Is Bekka Me?

Friends and former colleagues have graciously purchased my novels, probably out of curiosity to learn if they show up in my fictional newsroom. The answer to that question is undeniably yes. A writer cannot create characters without drawing on scraps of their past experiences. For example, in "Breaking," the videographer character, Matt, is a combination of every cool, talented shooter who walked the halls of KOLR10 during my time there. He's a little bit of our crusty old-timers who never needed GPS to find a scene and a smidge of our young technology-obsessed creative types who hope every story will win an Emmy. 

At least one of my readers asked if I based the protagonist, Bekka, on myself. She's direct, driven, and serious about applying a healthy ethical filter to her reporting. She loves wine, but also uses it to calm her stress. Her family life is messy, and she's uncertain how to juggle relationships. All of that is me, for sure. My parents taught me how to dance, laugh, and be a good friend — all lovely qualities —but they were also terribly flawed in their child-rearing. Alcohol was pervasive in our home and damaging to their relationship. I've struggled my entire adult life with how much wine is too much because of their endless arguments brought on by beer drinking. It took me therapy and getting older to understand they had their own traumas that likely spawned the self-medicating. I wish they had understood the damage that approach left on two little girls, my older sister and me.

When you are a child of an alcoholic, you become the parent and evolve into decision-making based on keeping the peace in the household. If you are a good girl, maybe Mom and Dad won't fight tonight. If you can solve a problem in the house, perhaps they will get along better. There's a co-dependency that creeps into the parent-child relationship. In both "Breaking" and "Live Shot," it's clear that Bekka has a co-dependent relationship with her own mother. She wants to propel her career into a big market, but cannot bring herself to leave Sandra alone in mid-market Delacroy. I certainly felt the same pull to work as a TV producer somewhere other than my hometown, but the idea of leaving my parents, my sister, and her children was inconceivable. I felt as if I would always be trying to get back home, no matter how great a big city job turned out to be. 

I used writing to escape the challenges of my youth. Sitting in my tiny 1980s bedroom, I penned dozens of poems and stories, not yet understanding that I would spend a lifetime telling stories. In my three decades in the newsroom, I reported other people's stories as ethically and compassionately as I could. In my novels, I guess I'm telling parts of my own story, and only I will recognize the real parallels between myself and Bekka. She's a cool chick.

So I've got that going for me, at least. 

In my KOLR office, watching the Biden Inauguration