What’s next, an IRS audit? Identity theft? Will I lose a billion dollar
lotto ticket?
Gulp. Okay, I’ll suck it up. I was not careful what I wished for and I’m getting some of it. The books, the edits, the travel, sleeplessness, the toils of contracts, editors, and predators! Bring it on! I’m tough. I can handle it … and for the most part, I love it! And for those challenges I cannot overcome, no fear … I have a solution.
I’m going to become my characters. Yep, I’m stepping into the pages of
my books and assuming a new identity.
Why not? They live a more exciting life than me—at least, these days.
They’re immune to the realities of life. They swashbuckle and chase bad guys.
They’re witty and smooth and adventurous. They survive the pitfalls in life and
go on to a bigger, better sequel.Damn, I’d like a little of that!
Truth be told, I’ve been a lucky guy most of my life. I’ve done most of
what my characters have. Perhaps not as smooth or as cool, but been there, done
that. Now, I’m just a UFO (old, fat, ugly guy) banging away on the keyboard
chasing my life’s dreams and wishing for some years and memories back. So, eh,
I shouldn’t complain, right?
But what if we could actually become our characters? What if we could
write our own life, our own stories, and our own ending? How cool would that
be? I was thinking about that all night when I should have been sleeping.
Instead, I was jotting email notes to myself about my new thriller and pining
for do-overs on my recent screw-ups. I took a good look at my recent characters
and came up with some thoughts …
Oliver “Tuck” Tucker (The Gumshoe Ghost Mystery series)—Tuck is
a homicide detective extraordinaire—he’s a sarcastic, fun-loving cop who chases
bad guys with a history of crime. Tuck’s favorite things are: Angel, his wife;
Hercule, his Black Lab; and Bear Braddock, his curmudgeon former partner. His
weaknesses are his sarcasm, and, oh yeah, he’s dead. Tuck is already so much of
me and I don’t want to be a dead
detective, so I guess I’m stuck with writing about him and not stealing any
more of his life, er, death. Eh,
could be worse.
Richard Jax or Patrick “Trick” McCall (New Sins for Old Scores)—Jax is a lucky-to-be-alive BCI agent
trying to clear his name after his partner and ex-fiancé are murdered. He’s a
little onery at times, down-on-his-luck, and grousing about the spirit of a
World War II OSS man, Captain Trick McCall, haunting his case. Now, Trick is my
kinda guy—sarcastic, fun-loving, a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants adventurer, and
all around smooth operator. He chases bad guys, his lost life, adventure, and
dames … all at once. And not necessarily in that order. Yup, my kinda guy!
Jonathan Hunter (Double
Effect – my soon to be completed thriller)—Hunter is a border-line
wreckless CIA consultant with too many one-liners and a complicated sense of
right and wrong. He’s called home after 20-years by his estranged brother and
arrives in time to witness his murder. He’s on the trail of Salvadorian
gangsters and a Middle East terror cell plotting the demise of the US! Hunter
is tormented by many things, not the least is a dead brother—his only family,
his recently lost career, lost loves, and a lost future. He is confronted by a
beautiful and alluring widow, a hateful and jealous deputy sheriff who would
kill Hunter for the widow, and a team of FBI agents all with their own agendas;
especially the sultry lead Fed—Victoria Bacarro—who can’t get enough of him—in
or out of handcuffs (insert snicker here). So Hunter’s a good candidate for me
to daydream about. Except he gets the crap kicked out of him a lot. And shot. Hopefully
you’ll read about him in the next year, but life for him is complicated and
dangerous and painful. Still, he’s my number one character to become for a lot
of reasons. The biggest is his sidekick, Oscar LaRue, who is based on my
mentor, Wally F. I lost Wally last summer at age 92 (you can read about him in
one of my earlier blogs). The relationship and dynamic of these two characters
is soooooo the two of us over the years. Writing these parts brought back great
memories. I think I’ll keep them around for a couple books—even if they don’t
sell.
In the end, my books are really about me reliving life lost to age and
reason. My characters and I share more than just the keyboard and pages—we share life. They
are me and I am them. Some of them like the adventurous, risk-taking, cool
characters. The sniveling, cowardly, killers and weirdos, not so much me.
Sure, sure, some of you will disagree (thanks a lot, Greg).
Earlier I said … what if we could actually become our characters …
write our own life, our own stories, … our own endings? How cool would that be?
The truth is, we can do that. I do it all the time. Anyone can and you don’t
have to be a writer or a spy or a federal agent or even a dead detective. You
only have to do it. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. I wanted to
be a detective, a government agent, and swashbuckler and have adventures. I did
all that. I’m still doing it. Sure, sure, I have bad days and weeks and even years. But life is something I can
control … most of the time.
And yes, there are those things I wish I could just jump off my world onto another and have something I truly, deeply want. That’s not always possible. It’s not always right or fair. Mostly, it’s not always simple. So, in those cases—and there aren’t many—I simply write about them. I live through my stories, my characters, and my plots. I live those lost wishes vicariously through them. It ain’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing. And I don’t get beat up, shot, or dead—win win.
So the next time you sit back and wish—be careful what you wish for.
And if you can’t be careful—just do it.
We’ll again chat next month …
Tj O’CONNOR IS THE GOLD MEDAL WINNER OF
THE 2015 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS BOOK AWARDS (IPPY) FOR MYSTERIES. He is the
author of Dying to Know, Dying for the
Past, and Dying to Tell—and New Sins for Old Scores, a new
paranormal mystery, will be out in late 2016-early 2017! He is currently
working on a new thriller. Tj is an international security consultant
specializing in anti-terrorism, investigations, and threat analysis—life
experiences that drive his novels. With his former life as a government agent
and years as a consultant, he has lived and worked around the world in places
like Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and throughout the
Americas—among others. He was raised in New York's Hudson Valley and lives with
his wife and Lab companions in Virginia where they raised five children. Dying to Know is also the 2015 Bronze Medal winner of the Reader’s Favorite Book Review Awards, a
finalist for the Silver Falchion Best
Books of 2014, and a finalist for the Foreword
Review’s 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award.
Learn about Tj’s world at:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/tjoconnor.author
Blog: http://tjoconnorbooks.blogspot.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7148441.T_J_O_Connor
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