I've decided that that Erin isn't a very extroverted person. Asking Ryan to go out for coffee would have been a fairly major thing for her because she ordinarily doesn't do that sort of thing. Outside of work I'm seeing her as not doing much of anything with other people.
But she's introverted, not unhealthy. She'll be making use of her time alone, it's just that I'm not sure how she's making use of it. Whatever she's doing is enough that she's pretty damned content with her life. I've just got no idea what it is.
Well, I think she might possibly spend a certain amount of time making scale models of various cities (one at time) so that her iguana can crawl around on them. But other than that, no idea what she's doing. She's going to have more than one interest though, so that can't be it.
Any suggestions on what some of her other interests might be? The only requirement is that it has to be something you can do alone. (Or with an iguana.)
So it seems like she's a reporter turning civil engineer... Does she have a blog? Maybe one where she posts about the care and feeding and attitudes surrounding exotic pets like iguanas? Or increasingly cynical updates on local politics?
ReplyDeleteOr maybe she likes to sew, to build model bridges/buildings/trains/whatever, or to read. Yes, reading's always an idea. Or, hey, maybe she writes novels in her spare time?
Erin likes watching foreign films, but only subtitled ones -- no dubbing for her. She reads a lot as well. She likes looking at lolcats on the internet, and spends some time watching youtube videos, but she doesn't blog or tweet or anything like that. She has plants on the balcony as well as some indoors, but only the kinds that iguanas aren't allergic to.
ReplyDeletePainting miniature figures for role-playing games. She's not really into the gaming, not seeing the point, but she's good at painting and people will pay good money for the results (via eBay/etc., no social interaction required).
ReplyDelete(Avoid being a new writer who writes about writing. It's a cliché for a reason.)
My hobbies are pretty mundane, and they include writing (and even writing about people who write - but I don't qualify as a "new" writer anyway). Since I don't live in your head and since, however little you know about Erin for now, I know even less, everything I'm going to ramble about might be OOC. Feel free to reject all of it.
ReplyDeleteShe can take photos of anything that catches her interest. She can collect multiple translations of the same book (including multiple translations to her own language) to compare them. She can have an interest in fonts and feel like different fonts somewhat change the meanings/visual sensations of words typed in them. (She also might be annoyed by "Comic Sans is the worst font ever!!!" meme and thinks that, I don't know, some completely made-up font is the worst ever, because it visually repulses her and comic Sans don't.)
Collecting something or being a fan of something without ever contacting other collectors/fans is also perfectly possible, she doesn't have to be an extrovert to like something other people (might) like. I can relate to wanting to find other people who are Just Like You - but I also can relate to not wanting to seek them out. Because it's personal, it's only yours, and they won't *really* understand you anyway... Not because you're better than them - because you are you and they are not.
(Also they might find your reasons for collecting, say, poscards weird ("What? "Evolution of the art of postcard"? Are you for real? I just like to look at pretty pictures!") or shallow ("What? You "just like to look at pretty pictures"? How childish is *that*?! *I* collect them because I'm interested in the evolution of the art of postcard!").)
O hai there, too many parenthesises...
Music? Perhaps she plays an instrument. A lot of instruments have large corpuses of solo music.
ReplyDeleteReading? If she takes a liking to, say, British literature from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, that could keep her occupied for a while.
Games? If she took a liking to checkers, chess, sudoku, or something like that, she could play those (two-player games against a computer, something like sudoku just with pencil and paper).
A random thought, but what about jewelry making? It can be easy and soothing (string beads on elastic wire and tie the ends together) or complicated and slightly frustrating (chainmail with beads). Plus, if she really wants to go crazy, you can make your own beads/charms.
ReplyDelete