I believe I've finally found the proper balance of 'strong but sweet' for my story character, Helena.

Sadly, this proper balance happened to come about in the form of my current RP character, Hazel. I have problems with authors that make their characters too much alike from stories that are supposed to be totally separate (Danielle Steel, anyone?) and am trying to avoid that with my own writing.

I know that someday the RP will be no more, but I'm now strongly tempted to graft Hazel's basic personality onto Helena, except maybe make it a little sweeter in the beginning before her life goes to pot. I'm just not sure that's a good idea, or if I can just write and see how Helena comes out, so to speak. I have the beginning of her story in my scraps and will eventually bring it back out to work on when the RP and work stop eating my life, but right now I wanted opinions. Is it a stupid thing to do? Will most people find it lame? Opinions welcome. And yes, I know there are only so many personality types in the world, but when people say 'Your character X reminds me of your other character Y,' it still makes me want to put a flaming crab leg in their eye-sockets and twist. I know I shouldn't worry so much, but I've spent a lot of my time either so nervous I don't know what to do with myself, or so tired and full of hate for everything, I see nowhere else to turn. That breakdown I mentioned, the one where I throw things at people and scream? It's coming.

Part of me has also been tempted to say 'Screw writing a novel or having dreams of doing it, people are going to hate it/you don't have the talent to anyway.'

And also, wish me luck for my upcoming shift. The days before holidays in my hellhole are, well, hell. I'm going to be slaughtered by people wanting steak and shrimp. By God, I hate them all.

Also, happy 4th to all my American watchers.