NaNo: Day 19

National Novel Writing Month

Daily Word Count: 1, 000 and some

Total Word Count: 19,044

Words Remaining: 30,956

This is what I want to do right NOW.

I am so, soooo tired guys. It's been really hard pulling out these #!?%§!! words. But I've realized what makes my story move along more quickly and how to get my word count up--dialogue. I seem to be struggling with description lately. But dialogue, man, I can write pages of it. Maybe I should write the rest of the book with just dialogue. I think I'll start off by saying, 
"zzzz zzzz zzzzz zz zzzzzz zzz." 

Going Dark Side

I'm going on a semi-blogging hiatus for the month of August. I've got several projects that need my attention and I just can't do it all. I'm ready to explode. So instead of trying to do it all half-assed, I'd rather take a break and refocus. 

I still plan on posting for IWSG and have a few posts prescheduled for blogging buddies that have books coming out (((so excited for them :D  ))). But other than that, I'm going dark side of the moon. So until I resurface, I'm going to beat myself with a zen stick, reorganize my life off-line, and hope I can get my stuff together by September. Until then, I'll try not to become comfortably numb. May the force be with you and try and stay out of trouble. Yeah, riiiight. ;)   

U for Ufology

Ufology is a vast field of study and associated activities dealing with information pertaining to unidentified flying objects (UFOs). UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists.  

July 2nd is World UFO Day. It's a day people gather and watch the skies for UFOs. The goal is to raise awareness of the Roswell findings and to gain support in forcing governments to "tell the truth about earthly visits from outer space aliens." To date, World UFO Day is celebrated in:

Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. (source)

Other uninteresting U_ology words

Urenology: The study of rust molds' (source)

Uronology: That part of medicine which treats of urine. 

S for SCATOLOGY

Scatology is the study of feces. Scatological studies allow one to determine a wide range of biological information about  a creature, including its diet and subsequently where it has been. It also provides information about health and disease such as tapeworms. 

I studied scat and used the science of scatology for pest identification years ago (don't you just love how sciency that all sounds when all it really means is--I knew my shit back then). For those who may not know, I used to work in the pest management industry as an entomologist. Identifying the proper pest species is vital to the success of any integrated pest management program (duh!). Sometimes, identification came down to identifying fecal pellets your client handed you in a zip-lock bag (and that's if you're lucky). The droppings vary among different rat species and you don't control an infestation of Rattus norvegicus if your dealing with Rattus rattus. And believe it or not, in dry environments, American cockroach droppings can be confused with mouse droppings by the untrained eye. And you certainly don't want to get these two pest species mixed up, especially not in front of your client. Ok, well I think that's it with the below-the-belt posts. I know it's been nuts since my P post!

Other scary S_ology words

Sarcology: The study of the soft parts of the body. This includes myology, angiology, neurology, and splanchnology.

Satanology: The study of Satan.

Selenology: The scientific study of the moon, its movements in the heavens, kinetic influences it has upon other astronomical bodies as well as the effects it receives. 

Sexology:  The interdisciplinary scientific study of human sexuality. This includes human sexual interests, behavior, and function. The term does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sex, such as political analysis or social criticism. In modern sexology, researchers apply tools from several academic fields, including biology, medicine, psychology, statistics, epidemiology, sociology, anthropology, and criminology. Sexologists also study sexual development (puberty), sexual orientation, the development of sexual relationships, as well as the mechanics of sexual intercourse. This field also includes the study of the sexualities of specific groups, such as the disabled, child development, adolescents, and the elderly. Sexologists additionally study sexual dysfunctions, disorders, and variations, including such widely varying topics as erectile dysfunction, anorgasmia, and pedophilia.

Sitiology: The study of diet and nourishment. 

Spongology: The science and study of the sponges. Not the moldy ones soaking in your kitchen sink, the ones living in marine environments, like Sponge Bob. Yes, this is the study of Sponge Bob. 

Stigmeology: The study of punctuation.

Stomatology: The branch of medicine relating to the mouth and mouth disease. Practiced by physicians as a medical specialty in the early 20th century in the United States, these concerns are now largely handled by dentists.

Q for QUINOLOGY

Or--Q for Quickie

which is probably a good thing after our 

super  l  o  n  g   P-post yesterday.  

Confession time. 

I'm freaking oooouuutttt. 

Today is my last pre-written posts. I had up to Q finished with R and S in rough shape before the challenge. So after this post, I've essentually got  nothing left--zilch. Hence, me freaking out. And since the start of the challenge, I've done nothing to stay ahead of the game. Yes, it's my fault. Yes, I'm a procrastinator, and yes I constantly live in the state of freaking the holy hell out.  But, that's my problem. I'll still manage to bring you the best of the best of ologies, well except for today. Turns out Q is slim pickings as far as -ologies go. Quinology was all I could find that was semi-serious. I guess it's better than Q for Qtipology (which I just made up but you never know, maybe it does exist).  But look on the bright side, at least you get a quickie today, and that starts with Q! 

Quinology is the science that deals with the cultivation of the cinchona tree. There are 38 different species in the genus Chinchona that yields  C _2 0  H _2 4  N ₂  O _2 ,  an alkaloid called quinine. Quinine is important because it is used in the medical field to treat malaria.

Cinchona pubescens - flowers
source Wikipedia commons

And that's a wrap!

I'm sure you guys can make up with some great q_ology words. :D 

Happy Friday.
Enjoy your weekend.
Try to get out of the house and do something fun.
Get into trouble. 
Then blog about it.
(: 

Answers: You Write Like a Girl

  

If you missed Tuesday's post, then you may want to go Here first. On Tuesday I brought up the question of sex/gender with regard to writing style and asked the following question: Do you think you could read a passage from a book, without prior knowledge of who penned it, and determine whether the author was man or woman?  I gave excerpts from seven different authors and asked readers to guess for themselves which were written by men and which by women. 

Luckily, several of you guys came through for me, played along and shared your thoughts on the subject. Thank you! I got some really interesting results like one excerpt that most people guessed correctly and one that everyone kept guessing wrong. The post also sparked some thought provoking e-mail conversations, but I'll wait to share all that with you at the bottom of the post, I know you all are itching to find out who wrote what. So without further ado . . .   

1)  There's something else in their eyes, too, something that will haunt them, all unacknowledged, until the day they die, and cast its shadow over even their happiest days. The fear of what they did. What they did in the unremembered part of their shared dream."
     That's what keeps him where he is and makes him take the telephone even though he is sweltering, roasting, fucking melting. 

 -Stephen King, Dreamcatcher



2) Like and equal are two entirely different things.
      For the moment she had escaped from the power of IT.
     But how?
     She knew that her own puny little brain was no match for this great, bodiless, pulsing, writhing mass on the round dais. She shuddered as she looked at IT. 

-Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time




3)  Silence.
     You'll find your way. Trust me.
     Tentative, she inched forward blindly. Leap of faith? Katherine could not even see her hand directly in front of her face. She kept moving forward, but within a matter of seconds, she was entirely lost. Where am I going?
     That was three years ago.

-Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol



4) It turned its back on me and began to walk back the way I had come, toward the village, back to the empty house I had left that morning; and it whistled as it walked.
     I've been here ever since. Hiding. Waiting. Part of the bridge.

-Neil Gaiman, Troll-Bridge


5)  The horizon merged with the dunes into a single mass of dusty beige. Out here even the sky is sucked dry of all color. It is a smudge of pale taupe, paler topaz; a trace of blued-steel, met by the blade of the horizon. To the south, east and west there was nothing, miles and miles of nothing.

-Jennifer Roberson, Sword Dancer


6) At last, after some days, the sun again appeared and shone brightly over the white ground, but he went to bed again behind the mountains at a very early hour, as if he did not find such pleasure in looking down on the earth as when everything was green and flowery. But then the moon came out clear and large and lit up the great white snowfield all through the night, and the next morning the while mountain glistened and sparkled like a huge crystal. 

-Johanna Spyri, Heidi



7)"Ohhhhh . . ."
It was the long cry of a man gone over a cliff into Eternity.
It seemed we sat waiting to hear him hit bottom.
Far off in the hills in the upper part of the house, his door banged shut.
My soul turned over and died.

-Ray Bradbury, Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's is a Friend of Mine


Here's a quick breakdown, my analysis and thoughts of the results. 

First, no one got them all correct, however one person got pretty darn close and that was Tony Hunt, (aka. laughingwolf) at . . . paws and reflect. He got them all correct except for one, and I'll get to that in just a second.  But for now, Tony you ROCK! I don't know if it's the editor training in ya or if you just got a nose for writing styles but damn, color me impressed!

Just about everyone guessed #1 correctly as being male. Not only that, but Michael Offutt nailed it by naming the author right off the bat. YOU DA MAN Michael. (: Now, I think what gave it away in part, was the f-bomb. But before you start booing me for that, please understand I'm not saying women never use profanity in their writing. I know I have and will use it IF I feel it necessary. That being said, I believe in our society, it is generally less accepted for a woman to use profanity than a man. Again, that's not saying that women aren't allowed to cuss or don't cuss. I'll fucking cuss and say shit all the damn time if I please. But it's my opinion that men get slightly different reactions especially in public when they use profanity than when women use it. Women in the 1930s for example would never use profanity to the extent that women use it today. But nonetheless, the stigma is still there and society still frowns more readily on women who cuss than on men who cuss. I think it's an unwritten rule that can effect the way some women write. Just my 2 cents folks. I wonder how different the answers would have been had I left out the f-bomb from King's excerpt . . .   

The second excerpt was another one most people guessed correctly as being written by a woman. Michael Offutt even made the comment that it must have been written by a woman because "Men don't use the word 'puny'. And I agree with him in the general sense. Obviously, we're not saying no man has ever not used the word puny, but in general men would probably choose a different word. 

On the flip side, the one excerpt that just about everyone missed, even Tony (; was #7 Ray Bradbury. The only people that got it correct was SP Bowers, Celeste Holloway, and Melissa (all women by the way). Ray Bradbury in my opinion, is the master of all masters when it comes to using imagery and writing description. No one tops Ray. No. One.  I just have to share with you another example of what I'm talking about, it's one sentence long and a perfect description:

"The second night a dog trotted by, wearing his tongue half out of his mouth like a loosely tied red cravat, smiling at trees." Ray Bradbury, That Woman On The Lawn

Anyway, as for the rest of the excerpts, people were pretty much divided. Michael made the comment that descriptions are androgynous and it would be difficult to tell them apart. To which I respectfully disagreed and made some of the following points. I think you can SOMETIMES tell if a segment is written by a woman or by a man depending on word choice in the same way Michael said "men don't use the word puny." Take the sun as an example. How would you describe it? Like a ball of fire or like a sunflower. (Probably neither, but I'm trying to prove a point). It's my opinion that most men would avoid using the sunflower metaphor or any flowery type language because that tends to be attributed to a more feminine voice. Then Tony made a good point in one of his comments when he said "usually, the female writer includes detailed info of a scene, like the number of buttons on a sleeve, something a male, usually, won't mention." I agree with him. How many times have you heard the saying, "women notice everything" or women saying "it's the little things that count . . ." or "PUT THE TOILET SEAT DOWN!" To which Michael says, he sees my points but "I still think Atwood writes like a man." LOL!

Anyway, Michael made another interesting point. He noted that (and I'm paraphrasing a bit) male writers often bring their ideology into their writing more so than women. Michael calls this "writing with your Richard." xD Love it!  Now, of course women do this as well, but he sees it more often with male writers that use their story as a soapbox on which to stand on. Women, from what he read, tend to refrain from judgement and focus more on the emotional aspects of a scene and what it means for the characters. This aspects of male vs female writers really intrigues me and I'd love to dig deeper into this subject.   

There is one other aspect I believe effects the way men and women write. It's not a very popular idea, but I believe a lot of the differences we see stems from the fact that biologically/physically  men and women are different. One is not better than the other, we're just different and that fundamental difference will have a ripple effect (even if it's slight) that effects what we do and how we think. 

In any event, I believe with practice and training, a good writer can learn to write with a more masculine or feminine voice if they choose, it just takes time to develop. But what if you're a woman writer working with a male editor?! Ok, ok, I'll stop here because this post is already mega F****** long, but I find this subject fascinating and would love to hear your thoughts. 

Oh and last thing, I promise. The following is a link to the Gender Genie. As stated on their site, "the Gender Genie uses a simplified version of an algorithm . . . to predict the gender of an author." Basically, all you have to do is copy/paste text into their textbox and it will predict the gender of the author. Not sure how accurate this is but it could be fun to test out some of your POVs with.  

((((((HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!))))))

if you made it all the way down here, consider this your virtual hug. 

Have a great weekend

 (:

IWSG

Lately, I've been insecure about a lot of things . . . one of them is that I'm afraid I've written a manuscript 15 years too late. When it's all said and done, I'll have something that no one is going to want to touch because the paranormal genre is saturated and I haven't brought anything new or ground breaking to the table. So, there you have it . . . I'm insecure . . . or maybe I'm just now facing the facts and not liking what I see. And yet, there are couple people who believe in my ms and honestly, that scares me a bit. I don't want to disappoint them . . . I wish I could feel the same way they do. Why can't I?  

P for PHEROMONES: resistance is futile

I sat in a bar once with another insect geek entomologist drinking beer and we debated over termite pheromones for hours. Yes, anything is possible. The point is pheromones are fascinating! The problem lies in convincing normal people they are too, but here goes nothing…

FUN FACTS!

First, what is a pheromone? A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical that triggers a response in members of the same species. It’s a way of communicating information, sometimes over vast distances to other members. Most people are familiar with sex pheromones. A classic example is the sex pheromone emitted by certain female moths so potient it can attract a male from miles away. But what’s interesting is that there are all kinds of different types of pheromones. Here are just a few examples:

Alarm. This is the "We're under attack, CHARGE!" pheromone. Alarm pheromone is released by bees in the form of isoamyl acetate when it stings. This marks the victim as a potential threat and will draw other bees to attack. You don’t want to walk around a beehive with a ripe bananna in your hands. Why? Because ripe banannas give off an odor similar to alarm pheromone and it could trigger an aggressive response from the hive.

Trail. This is the "Follow the yellow brick road," pheromone. Ants use this to find their way to and from a food source and back to the nest. Ever try rubbing your finger across the imaginary line an ant follows? They will stop at the spot you rubbed your finger because the trail pheromone is gone. I love confusing ants.

Funural.This is the “I’m dead, take me outside,” pheromone, (place funural pheromone on a live ant and watch all the others keep trying to dump her out of the colony! <3 bug humor...)

Aggregation. This is the “Lets all hang out,” pheromone.

Despersal. This is the “Everyone get the H*** out!” pheromone.

Epideictic. This is the “Occupied, go away,” pheromone.

Territorial. This is the “GET OFF MY MOUNTAIN!" pheromone.

Pheromones are also a useful tool for managing insect pests. Pest Management Professionals will use synthesized sex pheromone as bait to attract males into traps, thereby takeing them out of the local breeding population. Another technique is to super saturate a given area with sex pheromone. This causes “male confusion” *snickers childishly*. When high levels of pheromones are put into the atmosphere, males are no longer able to pinpoint the female. If he can’t find his mate, they can’t reproduce.

So are you convinced yet? Listen to Tom, he knew what was in the air. (;

I for Isoptera: Termites!

Fun Facts

1) Termites belong to the order Isoptera which means equal wings (equal in lenght).

2) Termites are eusocial insects. A colony divides the labor among castes, produce overlapping generations, and take care of young collectively.

3) Termites feed on cellulose, the main component of palnt cell walls and the most common organic compound on Earth. It can be found in dead plant material generally in the form of wood, leaf litter, soil and/or animal dung. 

4 ) Cellulose in a termite's food is digested by myriads of microoganisms (ooooo, ahhhhhhh) living in the termite's digestive tract. An excellent example of symbiosis !!! Woot Woot and the crowd goes wild!!! But, that also means they can cause serious structural damage to buildings, crops or plantation forests. In the southwestern United States, termite damage is estimated to $1.5 billion each year in wood structure damage (source: Wikipedia). 

5) Depending on the species, termite nests can be entirely subterranean or may protrude above the surface as mounds, some reaching 9 meters tall (30 feet) !!!

6) Termites use mud tubes to travel above ground. The tubes provide protection from predators and prevent water loss due to open air. 

7) It is estimated that certain termite queens can produce up to 30,000 eggs/ DAY! (O_O)

Below is a flash fiction piece (~350 words ) I wrote this morning. The idea came to me last night at 2 am :/ I don't ever write in this tense and it shows but nevertheless, I wanted to take a stab at it.

------

I sit in the middle of the table, cross-legged. My eyes seduced by the overhead light source.

Flash, flash, flash.

The hallucinations begin.

A parade of psychedelic colors enters my visual field. They swirl in front of me, breathtaking in their juxtaposition. They look soft and warm. I reach out to catch the blue one. It’s quick. I giggle.

Flash, flash, flash.

They vanish.

Now I’m hot. I tug at my robes then my body snaps back. I fall from the edge and hit the ground but feel no pain. I try to get up but my body, rigor mortis-like, does not comply.

“They’re eating my brain,” I say. "I can feel them in my head. Feasting." My voice escalates, my heart starts drumming, my anxiety is climbing.

“Shut up Batskin. No one is eating your brain,” says a voice outside my view.

I wait for my body to melt and then sit up. Clovis is sitting on the couch, the stripes across is right arm show rank. His spoken words are suspended in a green bubble above his head. I’m not comforted knowing he’s here. They’re probably eating his brain too.

Flash, flash, flash.

A small visitor enters the room. It wears a bronze galea on its head. I’ve seen it before; it’s from the OmegaArc 90 sector. It needs to know.

“They’re eating my brain and they’ll eat yours too,” I warn.

“What the hell is he tripping on Clovis?” says the visitor.

“Schizomethtral.” I watch the word trail out of Clovis’s moth. The letters are dancing but he does not see them.

“Crap, Clovis. You know he can’t handle anything from the Craters.”

“I only gave him one hair.”

The visitor approaches me. It’s huge now, a towering figure above me. It looks angelic. Maybe it’s not from OmegaArc 90. Maybe it’s an angel from the Vega moon. My mind wonders, I can’t stop staring at its beauty. “If his eyes dilate any wider, I’m taking him to the medical compound.”

So many words crowd the room. I watch them mix together forming new sentences, mostly gibberish.

“Whatever man. Take him and get out. Both of you are killing my ride.”

 “They’re eating my brain,” I whisper again.

“Calm down Batskin. No zombies here.”

Zombies? It thinks of zombies but it’s wrong!  

I feel a tingle in my sinus, a tickle in my nasal cavity that causes me to sneeze. Something is forced out of my nose. It drops to my hand. Its a small white creature no larger than the lashes on my face.

“What the hell is that?” says the towering figure in front of me.

It sees it too. I am relieved. “Termites from the planet Earth. I told you, they’re eating my brain and they’ll eat yours too.”

-----

IMPORTANT: Just so we're clear about this, the above excerpt is a work of fiction. Termites do NOT eat brains! Unless, your brain is made of wood. 

G for Grasshopper

Fun Facts:

1) Grasshoppers, along with crickets and Katydids belong to the order Orthoptera, meaning straight wings.

2) Grasshoppers produce sounds to attract mates or protect their territories. And just like fireflies use different flash codes to distinguish between species, different grasshopper species produce different sounds (songs).

3) Depending on the species, grasshoppers produce their sound by stridulation or by crepitation. Stridulation is the rubbing of one body part on another. Grasshoppers stridulate by rubbing a row of pegs located along the inside of the hind legs rubs against a thickened area of the forewing which produces an audible vibration. Other species use a different method of sound production called crepitation. These grasshoppers snap their hindwings during flight to create a distinct buzzing sound like plucking a taut rubberband.

4) The females of few Orthoptera may make a few soft sounds, but most of the singing is done by the males.

5) Grasshoppers hear sounds with an organ called the tympanum. The tympanum is a thin membrane in the form of a disk, located on the side of the abdomen. It monitors the air for sound waves.

6) Locusts are grasshoppers in the family Acrididae. The term locust is used for grasshoppers that change morphologically and behaviorally in response to overcrowding. This change also triggers swarming and migratory behaviors but there is no taxonomic difference between locust and grasshopper species.

7) Locust swarms can vary from less than one square kilometer to several hundred square kilometers with 40 to 80 million individuals per square kilometer. An adult locust can consume its own weight (about 2 grams) in fresh food per day. For every million locusts, one ton of food is eaten. Plagues of locusts appear in both the Bible and the Quran. Swarms can travel 5-130 km or more in a day (source: Wikipedia)

You can find some great examples of grasshopper stridulation on youtube

*****

I'm sorry if this post seems a bit rushed, I have a good excuse. My in-laws are coming over in a few hours to spend the weekend with us and my house is a Feng Shui nightmare. Toys carpet our living room, my kids art projects are still drying on the floor, I've got piles of books, papers and the most random items sprinkled everywhere. For example, on my desk in front of the computer I have paper, pens, a couple books, a Scooby-Doo dvd, 2 rolls of electrical tape, and Kermit the frog. Which reminds me of the game "What's your superhero name?" Basically it's the color of your shirt + the object to your right. So right now, I would be called The Black Frog. Well I hope Black Frog has some serious super cleaning powers, or a flamethrower.

F for Fireflies

Fun Facts: This was so hard to condense. I wanted to write so much on the subject but I’m using my superpowers to restrain myself. It's not easy.

1) Fireflies, sometimes called lightning bugs, are neither flies nor bugs. They are in fact, beetles belonging to the order Coleoptera. But of course you already knew that since you’ve been following dutifully and clearly recall my C post. Right. 

2) Fireflies use a chemical reaction called bioluminescence to produce a "cold light" (a light that produces no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies). The light is emitted from the tip of the abdomen and is used to attract mates or prey.

3) Each species has a different flash code to attract the right mate. The males flies around flashing their butts off and the females watch from the ground. If she likes what she sees, she'll flash back and the male will fly down for some sweet, light-up-my-life beetle love. However, there is a species of firefly where the females mimic the flash codes of another male species to lure them from the skies.  When the duped male comes within range, she jumps on him and he becomes dinner! Flash burger with lightning ale and chips on the side. (You can tell it's late because I'm getting a little goofy).

No flash fiction for today. Instead, you get awful rhyming words ridiculously put together in terrible form. Enjoy, but you probably won't.

---

Poetry.

I really enjoy poetry, especially rhyming verse.

I'm terrible at poetry, it's an anti-poetry curse.

I try real hard to break the spell,

So here goes nothing,

my firefly poem called What The Hell?

What The Hell?

You flashed me once,

shame on you.

You flashed me twice,

Shame on me.

You flashed me thrice,

And my head was served on a bed of rice!

What the Hell?

----

Okay I'm not that mean and have something to get the bad taste out of your mouth after subjecting you to above dribble: Fireflies from Owl City's debut single. Enjoy  :)

You may also like:

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now. Begin your journey today.

Flamenco Dancing is to a Man's Buns as Water is to a Cup of Tea – HOT*

So as part of my birthday present, my mother took me to the theatre. I hadn’t been in ages so naturally, I was excited. We saw a rendition of Carmen, preformed by a Flamenco dance company. It was amazing! The spirit of flamenco dancing was a perfect mold to Carmen’s fiery and sensual personality. The women dancers were insanely talented and beautiful with their hair pulled back, and their long flowing skirts, and wraparound shawls. Their movements were crisp and intricate combined with lightning fast percussive footwork.  And then there were the male dancers with their tight, tight outfits and superior glutei maximi. *stops to fan self*

Ok, so there was a point I wanted to touch make here… yes, so what I found interesting was that while I was drooling observing the dancers, I noticed each had a distinct persona and I had a lot of fun naming them. For instance, there was The Rooster. You know the one I’m talking about, the short dancer with the hooked nose that compensates by sticking his chest out further then the others. He was by far the best at the flamenco strut.  Then there was Tarzan (my favorite). He traded his vine swinging moves for some flamenco feet stomping. He was the tall guy with the broad upper body, shoulder length dark hair and angular jaw line. He also had deep V shaped eyebrows that gave him that savage look… There was also The Gentlemen with the walking cane. He was simply bad ass. Every time he preformed, he did so with the cane, pounding it on the floor to rapid beats and wielding it through the air like a deadly weapon. During the zombie apocalypse, I want this guy on my side.  And then of course, there was the dancer with The Hair. He portrayed Don José, the guy who kills Carmen at the end. He was your typical male lead, good looking guy with the great hair. I’d add that he had great buns but frankly, they all did. Anyway, I’m not going to name them all, but you get the idea. What was unfortunate however, was the lack of personalities in the women dancers. They were all beautiful, sensual but all cast in the same dye. All except for fiery red Carmen.  I guess that can be attributed to the story of Carmen itself, but still, it would have been fun to see the men pair up with their matching counterparts. When I write, (holy transition Batman, give me a break it’s 1:30 am) I want to be able to create characters like these flamenco dancers. I want characters who step out onto the page with crisp, distinct personalities. How do I do that? With great buns dialogue, but also through the use of physical tags and attributes that  set them apart from the rest. But there's a whole lot more you can do to create great characters. 

So how about you? How do you all make your characters unique?