Some of you were recently tagged in a meme to reveal eight things about yourselves. I’m tagging Alice, one of my main characters in Shiva’s Arms. Why not? When I was developing her, I made a biography for her, a useful tool for finding motivations and making connections.
For instance, she has a rather flat affect from the chemical imbalance in her brain. Where did that come from? And why is it so easy for her to embrace her husband’s culture, even when he’s trying to distance himself from it? Alice is an artist at the beginning of the book, and I needed for her to stay interested in the subject, so she could use her talent to help rehabilitate her mother-in-law, a progression barely glimpsed at in the beginning.

So, here are Alice’s eight:

1) Alice grew up with this painting of an Indian soldier in her bedroom. My mom painted it in real life.
2) Alice played a Hindu princess in a fifth grade play, and afterward slept in a sari for a month.

3) Alice used perspective in her drawings in grade school. Her teacher, Mrs. Lerner, said she’d never encountered that ability before.

4) Alice remembered ghosts in her playroom. She drew them floating, upside-down, and claimed that they brushed her hair at night.

5) Alice would not eat Easter candy in the likeness of a babydoll.

6) But, whenever she got a new doll, the first thing she’d do was take its clothes off.

7)When The Three Stooges came on TV, she’d seat herself on the floor and cry during the entire show.

8) Her parents disowned her when she married Ram, and she never saw them again.

People ask me if I am Alice. While the book’s set-up is drawn from life—an American marries an Indian-- I only gave Alice my hair and my fashion sense-- a sari wrapped around her middle like a skirt, with a tee shirt and running shoes! Her character is influenced by the fictional universe and the demands it makes on her. I am not Alice, but I know her very well.