Paid Will at sci-fi publishing. Who paid Liam Owen. Actually, I don’t know how they do their fee schedules, but the check is in the mail. Or PayPal. Waiting for Audible to Q&A the audiobook and then it will be released.
Thanks for your patience. This was a tough one. But you know how they say, “good things come to those who wait?” Well, people who say that are annoying. So I’ll just say sorry it’s been taking so long. Wasn’t my intention. But a book goes where it goes.
I see a lot of articles on writer’s forums and boards and such where people talk about how much this or that they should add. Like, should they make characters behave a certain way. They’re trying to left-brained put a message across in their writing. But, for me, the characters are the characters. I don’t agree with all the characters. I often don’t agree with any of them. But I have to like them. And then they’re free to do what would be natural for their character to do.
On my new book, I had a character who was very real. But I was kind of struggling with him and when I came to his parts I labored to get anything done. The problem was, I simply didn’t like him as a person. At all. I can make a realistic character who is vapid, and stupid, and unredeeming. But I don’t want to hang around that character any more than I would want to hang around them if they were a person. So I completely scrapped the character and rewrote him. Maybe that’s one of my (many) deficiencies as a writer. I can totally make a twenty-something reality tv star who had all the trappings of that genre. But I’d only pop them in as a cameo or to lampoon. I have no interest in living inside their consciousness. That would be torture.
All that said, I don’t always like the most redeeming characters. I love the hell out of Delovoa and he’s a horrible person. But he’s horrible in interesting ways and he has some glimmers of value as a personage. I suppose it’s whatever I find intriguing. Making radioactive toothpaste isn’t a noble pursuit, but it’s far more fun to think about than someone relentlessly trying to have anonymous sex every night. Maybe I’ll mature one day and embrace even the most insipid characters. But I have some questions I ask myself about each character. Like personality, background, mannerisms, and what makes them likeable.
If I can’t like them, in some way, I have a tough time bringing them to life. Because I’m simply not interested. They’re going to be two-dimensional and I’m going to get out of them as fast as I can. There is no future for me as a paparazzi.
