Hi everyone!  It’s the creator!  Or whatever you want to call me.

Writing Lily and friends has been such an adventure, and it’s been almost a month now.  I’ve only missed one day, believe it or not.  It’s hard sometimes to come up with a storyline, but I manage.

Honestly, though, this blog was never intended to be the end of the Lily experiment, only the start.  But I’m having a hard time pulling the trigger on the rest of it.  I’m not sure how I’m going to pull it off.

Lily has gained her own personality over the last month, and it’s actually interesting how that works out.  I deliberately made her cheerful, ebullient, happy, loving life.  I did this because I am none of these things, and I wanted to know if I could create a character that is the opposite of me.  I’ve mostly succeeded.

But she has a depth I didn’t intend and didn’t plan.

It’s not that in my mind she’s a different person.  I mean, I guess in one way, but not really.  But it’s more in my mind she has her own way of looking at the world, and honestly, she and I would probably argue about things.  I imagine it would go something like this.

Lily: “Hi creator, how are you?”

Me: “Not well today, sorry.”

Lily: “Aww, why not?”

Me: “A little depressed today.”

Lily: “Why are you depressed?  It’s a nice day!  Why don’t you go to the waterpark?”

Me:  “I hate waterparks.”

Lily:  “Well, you’re just a silly billy.  Waterparks are the best!  They have… water!  And I’m sure you like girls in bikinis, right?”

Me:  “I guess I do, but it’s complicated.”

Lily:  “Why is it complicated?  Just go!  You’ll love it.”

Me:  “No thanks.”

Lily:  “Well I’m going to go then.  I love going to the waterpark.  You can just stay home and be a silly billy then.”

And she’d flounce off to the waterpark and leave me by myself, and I’d probably feel relieved that she was gone.  And she’d never, even for the littlest bit, understand that at all.  Waterparks are fun and I’m a silly billy for not going!

You see, that’s the real conundrum.  I imagine it’s a similar one to what Jeff Dunham experiences.  The characters kind of partition themselves off, and you kind of know what they would do and what they wouldn’t and how they would react in any particular situation.  But it’s all in my head.  Even when I’m depressed, I can write Lily as a cheerful teenage girl, because that’s what she is, and I honestly don’t understand this at all, about me, about her, about anything.

But I could also imagine her handling it differently in a different situation.

Lily:  “What’s wrong, creator?”

Me: “I’m just not feeling well.”

Lily: “Can I brush your hair?  That always helps me feel better.”

Me:  “I don’t have hair to brush, sorry, Lily.”

Lily: “Well then you can brush mine.”  *hands me the hairbrush and faces away from me.*

Me: “You’d trust me to do that?”

Lily: “Just go fast and don’t let snags get in the way.  You’ll do fine.”

And I’d brush her hair, and y’know, I’d probably feel a little better.  She’s not at all without empathy.  She’s just a teenage girl who doesn’t know how to handle life events perfectly yet.  But she’s got a lot of happiness and love in her.

So the question is, can I find technologies to animate her that I’m happy with?  And can I act like her well enough for it to be passable?  The answer is, I don’t know.  But those questions are what’s stopping me.  Maybe I just need to do an experimental video or stream.

Oh well.  I know few people read this right now.  That will change as I figure it out.  But I can’t give up on Lily.  Not now.