The Luck of the Jewish

Have you ever written a character so real, so tangible, so interdependant with you that killing this character off would feel like removing a vital organ?

About, oh, three years ago I made a character like that. And for two years I've been fighting with myself if I can take her out of the environment of written roleplay and put in a novel.

Now I know what people think of when they hear the word "role play" nowadays. It's the same thoughts they have when they hear the words "star trek," "manga," "anime," or "sci fi." And while I don't boast to be above such accusations (nor am I, at least with the sci fi genre) I do want to make clear that when I say I'm in a written role play it has nothing to do with any of those words nor associations. Not that I don't salute those who are in life actions, point systems, cosplays, or anthromorphic role playing in various ways. But that it simply doesn't describe what I'm talking about.

Call it, a mixed melody of theatre geek and computer geek. Like Shakespeare on Myspace, if you will. Not that I've touting to be Shakespeare, but you get my drift, I think.

About three years ago I was just getting into internet groups. I had long been involved in a form of blogging and email and a little instant messenger. But for the first time I was actually joining all those groups I saw advertised. One of the first groups I joined was an Alan Cumming fan group. It doesn't matter the specifics of who Alan Cumming is only that he was the Emcee in a revival of Cabaret: the musical in 1998. I'm, sadly, no longer a part of the Yahoo group--but I was directed towards an interesting opportunity in writing. Stumbling in on the livejournal scene I premiered a character in a Cabaret based role playing writing group called "kit_kat_klub." The character who I premiered was called Ophilia (yes, spelled like that). She was a transsexual woman who always wore red shoes.

This character has leeched her way into every aspect of my life. Before this moment I was no more knowledgeable of transsexuals than the next computer obsessed girl. But after I researched about the lifestyle and challenges, I soon became enamoured with knowing everything. Her creation brought me to the open mind to accept films like Hedwig, Better than Chocolate, and other lower budget trans and nontransfilms. She also brought me to the realization that something existed out there that I hadn't known about before that needed to be known about.

But more than the trans aspect, Ophilia has been a part of me. Part of her that I created jumps out in me every once and a while. Her matronly attitude. Her fashion sense. Her confidence. Her ability to babble incessantly. Things that I might have posessed but weren't tapped into before. I think the thing that keeps me from writing her as a novel is the knowledge that in novel form she is more expendable, so to say. She will die just as she lives. She has a lifetime, yes, but lifetimes are mortal and I will eventually have the finalize a writing of her death. I know I will. I couldn't not.

And so I ask if anyone else has had this experience of fear and doubt in a character they've created, by whatever means. Have you ever gotten so intimate with your own character that you fear separation?

The Luck of the Jewish:
I found a check I'd forgotten to deposit in my car that's still good. Yowza!

currently: still hungry

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