Let me say, first thing, I am not of the myspace generation. I’m lucky I can manage to post on the HPFF blog…I’m just not computer literate in the whole journaling type of way. So, imagine my consternation when I woke up this morning to an email requesting that I have myspace pages for characters in a story I’m working on.

My first question was why. Why would I ever need to do such a thing? The answer was simple really: if I don’t claim my characters someone else will. I’ll buy that theory. They are mine (see my clutching them desperately to my chest? It’s very visual). Second reason? So people can get a sense of my characters before ever reading the story…know their background and such. That I wasn’t going to buy. I don’t outline stories, I don’t do those insane hundred page characterizations where you have to list out your characters fifth cousin twice removed. I just don’t write that way. I wouldn’t know half the answers to the most basic questions. I don’t even know their birth year for goodness sakes! I don’t mean birthday but the year…it’s never even crossed my mind. I’ve got a vague idea as to their age but to pin it down? Waaaay to outlinish for me.

Alas, I was outvoted. Or ordered or unceremoniously told to do the cursed pages or they wouldn’t talk to me for several months. Okay. I’ll get right on that.

Now for the big question-how. This was much tougher and took many many hours. In my crash course of internet savvy I learned about font sizes and colors, backgrounds, music playlists, music players… and all other sorts of crazy things involving letters like HTML and CSS. I never want to go back there again. One day I will be rich enough to pay someone to do this mess for me. *crosses fingers*

So, three of the four got posted up. Or semi-posted. There are obviously tons of tweaks and changes to be made as I get less frightened of all the shiny buttons in the account. And…it was fun! I actually had fun. I admit I just kind of picked random birthdates but getting to pick their soundtracks, find photos of my characters, and pull out quotes from my favorite scenes for each character was a blast. I learned a bit about my characters, I suppose. Actually, I probably made up more solid characters with real backgrounds and such because they didn’t exist before. But, I suppose it’s all in a days work. Now...all you myspace savvies can start rolling in the floor at my old fart adventure. I won't mind, I swear. Tomorrow I may be laughing with you.

Happy Writing!