by Mie Presence
I woke in the middle of the night to write this. That’s the funny thing about creativity and inspiration – you could be waiting all day for a tiny glimpse of it. And then suddenly, it strikes you mid-dream and you bet your bottom dollar that if you don’t release it in that moment, you will wake in the morning with the taste of regret in your mouth.
I’ve been deep diving into my characters lately and realised I was missing some key elements. My early attempts didn’t see them come to life as their own people. They were “cleaned up” versions, behaving how I think people should behave in certain situations as opposed to how they actually would. At the time I created them, I guess I was trying to “clean myself up”, “sort my life out” and create an “idealised” version of my self and my life. Well, good thing that’s over.
So I’ve spent weeks teasing out their back stories, their wounds, their dreams, even creating vision boards for them. It’s never as simple as setting out a couple of personality traits and running with it. You will find loose ends, holes and things just simply won’t match up. So yes, I quit my job to make cut-outs of my characters and their lives.
After allowing the characters to form and take shape, I swear to you – some days I am living the writers’ dream. These characters are taking Rolling Beyond and writing the episodes for me. It’s your classic #WhatWouldJesusDo….