I have been working on my latest writing project, Project DFW for the past few months now, and one of the main characters, Darren (the student of a character in his 30s-40s, also named Darren, who affectionately calls him "Little Darren"), is loosely based off my personality (wanders around a lot, explores the world around him, is into all types of music, weird (and sometimes sticky) situations happening, etc.). He stands about 5'10-11 to 6", and is around 18 years of age. And like me, his birthday is April 9. But here's the dilemma I'm currently facing: After seeing two videos on YouTube of the 1994 SNES game Hagane (one was a run of the entire game; the other was a speedrun), a side-scrolling action game that was unavailable at a department store and could only be rented at Blockbuster Video (it plays very similar to SEGA's Shinobi series and it was not available in any store in 1995 when the U.S. version came), I feel like I want to change Darren's ethnicity to Japanese-American, but there's this feeling in my gut that is telling me not to change anything on him and leave him American (Darren has brown hair and brown eyes, by the way). I am no stranger to putting in lead characters that are half-Japanese in my stories, however--I've been doing that since 2009; 2 were female while one was male. However, I have an embarrassing secret that I've been keeping for years when it comes to this ethnicity: Growing up, I used to be very shy around Asian people until 2007 at the age of 21, in my third year of community college. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Asian people are pretty cool. Sorry if I broke any rules regarding this post, but what do you think I should do with Darren? Should I leave him the way he is?
I am a 27-year-old struggling writer/webpage designer with a lot of adventures over the years - and that is because my life is full of them. From getting nervous about seeing certain actors/characters on TV shows and movies to weird dreams at random to signing up for accounts like Twitter, for example, to facing the challenges of everyday life, it seems for me, there's no escaping. (Yes, I get nervous about almost everything ever since I was a teenager.) I also like to learn about new places - I have been doing this since the 7th grade in 1998-99. I am currently working on a project where most of the characters are from some of the places me or my family have visited. I have been writing since I got my first computer 19 years ago for Christmas (which was a Brother WP-3410 word processor), but I really didn't get going until early 1995. I wrote silly stuff that did not make much sense until high school, around 2003-04 (the first part of my senior year) when I took a Creative Writing class and started writing stuff that made more sense. Starting between the second part of my senior year and first year of community college, I learned how to indent paragraphs whenever there's dialogue. Fast forward to today, I have this thing going where I write in MLA format and Courier New, size 12. Ever since 1995, I have loved writing and the adventures it brings. (I wrote in Times New Roman starting in 2001 and that lasted until the fall of 2009.) Here's some weird things about me that you probably didn't know: -I like setting clocks (of video game consoles and computers I own) to the Pacific Time zone (seeing that I lived in California only once and would love to go again someday). -I am a car guy (which explains the car magazine subscriptions in my house) -I am an auto racing guy as well. (most of my stories nowadays involve a race of some kind) -I like all types of music -I am a daytime TV fanatic (and yes, I will admit, I have watched at least one episode of The Price is Right every season since I was a kid - when I started watching, "home base" (the turntable) had green floors) -I don't like typing in all lowercase letters. (In a writing project I am working on, I have at least two characters that do this in their blogs.) -(Guilty pleasure #1) I like visiting teen retail stores in the mall. -(Guilty pleasure #2) I like watching teen dramas (I find myself doing this more often because one of the things on my bucket list is to write a YA novel). -I check my horoscope every morning when I wake up -In recent years, I feel as if I've picked up a West Coast accent. -I am a fan of science fiction and monster stories. Well, that's all about me right now. Remember, you're never too young or too old to have an adventure while writing.