It has been a tough week, and I am tired and a bit maudlin. I am thinking of Maggie, my main character in Members of the Cast. I made her up out of whole cloth, but living with her for so long makes her seem like family. Her plight at different points in her story sometimes hits me as genuine and tugs at my heart.
Maggie is a lost young girl at the beginning, and she feels the events in her life keenly, and so do I. When I think of the poignant moments she has with her “cast,” I am touched. When she grows, I revel in her success.
In my book talks, I tell folks, “There is no sequel because Maggie is OK.” I told the last book club I met on Zoom, “Maggie is 77 now.” I almost blushed because Maggie only existed in 1959, and she’s not real. But another part of me knows she is, just as so many characters we have read in our lives.
This thing called imagination creates real “people” for readers. These characters are as real as far away friends or parents who have passed away. All this is to say life is wonderful. We meet real people and meet story characters, and join them in this great adventure called life.
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