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mission

Publishing

Getting Inside a Character’s Head

Getting inside a character’s head is one of the easiest or most difficult things to accomplish when you’re writing a story.   It takes imagination and constant observation of the human race around you.   In the book “The Diamond Thieves” of the Extra Innings trilogy there are multiple characters of various ages, backgrounds, morals and maturities. I am going to write about 3 principle characters in this story: The McGee twins, their friend T.J. and their mother Ellen.
The story is centered around thirteen-year-old identical twins Jimmy and Billy McGee.  Creating the personalities of the McGee twins required a great deal of research .  
I interviewed multiple identical twin males before and during the writing process.  I needed to get into their heads to understand how they viewed one another and themselves in relationship to the world around them.  These interviews helped me to solidify much of the competition theme came from Book 2 and where Jimmy’s emotional journey and struggles came from in Book 3.  Of course, one set of twins could answer my questions completely different from another set of twins.  I discovered this was based on how close of a relationship existed within each set of twins I interviewed.  Did they consider their twin their best friend throughout life or did they find themselves growing apart in their teenage years?  Note: I plan to write future blogs about these specific interviews as I found them fascinating.

Another critical character in the story was T.J.  This is a young black boy growing up in the South in the late 1940’s-early 50’s. Most of T.J.’s development came from movies I had watched in my life of the societal difficulties blacks faced during this period in history.  Also, my best friend growing up was black and he and I had conversations about how different and how very much alike we both were – despite our racial difference.  
Creating an interesting character in T.J. was a huge goal of mine.  I not only wanted T.J. to be strong, I needed him to be.  Yet, I had to be realistic and ask myself how strong would a young black male have been at this period in time? Most 13-year-olds face a mountain of fears and curiosities and are simply not the least bit mature.  But again, there are some whom have had to endure adult-like circumstances and therefore had no choice but to develop a strength just to survive.  This is who I believe T.J. is and I like the way he interacted with the boys in the story as well as showing a vulnerable side by always making a quick exit anytime “the mob” appeared.

Also, I want to talk about the twins’ mother Ellen.  Writing Ellen was a fun challenge. I had no current observations to base any of her moves, reactions or behaviors on.  I found myself having to ask older women, who would have been little girls at this time in history, to look back on their mothers for nearly ever move Ellen made throughout all three of the books.  I also had to locate women who were raised in the South as most of the women I know are not Southerners (whom hold a very different mentality and demeanor than “Yankee” women. I like that I was able to give her a heroic role in Book 1.   My mission as a writer is to  connect and inspire and, for me, Ellen was the character that stood out in Book 1 as an inspiration.  I hope that readers will feel inspired by her and how she stood up against an entire community for what was right.

I’m sure I will have more to write about this as character development is critical to storytelling but for now these were the top three examples I wanted to start with.

Publishing

My Mission

Recently, I attended a marketing conference in Akron, Ohio.  The primary topic of this conference was how to create a valuable mission statement.  A mission statement defines what an organization or business is and why it exists.  Mission Statements are only effective if they are communicated throughout the organization and reinforced by its leader(s).  This inspired me to think about why I exist as an author and singer/songwriter.  Why do I write?  What am I trying to accomplish with my writings?  Pinpointing this objective was really quite simple.  MY MISSION IS TO CONNECT AND INSPIRE.   I wish to connect with individuals and inspire them in a way that improves their life and way of thinking.

The origin of this objective comes from one of the first songs I ever wrote.  The song is called “Runaway.”  It’s a mostly-acoustic rock ballad that was inspired from a television special my UMASS roommates and I were watching in our apartment in Puffton Village in Amherst, Massachusetts.  The program was on teenage runaway girls.  These inner-city girls had ran away from home for various reasons and were living in poverty on the streets.  With no work experience and little education these girls were resorting to prostitution in order to survive.  As soon as the program was over, I went into my bedroom, picked up my 6-string Ibanez guitar and wrote “Runaway” in about 15 minutes.  The story focuses on one girl and how helpless and trapped she feels needing to “work the streets” to make money.  The song also talks about the girl’s family who is searching for her to bring her back home where she is loved.  One night after performing the song on campus, I told a friend that I hoped that one day “Runaway” would hit the radio.  I imagined that someone would be playing the song on their car radio and a girl who was thinking about running away from home would overhear it and change her mind.  If I could positively inspire just one teenager, I would feel the song was a huge success.

The same is true for my song “Mornie Rivers” which is a edgy rock tune about a friend of mine who overcame his heroin addiction.

As for the Extra Innings trilogy, although my goal was to tell a story that had never been told, I began to discover that Jimmy and Billy McGee’s lives were progressing into a path of constructive value.  I envision many readers extracting a positive life lesson or two from the experiences of these fictional identical twins – I know I have.  Of course, these lessons are not learned overnight and in this case cover the course of 3 books.  I suppose this is true of most people that life lessons are learned over a period of time fashioned by a string of ups and downs.  I look forward to hearing about any inspirations my readers gain from reading the Extra Innings trilogy.  And I hope I have done a good job of painting a realistic picture of the story’s setting and its characters so its readers feel connected throughout every page.