After just posting that last blog post, and sharing it to FB, I was thinking, I need to write a post for family and friends. The writing process isn't interesting to non-writers. What they might be interested in, is what sometimes people ask, but mostly they just wonder, if they have a writer among their peeps. Am I in your novel?
So, I thought I would just write a quick note about that. The answer is…yes you are.
In writing a DISTILLATION, it took my husband a while, if he even ever did, not to see the male lead as himself. And people of course see a bit of me in my main character, Alice, though really I tried to make her as different as I could. Still she shares a lot of my personality, obsessions, anxieties, and fears, though in a fictionalized form. But the truth is, yes I use everything and everyone I have ever known or met in the creation of my characters and plot. Much of DISTILLATION centers on a world I once inhabited; the world of Ashfield. So, the places are clearly inspired by reality as is some of the story. But the people are ALL based on people I have known.
Often my characters are conglomerates. A gesture they make might come from an old friend, a parental situation from another. Their personalities too are usually caricaturized hybridizations. Does that mean any of you are directly translated onto the page? No, probably not. But might you recognize a bit of yourself, a laugh, a point of view, a family structure, an adventure we had together in my story. Perhaps.
