It may seem strange to highlight a protagonist here, particularly the reluctant hero of my first novel.  Buster Heywood is so very much in the spotlight already that he's even the only character to get name-dropped in a title.  But he's had a very, very, long journey to become the character you see on the page, and with Adjustments being his second appearance, I thought it fitting to give you a glimpse into that journey.

Long-time followers of this blog will know that I'm not shy about sharing his inspiration: comedic character actor James Urbaniak, primarily known for his voice work on Adult Swim veteran The Venture Brothers.  He's a little more widely known now for the Hulu series Difficult People, but he took a turn on the dark side for a single season of a show called Kidnapped... and that's where Buster's roots really took hold.  Originally, he was meant to be a villain, menacing June Slovich in a storyline that never completely fleshed out.  The more I tried to get to know him, the more he defined himself, as most of my characters do: and I got a clear picture of someone who wasn't creepy or awful, just extremely awkward and misunderstood.  I started to wonder how someone like Buster could wind up in a villainous role ... but before I could really start thinking about it, my own life kicked into overdrive.

I'd been working an office job for a year and a half: the longest position I'd held since college.  Without warning, the business closed because its owner had been involved in illegal activities 99% of his employees had no clue about.  I lost my job, then my apartment, and a decent amount of professional credibility.  Despite this, I knew how lucky I was to not have been involved.  In the aftermath, between looking for a new job and putting my life back together, I found Buster's story without much problem at all.  Mind you, Loren Jarvon isn't based on my former boss in any capacity, nor are Daniel and Jeremiah, or any of the victims of their collaboration.  But Buster's realization that he had to become his own advocate was a lesson I taught him so that I could teach myself.   

Like Buster, I live with anxiety and panic attacks.  My debut was a way to work through what happened when I lost that job, yes, but writing Buster now has a better purpose, a stronger one: to show that people who struggle with mental illness can still be heroes.  In Adjustments, Buster is a little older and wiser, but he's still got his anxiety, and a hefty dose of PTSD on top of it all (thanks, Loren).  In spite of these, he is still trying to be his best self and answer what he's realized is his calling: to use his uncanny knack for observation in service of the community he's come to adore.    ​

A friend on Twitter recently asked which character I thought resembled me the most, and there was no hesitation whatsover: I chose Buster.  I like to think I'm not quite as particular, awkward, or as much of a slave to my habits, but we both notice patterns, hate crowds, struggle with the spoken word, and prefer the familiar.  We also share a love for old books, puzzles, and diner food.  Buster's favorite restaurant, The Fountain, is based on a place I've loved since childhood ... and in an amusing case of life imitating art, I live within walking distance of it.   I didn't, when I started writing.   Funny how things turn out, sometimes, isn't it?  Either way, the muse is quite happy that stepping into his shoes is as easy as stepping out the door... which brings us to something we don't have in common: Buster's love of walking everywhere, or what he and his friends call Wandering. with a capital W.

A lot of events in From the Desk of Buster Heywood revolve around or begin with a Wander, and the origin of this habit was originally a flashback in the first chapter.  It slowed down the flow of the plot, though, and it is now a stand-alone story that you can find in "Finders Keepers", the free e-book I offer my readers.  I got the idea when I set out to take pictures of a local neighborhood that inspired Buster's, armed with my camera.   I didn't walk everywhere, but the more photographs I took, the more I got a clear picture of his favorite habit, and the sort of things he would notice.   Ideally, I'd share those pictures here, but an unfortunate hard drive failure in 2014 took them away from me.  They live on in words...

Please join me next week, when I'll share the inspiration behind The Fountain in my Sense of Place feature.  In the meantime, if you want a decent representation of how Buster gets squeaky when he's agitated, I invite you to enjoy a skit by the inspiration himself.  (Word to the wary: he does drop a couple of f-bombs.)

Until next week, I remain your hostess,

I've always felt that the hallmark of good, strong fiction was a cast of characters who felt real, no matter who or what they were.  By the time I've finished a book, if I wanted to know more about them, or felt like I had made friends, it's a good one.  I feel particularly fortunate and grateful that so many readers have told me that Lines of Power is full of such characters ... and I decided it might be fun to let you get to know them a little more, one by one.   So now, once a month or so, I'll be starting a new feature here on Between The Lines ...

Given my recent blog about hopepunk as a genre and what it represents, it seemed only natural to start with the character who embodies it most, and who has been in every single novel so far: Crowley.  Some of you who have only read From the Desk of Buster Heywood know him as The Spanner, and in The Proper Bearing, he goes by another nickname for a while: Topper.   But none of these are his real name, which remains to be disclosed (sorry, no spoilers here - yet).  Crowley is, however, his favorite of his nicknames, and the one his friends and colleagues in the Organization know him by.  

That image was how Crowley first appeared to me, fully formed and full of attitude.   The only difference is that when he's out and about as The Spanner, he sports a leather jacket instead of his usual denim vest - formerly a jacket, with the sleeves cut off, just as covered in buttons.  Each one of the buttons is either sarcastic, political, or punk in nature, and anyone who looks close will note that some of those political buttons date all the way back to the 60s, right along with the yellow smiley face he keeps front and center amid all that punk, right over his heart.   

While I was filling out the Organization, I knew that I'd need someone who kept to the darker side of its balance, someone who did the deeds nobler people would balk at doing.  A punk fit the bill nicely, but someone young wouldn't understand why it needed to be done: they'd only do trouble for trouble's sake.  I live in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, where we have an annual tradition called Motorcycle Week(end).  Every June, the town next to mine is flooded with bikers who gather to participate in rides, races, and a myriad of other events, and a sea of vendor tents, entertainment pavillions, and leather and denim consumes us.   As such, I've seen more than my share of aging dudes with 'tudes, people who have had their inner anarchy tempered by time.  I knew that was exactly the sort of person the Organization needed, but I still lacked a face and a name ... until I picked up a Greatest Hits CD of a certain musician on a whim.   Listening to it in the car, a particular line struck me like a bolt from the blue, and with it, came not only the face, but Crowley's singular name. 

Crowley - a name that instantly evokes the darker side of magic: occult secrets, meetings in the dead of night, rituals with daggers, all the negative aspects of modern new age witchcraft.  It's the sort of name someone slated to cause trouble would use to his absolute advantage.  And just like that, I could picture im lounging in my passenger seat, hanging an arm out the window to flick his cigarette ashes out into the road.  And we had a nice little conversation about where he was from, and what he did for Janus, and what some of his favorite moments were.  I won't spoil them all - they're bound to make their way into future Lines of Power installments - but I will say that he was among the bikers at Altamont, and that the mining story he tells Miles in The Proper Bearing was prior to his joining the Organization.   Also, a fun fact for those who've read In The Cards: he wasn't Ral's original trainer!  That honor first belonged to Felicia Sabrien, the Enforcer who becomes Janus' right-hand-woman.  See one of the stories in "Finders Keepers" for the details...   

Clearly, there's a lot more to Crowley than just his attitude and his penchant for showing up to annoy the heroes of my tales.  He has his own story to tell, and it will likely come out in small pieces over the course of everyone else's.  As much as I'd love to give him his own novel, it doesn't really seem his style.  The devil is in the details, and he's content to stay there.  In the meantime, I take comfort and pleasure in knowing that he's out there, somewhere, no matter what I'm writing, making sure things don't go too well.  I have to be able to give my heroes something to fix, after all.  It's a good working relationship, and one I'm glad to have.  

Want more Crowley?  You can find him in everything on the Novels & Short Stories page, with the exception of Times of Trouble: try as I might, I couldn't find an easy spot for him there.   Got a favorite Crowley scene?  Or maybe you've got a question about him I didn't address?   Hit up the comments section, let's talk!  I love character chats.  

Until next time, I remain your hostess,