C is for Character (and a Celebration Winner!)

CHARACTER comes to us from the Middle English caracter, from Middle French caractere, from Latin character meaning mark or distinctive quality, from the Greek charakter from charassein meaning to scratch or engrave.

So character is about something that is carved into one's being, kind of like those runes on beech wood that later turned into books.

I grew up amidst a crowd of characters: John Jodan the Russian opera singer. Old man Penn who when drunk danced with a beer bottle on his head. Trumps the crooked little humpback who swept Miss Meada's yard and the park. Miss Lucy the first female taxi driver. Charlotte, suffragette and first female poetry editor for the New York Times. Steve, a Southern Gentleman and the only person who always called me by my full name. Ethel McGully whose pet peacocks roamed her house at will. (They'd fly down to our place and poop on our roof. I can imitate a peacock quiet well by the way.) Leroy Smalls the local petty thief. Betty who wore big poofy wigs and long fake eyelashes. Duke Ellington the mystery writer. Miss Agnes who had to give you something to eat if you passed by her house, not to mention her ancient toothless mother Miss Missy who lived across the street. Lord help you if she was sitting on her porch and you passed by, she had to kiss you up. Mr. Powell with the shrivelled arm and hand that reminded me of a T-Rex's front legs. Mr. G the recluse who was hardly ever seen. Mr. David the artist with the mean temperament. Mr. Wadsworth who build a concrete statue of Jesus and called it Christ of the Caribbean. It could be seen from the ocean for many miles. My cousin called it the Ghost of Caribbean because it was white washed.

And I haven't even gotten to the characters in my family....

If we look closely at our own lives, the ones we think are mundane and ordinary, we will find characters. Use them in your writing. All you have to do is make a rubbing of the engraved essence of themselves that they have left behind.

AND THE WINNER OF MY 200 RANDOM FOLLOWERS CELEBRATION IS...

Here's my hubby, pulling the name from my Cat in the Hat hat...

DANYELLE LEAFTY!

Danyelle, if you would be so kind as to email your address to me I will send off the gifts ASAP!

Thanks to EVERYONE who participated!