Just a girl, just a girl

It's Hard / The Who











Recent conversations with some of you reading this blog, and others have eerily raised similar questions and thoughts. What is true and what is fiction? Hard question in some ways. Some of this is 100% truth as I experienced or remember it. Most has some reference to some “real” experience or observation, and some has only a marginal connection.

Ironically, that which is the truest is hardest to write. And, that which is the most fictionalized is the character that began as intentionally the most like me and is the easiest to write.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ve met Sam. My first character writing role play was Vanessa. Some of you know her. She started online in a story that died within a month. The players of that game were alll good though, and one invited us to his game: life in high school…

No way, I thought. Wasn’t it bad enough once?? Write it again, I don’t think so. But finding a contemporary, active game to write in with a fearless suicidal character (Nessa at that time) was not easy. So, I thought maybe a Peggy Sue Got Married adventure might be okay… conditionally.

I wanted to write me – over, better. A do-over, perhaps. Wouldn’t it be fun to go back, knowing what you know now, and with no fear of consequence? The me I wished I had been. One who would not make the same mistakes I did.

Like Athena, Samantha Halley Dessen was created. Samantha after my favorite witch: Samantha Stevens. Halley, like the comet, the name of a character from my favorite YA author, Sarah Dessen. To explain Sam’s confidence, opinions, etc. I spent a lot of time thinking about her first 17 years and created an extensive back story to make her plausible. The story was purely fiction, but shaped a lot of the character as it turned out.

As a result, by the time I wrote the first sentence, I knew this young woman. She, like me, is independent and opinionated, socially conscious and stubborn. She was, and is, as real to me as anyone I’ve ever met. And she isn’t me by a long shot. Not that I would mind being Sam, but I was never, am not now and never will be her (or she me, she'd be horrified!)

Sam was created over 5 years ago. I’ve written her probably almost everyday since. She’s grown, changed, gone through good times and bad. I can say, in this time, Sam has not made the same mistakes I did… she’s made others. Some I even saw coming and couldn’t stop her. She has done things that I find appalling. She wears clothing that I think should not even be used for cleaning rags.

And while I would probably ground her for the rest of her life for several of her…stunts, I can also say, she’s taught me things, she’s made me see the world differently and through her interactions with others allowed me to change. I’d be proud to have her as a daughter.

What is odd about Sam and I, is that she just is. There is no conscious thought with Sam. Give me a setting and I can see her there. I know what she’d wear. What she’d say. How she’d stand. I know what book she has in her bag. I know what song’s on the ipod, and I don’t even like it. I know what she would say in response to anything I see, hear, dream up. It’s kinda weird. Like arguing with yourself.

Of course, she is my creation. I know this. But it is still weird to have a character who is so… independent. At times, her response comes to me, and I have to pause. Sometimes I actually argue with myself – ‘you can’t do/say/type that!’ And more than once have I written Sam online and thought ohmygod.

As a writer, I like Sam. Not simply because she is reliably there for me, but because at those “ohmygod” moments, I am forced to ask myself : Would this character really do/say this? What are my issues that are preventing the keystrokes? And how is it that this totally other creature, who was supposed to be me, can be this way?