Characters

You know that you are a writer when your characters start to come alive—sit across from you at your desk and tell you about their favorite foods, strike up a conversation with you you’re running, or snore next to you in the bed while you are trying to get to sleep.

Right now, I’ve living with this character named Doris, well not literally; if we were actual roommates we probably wouldn’t get along so great. She’s an older woman who lives across the field from the plant where the propane tank nearly blew up in Norfolk last December. She’s stubborn and her sense of humor makes me laugh. Her favorite vegetable is snap peas, and she spends hours cutting coupons out of the newspaper. But she’s also a mystery, haunted by a past that skews the way she looks at the world, and at God. I’m trying to get to know her, decipher her past, and ultimately correct her worldview. Call me crazy, but it’s my goal this semester.

All this to say, I’m definitely beginning to stray over into the ranks of writers who are so nerdishly consumed with their work that they start thinking of their characters as real people. And really who’s to say they aren’t? It's really a good sign. Now if only I would be so consumed as to produce complete pages every day…