My best friend and I have always
written. We've known each other and have shared our stories for over
thirty years. We have lived on opposite sides of the country for
almost two thirds of that time, and of course become different people
than we were as kids. We've had different lives, but writing has
always been the constant.
She asked me, a while ago if she could
use a character of mine in a new story she was writing. She would
change his name, and the setting, of course, but she wanted to know
if it was alright with me if he made an appearance.
I didn't know what to say. I was more
than happy to let her have him. I wasn't doing anything with him,
that was for sure. When she began to talk about what role he would
play in this new story of hers, I was hit with a wave of uncertainty,
as though I was falling back into who I was all those years ago. I
was jealous of her new idea, of the writer she was. I felt awful. She
had improved her writing so much since then, why was I still
struggling with every word?
I wanted to protect what was mine, but
I also wanted to let him go. I wanted to see what she did with
him. Of the two of us, I had more faith in her than I did in me, to
complete the story.
So I gave up my seventeen year old self
who felt inferior, and angry about being inferior. That was the first
thing, and it wasn't easy. Then I decided to try to be as much help as I could. Not only
because she is my best friend, but because I knew I would learn
things along the way.
She did finish the book, and my
character, who is a relatively minor one, is also one of the heroes.
He comes across as a guy who is just doing the best he can while
trying to stay as deceit as he can. He's perfect, but he's also not
mine anymore. He's one facet of my character, as seen through
her eyes, so reading him was so much more fun than I ever expected.
There was another unexpected bonus.
She got me thinking about those stories we
wrote back then. I decided it might be time for me to start telling
my version. I could write that character from the present, with all
the things I've learned since we were kids added in. I haven't stayed
in the same place, I've moved forward, I've just moved differently.
I wanted a story that reflected that, even if only to myself.
The result is the novel I'm working on
now, called “The Night Was Not.” It's a neo-Victorian story. This
incarnation of the character is called Kerry Hazard. He flies an
airship, and is called back to the city of his childhood by an
ominous message from a friend. It's a very different story from my
friend's novel, which is a space opera (yay!), but the character came
from the same place. He was born in the back of a notebook, scribbled
in while lying on either of our bedroom floors in the middle of the
night. It's where he would have stayed if she hadn't picked him up again.
