This is how a fictional character is born.

He just arrives out of thin air.

In the middle of the night. In a taxi.

I didn’t plan it, expect it or necessarily even know it was happening. He just appeared.

This is what happens when you travel. This is possible when you take yourself out of the surroundings you know. This is what transforms you when you are open.

He came out of my fingers and onto my keyboard, crawled up the screen and into life. I didn’t even recognize him as a new person until the second or third or even fourth character when he started to have a mind (and actions and mannerisms) all his own. Sure, he’s a part of me, but there’s more not of me that of me in there. He’s inspired by me, but he lives on the page and in my fingers.

He’s alive.

And well.

His birth started off quite simply: in a taxi, tired, around midnight, coming into a city where he’d never been. He saw something that might have just been his tired eyes, but he was sure he saw it. The strangest part was that he was pretty sure that no one else saw it. That should have been his first sign. He’s a little slow.

The next morning, he just wanted a little WiFi and a cup of tea. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. But something was about to happen. It was in the eyes of the woman who brought him below her cafe to, supposedly, give him the WiFi password. But he gave her more than that.

His thoughts about leaving went something like this:

1. I don’t want to leave because I want to get my tea and my WiFi.
2. Forget the WiFi, this is a little strange. Maybe just a cup of tea.
3. Maybe I’ll just be on my way.
4. I think I should leave.
5. I think I should leave now.
6. I’m not sure I can leave.
7. I think I might be a prisoner.
8. Or not.
9. Maybe I could stay. Just a little while longer.
10. Just to see what’s going to happen.
11. Be open to the possibilities.
12. I could stay.
13. I want to stay.
14. I need to stay.
15. Please don’t take me away.
16. I’m staying.
17. Uh oh.
18. Oh yes.
19. Wow.
20. Thank you.
21. Now I can leave.

What was the transformation that took place? How did a simple taxi ride into town late at night turn into the transformation of a person, the birth of a character, that might be the beginning of a series of novels? This doesn’t just happen!

Or does it?

Maybe this is exactly how it happens. See number eleven.

It’s all here in black and white. Could it be? Could it be that this is the beginning of a new life? Or will it fizzle out and he’ll be on his merry way, never to be seen or heard from again? Could it be that he’s just one of many to cross my path and I choose–or they choose me?

How little I know. How much I relish in the adventure of it.

Want to say hi? He came to life just over here: Ch. 1: Maze Runner in Firenze? The walls are closing in on me and the eyes are watching.