Letters from Ghosts

o all novelists come to see their characters as more real than they themselves are? i have.

I started Ghostletters, an email group, almost fifteen years ago. In it subscribers post as historical or fictional characters, never as themselves. For these very many years we have had every conceivable type of character, both original and derived fictional characters, and historical figures from Richard III to Samuel Clemens.

Today one of our number in his guise of a humorous little blue demon posted a tribute to a former member, Lisa Schmidt, who recently died. The tribute was lovely, speaking about how the mind and heart of the individual called Lisa had made worlds with us that will stay with all of us who knew her and loved the characters she "played" with. I happened to be on "sabbatical" from the group for most of the time Lisa was on it, so I read the little demon's words with a touch of envy for not having a share in that magic.

We lost another bright creative light on the group about a year ago. Anne Fraser was a bubbling font of laughter and creativity. I only knew her briefly, but others had spent long years in her company in the guise of a French vampire queen, an Elizabethan actor, and numerous other choice creations.

We miss Lisa and Anne of course. But for some reason the loss of the gray matter that created and shared Clem and Connell and Genevieve and Gabriel Tallant is striking me harder. I already knew my whole purpose in writing my own first novel was that one day I realized I would not be here forever. I thought of my king and queen and my Irish minstrels and could not bear the fact that when I was gone, so would all of them. I had to give them a separate home from my memory. Now I can hope that at least some people feel they know Lawrence, Shannon, and the rest.

What's hitting me after reading the post today on Ghostletters is that in many ways I can cope with the idea of my own passing better than I can with the snuffing out of the neurons that store my stories. I wonder if this is true of other novelists? Even if you write about historical figures, the essence of their personalities and lives that you made from the sketchy details of their reality makes them more real than real somehow.

I think of Lymond who lives on after Dorothy Dunnett, his author. He is keenly real to me. Is that what it means to succeed by giving a concept flesh? I hope Dunnett knew that there were people who would keep him alive, for long after she slipped off this mortal coil.

I think of all your characters, too numerous to list, that include Piers and Simon and Llewelyn and Brian and Elizabeth and Amparu and Patrick and Richard and Robin and... and... all of whom will reside in my head and heart though your location on this Earth is unknown to me.

I hope I can take Lawrence and the others with me wherever I go after I die, or if that is nowhere, that in some form they will remain alive and vibrant when I am nothing more than a name on a book cover. After all, they are more real than I am in the long run.