Fiction is the Easy Part...

Writing the real stuff is what's really hard.  When I started this project, I thought for sure it would be the other way around.  I have hours and hours of audio taped conversations with Granny Bob, so all I have to do is put those stories into words and onto the page, right?  Technically, yes.  But I didn't anticipate how hard it would be do it right.  Writing her isn't the problem - she's a character that I have known my entire life.  I know her voice, I know her quirks and mannerisms and have loved her for 40 years.  The challenge has been developing this fictional Charles as she knew and loved him and balancing that with how I've always imagined he would have been.  Before I heard her stories about him, I don't think I ever romanced him enough.  And now that I'm spending so much time with him I don't think I can romance him enough.  I always bristle when I read books and characters are too perfect - but as I'm writing him and creating his character - I don't think perfect will do him justice. 

I wish more than anything that I'd had enough foresight, wisdom or maturity to talk to my great aunt and Charles' sister, about him before she passed away in 1996.  I was 26 then and definitely old enough to ask - but we'd all been so sensitive about him and about how tragic his death had been, that I never broached the subject.  I imagine Sister would have told me the same things though.  She would have confirmed all Baa's stories, vouched for his character and told me what a good man he was and how much she loved him.  In the end, I'm sure she would have insisted that he really was perfect. 

Writing fiction is fun.  Wriring memoir is important.  Writing a perfect Charles is a whole lot of pressure.