Okay, so this is another "two birds, one stone" moment, where I participate in this month's AbsoluteWrite blog chain, and post my A-Z entry for the letter J. At first we were going to interview our characters, but then orion_mk3 came up with an even cooler idea - have our characters interview us!).
I have decided to give the reins to the ghost of one of my characters, JD. FYI, "JD" is just what I'm calling him (his name does start with J, but in the novel(s) he's called by his full name, not JD). So, let's see how I fared under JD's interrogation:
JD appears to me in my dreams, crossing his arms and frowning at me. “So, what’s with all these ‘J’ names? I mean, you’ve got Jared, you’ve got Jules, and then there’s me! What is it, a J fixation or something?”
I tilt my head in thought. “Honestly? It just happened that way. Don’t accuse me of having some master J-name plan or something, because I didn’t.”
He shrugs. “Okay, take it easy! But look, I really want to know—why’d you have to kill me off? What’d I ever do to you?”
“I’m sorry about that—I really am. But I had to kill off the absolute nicest character I could find—and you qualified. At least you went down happy, right?”
“Well, that’s true,” he says thoughtfully. “I was doing what I love best. Still, I brought such shame on my bandmates—did you ever think how my death would impact them?”
“I’m really sorry, but it had to happen.”
He lifts his brows. “Okay, don’t even say it was for character development! I’ve heard that one too many times.”
“But you’ve got to admit Jared and Louise were just way too pukeishly happy—I had to mess it up for them somehow, didn’t I?”
“Still!” he protests, “They’re such good people! And they’d already gone through so much.”
“Listen, I was hurting too, man! I was hurting for them. But as Louise herself once said, ‘Life needs the ups and downs...doesn’t it?’ So in a way, she kind of asked for it.”
JD’s eyes flash with anger, an emotion he very rarely felt while he was living. “That’s crap! You need to seriously rethink what you do for kicks—killing people off, throwing spanners in works, tearing lovers apart.”
“Gee, JD, I’ve gotta say, you’re a lot more feisty as a ghost.”
He frowns. “I’ve had a lot of time to stew in my own angry juices, I guess.”
“But at least you got teamed up with Orestes in the afterlife, right?”
“True,” he says with reluctance. “That dude is hilarious.”
“He is. And I’m glad you guys get along.”
JD mutters to himself. “Still, it’s no excuse!”
“Look, is there anything else you wanted to ask? I’ve got to get going...I’ve just finished draft #3 of book 1 and I need to get onto the next version.”
He rolls his eyes. “All right—one last question. Those two are gonna be happy in the end, right?”
“Oh yeah, don’t worry. Credits will roll and the audience will be left with one seriously huge Happily Ever After.” After a moment I add, “Any future misery will be off camera.”
“Errr...that doesn’t really reassure me much...”
“Seriously,” I say, reaching out to squeeze JD’s hand. “It’s going to be okay. Now you really should go off and rest in peace.”
With that, he begins to fade.
And here's a list of other participants:
orion_mk3 - http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com
LadyMage - http://katherinegilraine.com
COchick - http://joannchaney.blogspot.com
Steam&Ink - http://steamandink.blogspot.com
xcomplex - http://www.arielemerald.blogspot.com
pezie - http://www.erinbrambilla.com
aimeelaine - http://www.aimeelaine.com/blog
auburnassassin - http://clairegillian.com
Della Odell - http://dellaodell.wordpress.com
Juniper - http://www.katjuniper.com
Proach - http://desstories.blogspot.com
dolores haze - http://dianedooley.wordpress.com/
