My Characters Know Me Better Than I Do

First off, I'm so, so, SO sorry for not being around. Like I said in my last post, things are kind of crazy around my house right now. I'm busy with family drama and helping my parents out with their  kennel. Also, my grandma's health has been a little iffy lately. It's nothing too bad, but if you guys want to send some good thoughts and prayers and whatnot our way, we'll all be very thankful.

Now, on to business! A few weeks ago, I was writing a scene in DARK WATER where one of the characters breaks out his harmonica and plays a little tune. As if happens, my MC has never seen a harmonica before, and I've never listened to any music that contains any sort of harmonica. I needed to describe what it sounded like, but had literally no clue. I could've just changed it to an instrument I knew more about, but that wouldn't have been right. It wouldn't be true to the character. He plays the harmonica--end of story.

So, naturally, I turned to a writer's best friend. Research. 

After what felt like a lifetime of rummaging around Google and YouTube (I thought it would be as easy as typing in 'harmonica music.' WRONG!), I found what I needed--a whole YouTube channel of nothing but song covers on the harmonica. I listened to pretty much every video they had, twice. And you know what I realized?

I really like the harmonica.

If I ever learn how to play an instrument, it'll be the harmonica. It's just an all-around awesome instrument.

I never would have realized my love of harmonica if this character hadn't come forward and said, "Hey, I play harmonica. It reminds me of home. No. I don't play the violin. And definitely not the flute. Harmonica--plain and simple. You don't know how to write that? Well, you'd better figure it out, 'cause that's the way this is going down."

Apparently, as the title of this post suggests, my characters know me better than I know myself. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Or maybe, somehow, this character's love of his harmonica stemmed subconsciously from a love I didn't even know I had.

But it's probably just a coincidence. lulz.

Also, just thought I'd let everyone know I'm definitely going over 100k with DARK WATER. *headdesk* Ah well, I've been pretty sure I was going to do that for a while. Now it's just kind of staring me in the face. I'm at 99k, and I've still got a two huge plot points to touch on before getting to the ending. Le sigh. But like I've said before, it's no big deal. I'll tackle the word count in editing. If I can chop 40k off BROKEN, I can do it with DARK WATER as well, if need be.

Is it weird that a fictional person introduced me to one of my new favorite things?

Have your characters ever made you realize something new about yourself?

HAPPY WRITING, LOVELIES!