Counting to 300

All week long I’ve been putting off a post because I knew that it would be my 300th. For some reason I thought that it couldn’t be something silly or even just something normal. But instead of coming up with something, I just never posted anything. So this morning I decided to just get it over with and post, because 300 is cool…but only if you actually write it! So here are some questions that I’d love to hear your answers to as well.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go to spend a few hours today?

I would teleport to Turkey to browse through a lamp shop. The lamps are gorgeous, of course, but what appeals to me is the look of the shops. Crowded and dim with little room to move amongst overflowing aisles. Dirt packed floors covered with layers of rugs and the scent of kebabs wafting in from the market.  Then you look up and it’s a galaxy of brightly colored stars overhead, a sea of lights that dangle just above you. Yellows and reds and oranges glow like a sunset that has been captured in glass, and blues and greens that rival the sea peek from every corner. When you can finally tear your focus away from the spectacle that hundreds of these lamps create you realize that each one of them is intricately designed and beautifully handmade. Yeah, if I could teleport, this is where I would want to spend an afternoon.  

If you could have any superpower what would you chose?

Well, my first thought is that I would want the ability to make inanimate objects come alive. Or at least cars. I’m a girl that grew up with Transformers and Knight Rider and there has always been a part of me that longs to have a friend in my car. Or have my car be my friend. Whatever. I just like the idea of tooling down the road and chatting with my car about politics and movies and which gas station has the best testing fuel and hot dogs. Doesn’t that sound awesome?

Of course, knowing my luck, there would be less Route 66 confabs and more fighting robots and accidental explosions and whatnot. I would just be trying to take a cross country trip and all of a sudden, a biker gang with no morals would show up and my car would feel obligated to protect the local townspeople. Or even worse, I would create evil cars and it’d be a whole Maximum Overdrive situation. Only with less Emilio Estevez. And no one wants that. No one.

So maybe instead of the power to make cars come alive I should stick to something simpler. Like telekinesis. Or the ability to always find lost car keys or something.

Pretend that fictional characters are real, who would you want to meet?

This is an answer that has changed over the years. The people I’ve wanted to meet have varied wildly as I’ve grown and been exposed to different books and movies and tv shows. For instance, when I was younger I thought it would be cool to meet the Lorax or play with the Runaway Tortilla. As a teenager, I’m sure that all of my fictional character choices would have involved cute boys. Wesley Crusher, Lucas from SeaQuest, Bill Pullman (Yes, I realize that he is not fictional but I’m pretty okay with anything he played. Newsies was awesome and While You Were Sleeping and don’t even get me started on Independence Day. That speech!) As an adult, I’d love to meet the Doctor from Doctor Who (actually, I’d just be happy to meet the TARDIS…) or maybe spend an afternoon playing piano with Bertie  Wooster or plastic dinosaur shopping with Wash from Firefly or even just having tea with Optimus Prime (why am I obsessed with robots?!) It would be cool to visit whole fictional worlds like the future societies in Star Trek or the alien worlds in Stargate or even the talking-fish underwater world of Finding Nemo.

It’s funny, but hardly none of my choices are literary characters. I guess that as a writer, I’m more interested in the authors who created the characters, rather than meeting the characters themselves. I’ve created my own characters and struggled through the pains of making them believable and flawed and real. I know how hard it is to waffle between character development and furthering the plot, to make dialog fit the character and to make the character into someone who breathes life into a story. I want to pick the brains who created Sherlock Holmes and Atticus Finch and Edmond Dantès. I want to sit and have long conversations with H. Rider Haggard and Louisa May Alcott and H.G. Wells.  I’d love to follow Shakespeare around for a week to see how he came up with and fleshed out his characters, or figure out just how Lewis Carroll created his fantastic view of wonderland or even just hop on a boat and sail off with Herman Melville or Robert Louis Stevenson to experience the sea like they did. I love their books and their characters, but I’d much rather met the creator and learn from them instead.

So, what are your answers? Where would you go? What would you do? Who would you meet?