Guest Post: Who Am I by Erika Rummel

Who am I? It’s difficult to answer that question when you play multiple roles every day – housewife, mother, career woman, lover. Are you that caring kiss-you-better person, or that authority figure, or that gourmet chef, or that sex kitten?

Who am I? is the question Lisa asks in HEAD GAMES, but instead of looking inside herself for an answer, she makes the mistake of looking into the mirror of other people’s eyes. Don wants her to be his baby doll, Jim wants her to be his lover, and the spiritualist Santos wants her to be a medium to attract his missing sister.

HEAD GAMES is not only a journey into the strange and mysterious north country of Argentina. It is also a journey into Lisa’s head, the landscape of her crazy imagination and the only place where the existential question Who am I? can be resolved.

Is HEAD GAMES autobiographical? Yes, I’ve lived and traveled in Argentina. The description of the wild country on the border of Bolivia is authentic, as is the threatening political climate in the early ‘80s when Argentines lived under the iron fist of the military junta.

In some ways, Lisa is me. In others, she isn’t. Unlike her, I am suspicious of spiritualists and séances. And I wouldn’t fall for a creepy old man like Don, who wants to play sugar daddy. Lisa gets kidnapped in Argentina and lives the life of a captive in a Quechua family compound. Nothing like that happened to me. But like Lisa, I am trying to figure out Who am I? What do I want to out of life?

HEAD GAMES has a happy ending, and that’s what I love about novel writing: You can make it up. Lisa’s life is a fast-paced, thrilling story with a beginning, middle, and end. My life is full of inexplicable twists and turns going who knows where. Lisa ends up knowing who she is. I’m still searching!

PS: If you are into the question Who am I, you’ll also enjoy my novel PLAYING NAOMI, in which Liz, an out-of-work actress, impersonates Naomi Baum, a reclusive millionaire. She plays her role so well that she attracts all the passions meant for the real Naomi. Ted romances her. Miro plots her murder. Things are getting out of hand. Maybe it’s time for Liz to slip back into her old life and her old self? Or is it too late, and has she turned into Naomi?

Find more about Erika Rummel and her fiction at: http://www.erikarummel.com 

Characters that insist on having their story finished

This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Barry "Storyheart" Eva on his radio show "A Book and A Chat".  Barry and I talked about many things during our half hour (which went rather fast!), but one of the more interesting things we talked about was the way in which a character will often assert his or herself during the writing process.  I don't think this is an unusual occurrence. Once you're deep into a character's life, what seems to work in the context of the happening - the conflict and events that your character is dealing with, might not be what you planned.  They take unexpected turns. And, as Barry so deftly put it, they often won't let you leave them alone in the half life of a short story or poem.  It isn't quite the scenerio (which we discussed) of the wonderfully acted and conceived Will Ferrell/Emma Thompson/Dustin Hoffman film Stranger Than Fiction. I've never had a character show up on my front door asking me to change my book's ending, but I have had them stick about, reminding me on a regular basis that I've left their story unfinished, and antagonising me with a reminder that I had more work to do. This is good I think. It means you've got something.  Here's the entire interview:

 

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Black Cow Blog Tour Day 1: Characterisation in Picture books

Today is the first day of the Black Cow blog tour.  Educationtipster Kathy Stemke has a post from me on the topic of characterisation in picture books.  Here's a taste:

"Normally when writing instructors speak of the 'character arc' they're talking about textual based fiction, but all good books, from novels to children's picture books use characterisation well. So why is characterisation important? There's one key, critical reason and that is because everyone reading your book is going to be a person who will need to relate to and accept (even if temporarily) as real. To achieve good characterisation in a novel you need details, specifics, visual impressions, motion. This can be achieved just as well with images as it can with text."  

For the rest of the post, which references some of my favourite picture book characters, the Lorax and Little Bear (how I love those books - as a child and as a parent), drop by Kathy's blog.  Don't forget to retweet (use #blackcow), update your FB status or comment for an entry into the Black Cow Blog Tour Giveaway!  Everytime you do it you get another entry.