I'm not the only writer who does this!

 

I found this quote on a card tucked away in a very old journal. I wish I'd written down who said it.I feel that way about many of my characters. 

"Sooner or later, I know that my characters will take charge of the book. They'll turn bossy and opinionated and they'll stop following my instructions. 'You just leave things to us,'" they'll say to me. 'We can manage from here.'"

For me it's as if the characters are sitting on my couch. The say, "You can write it, but I'm not going to do it."

My characters become as real to me as the people I see every day. Minor characters are short-term guests, but people like Annie, who was my main character in all my Third Culture Kid mystery series stay with me forever. Some people thought I saw myself as Annie.

I wish.

She was taller, had real red curly hair, was fluent in English, French, German and Dutch. As a tech writer, she was more technically competent than I ever will be. Both of us did love history, so Annie ended up in various cities with temporary tech writing assignments as she researched different historical events. Sometimes, she handled social issues such as domestic violence, but she always, like Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote, ran across murders.

My husband Rick and I were walking through the Veille Ville in Geneva and as we passed the Hotel de Ville, Rick pointed out a medium tall, curly red head. "There's your Annie," he said.  He was right. She had a sign in French offering free hugs, a very unSwiss thing. I imagined Jean Calvin, who walked those same streets in the 1500s, had he come across her would have had a heart attack.

We accepted the hug. She let us take her photo. An artist friend took the photo and used the image on a clock, my Annie clock that I treasure.

I had four women in Day Care Moms, all of were bossy personalities. I was surprised when Brenda arrived one rainy morning as I was working with Anne-Marie, but not well. Writer Brenda interviewed her as a tool to get into her character. Brenda wanted to be a major part of the book. After typing The End on the umpty umph draft, I imagined all five women who had lived with me over a year packing up their suitcases. I missed them.

Now on my twins novel, because I'm busy with getting 300 Unsung Women published. Lou and Nancy have taken the day care moms' place. I had intended that a sister-in-law was to be a walk on role, but she keeps pushing in, refusing to go back to university, and insisting on working in the company business. 

It isn't the first time that happens. In Murder in Caleb's Landing, a woman who was just supposed to have a cup of coffee turned out to run an underground railroad to help women of domestic violence, which shadowed the underground railroad room found in the basement of the main house in the book. That was a surprise to me, but it made the book stronger.

Sometimes, I think, I'd like to get all my main characters together for a weekend, introducing  them to each other. We could star off with a get together apèro Friday night, meet for breakfast and a workshop Saturday morning, an informal lunch and maybe a tour of Argelès or Geneva, whichever place we are meeting.

Argelès would probably better, it's less expensive and many of my fictional characters do not have the money to travel. 

Meanwhile, I'm reassured by the writing on the card, that other writers or at least one other "live" with their characters.