Escape With A Writer

Welcome back to the Round Robin Blog Fest! After a brief hiatus for some family events and crazy work schedule, I'm back and ready to blog! This month's topic is: How do you go about developing your characters for a story? How much time do you spend or does it just happen in the writing process? What inspires it? I'm a pantser. For the uninitiated, I write from the top of my head, flying by the seat of my pants so to speak. My words and my characters flow from my head and heart through my hand and pen. Aside from the romanticism of creating my own characters, I observe people. I glean mannerisms from customers I serve, people I know, and from people watching in general. Once I have a basic character, I begin to work on backstory and finer details. For the most part, all of the bits and pieces fall into place during the writing process. Anything can inspire a new character - a dream, someone on television, a voice on the radio, even just a "what if.&q

Happy Father's Day! To celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday this fall, one of my wonderful cousins decided to open up a Facebook page where family members could share photos and memories that we may not have all had access to before. What a gift! The one thing this page has done is bring us all together. My dad's siblings are all in Western Canada, but the rest of us are scattered all over. At last count, my grandparents have: 17 children 44 grandchildren 56 great grandchildren 7 great-grandchildren If my grandpa could see this bunch now! Unfortunately, we lost him to a heart attack when I was just a kid. My dad broke the news to us the next morning by telling us "you have no more Grandpa Rondeau." That's the way serious matters were treated in my house. Nonchalance. My grandpa Roland Rondeau during basic training in 1944. One of my favorite memories of my grandpa was hopping in the back of his big red pick up to go to the dum