Thoughts on Character

I'm writing this while my little guy is running around, so in between keeping him from crawling onto the table and other surfaces and generally trying to prevent him from self-inflicted injury.

So if the post is disjointed, that's why. Anyway, I was thinking this morning about how dark the character in the new release, Burning Souls is, and compared her to other characters I've written. I don't know really where Mia came from. She just kinda stepped onto the page and took over.

This led me to wonder about how much of us is in the characters we write. The character I feel closest to is definitely Leah Ryan. Am I like her? Good question. I'd say maybe in my younger days I was more like her in terms of personality, but I've mellowed over the years.

In terms of experience? I'd say I knew people like the ones she knows, but I've never done the things she's done. Have I ever stolen a car? No. I've never broken into a car in my life. But I grew up with people like her. Am I as brave as she is? If I were under the gun, maybe. Hard to say. If I had split second decisions to make.

She has definite issues. Most of my characters do. But that is what endears them to me. That is what makes the interesting enough for me to want to discover their stories. I'm interested in people. In where they really live. What makes them who they are. I think we are where we've been, and you can't change that.

She had definite intimacy issues. I used to be like that. I could sabatoge a relationship in no time flat. But I've grown up and worked through most of my shit. I hope. Christ.

But the biggest difference between us is that she's cool. I'm a geek and a spaz. Almost no place I'd rather be than with my bespeckled nose in a book, researching something on the web or writing the latest story unfolding in my mind.

I tend to write about issues that really get me in some way. They set a fire under my ass. So the issues that propel Leah into action are the same ones that concern me. People can really piss me off. But she's a character from my imagination. That is where she lives.

There are bits of me in pretty much all my characters, I'd say.

I think that what makes a character interesting enough to want to finish a book is the crap they have to work through. External and internal. Motivation, goal, obstacles, Conflict, all that stuff. I like putting them through hell and watching them try to claw their way out of hades.

For the most part I think writers are observers. We observe and record in some way what we see. I think that my curiosity and desire to observe has actually put me in some dangerous situations. A couple of which I almost didn't come out. But I'm smarter now. I hope.

Having a toddler you love more than life does that to you. And a man is your best friend, who would do anything for you, who is genuinely warm and sweet, and funny as hell, and a step-son (for lack of a better term), that I'm crazy about. You kinda wanna stick around to be with them. You know?

Speaking of which. Toddler is on top of the table. Gotta git.