Dear Dan:
I have a confession to make. I like you just because of your name. I have a character named Dan. His full name is Daniel Phillip Parker and I can tell you just about everything about him. What he likes, how he smiles, the things he would say given a certain set of circumstances. I love Dan Parker. I love the kind of person he is. He’s an artist. He’s outgoing. He’s attractive, witty, kind and funny as hell.
When I started writing I wasn’t looking for Dan Parker. My initial idea was to write about things that I knew something about. One of my sisters told me I should write about nutrition. I used to be the biggest nutrition Nazi there was. Dan’s mother-in-law Rita is the food fascist in my stories but her over the top concern with nutrition stems from an over-whelming, over-powering love for her children, her family and it truly bothers her when she sees other people who don’t eat good nutritious meals.
I know Rita feels that way because that’s how I feel. It bothers the heck out of me when I see people making poor food choices. I shouldn’t say Dan Parker couldn’t care less about food because that’s not the kind of person he is but he’s much more interested in people than he is in food. Dan likes to get to know people he finds interesting. He doesn’t write poetry but he admires others who do. Dan is an artist. He's an artist in the three ways that people become identified with vocations and avocations. He knows art, he loves art and he becomes lost in the production and contemplation of his craft.
Dan Parker gets pulled into his future wife’s family by a very good friend of his. Her name is Lana. I’ve written about her in other places and what I love about Lana is how she can see talents that other people possess. I gave that ability to her, her character is very loosely based on one of my sisters. I’m not like my sister. I’m not like her at all so I have to admit that when I first met you I didn’t see the artist in you. Now that I’ve gotten to know you a little better I can see some of the things I was missing before. I know that people can come across one way and be feeling something very different from what’s being perceived by other people. That’s a game I play. If you act like things are superficially okay then people don’t know what’s really going on in your life.
It’s very difficult for me to try and explain how I feel about what happened the other day. I feel like I let a friend in need down and I…
I can’t finish this. All I can say is I never meant to let you or anyone else down. Your reaching out to me means more than I have words to express it with so just like I’m awestruck standing before magnificent works of art I’m rendered speechless by the gift of your friendship.
Wishing you more better than worse but glad you’re around to share both with.
Gratefully yours,
j