Hey
guys! Mark here, subbing for Wendelin
because she’s, well… slammed. (Example
of the glamorous writing life: As I write this at 11:00 p.m. she’s sitting five
feet away from me in the office, going over credit card bills with our younger
son, who – along with his older brother – came home from college last
night. Bringing with them the cliché of
all college clich̩s РTONS of dirty laundry.
Which wasn’t done by them last week at college because they, in turn,
were slammed with finals.) And she’s
also catching up on all sorts of other tasks – both important and mundane –
because she’s been slammed lately with ‘other stuff’. Namely…
Two
nights ago, Wendelin typed the final sentence in the final chapter of the final
installment in the Sammy Keyes series, ‘The Kiss Goodbye’. It's always a good feeling when you finish
the first draft of a book. Sure, there’s
the whole re-write/edit/rinse/repeat process, but when you finally get to the
end of the initial draft and it ‘works’, it’s a wonderful feeling. Well, I think for her this is like that,
times ten. Or times eighteen, to be
exact. Made even sweeter (in my opinion)
by the poetic way she’s been able to bring this whole saga full circle, yet not
circuitous, clearly going forward to whatever life brings Sammy. (Or more accurately, to whatever Sammy brings
life. Because here’s a little secret:
Wendelin didn’t write Sammy as much as Sammy wrote Sammy. Wendelin happened to be the one with the
magic talent to listen closely and get it all down, quick, before it leaves to
that place where dreams go when we wake too quickly and don’t take the time to
recollect and capture…)
I
can remember sitting in the Orange Julius in the mall in ‘Santa Martina’ way
back when, talking about this idea she had for a character who was a kick-butt
girl, yet real, and vulnerable. Who
lived with her grandmother due to being semi-abandoned by her mother (with no
father anywhere in the picture… not even a name or a face… just an old
catcher’s mitt). Yet who, despite her
meager existence (or because of it?), was interested enough in justice and fair
play to stick her nose where it didn’t belong when she thought someone was
getting a raw deal. But not some sort of
pre-canned ‘child genius junior detective’.
(She already had enough issues in her life – she didn’t go
looking for trouble as much as it seemed to seek her out and demand attention.)
And
speaking of those issues, to me the core of the books wasn’t the mystery at
all. It was the whole ‘fitting in’
thing. You know, when you’re twelve or
thirteen and suddenly you leave the K-thru-6th land of ‘children
only’ and you’re thrown into this weird menagerie of half-grown semi adult
creatures… of several sub-species. The
spoiled rich kids. The jocks. The popular ones. The nerdy outcasts. And all of those (all of us?) who don’t fit
neatly into one of the above boxes, but are somewhere on the continuum between
them, just trying to fit in. Who
just want a good friend or two who understands them and makes them feel like
they’re not facing the universe alone.
And
wouldn’t it be nice if one of those friends was a scrappy tomboy of a girl who
was astute enough to figure out who set the fire… who built the meth lab… who
was killing the starlets… And yet, who was young enough and impulsive enough
that - when faced with a desperate thief – didn’t run and hide, didn’t call her
grams or call 911, didn’t duck and cover, but instead… waved?
That’s
a friend I want!
