For the past hundred years, or so it seems, my mother of all people has been hounding me to write about my life.  I see her on average about once a month and I regale her with all the stories of what’s been happening to me and we always end up laughing hysterically, even about the horrible things.  I know that sounds morbid, but if you knew me, you’d know that for the past several years, I’ve been plagued by what I can only term as a curse.

Again, when I say that, people who don’t know me well say I’m being an overdramatic writer.  And if I told you half of what I’ve gone through, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.  Incidents include, but are not limited to…

·         Being in a full blown flood (4’ of water in my ENTIRE apartment)

·         Having my “landlord” use all my rent money for drugs and booze to the point where our utilities regularly got shut off.

·         Finding a beautiful new place to live far, far away only to be plagued with a plethora of “old house” issues…leaking roof, rotting floor, simultaneously combusting outlets, blown fuses and a propane furnace that costs more than rent to run.

·         Finally getting a savings account and then having insurance rates double so I have to close said savings account

·         Finally getting my book published then having no money to market it.

·         Saving up enough money to get a new car and now can’t afford gas to get to work.

The list goes on and on.  And the more bad things happen to me, the more I just want to laugh because it’s all so ludicrous.  If a satellite fell on my house while I was watching TV, I probably wouldn’t notice.  Par for the course.

                So what am I getting at?  Well, I could easily write about all the crazy things that go on in my life, but personally, I don’t see the point.  Bad as things are, I don’t feel like I’m the only one going through this and as crappy as things get for me, I know there is always someone out there going through a lot worse, so it humbles me to think anyone would want to read about my life.

                Instead, bits and pieces of my crazy life make it into the stories I write about my fictional characters.  It is fiction after all, so it’s easier to believe than if I touted it as a biography.  Just like bits and pieces of my personality and traits from my friends and acquaintances weave their way into my characters.  It’s hard to avoid.  You can’t just come up with a character out of thin air without having something of their quirks and passions relate to something you’ve experienced either personally or through knowledge of someone else.  It’s impossible.  Ask any writer.  Even if they adamantly deny it, given the chance to sit and mull it over, they will nod and say “You know, I never realized, but character A is a lot like my cousin Bill…or my Aunt Sue…. Or my boss.”  Everything you experience firsthand or even secondhand gets mixed in to dialogue or action in everything you write, so in a way, even though I write fiction, I do write about my life….just not in context.

                So are you happy Mom?!