Imaginary Friends need Love Too!

Last week I talked about where I get my strong and independent female characters. Today I thought I’d talk about how Sarah’s Phoenix got started. I’ve probably mentioned it a little bit but, I thought I’d go into more detail. It starts in my childhood

*Wayne’s World Dream Sequence Motion*

I don’t know when my parents told me, but it feels like I’ve always known that I had a brother. Unfortunately, he died about a month before I was born after a year or more of being sick. There was a one in four chance that I could develop the same sickness because it’s due to a recessive gene.

Around the time of my parents’ separation, I created an imaginary friend. Wishing that I had a sibling to share my turmoil with the person I talked to was always male. I never gave him a name though. He was just always there when I needed him. he’s the one how got to hear me rant and rave as tears poured down my face, just because my  mom’s bf had put pieces in the puzzle I was working on. (Hey I was 14 or so, very emotionally unbalanced and that guy... well he’s another story.)

Life moved on an I got boyfriends and that imaginary guy friend receded into the back of my head. I met my hubby, we dated, we moved across country together, then we got married and started trying to have kids.

*Back to Life, Back to Reality*

Now I know that Sarah & Jason (the original title of Sarah’s Phoenix) was typed into the computer in about 2005, the year my daughter was born, so either early that year, or, as is more likely, in 2004 I wrote Sarah & Jason in a notebook; or two. There are bits and pieces of it in numerous places.

Writing it was like documenting a waking dream. In those days I’d wake up at six in the morning to get ready for work, but after I’d eaten I lie on the couch daydreaming; but not. It was like the story had a spell on me and I would spend a half hour each morning living it like it was a dream, a very real dream. Then I would write it. I even wrote it at work, when I had spare moments. That’s what there are printed paged paper clipped to the original notebook.

The story has come a long way from that waking dream. Certainly Wholawski, named because he was supposed to be a donkey cavity (creative synonyms for the win!), has become a lot more sadistic than I ever wanted him to be. But, Jason, the supposedly imaginary friend of Sarah, turned out to be my childhood imaginary friend.

Apparently, now that I was happily married, I had no need for him. But, being me, I couldn’t just abandon him. I like my happy endings. I have one, so why shouldn’t he? Enter Sarah, the protagonist most like me, only a bit more kick donkey. *giggles* She gets to play the role I would have loved to have (before I met my hubby) – girl travels to what she thought was her own imaginary world to help conquer an evil man and find true love all at the same time!

Yes, I love my happy endings so much I gave one to my childhood imaginary friend...