Man meets World.

“Hello. My name is Andy and I’m a 23 year old law student and I have severe reservations about the woman writing this.”

Really, Andy? Really?! This is how my blog post is going to start. I’m making you break a leg or something. Urgh!

Well folks, I would like you all to meet Andrew Parker. *Andy rolls his eyes.* He is a character of mine that I have fallen in love with (although sometimes I wish I hadn’t). Not in a romantic sense, because Andy is gay and fictional but because I haven’t written about him for so long, I have fallen in love him all over again.

Andy’s book is the third in a new adult romance trilogy. The first book is call Stand By You and is focussed on Layla Michaels. A woman who escapes from an abusive relationship. The second book Stand With Me is focussed on Jay De Angelis who was Layla’s first love – not the abusive one. Andy’s book is call Stand Beside Me.

I can’t give too much away about that because it isn’t at a sharing stage, but I did want to share Andy. I’m sure every writer out there has a character that they love. I can’t even believe I thought of this guy. He has more courage and strength then anyone I have ever known. It is Andy that has driven me to write the third book.

I wrote Jay’s book pretty quickly (and I refer to them by the main character’s name because I didn’t have the titles when I was writing them and titles can always change between now and publication.) Jay breaks my heart, but since the book falls into the romance genre, he is guaranteed his happy ending, as was Layla. But Andy doesn’t want a happily ever after and as a writer that doesn’t work for me. I argued with him for a long time.

“Andy!” I said. “It’s romaaaance! You have to have a happy ending in this book!”

He just raises an eyebrow, “Not the kind of happy ending I’m after,” and goes back to reading the paper.

“Fine!” I throw his newspaper across the room. “Go ahead! Don’t participate! I will write this stupid book without you!” Still no reply, I storm out. We are very mature, can you tell?

I wrote another novel. Part of it was spite, because he is so stubborn and won’t be told what to do. I started this blog. I entered some writing competitions and have written a
Sci-Fi short story.

Well, just Andy today.

Then he came knocking one day. He wanted attention. No. I wasn’t ready. So he went back to his paper and I kept on writing. Trying not to think about him every day. When my husband asked why I was distracted I groaned and said “Andy is being difficult!” He just looks at me in that way, like my weirdo wife is talking to her imaginary friends, and goes back to whatever he was doing. I don’t know what he was doing because I’m arguing with the dude in my head.

Anyway. We compromised and I wrote a short story about Andy. He hated it, because everyone else got a novel. Serves him right for being so stubborn. I submitted it to a competition and I am waiting to hear how it went. By the way, Andy would love me to lose because he already told me it was bad. Apparently, I didn’t get enough of his snarky insults in. Well, he did punch a guy in the face. So he forgave me, a little.

Now I am ready to write Andy’s book and Andy is ready (finally!!!) to be involved. So let’s see what happens.

I would love to know that I am not the only one with character issues. Does anyone else do this? Or is it just me?

Come on over and friend me on Facebook at Lisa Lancaster. 

Photo by Avi Kovacsvich  via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons
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