here's aubrey

Yesterday, I became a creepy, child stalker-in-training when I jumped up from my computer and breathlessly asked my coworker if I could watch her son without his knowledge. It had occurred to me (6 seconds previously) that her son is the exact age of our Hero, who has been a little elusive lately in regards to what he says when the plot starts to thicken in our screenplay. I haven't been eleven or twelve in more than eleven or twelve years! I just don't remember what it's like! And Chance (our Hero) knows that...and he's not buying what I've written for him.

"C'mon, Chance, " I say. "What are you gonna do now?"

And he just smiles and fades away, till all I'm left with is the setting and three quarters of a plot.

So I figured, what if I show him I'm making an effort to discover him, get inside his eleven to twelve-year-old head, see what makes him tick, see what he does when I shove him into this story with his estranged Grandmother...

Ah, well. I've discovered the life of a writer is a lot different that what I thought when I was in school training to be one. First of all, I never thought I'd be daylighting as a secretary. And moonlighting as....well, a person who thinks of herself as a person who occasionally writes.

Also, I didn't realize that writers sometimes find it challenging to go out of their way to observe life. I've been doing that since I was old enough to talk and say weird things to my mom, but that was easy stuff. What if I my character insists on walking on the moon? I'd need to go find someone who's done that and ask them some questions.

I'm confident our Hero is in here somewhere. It's a matter of time, and finding the right way to look at him. After all the other ways have been exhausted. This is going to be one interesting ride. Next step, stalking my coworker's kid.

(P. S. his mom said I could.)