Being someone else

Just a quick update first of all. The writing's coming along pretty well I think. At the moment it's a little below 7000 words. I find I get most work done in the mornings - just like studying at university.

So yes, I'm forcing myself to wake up early now, despite it being my summer holiday. But sacrifices have to be made of course! We shall continue!

To talk about the writing more specifically. In order to write about the thoughts and actions of characters who act differently to myself, I'm continuously facing the difficult task of imagining I'm somebody else. I really don't want to be patronising, generalise (too much) or be judgemental. I have to represent characters in as fair a way as I can. Every character needs to be believable also:

• now to me, for a person to be believable, they must have both strengths and weaknesses. 
• Also, these strengths and weaknesses aren't normally rigid. Our attributes are highly fluid; weaknesses can be worked on, strengths can desert us sometimes - people do change. Now where have we heard that phrase before? 

When I was writing about young children, I asked my youngest brother to have a read and tell me if what I wrote seemed realistic. He was so helpful. I'll definitely do something like that again.  

I'm writing about different kinds of people, with different outlooks on life, different ways of thinking and different priorities. Some of them I understand more than others.

SI