Enjoy!
Which character was your favorite to write and why (and how you developed them) and which do you relate to more?
That’s a hard one to answer, since I grew to like all three, very much, and think that there’s a bit of me in all three. However, let’s put it this way: Lola was a blast, insofar as she just pounced on to the page, and never left. Her energy, her voice, was right there, from the get go. I wrote her material the fastest, which seemed apt for her. I always knew she would be obsessed with history, and had a fast mouth. I knew she'd land in trouble somehow, but I wasn't exactly sure how. My favorite scenes to write were later, when she really crashes and is in the therapist’s office and her moxie boldness isn’t serving her anymore.
But I will say it was Maria who began as the most distant and truly grew on me. Her pining for Tash, her accompanying her mother on job interviews, her slow political awakening, felt wonderful to write. I loved writing the scene where she sees Tash's house and encounters his parents--that felt very natural to me, and perhaps drew on my own sense of outsideness. I also just enjoyed figuring out where she would take herself, what kinds of new and sometimes painful insights she learned along the way.
Jaya always began as the main character, and so in a sense, you could say she was whom I was closest, or most intimate with. I felt as if I knew her, knew the way she saw the world, and how she felt, especially about her mother. Writing her was about tunneling inwards, understanding her inner landscape, the imagery of her past, which was so vivid to her.
Thanks for stopping by, Marina. :D Hope you enjoyed this last (not for long) post.
Back to hiatus-ness(?).
