Killing Billie off in Bike is the hardest thing I've had to do and it's left me feeling like I've had a real bereavement, I've been flat and depressed since - so why did I do it?
At times I've allowed the fantasy stuff take us away from the realities of life. Cathy's had to deal with all sorts of low-lifes and some quite absurd incidents too. At times the story has been humorous, verging on comedic; at others it's been more like a thriller and just to let you get your breath back I slip in a couple of domestic bliss storylines.
I needed to remind everyone that although Cathy is probably closer to Supergirl than most of us will ever be, she can't control or fix everything and that pain and sadness happen to most of us during our lives - it's what makes us stronger and helps us to appreciate the good times, especially the good times we had with those loved ones we've lost.
I apologise if the recent storyline has pushed anyone's buttons, it wasn't meant to do so and I thank everyone who commented on this, perhaps the most sensitive storyline so far in any of my postings here.
Love and hugs,
Angharad.
Comments
Re: Killing off characters
Greetings
It is always sad to lose someone who is loved, whether they are real or fictional.
So often Angharad has given us emotional events, I cannot imagine how much it must affect her when she is writing. This recent episode has certainly brought tears to my eyes.
Brian
My thoughts go out to you.
Reading the last two episodes has been hard,my eyes are still swimming.To write the last two episodes is a feat I will never achieve,you however have done it with such insight and sensitivity that it puts you on a par with any author I have read.Yes it did push buttons but love and hugs back to you.Ill add you to my secret prayer with the other pushbike person.
devonmalc
Thanks For the Comments
I appreciate knowing your motivation.
Today's posting of EAFOB was very moving.
Killing off characters
This will really affect Cathy where the Blue Light is concerned.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
I've never killed a character.
They just tell me when they're dead.
But yeah, I can relate to the sense of loss you feel when a character you've had in your head for so long is suddenly no longer there. I'm still waaaay behind on bike, myself, so I don't even know who this character is yet, though.
I know though, that if you wrote it, you did it very well.
If Bonzai wrote it... well... ;P
Abigail Drew.
Abigail Drew.
Angharad, it is your poetic license.
I must say that losing Billie was quite a shock to me, but these things happen in our lives. I think that most of us have lost someone dear to us. However, I think that the last episode is the kind of thing that gives us balance in life.
Please keep on writing and I shall feel priveleged to read what you write.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
I'll admit it struck at me,
I'll admit it struck at me, but I've long been aware of the... need? to sometimes do nasty things to characters, including death and taxes. I just read the last three chapters at one time, and that was probably the best way to read that section. At first, I thought it was another bad dream, but you've definitely taken that option off of the board.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Pushed my buttons like crazy
but most of them needed pushing.
And it's not like you haven't killed of characters before. Just that this was a fairly major one.
But then Cathy was with her mom when she died. Her father too I think. Plus she was linked to a girl blue-light healing her at a distance when she died. Don't forget Tom's insane secretary killed by police sniper as she held Cathy at knife point. And some road accidents and not least of all the death of the girl she'd invited to the wedding --- the one she had healed so she could walk again -- and her dad in a car crash followed by the wife's suicide and all so the Shekina could give her a newborn to raise as her own.
Lots of deaths.
And the guy who wanted to blackmail her who she saved but he still managed to get himself killed. Did I miss any? Oh and the audit team but that was more Simon than her.
Dang it, you're a cereal killer. What next , you gonna drown some Corn Flakes?
-- snicker --
Seriously, well done with Billie. Her death was handled with class and fit the overall story well IMHO. Life is about joy and pain.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Yeah, pushed my buttons,
Yeah, pushed my buttons, HARD. It has just be a couple of months since I lost my very loved little sister, and this brought some of the grief I thought I was dealing with back again. Well written Ang, but it was hard, so very hard to read.
CaroL
CaroL
killing off characters
I got sad when I killed of the characters in Beer Run. For me it really hurt leaving Melissa to face life alone, but the characters told me their story. I can't imagine killing off a AEAFOAB character. You have had a long term relationship with your characters.
Love,
Paula
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
The Coda
Chapterhouse: Dune
Paula
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
The Coda
Chapterhouse: Dune
As I said in my comment...
As I said in my comment, you've dealt with some very difficult things in Bike. I think I'm relieved to hear it was hard. As hard as it's been on us, your readers, it must have been ten times harder for you who had to write it.
Know that at least one, and probably most of us, get that bit and also share, to some extent, the bereavement. If there's something you need to do now (even take some time off writing Bike). Do so.
This episode was probably the hardest bit of writing I've had to read in a LONG time. We, as readers, become emotionally attached to characters too... Other authors kill off important characters - even through accidents... But, they've not hit me so hard.
Bless you,
Anne
Thank you Angharad,
ALISON
'although it hurt a lot of us who read and understand your story,I can just imagine the effect it must
of had on you personally,fiction or not. Unfortunately,we are all born to die,and in my life I have
seen too much death and destruction and the loss of a child is shattering and something that I never
got used to,having to pick up the body of a mangled child from a car wreck,or working your guts out
to resuscitate a child drowned.
With your medical background,I feel for you and I know why you feel as you do.
ALISON
Killing them off
I have done that, on occasions, and it is hard indeed. A writer invests time and soul in their people, otherwise thay are not really a writer. The longer they write that person, the more real they become, and thus the more painful to send away. The difference between a fictional death, though, and a real one is that at least an author can use the fiction for a purpose.
Sometimes death is a new beginning
My desire as a child until I was in Viet Nam was to be a Mortician/Funeral Director. Then I saw death occur daily and I couldn't handle the blood and open wounds. I found a new career. Then I found I liked writing stories.
I don't like doing continuous chaptes so I often let the main character die for my own to not continue a story.
Its hard to just let them die, and yes we get connected to our characters, we should be we created them. Its ok to bereave the loss of someone you knew personally, as a writer you knew them very well and its a traumatic event in your life.
I am currently working on a story where my main character dies in the beginning and than a back story follows told by friends gathered to honor the character.
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
Almost Gave Up on Bike
That was really cruel of you, Angharad. I have had the misfortune to have lost a child, and though it all happened more than 40 years ago, in what most of the time feels like a previous incarnation as so much has happened to me since then and I am not the same person as I then was. Even the name I use has changed. It is not something one ever gets over. It hurts today as much as it did back then. Reading the last episode through I felt like I was torturing myself and several times I nearly decided to just not read anymore of "Bike".
OK, it was well written, I cannot deny that. Indeed the realism of it was spectacular, which only made it worse for me. I measured myself a dram and hopped off to bed afterwards, with two packs of paper hankies, wallowing in my remembered miseries.
I was more active today than I have been for a couple of weeks so it probably did me good. Not the dram - I live among a people who have a terrifyingly high incidence of alcoholism and am frightened of losing my self control - I mean the Catharsis. Damn those old Greeks for inventing it!
Anyway, please DONT make a habit of doing this. Now, if you had let poor Cathy stay in touch with that Ancient Hebrew Goddess it would not have been so final.
Oh well, if I did not have you to read I would have to write my own, and I tried that, have sent my first try that I felt was good enough to both of my childen, and to the oldest grown-up grandchild, with whom I am very close. even sent a copy to an established writer in the genre whose works I admire, and all the feedback was negative. My children obviously know my full history so it was no surprise for them, but one read half way through and said it was boring, with too many lists and details, the other read a few pages and said it was disgusting and gave it back, the grandchild has still got it but said it was "difficult to follow", and the Established Author really disliked it. I liked it myself, but that was not the point, was it?
Briar
Briar
This is so wrong
Making ultimatums to authors to influence the possible future coarse of their writing is wrong. There is enough subtle hinting and other passive aggressive maneuvering in the comments sections where readers attempt to write the story for the authors to please themselves.
Any given story at some point may touch a painful nerve for any one of us, whether it is loss, abuse, failure, bullying, rape, substance abuse, health, post combat stress, PTSD or any other isms I have overlooked.
When you have lived more than a few years you are bound to have experienced one or more of these issues where it is either a painful memory or a treasured wound we all may have one or more. Those of us who have sought therapy have had to face these possibly over and over until we see them as an event in our past and not a gaping wound in our present and ongoing lives. Life still goes on. We are all born to die.
It is a testament to the author that we experience such a wonderful range of emotion through her writings. How much more real can it get?
I'll admit I was a bit mad at first.
I was a bit mad at first that you'd kill off someone so young an innocent,but I understand now(after reading your blog here) why you did it and as I think about it it's not the first time you killed off a child so to speak I.E baby c's older sister. But still I am sad that someone who had a bright future ahead of them at least IMO she did was killed off. But this is your story and you know who you want things to go,the fact that you feel so bad about it shows just how much you care for this long outstandin story.
On a more positive note...
Only one member of the family died - Cathy would have been almost inconsolable if several children had died, or if one of the other adults in the household had died as well (c.f. the Drummond family), and (touch wood) there's been no sign of Shekinah turning up and rubbing salt into the wound (again, c.f. the Dummond family).
Billie would have had a couple of seconds, if that, of anticipation of the upcoming accident, but no prior knowledge of the likely outcome, by which time she'd already died. At least it was fairly quick, and doing an activity she loved, rather than in a car accident, being shot (as nearly happened in Cathy and Si's Mafia encounters) or bombed (as in Simon's recent close shave when investigating that US bank).
Unfortunately, cyclists (average speed 15+ mph) are probably the most victimised road users - they're too fast and quiet for pedestrians (average speed 3 mph), too slow and unsteady for motorists (average speed 30+ mph, many of whom don't leave sufficient distance when overtaking).
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!