Character building - personal effects

The other day, I started sorting through my jewelry.  I had recently gotten a new necklace, and I wanted to put it away and make sure I had everything else in order.  A few years ago, I had done a massive culling of the herd, as it were, and I like to go through and see if there's anything else that should be sent out to pasture when I add new items.

I don't have a ton of jewelry (anymore), and I realized that the items I kept, and that I wear the most often, are the ones with stories behind them.  There are the necklaces my husband has given me, a locket with some of the dirt from my father's grave inside, and earrings my mother gave me when I graduated from high school.  Not all of them are things that have big, important meanings, of course - I have several necklaces that I bought at various conventions that I keep because they remind me of the convention and, of course, because they're pretty.

You can tell a lot about a person (or a character) by the things that they keep that are important to them.  Sometimes it's something as simple as a ring they always wear - it may look completely innocuous, but there's probably a reason why that person always wears it, and it's a great hook into a character's psyche.  Everyone has something that, if lost or stolen, would affect them emotionally.  And if a person doesn't have something like that, well, that's another angle on the character.

Writing is going slowly, but it is going.  I've decided to go back to Paranormal Investigations for a bit, since it's been a while since I've spent any time on those characters and I've missed them.  I'm also working on a guest blog post for my husband's blog Talking Game, about being a woman in the land of gaming.  I'll be honest - I'm a little nervous about that post.  I've been extremely lucky, in that the majority of my negative interactions have simply had to do with being condescended or patronized to, with no threats.  By making myself more visible and writing about it, that could change, and I'm not certain how I feel about that yet.