As I'm reading through the final drafts of Ed Calkins' first novel (first novel ever and first novel for the BryonySeries), I'm struck by our development of works that are more than their individual parts.
Follow this a moment.
In 1985, I had an idea for a vampire novel: a 70s teen trades her blood with a Victorian vampire for a trip back into time as his wife.
At some point in time, Ed Calkins creates a fictional version of himself (a ruthless dictator who is the steward of Tara and censures those who displease him with limericks) as a way to cope with the life.
In September 2007, The Herald-News outsourced its newspaper distribution to the Chicago Tribune. Because of the sheer number of newspapers my family delivered in the middle of the night, I now had three supervisors. Ed was one of them.
Earlier that month, I finally decided to write said novel as a novella for Timothy's seventeenth birthday just to finally get the story out and done. As I wrote it, I realized it wasn't a novella, it really was still a novel, and suspended writing to learn new processes of delivering routes under new management.
Of course, Ed ran his area like a little kingdom.
Along the way, each of us learned we are both writers. Ed was impressed by my professional career and tried to persuade me to write a newsletter his kingdom. I declined, more than once.
On February 13, 2009 (Calkins Day), I missed the parade for the second year in a row and came to work with a used, red Christmas bow. As a compensatory birthday gift, I offered to write a one-page, monthly newsletter for his kingdom (figured it would hone my creative skills) or create a vampire for my novel (now two-thirds done) out of the fictional version of himself.
Ed's response: "Immortality, of course."
So Ed Calkins as ruthless dictator, Steward of Tara, and the world's first Irish vampire was born. He appeared in all three books of the "drop of blood" vampire trilogy, started blogging for me in 2010 (Saturday was dubbed Irish day), the same year I had an attorney draw up paperwork of the use of his name and person to make it legal, and wrote my Irish genealogy (which I published for Calkins Day 2018).
I should mention Ed dropped out of sight for five years. He sent an email saying he was "going through some things" and he'd reach out when they were resolved.
Finally I decided five years was too long, called one day, and he was delighted to hear from me. His enthusiasm for writing for this blog returned, even though the "things" were not resolved.
One staunch fan of the BryonySeries thought I should write Ed's back story. I felt only Ed could write it. Ed's main reason for not tackling it was his horrible dyslexia, a real handicap when one is a writer.
Then one day at work and out of seemingly nowhere, Ed sent two sample chapters with the message: "Should I keep going?"
I read them that night, laughing out loud, and sent back the enthusiastic: "YES!"
Ed has been consistently working on this project all year. We met once in January and virtually in July. He asked me to set deadlines for him, and I am. His wife Nancy (Colpa) is creating all the cover and interior art.
SOOOO...
One night I'm reading through a scene Ed wrote, a conversation between Ed and one of my characters, Henry Matthews. The discussion fit into the plot of my current BryonySeries novel, The Phoenix.
And I realized that we were both playing with the same imaginary world.
That in itself is nothing new. Writers have collaborated on projects for ages.
But not to this length, width, breadth, and depth. The fictional Ed is as real to me as the real Ed - in fact, they overlap a bit.
Or as he said on Sunday night, "It's unprecedented."
We are accurately portraying the same characters in separate works in the same series, possibly because they have taken on their own identities separate from us.
For instance, one character I created is the creation of the fictional Ed Calkins. And yet the real Ed Calkins has developed this character is ways I never imagined and in ways that make complete sense to me and the stories.
The "world" now exists as its own entity. And as we add to it, we're really only unfolding it, in even more complex ways than The Adventures of Cornell Dyer series Timothy and I are writing for the BryonySeries.
So I tried to explain this to Ed when I called him after he sent the "covid" telegram. And he totally understood.
"I'm feeling it, too," he said.
And then he expounded on the topic.
As I hung up the phone, I realized one more thing.
Somewhere along the way of this last decade, Ed and I had become friends, too.
