I recently order the book The Emotion Thesaurus as a tool to escape the redundancy of human feelings when writing about characters.   It’s pretty handy, not only does it give definitions but also gives you physical signals, internal sensations and even cues for suppression of that feeling.

Every Friday I’m going to cover an emotion that I’ll pick based on the feeling I have that day.  It gives me something to write about and will encourage me to study the word and also how I’m feeling.

Today I am feeling anticipation.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot think of the word “Anticipation” without also thinking of Rocky Horror Picture Show.  You’ll have to click to understand why.

The definition of anticipation is: Hopeful expectation; to await eagerly.

I’m going to list a few of the physical signals that I happen to be experiencing:

Being unable to think or talk about anything else

Closing eyes and squealing

Checking and rechecking email

Phoning or texting friends to talk about what’s coming.

There are other signals like sweaty palms, pacing, leaning in, clock watching and many many more that you’ll have to buy the book to find out.  But the book is great at giving you a large list of actions your character can exhibit when you try to convey a certain emotion.  So instead of writing Jacque feels anticipation you may write Jacque clicks the send and receive button several times on her email, then paces back and forth before finally settling across the room and literally staring at the clock.  Big difference.  Especially if you are doing NaNoWriMo and trying to boost your word count 😉

Later the book breaks emotions down as root emotions and what they can then lead to.

Anticipation May Escalate to: Excitement, jealousy, disappointment.

Perhaps you don’t know where your character is going to go from where they started.  You might not be sure how they should feel after the initial emotion.  This can give you a clue as to what comes next and also points you to the page you need to flip to in order to explore the escalated emotion more.

Enough about the book Jacque, how are YOU feeling?

Thank you for asking!  It’s been a really long time since I’ve felt anticipation.  Life has been complicated as of late and I feel like it just might be possible that things are going to slow down, get calm and sail smoothly for awhile.  I just need a little while so I can catch my breath.

I’ve realized as you get older life gets a little bit harder.  People around you get older, sicker…die.  And you find yourself thinking…maybe I shouldn’t put salt on that because there is a history of high blood pressure in my family.  That is shit I NEVER thought about when I was younger.  So after a tough year that came after a crappy year, I am really ready for some smooth sailing.  And I think it’s coming!  I anticipate exciting things on the horizon and I hope to goodness I don’t find myself disappointed when I get there.  Do you see how I used those two escalating emotions?  If so, give yourself a gold star!

And there is your word of the day.  Anticipation.  What is your word for today?  What emotion might it lead to?  If you care to comment, please do so below.

Finding time to write is one of my biggest challenges.  Too many other commitments pulling at my legs… oh, wait, those are the kids.  But seriously, with working full time, having the three kids, my husband working downstate a few nights a week (and every other weekend) and the periodic photography jobs… it’s tough.

That is how I found myself cursing at midnight last night because I had stayed up WAY too late.  I’m already sleep deprived and getting sick, the last thing I needed was to stay up till midnight.  But, I was writing and I got distracted.  I ended up writing over 4000 words last night!  I think it was worth it, my body disagrees.

But it wasn’t my fault!  Yesterday during the day I listened to a great podcast from Dead Robot Society.  One of the hosts yelled at me to write, even if it is just 250 words, just write dammit!  There really isn’t a reason not to write.  So I did… I just didn’t stop.  I blame the Robots!

However tired I am, forcing myself to write every day is a great habit to get into and one of the reasons I love NaNoWriMo so much.  You practically need to write every day to finish on time.  But unfortunately that also means that no laundry gets folded in November.  My spouse is a saint. But I do end up writing an entire novel.  The bones at least.

How do you find time to write?  Let me know in the comments.

For me, knowing who my character is, what they feel like and who they are, is of the utmost importance.  If I have a poorly developed character I struggle with what they do, how they act and what they say.  Writing can already be so much like bleeding to death a drop at a time, that not doing your homework beforehand makes it all the more painful.

For the first book I wrote and finished, Second Chance Key, I took the easy way out.  I based the characters in the book on my friends and family.  Cop out, I know.  But I did it for a very specific reason.  It was November 1st and I had just learned about NaNoWrimo!  NaNoWrimo requires you to write 50,000 words in a matter of 30 days and… it must be something totally new.  New! ACK!!   I was working on Earthbound when I tossed it aside to do Lodestone, what I thought would be a novella (but is now around 70,000 words) because I thought it would be a quick write.  Silly me.  So, I find out about NaNoWrimo and I decide to put Lodestone aside to start what became Second Chance Key.  With no time to cast my story or even come up with one, I decided to go with a story I had told my children while we stayed at my brother’s lake house.  And then I pretty much flew by the seat of my pants for the following 30 days.  For Second Chance Key, I needed to do what was easy and taking character development out of the equation made things SO much easier.  So I “won” my first year.  YAY!

However, with my other stories, I do things a bit differently.  One thing I did for Lodestone was I created Wander her own Pinterest board.  This helped me not only find inspiration for the story (I also have a secret Lodestone board for my own personal notes/character inspirations) but it let Wander express her style, dreams and things she likes.  I was able to go back and look at some of her outfits, then have her wear them later. The music she liked, what movies and so on.

I don’t know that I will always create a Pinterest account for each of my main characters, but from now on I will definitely be having a secret board for each book so I can pin my different inspirations there.  It’s incredibly helpful and is a great place to keep your research!

There is my free advice for today 😉