I’m looking around at all the potential clean up projects in the garage where my treadmill is located—anything to keep my mind occupied. I haven’t exactly figured out how to multitask while I’m walking. You’d think it would be easy enough to remember to grab my tablet so I could watch a movie or something, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’m also not really walking long enough just yet to get into a show. And I can’t listen to an audio book because my ears sweat and that’s an instant ear infection, and the book I’m listening to requires serious earphones. Who knew gargoyles were so sexy?

Instead, I’m exercising my ability to be quiet and in the moment. Let’s just say it’s not exactly working, because in the moment, all I can focus on is how bad my feet hurt. Right? There’s a reason I don’t walk, and it has nothing to do with being lazy. It has everything to do with the fact that I have chronically bad feet.

My new orthopedic walking shoes are in the mail, and they cannot get here soon enough.

While I’m trying not to focus on my feet, my eyes land on one of my sparkly hula hoops. I have many sparkly hula hoops, and while I know that is so 2005… I still like them. They still bring me joy.

Why don’t I have any characters who hula hoop? I have one Native American hoop dancer in a short story, but he’s a stripper and I practically forgot he existed. Oops.

But why doesn’t Mancey do something like hula hoop? After all, there is more to her than her singular goal of attaining Colin. Or… is there? I want my characters to be more than just flat, single dimensional descriptions on a page. Especially for the novels.

I want my characters—and my locations—to be more. I want the stories I write to invoke a sensory experience. And that means my characters have to have a little bit more going on than being a one-time ghost of a movie starlet turned scientist, all in the name of getting to her man. I want Mancey to be someone you love, someone you hate, someone you wish was your ghostly bestie to help you get the hottie of your choice.

Maybe Mancey should hula hoop? She could say something sassy to Colin like “I know its a kids toy, but its fun. You hula, I hoop.”

Of course, this thought then sparks an entire internet rabbit hole. Once I get off the treadmill, I have to find out: When did hula hoops become popular? And were they around when Mancey was a starlet?

Dear reader, the hula hoop rabbit hole has proven that their popularity in the United States didn’t start until the late 1950s—well past Mancey Heartlove’s heyday. And since the hula hoop resurgence was hot 20 years ago, probably not something she would pick up now.

So, back to my feet.

My feet are swathed in K-tape. And if you aren’t familiar with K-tape, it’s a kinesiology tool used by physical therapists. As soon as I was introduced to it for some knee problems I had several years ago, I became a K-tape devotee.

I don’t care if it’s just Dumbo’s magic feather or not—I’m going to magic-feather up. The K-tape is helping my feet.

It’s something some athletes and dancers really embrace. It seems like the kind of thing that—maybe not Colin—but Bro would use.

Mancey has accused Bro of flashing his knees at her, so why not flash his knees wrapped in some lurid K-tape?

And all these things in the garage I look at keep me distracted while I meet my walking goal—they quickly serve their purpose. My walking goal has been met, and I found a couple of ways to make my characters a little more interesting… and a little less singularly focused on one plot point.

Wait a minute… who is Bro? You met Colin in his parent’s backyard in Falling Star, and Mancey instantly fell in love with the man. In Hidden Gods we finally get Mancey’s romance. Bro, Dr. Brody Nakamura is one of Colin’s colleagues at the university, and on location while taking reading from the active lava flows on Big Island. Hidden Gods has been a perpetual work-in-progress this year. I can’t wait to see where these characters take me, and for you to be able to read all about it.