[–Karen Myers–]
Sometime this last winter…
We’re in the middle of a war right now, at my log cabin, and war often brings insight.
Let me explain… You see, Pennsylvania is one of those states where the black bears graciously allow a few humans to live, as long as they’re good providers.
Over the last few years, the score has been roughly even, between the bears stealing birdfeeders and me trotting out in a nightgown with a flashlight yelling “Git outta here, bear!”
Just a couple nights ago, one of my dogs did his “that ‘possum must be back at the birdfeeders” routine at our cabin window, and when I went to check, there was a black bear, wondering why we were shining a flashlight in his face. He’d already claimed those feeders — by god he wasn’t going to give them back.
I prevailed upon my husband to fire in the air rather than pepper his rear with birdshot, and he levitated into the nearest bushes and kept on going. We slept the sleep of the righteous, and smiled all the more when we heard of his predations on our neighbor’s feeders, on the other side of the ridge.
But, no, one loud noise in the air was apparently an insufficient deterrent. Early this morning he returned and thoroughly trashed all three of our standing feeders and, to add insult to injury, pried open the lid of one trashcan, leaving the bungie cords that held it closed in place, and demonstrated his dexterity on three garbage bags.
The fang puncture marks in the still-closed plastic container of chocolate ice cream were particularly eloquent.
As I destroyed my back picking up every little bit of foil, there was plenty of time to realize just how much of my diet was bear-friendly. We clearly both enjoyed sweet rolls, chicken, and especially chocolate (hence all the little foil wrapper bits). The manifestations of me (my diet) were what my (food) fan, the bear, wanted.
And that’s how it is with a writer’s characters. There’s something of me in every character, even the murderous villains and the walk-ons. I have to believe that’s part of what my readers enjoy. Bears find their banquets, and readers find their authors.
What elements of your own character, righteous or unsavory, manifest in your own fictional people?
(n.b., I hesitated to post something on a winter subject in mid-June, but then just two days ago my metal birdfeeder was pried apart and emptied (and the whole area was pissed on as a claim) all because the wild berries and the old remnant orchards on my farm don’t have fruit available yet. Let me tell you—bears have opinions about favorite apple varieties (we both like Northern Spies) and what makes a good tree for climbing.)
Mad Genius Club 
22 responses to “There’s a bit of the author in every character”
Ah bears. I still remember the meme where someone had done a camera to see whether squirrels were getting at the bird feeder.
Well, it wasn’t squirrels.
I’ve not seen a bear meander by, but I’ve crossed paths (literally) with bobcats, and was once stalked by what might have been either a bobcat or a mountain lion. I never saw it, but I heard it in the very tall grass and reeds beside the trail. I did not run. I walked briskly, making noise, and stayed as far from the overgrowth as I could without falling into the lake on the other side of the trail. Then there was the “how Alma discovered that she could free climb a small cliff if she had to” incident …
Commander Rada Ni Drako is the closest thing to me in my stories – for good and for ill. But my female characters tend to be competent, somewhat unconventional despite themselves (Rigi Bernardi), and and there’s usually a quietly competent man somewhere in the story who tends to be underestimated [waves at Grandpa Carl’s ghost].
My cabin at 900 feet is at the base of the Allegheny Plateau (which runs from Erie to the Catskills) so the back at the north is to a steepish rise and the front runs down a hollow with a view of the last of the Blue Ridge mountains to the south which are much the same height as the plateau. In recent years, we’ve acquired coyotes from the West moving in and denning (even as far as Virginia where they’ve livened up (and complicated) the foxhunting). The coloring is a bit off, perhaps from canine cross-breeding as they migrated — sort of a German Shepherd mutt brindling instead of a pure sandiness, and they seem a bit larger and more robust than the original stock. The Eastern strain seems to be bulking up to better suit a deer-hunting role in filling the “wolf” slot.
Mostly you don’t see them, but it’s startling to look out the back door and see one just the other side looking in, which has happened once or twice.
It’s an eerie thing hearing coyotes howl in the East — that iconic sound so out of place. They’re gun-smart, but not particularly alarmed by humans otherwise. And they are disturbingly clever. They’ve worked out by observation exactly where the underground wire of our dog fence runs, and they’ll send one coyote out to walk along the outside of it visibly, in daylight, hoping to tempt one of the dogs to charge over the wire in chase (while the rest of the pack is waiting in hiding to ambush it once that happens.) My country-of-origin dogs come from wolf-hunting steppe stock, so they’re vulnerable to the desire to teach a lesson in response to the taunting. Lots of pets end up in coyote stomachs — they’re good at this.
Pennsylvania, land of deer hunters, keeps the competitive coyote population in check, but they’re clearly here to stay.
When we lived in New England (between 1985 and 1995), we saw coyotes several times. One was reported on Cape Cod, even. The only way to get onto the cape is by crossing one of two highway bridges (or swimming a canal). We also saw one on I-93 in New Hampshire, standing on the center stripe of the southbound lanes, facing north, and waiting for a big enough hole in traffic that he could finish crossing the road. We didn’t stop to inquire as to his reasons for the crossing.
The coyotes in San Francisco, the Presidio, & the peninsula are most closely related genetically to the northern coast population. This implies that at least one pregnant female trotted across the Golden Gate Bridge…
Were there chicken tracks?
There was a bear in Connecticut that was seen several times, on the opposite banks of the Connecticut. Either it was taking the bridges and NEVER being seen, or it was swimming during the full spate of the spring floods.
In the West, urban humans fail to recognize that a frail (150-200 lb) human bent over a trail bike in the right territory adequately matches a deer-hunting cougar’s favorite prey slot in both size and posture. The very act of standing upright and throwing out arms to look bigger can make a cougar think twice, but an unarmed adult human can be (and occasionally is) killed and even lunched on.
Add that to the disturbance of road-building and real estate development and the requirement for surplus young males to keep moving out of their parental territory, and you get the ridiculous (and sometimes tragic) encounters between the hikers/bikers and their wishful thinking “here, kitty, kitty” impulses. Not to mention treed cougars in suburban neighborhoods with children, animal rights protestors, and not a lot of grounding in reality.
Two blocks away from my grad school apartment (downtown Boulder, CO), there was a black bear sleeping in a tree yesterday.
Two blocks away from my first home after grad school, in the park where I used to take my baby to play, there was a yearling moose grazing on the trees yesterday.
So far no reports at my current home, but you might want to be careful if you’re in a two block radius of it….
What parts of me are in my characters? Erm… I plead the 5th?
I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what part of me some of my characters came from. (Shudders)
I do know. Sometimes it’s a place best passed by in wary silence, at as great a distance as can be done safely.
My all-time favorite are the coyotes that come all the way down the parkways, across the bridges or canals and end up in Central Park, NYC. There’s something so cheeky about them. “Yeah, I’m a wild animal. You got a problem wit dat?”
Less fun but more exciting, coyotes in South Mountain Park in Phoenix. There’s really nothing like having some of them run onto the path, stop to check you and your dog out, then reluctantly move on while giving you major side-eye.
No bears here at Chez Phantom, but plenty of deer and coyotes. So many deer.
Ontario, of course, hunting is functionally illegal. Technically you can get a license if you make it your life’s work for a good couple of years, but as a practical matter it isn’t realistic. Therefore, deer and coyote overpopulation.
Not to mention poachers in the local conservation area. I view them as more a feature than a bug. Every deer they poach is one less to starve to death and expire on my lawn next winter.
We have foxes.
One evening I was walking down the road, a fox was walking up it, and it decided to detour around a convenient landscape bush where our paths were near crossing.
Another, rainy day, I headed out for a walk and saw motion under the overhang. Not, after all, a cat. A different (grizzled with black) fox half rose and watched me as I walked by. It must have concluded no need to bolt because it was not only there when I came back, it merely lifted its head to track me.
I once ran into a fox on campus between the student center and the business school. He was just trotting down the sidewalk as if he had to get to class. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by me; as far as I could tell, he believed he had as much right to use the sidewalk as anyone.
Gray foxes are the endemic species northern, and they can climb trees more comfortably than red fox. Red foxes are (disputably) an early introduction from the UK.
My main character in my WIP seems to be a somewhat idealized and highly fictionalized version of me. I can do him by exaggerating or mimimizing my own virtues and vices, but since this isn’t a confessional, I’m not going to say which of which. (The unsavory parts of me go more to the villains). I can also borrow from other people of my acquaintance. What I cannot do is supply characters with knowledge or wisdom that I lack, or give them insight into my own blind spots.
And… I just kicked another bear out of the near-portion of the yard! Sheesh!
Might be time for an autonomous turret. ~:D
I wonder if a nerf-turret or autonomous water gun would deter a bear? Or would they just play with it?
Depends on whether you hit the cub or Mama.,, In the latter case, I’d run. 🙂
This time of year, it’s usually the singleton boars that are prowling around.
Rock salt is better than birdshot for saying, “and don’t come back!”
It just struck me that I haven’t heard the ‘totes yodel in several months. At least. I wonder why.
Many of my characters are able to deal and be with human beings on a regular basis.
I lack those skills, to a terrible degree.