Though writing is a solitary pursuit, and sometimes a lonely obsession, I am not a cloistered artist, clacking away endlessly in a dusty, spartan room nestled deep inside a cliff-cloistered monastery, high atop a sheer mountain face.Some of these characters are composites of more than one person in my life. Some different characters may be different facets of the the same person. I'm pretty sure one person is represented here at least five times and another six or seven people have been combined into one. (The Voice of my Mother has been totally different than my actual mother for decades now.)
There's no decoder ring. All these characters are absolutely "real." They just might not, strictly speaking, exist.
The Supernaturals
The Worshiped (Some call them cats.)
Costars
The Hall of Rectitude
Sparkly Vampires
The Profs
Minor Characters
Voices in My Head
The Patron Muses*
*The patron muses will not be relegated to their own sub-menu. They are shouted from the rooftops.
Though Cathamel retains the Primary Muse status, and is the fiercest ass kicker muse there has ever been, there are a few readers of Writing About Writing who have been acting as patron/muses.
I can try to sing their praises, but it will never quite be enough. Their name is not hyperbole for they really do inspire me sometimes from the dredges of apathy and the very edge of giving up on this whole "blog thing." Whether they show up to social events with their entire family dressed in Writing About Writing t-shirts, donate a non-trivial amount month after month, drop a donation on me that is so huge my mouth literally goes dry, or simply help my social media proliferation by liking and sharing just about every damn thing I post, they are who I think of when the writing gets hard. They are the ones who, when it gets really tough, I realize I can't let down.
Right now there are 16 patron muses (but always room for one more). Julia, Margaret, John, Anna, Stephanie, Ginger, Kelly, Chris, Alisha, Hélène, Amy, TM Caldwell, Alex, another––more different––Alex and two Anonymouses. I salute you.
More characters to come...
