I’d filled out tons of things like this in college and had extensive character sketches for the cast ofThe Wunderkind, so it felt silly to rehash a character I already knew.
“Something on your mind?” Leonard asked.
I looked up from my paper. “I just... There’s this project I’ve been working on for—god, almost twenty years... and I need to go back to it, but I don’t know where to start.”
“It’s only an exercise, Vera. Not every creative penny must be spent on the big, serious work. You can just have a bit of fun.” He laughed to himself. “I won’t tell.”
After a moment of thought, I pressed my pencil to the paper and decided to make something up. Just for fun.
First name: Josephine (Joey for short)
Last name: Lynn
Job: mail carrier
Hobbies: calligraphy, online poker
Currently residing: Savannah, Georgia
Originally from:
Under their bed is: a box of unsent letters
Age: fifty-two
Body type:
Hair color/type:
Eyes: Brown
Height:
Dinner with any dead person: Princess Diana or her first husband
Scent:
Tattoos or piercings: the white tree of Gondor from Lord of the Rings on the top of her foot
Astrological sign: Cancer
Special features: birthmark shaped like a paw
Goals:
“Okay, time’s up,” Leonard said.
I looked up, blinking with my pencil still hovering over one of the many lines I’d left blank. According to my phone, I’d been noodling over the character survey for almost twenty minutes.
“Come up with anything good?” asked Leonard.
I thought for a moment before answering. “The potential for good? Sure. Actually good? Unlikely.”
We spent the rest of the hour going over our character sheets and imagining all sorts of possibilities.Is Josephine an empath? Did she kill her ex-husband? What if he was haunting her? Are ghosts real in this world? Who are the letters for?
We talked for so long that we didn’t even make it to Leonard’s character survey, but he didn’t seem to care even a little bit.
When Wendy’s orderly came back, she took a cinnamon roll with her and I helped Leonard pick up the rest of his sheets and pens.
