Kelly

Believe it or not, Kelly used to be the hardest character in the book to deal with. As most of the book is written from his first-person perspective, and he's in just about every scene, that wasn't a small problem. The reason for that is simple: he's based on me. Because of that, I got very self-conscious about everything he did or said in those scenes. Just as I never used to be able to blog as myself, it was really hard using myself as a character, let alone the narrator. I kind of worked out a reasonable way to handle it over time, but the earliest versions of the chapters really sucked balls.

Since then the book overall has gone through a mutation. Most of the characters, at least the major ones, are based on one specific person, but I've also done a little embellishing here and there, and I've used some creative license with others. I've discussed that in terms of Alyssa and Laurel a bit already. Emma is the one character where I'm trying to stick as close to the source as possible, since that's kind of the whole point of the book and all. Even so, I'm not blessed with a perfect memory, so I've had to use a little artistic license with her, too.

That same idea got me over the hump with Kelly. Well, some credit should also be given to the general improvement in my psyche that's occurred this year, which makes using the character a lot easier (you know, now that I don't hate myself). Anyway, I've disciplined myself to seeing Kelly as a character, and even when discussing the book, like I do here, I differenciate between Kelly and me ... whereas I used to not do that so much.

And Kelly is a little different from me anyway, just as Laurel is a little different from Colleen, and et cetera. Here's an example where wrestling has added something useful to my writing. I've heard it said from experts that the best wrestling characters, the ones who really get over big, are really just extensions of the real person ... with the volume turned up to 11. That's been said of the Rock, of Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Roddy Piper, and others. So that's kind of what Kelly is now: me with the volume turned up to 11. And as such, he's a really fun character to write. Looking at it that way, it's juiced up the chemistry he has with Alyssa, Emma, Ben, Laurel, and Gwen, too.

I've become rather fond of the boy.