For the past 18 months or so, Peter and Joan Gregory have lived with me. They ride the Metro with me in the morning. They talk to me when I’m in meetings for my day job. They’ve talked to me enough in the middle of the night that I keep a pad by my bed.
Peter and Joan are the fortysomething main characters in my first serious attempt at fiction, an edgy Christian novel with the working title Fifteen. They’ve been married a long time–26 years. He’s cheated on her. She’s ignored him. They’ve settled into a rut. They do their jobs. She does her churchwork. They both love their daughter. But a personal crisis causes Peter to reassess the rut… and reach out to Joan to try to rebuild a real marriage.
I have to say Peter was easier to write at first. He’s flawed, but a charmer, and self-aware behind those flaws. In real life, those are the kind of men I seem to be drawn to these days. I didn’t much care for Joan; she was too fussy, too particular for me. But the more I wrote her, the more I liked her. I love them both now… and I hope readers will too.
About 15 months ago when I told someone in the publishing industry I respect very much that the book was “pretty good” and I could finish it in a couple months, he told me not to finish it until it was great, because publishing is that hard for a newbie novelist these days, even if she’s got a fair to middlin’ nonfiction portfolio. And so I’ve worked the book a lot–with my online writing group and with a couple of dear friends who are voracious readers. I used their feedback, and soon, after one more round of reviews and polishing, it’s going to be time to let go of Peter and Joan and see if they can find their way into a bigger world. I hope they do. I hope you like them.
And I hope I like Tom and Carol, the protagonists in my next novel, just as much.
