The third main character from NaNoWriMo 2004, Alan is… well, he’s interesting, I’ll say that. A compulsive liar, kind of a jerk, trying his hardest to be a decent person. Meets the girls on a bus and hangs out with them and that’s pretty much the entire story. I was too busy using these fictional people to vent my teen angst to bother with much of a plot.

I normally don’t give much thought to the specific ethnicity of characters, but Alan is most definitely Polish-Italian.

Ann is Cal’s best friend, and the brains of the operation. Chubby, pretty, and deeply insecure. That’s not her natural hair colour.

And now we move on to the next year, 12th grade, when I wrote about some teenagers going on a cross-Canada trip – and yes, Calgary is a strange name for a girl. It all made some sort of sense at the time.

Cal’s 18, not particularly pretty, with a slightly mannish face, a hawkish nose, and tragically unmanageable hair. This story was totally unrelated to the previous year’s, and in fact took place in more or less a different world entirely – the first having heavy supernatural tones, and the second being simple realism. Despite this, I always sort of thought of her and Cole as cousins.

Look, I was 16 when I wrote this story. Don’t judge me. (Okay, you can judge me a little for the fact that this was a character originally created for the times when I didn’t feel like drawing eyes.)

To this day, I love drawing those horns. They’re adorable.

12 years old, looks a bit younger and acts a whole lot older. Creepy as hell.

I am so embarrassed of that name. It’s a pretty ridiculous name for a kid.