that it doesn't really matter (except when standing around at parties, I find). What's 10 inches between friends?! Thanks Erin, it gets better. I eventually got the nerve up to chat to him when I knew he'd been celebrating after an exam and he pretended he needed to borrow some bike lights to have an excuse for us to see each other again when he returned them!! I bet everyone thinks I write slushy romance now (I don't). Look forward to hearing your story. This is a cool post. A month or so ago I posted the template for a character checklist on my Tumblr for anyone to use. I've built it up over the past few years so it's pretty comprehensive now, I find it really useful at the beginning of a project to really make sure I know everything about a character. Just looked at your template, Cariad, thanks for sharing that. I know many writers like to do an exercise like that at the start -- maybe I'm just weird but when I tried doing that with the characters in my first novel it felt like I was killing them before they'd taken shape. Of course by the end I could do it easily and it would actually be quite fun to have a go. Really look forward to your #realcharacter! Another brilliant post, Isabel! I love the juxtaposition of creating new characters and the "character" that is you! I'm thinking about whether I can do a