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Tuesday, February 07, 2012

The Unknown Issue

Characters can be such a kick. Just when I think I have one of them down and that I'm unlikely to have a huge curve ball thrown my way, he/she throws me a knuckle ball. (For those of you unfamiliar with baseball, a knuckle ball is even more unpredictable/harder to hit than a curve ball.) It happened again just recently.

I've had Wyatt's team (Eternal Nights) in my head off and on since I wrote his story. So I've had six years to get to know these guys. At first, it was mostly Flare talking, but over the years, I've learned more and more about Gravedigger and Z Man.The last piece I needed as Z's heroine and she showed up a while ago, but I didn't know her name or what she looked like. Both pieces of information arrived mid January.

And Z threw me a knuckle ball.

You see, Z is part Asian/Hawaiian, which I knew. His heroine as it turns out is a green-eyed blonde. That's when he tossed the bomb my direction: his plan is to fall for a woman who's at least part Asian herself. He never, not even once, mentioned this to me. Not in six years!

To say I was stunned understates things. I don't know why he feels this way, but you know there has to be some sort of issue in there. Z was my normal guy, the one who has his head screwed on straight. Or so I believed. Now I'm going to have to spend some time probing, trying to discover the whys and whats. You'd think just once that I could have a character completely honest with me upfront. Too bad it's never happened and probably never will.