BLOG 7: A Real Character

 

I've never heard any authors talk about it, but as I move deeper into exploring the after effects of my writing Zelda Rising, I'm noticing an interesting shift in so-called character development.  As any other fiction writer, I base my characters on what are called "real people".  Now, of course, all people are "real" but, in a literary mindset like mine, when creating fiction, that line begins to blur, until what was once "real" becomes the fictional character itself, and we are talking outside of the book, people.  So as I report on where Zelda Rising is going in the "real world",  let's keep that in mind.

Here's an example, other day, the Father character in the book posted on Facebook pictures of flowers growing among rocks.  Lovely spring flowers, all budding out beautifully, among artfully placed bricks and stones.  People commented how wonderful were these photos ... but for me, they harkened back to what to one of the cool twists in the narrative.

That is, the Grabowski flower.  Tough Chicago flowers that are like the "lunch bucket", hard-nosed players  for the Chicago Bears, which are know as "Grabowskis" after one James Grabowski, who played for the Chicago Bears in 1971 (he also played for the Pack, but we won't address that).  After Da Coach and Da Only "Real" Coach Ever, Mike Ditka, said the 1986 Bears were "Grabowskis", the Chicago Tribune clarified what he meant.

"Ditka was speaking symbolically, and it is what Grabowski connotes that is important.  Grabowski means people who come from a working-class, immigrant background, people who work hard and have nothing handed to them, people who have struggled against discrimination, people who are honest and tough, people who persevere and prevail."

Coach Ditka often spoke as symbolically as, say, a James Joyce novel, but that's another story.

Anyway, that goes for flowers too.  Growing up through the cracks of the city streets, in the alleyways next to dumpsters, in the corners of sidewalks, that kind of a thing. A good example of the Grabowski flower, as I point out in Zelda Rising, is the lowly dandelion.  Well, not so lowly in my book: pretty little yellow flower that causes havoc among the keepers of pristine suburban lawns, whose owners regularly use chemical warfare to try to subdue them.  But they keep coming back, even multiplying, and as I say in the novel, even inspiring a Rolling Stones song, which is about as cool as it gets. 

The photo here, I took during a walk in Trinidad, Colorado.  Cute little white flower, pushing through a crack of solid rock, ignoring the cigarette butt lying nearby.  That fit into Zelda Rising perfectly, what with its emphasis on nicotine addiction in the Nicotine Stain chapter.  This Grabowski flower, telling me to keep walking the walk.

See, synchronicity played a major role in my writing Zelda Rising.  It was constantly popping up as "psychic prompt" for me to continue the writing over those two-plus years.  And now that I'm finished and promoting it, I am "synchronized" by photos like this and a character on Facebook talking about flowers and rocks.

Strange, huh?  

Music these days is heavily into the Wax Trax Chicago label, that I consider as important as Chess Records and Sun Ra's Saturn Records in the history of how the city inspired popular music trends that have gone global (no Chess Records, no Rolling Stones, am I right or what?).  I met up with some Wax Trax people during a record release party to tell them about how the label influenced Zelda Rising, especially serving as the main setting: the Crash Palace bar, where many of the original cast of wild Wax Trax characters hung out. 

The Wax Trax crew has turned out to be my main support so far as I move forward in my promotion schemes, along with a friend of mine in Milwaukee who plays the ukulele like Liberace stroked the keyboards.  They told me to send an autographed copy to one of my rock and roll heroes, guy name of Martin Atkins, a drummer who worked with Public Image LTD, among others, and appears I believe in the Faster and Harder MV done by the Wax Trax group Lead Into Gold back in the day.  I'm going to visit with Martin and the gang at a Screen Printing seminar he's holding, as he's also an accomplished artist in that technique. 

 Hell, I even cancelled a baseball game in Milwaukee to do it, and it was the game that had a Bronx Fonz statue Bobblehead giveaway.  But you know what they say, Duty Now, For the Future.

Cubs lost to the Pirates at Wrigley yesterday: they're 9-11 since taking a series from the Houston Astros.  Seiya Suzuki, ex Hiroshima Toyo Carp, did have a home run though.  His former team is currently 2.5 games back in their Central Division.  The Chicago White Sox, last I checked, are still in last place, about 14 games back, though showing some life signs here and there that are probably too late to count, but you never know in baseball.