Monday Moment #111: a writing prompt for your work-in-progress

(Note: I swear this was scheduled to post yesterday morning. Anyone else having trouble with Blogger posting?)

(If you’ve already read this then skip past all the italicized blah-di-blah and start writing.) Monday Moments are writing prompts for your work-in-progress. They are questions that come from my experiences and are my favorite way to find out more about my characters. I find I learn a lot. Some of it I use. Some of it I don’t. But I always, always get to know my characters better just by answering the question. I hope you do too.)

Caught-cha lookin'!

And again. (Stop it already!)

I had an experience with double takes the other day. We all do it. Something, or someone, catches our eye, and for whatever reason, we glance again.

Several days ago, I was on the opposite end of the double takes, an awkward feeling (at least for me). It made me a bit uncomfortable, and made me wonder, why in the world do people keep looking at me (it happened multiple times within a two-hour period).

I did happen to be dressed a bit nicer than my regular running-around clothes, but nothing over the top. My lovely family (when I asked them if something about me was strange that day because people kept looking my way) did try to tell me that I'm a pretty girl, and that people might look twice. (They are very sweet.) But then I thought about the super model I once heard say that people had really been looking at her a whole lot one day, making her feeling like she's was extra hot, only to find out later that her skirt had been tucked into her waist band and her backside was hanging out. Well, I wasn't wearing a skirt/dress, and I knew there was no TP stuck to me anywhere, but it really did make me wonder what was up that day.

Also, at the time, I was in the middle of reading a crazy, creepy book, The Marbury Lens, and the character often wonders if people know his secrets, he feels like they can tell. (On a recommendation note: a great read if you know you're not getting some sweet story. It's quite disturbing, and it made me wonder what it would be like to be in Andrew Smith's head while he was writing it. It's a book that's hard to put down. Sara Zarr wrote about it HERE.)

There's just something unnerving when people, especially ones you don't know, are looking at you, then looking again.

If your character was getting double takes, why would s/he think it was happening?