The Weekend Has Begun!

To those of you who managed to show up to the write-in (both in-person and online), thank you!  You were energetic, determined, hard-working, and very, very funny.  You were so full of puns it was schtick!*

To those of you who couldn’t make it, no worries!  Our word count jumped by a little over 100,000 words today, and that means you were being super and awesome and writerly; fantastic!

For those of you looking to bump your word counts, consider a write-in.  We’ve got three (yes, three) planned in the next two days, and they fall as follows:

November 7 (Saturday)

12:00 PM-4:00 PM at the Student Union at Missouri State University; we’ll be on the bottom floor.

November 7 (Saturday)

4:30 PM-8:30 PM at the Panera on National and Elm; we’ll be in the meeting room.

November 8 (Sunday)

10:00 AM-3:00 PM at Rendezvous on Campbell and College; if you don’t see a bunch of people frantically writing in the main floor, check the mezzanine.

And for tonight’s encouragement, let me tell you about Guy Gardner:

Guy Gardner is a Green Lantern (no surprise, given our theme), and Guy was originally introduced as a one-off “What If?” character.  “What if…Hal Jordan hadn’t become Green Lantern?”  The answer was that Guy would have become GL, and Guy was a bit cocky about being GL.

There are two very interesting things about Guy.  First, he’s had more character changes than most comic book characters.  He started out a regular-level jerk, then he ended up with some pretty bad brain damage, then he managed to come back from the brain damage but was still mildly jerkish, and now he’s one of those cocky-hard shell types with a gooey center.  Before the brain damage, he was a teacher in Baltimore.  He taught kids with special needs, and while he’s brash and bullheaded and can still be rather jerkish.  He’s an interesting person with lots of depth, and he’s the only Lantern whose ring sparks before he aims it (running theory being he’s so ready to go into a fight that his ring can’t contain his willpower).

So, for this coming week, embrace a few things about Guy.  Take a look at that one-off character and see if more can be done.  Mess about with a character’s background and personality and discover a depth or facet you weren’t expecting.

Make your ring spark, WriMos, because your determination and your talent can’t be held in.

In short, keep being awesome.

 

*You’re welcome.

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