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An Unexpected Interview with the Incomparable Luis Ortiz
He shows up when he feels like it
I mentioned in an article yesterday about finishing the first draft of my next novel that the characters simply will not shut up. As if to prove me right beyond all doubt, this morning while I was toiling happily away on the next ode to the great Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen, one of those characters showed up in my office, insisting that my next article be an interview with him.
Let me be clear, lest you question my mental stability more than you already have, that while my characters talk to me, I don’t actually see them, except in my mind. But when you spend months, sometimes years, with even fictional people, they have a way of becoming part of your life.
This particular character is one that’s been around for a while, since long before the publication of my first novel, The Last Word, in 2014. In fact, Luis has been yammering at me since the early 1990s, and in all that time he still has not grasped that I cannot understand him when he speaks to me in Spanish. He plays a fairly small yet entertaining role in the first novel, becoming a more prominent player in each successive one. I don’t mention this fact to him, as his ego barely fits in the room already.
