with red hair in my minds eye. I think this has been more of a stumbling block then I realized.

How about your characters? Do they come to life in your story looking different then you described them?