Random Musings

I find that when I’m sitting down to share, I blank. I’ve already told you about the various struggles going on in our lives, and I’m not one to repeat myself. Unless I’m having an episode, and then I might repeat just one word or phrase. My wife calls those my Groot episodes.

Anyway. I’ve turned to a Christmas gift to help me get back to simple writing and sharing. Today’s question:

“What book or movie character did you most identify with when you were younger and why?”

I was a bookworm kid. The book fairs at school were the highlight of my year. I read everything I could get my hands on. My home life was…difficult. I’m not going to go into that, but safe to say, I found refuge in other worlds.

I had this friend, Jennifer. She was my best friend and lived a few blocks away. We went to dances, hung out, did all kinds of lovely kid stuff. I spent a lot of time with Jenn and her big family. Her mom was a great cook, and her dad had this huge laugh that always made me smile. One day, somehow the topic of reading and books came up. I remember it being a time when I was particularly low.

He reached into a cupboard and gave me a hardback book. The cover was long gone, the pages were dogeared and well loved. It was a thick book, bigger than any I’d read before. He said he had a feeling I’d love it. You know when you can see someone seeing you? Like, really looking at you and having thoughts about how to help?

The book was the Dragonriders of Pern. I fell instantly, hopelessly in love with fantasy.

And Lessa? How badly did I want to be her? Riding a dragon through the skies, petite and strong and loved by the strongest other dragon rider in the place? I wanted to soar, to have a dragon who could hear my thoughts and share my feelings. She was so brave and free. Everything I wanted to be and wasn’t.

I went back to that book a couple years ago, a million light years away from that kid in the desert. And I’m not sure the book has aged well. Or maybe I’m just too old and too gay for it now. But that book changed my life, and now that I’ve written eleven fantasy novels myself, I can say I owe it to Jenn’s dad.

What would your answer to the question be?