Creative Differences

There they were writer and characters meeting for the first time without a mediator. Dobby was in the middle of the floor slightly...flattened. The dragon made it to Mom and the cookies first. The three children and their aunt quietly followed being sure to step over Dobby when they entered the room.

Mom was so surprised by the view in front of her she nearly dropped the pan of hot cookies on the floor. Slowly closing the oven door, she gazed down at the eager visitor. Furnatche looked up at Mom with his large eyes, begging her to share a cookie. Turning around to pick up the spatula from the kitchen counter, she deftly flipped a hot cookie on the kitchen floor in front of the baby dragon. Mesmerized by what she is seeing, she leans over to watch Furnatche closely as he eats.

“Careful, it's hot.” Mom instructs nearly forgetting the cookie sheet and the hot pad in her hand. “Amazing. You look so –real.” Mom says.

“That's because he is.” Peter steps forward to speak to Mom. “We all are.”

“That's impossible. You can't be. I made all of you up.” Mom whispers.

“Actually, you didn't make us up completely.” Paige says coming forward to help. “We have all been in your imagination in one form or another for a long time. My research shows...” the nine year old girl pulled out a thick notebook (Paige is a bit of an overachiever), “creative types like you have whole worlds just mucking around in your brain all of the time. Characters roaming all over in there.” Paige says gesturing to Mom's head. “Some can be seen and heard fully like playing a movie in your mind. Others are just a sentence or a faint line drawing. Many are fleeting visions similar to objects seen in a passing cloud. But when everything can be seen clearly in your imagination and the vision is transferred to written words fairly accurately you have a full blown story. Which is what happened with us sometime in November and December of 2010 you were able to see us. Eventually we were written into a full story, “Furnatche, The House Dragon.” When we become a story, we come to life therefore we are no longer a passing idea. We are living things. You have been ignoring us. We don't like it.”

“No WE DON'T.” Three year old Dylan says emphatically. He crosses his arms and looks stern mimicking his older sister's tone.

Aunt Purdy approaches Mom and says quietly, “I think what Paige is trying to say is that we miss the fun we were all having and were hoping you could write another story about us.”

“And...” Paige says prompting her aunt.

“We are wondering what you have been doing that is so much more interesting than having us over.”

Paige coughs loudly...

“Paige is convinced that as living characters of your book we have rights.” More coughing. “We will take steps to see that our rights are protected.”

“Steps. What steps?” Mom asks.