- Damn, she’s going to quote Whitman again

 

Yes. Yes, I am!

 

Do I contradict myself?

Very well, then I contradict myself

I am vast, I contain multitudes.

 

Good thing I do! Where would all these people come from that I write about if not straight from the crooked mind of 2nd Chance herself? From my mind, from my heart, my struggles, my triumphs, my alternate selves…all me. I am proud to make that statement. I stand and embrace the belief that characters must have a connection to the author.

 

Connection. Yes. To the person we dreamt of being if things had been different. Writers address the pivot point in stories. Well, what about the pivot points in our personal histories? What if I’d done this instead of that? What if Bill had asked me out instead of Fred? It’s not just what would have been different, but how would you have been different?

 

Would you go down the stairway, in the dark, after hearing a strange sound? Duh! (OK, that one’s too easy.)

 

My characters rise from these concepts, (well except the dark stair one). They are the ideal me, the vastly crooked me, the me that never gets embarrassed, that is always embarrassed, the frozen me, the steaming me…all me.

 

Some in large parts – I like my characters to be short. I’m short. I am more likely to make my heroines brunettes. I’m a brunette. My characters are older, like me. Usually they are from California, like me.

 

Some in small parts – They like to drink what I drink at Starbucks. They dreamt once of being a ballerina (very small dream on my part…really, really small. But it is there!) They have the discipline to exercise, daily. (I wish! I manage a few times a week at best.) They are sexually open and explosive. (Ahem.)

 

But the most important parts, I claim, have to do with the ideals, the phobias, the little bits of a psyche that is so much me. Even the more outlandish things. How would I react if I were abducted, taken to an alien planet and asked to create a library? For aliens. (PTSD denial crew. Cameron hid, denied and functioned…so much so that a contest judge said this just isn’t how anyone would react. The judge, obviously, had never experienced PTSD…)

 

What part of me would surface if I were born in a world that survives in the ruin of the modern world? Who would I be if I never aged and had been brutalized by my worst enemy, bore him a child? What color would my hate be? How thirsty for vengeance? (Ivy isn’t me by a long shot, but there is a core to her that is at one with me. Despair and again, ability to function without working out how. Sometimes, you just do it because your mind says this is survival, babe. You just do.)

 

These bits and pieces are, to my mind, what makes my characters pop. Now, I could be wrong…but I don’t think I am.

 

My heroes? Me. My villains? Me. My best friends? Me, again!

 

I don’t think I’m an egotist, but I could be wrong. I think I am a realist. And I fully embrace the truth that I am the writer, I am the creator and so my essence weaves its way through every character I write.

 

I have often stated that writing is therapy. And in some way, by writing I create/recreate myself. Who I want to be, how I would want to react to any given situation. Or not react! My time traveling sexual witch, Miranda, is my idealized me. She is my hero. The hero I want to be. Flaws and all. This makes her real, because I am real.

 

Last I checked.

 

(Brace yourself, Hellie, I’m going to go all metaphysical on you… I do apologize.)

 

I think of this from a creator/creation viewpoint. We are the stuff of stars. We are a reflection of the grand creative mind/forces that brought everything together in the massive progress that is all life, all matter. As we were created, as we evolved, as we built upon who came before…our stories come from us. It is inescapable.

 

Whitman again,

 

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

 

Every word belonging to me as good (or bad, I don’t judge, much) belongs to my characters.

 

(Hellie, just hold on…almost over.) (But this is an important point!)

 

You can’t escape it, crewmates, friends, gentles who have stumbled upon this blog…when we read, we look for ourselves, when we write, we find ourselves. If we are brave enough to look. If we are open enough to embrace it. It does not mean we are discontent with the reality of who we are…but we dream of what ifs, we roam a sea of possibilities within ourselves… I love myself. I also love the me I create when I write. All of them!

 

So there!

 

I dare you to look for yourself in your current WIP. The physical you, the ideal you, the little, itty, tiny bit of you that has slipped into your heroine. And share. Be honest. If you absolutely think I’m a lunatic, get in line. But speak up. Readers? Admit it, you look for yourself, for the self you want to be, that you dream you could be…not just thin, beautiful, rich…what about brave? Outspoken? Flirty? Do you find ‘faults’ in the heroines that you read and are able to admit, “Yup, I’d do that. Dummy.” Let’s hear it! The therapy couch is on the deck…it is comfy! Really!

 

And the bar is open.