It amazes me to think I’ve been maintaining this blog for eighteen years. I resisted it so much at first, but my web designer convinced me it was important, and gradually I came to love it. I like to think it’s been helpful to more than a few of you. Still, there are times when I think I’ve said all I have to say about the craft of writing. Then something new arises, and I realize I do indeed have more to say.

I woke up Saturday morning to find yet one more reason to feel depressed by the world’s current state of affairs. I’ve made it my practice to not bring politics into this blog, so I’ll say no more about that. The important thing is I found myself in need of more joy, so I decided to give some to one of the characters in my novel-in-progress and to feel it myself through her.

Ida Elkins is a fifteen-year-old girl who has reason to be troubled. I knew I needed to know more about her than the details of her life that pressed down on her, so I asked myself what sorts of things she might love:

Ida loved to make bouquets. She gathered zinnias and gladiolas and marigolds. She went to the fencerows for tiger lilies and multiflora roses, and to the woods for trillium and wild geranium, and to the creeks for Indian pink, or to the meadows for purple coneflower and black-eyed Susan. I often went with her, and I carried the bushel basket into which she laid everything she picked.

The narrator of this part of the novel is Ira, a high school boy who has a crush on Ida. He bears witness to her joy, as do I :

When I think back on that summer, this is what I like to remember about Ida—the way, despite all that had disappointed her, she could marvel over this beautiful world.

How wonderful it was for me to know this about Ida. My hope is, because I asked myself what she loved, I created a more well-rounded character. We think so often about what troubles our characters, but there’s much to be gained by also investigating the things that bring them joy.