Yes, I was probably talking about you… ;)

People ask me from time to time if my novels ever contain real people from my life.  The answer to that is YES.  If I know you, like you, hate you, am in any way affected by you… you’ll end up in a novel.

I hope this doesn’t bother any of you!  I certainly don’t name names or even leave situations the same.  But when I meet someone who strikes me as interesting, their personality ends up bleeding out into a character.

It’s not really so strange.  For example.  I recently made a great friend.  We’re both married, have kids, and have writing careers.  We have a lot in common!  But she is, ironically enough, my polar opposite.  She can’t stand being at home for too long, while I am such a home body it’s hard to pry my out.  She is a recreational boxer (you know, the kind with gloves who throws punches) and I…  well, I’m a wimp.  If anyone punched me in the head or otherwise, I’d just cry.  She’s very stylish, and she’s helped me pick out a few great finds on shopping trips.  She intrigues me!  What makes my friend tick?  Well, she hasn’t appeared in a novel yet, since I haven’t known her long enough, but chances are, she’ll pop up somewhere in a different time and a different place.

I work out my anger and frustration in novel-writing.  If there is some issue or other I’m working through, chances are it’s going to be an issue that a major character is working through as well.  Novels are personal.  If they weren’t, I doubt that anyone would read them.

That said, I write fiction.  I write fiction for a reason. I love making stuff up!  I love spinning tales and “gossiping.”  I love getting into someone else’s shoes and wondering “what if.”  I think in any other framework, this would be a character flaw, but as a novelist, it’s pretty much how a story comes to life.

You have a leg up on me, though.  I might see someone and wonder about their life and spin a tale around them, but no one knows who they are!  You, on the other hand, can read my books and wonder what parts are disastrously close to my own life, and you know exactly who I am!  So I figure we’re even.

Be gentle with me, and I’ll be gentle with you.  Deal?