Had a pretty busy day, and then got too tired to write, but I pulled up the ms anyway and scrolled to a random scene and piddled with that a bit. Coincidentally it's a pretty emotional scene that I can write about from experience, but now I wonder if maybe sometimes it's easier to make people feel something if it didn't happen to you, because then you can make up stuff that provokes the proper emotions without getting bogged down in "but that's not how it really was."

No, on second thought, I think I'm probably just being lazy because I'm tired. And because I don't particularly want to write about that event. However, even in my tired state I see that I can use this as a huge emotional turning point because I know it from the inside out. Therefore, that is what I will do.

And now I see that this is the problem with the earlier huge emotional turning point that I'm having trouble with because I haven't experienced it. In this later scene, tonight's scene, my head automatically goes to the effects of the event, and how it changes outlook and attitude. But with that earlier thing I haven't experienced, I don't know what it's like so my mind just hits a big blank as soon as it's done. Hmm.

In other news--well, not news, but I don't know what to call it--I was talking to a writer friend about violent female characters, and today I read the latest Fullmetal book (I think it's #17), and lo and behold, here is Major Armstrong's sister (she's a good guy, and a leader of good guys) hacking a guy to death with her sword. Afterward she wipes the bloody sword on her officer's dress gloves, takes off the gloves, and tosses them carelessly away. A loyal subordinate hands her a clean pair and she takes them without a thank you as she calmly gives orders to pave the dead guy over in concrete and make sure there's no trace of him. It sounds awful, but it's very cool.

I swear, I want to do a character like that. I want to do a heroic female character who is decisive and utterly without remorse. Who does not have a secret soft spot for sweet orphans or the weak or lonely old blind grandfathers. Who only respects those who have earned it from her. Not a soft bone in her body, not a single solitary molecule of maternal feeling or need to be supportive of others--only cool decision and steadfast resolve.

And I don't want there to be some big issue about how she's had to give up something most women have in order to be this way, or had some womanly thing taken from her and now she's pissed.