My Protagonists and I

Holding up the Earth,

One protagonist at a time.

Recently, I’ve been doing some navel-gazing, an examination of my writerly self.

When I started out as a writer in 2009, I had a vague, shapeless desire to write, which had been with me during a long teaching career that allowed no time for writing.

Doesn’t every retiree have a novel in them?

My yearning to write gradually solidified into a writing life of mysteries and thrillers, a pile-up of mayhem and murder. Who knew? Somewhere along the way, I forged a writing persona and acquired a voice.

I now ask myself existential questions. Whose voice? What persona? Who am I?

Is fiction writing an extension of the self, a revelation of the self, or merely an escape from the self?

What I’ve concluded, is that each of my protagonists is an extrapolation of my aspirational self. Brainier, braver, and better than me in every way. My protagonists are fearless warriors who don’t second-guess themselves. They take the plunge and confront the enemy. They go out there and just do it.

My most recent protagonist is a skydiver (!!),

who, even while plummeting to Earth

with a damaged parachute,

has the coolness of mind to figure out

how to soften her landing.

She’s a brilliant computer scientist who can hack into any computer and breach every firewall, even in the face of danger. She has the ingenuity to be a spy in a wheelchair. She can navigate rough terrain without legs. She can figure out every villain’s tricks and can also vanquish stalkers.

She’s awesome.

The female detective in two of my earlier novels has puzzle-solving skills that crack the cases that no one else can solve. Together we cross the threshold of a gun dealer and identify the killer.

We triumph in the end.

In another novel we win a trip to New York City as a performance artist. With a tour de force of acting, we evade a kidnapper and escape from an S&M establishment.

Here we have morphed into a man, a world-class forger who creates the ultimate Abraham Lincoln letter and pulls the wool over every expert’s eyes.

This is me in a nutshell: adventurer, hacker, spy, artist, detective, and forger. All extraordinaire.

In my fantasy life as a writer—book by book—I become my protagonist, and I’m utterly brilliant.