My First Secret: A Complicated Man

I've been living a double life for years & can barely contain my excitement anymore. 

A longtime creative writer, I'm finishing another novel. I've finished five so far, but have never felt like they were good enough for publication. This current Work-In-Progress (WIP), I finished the first time, two years ago. Now I'm rewriting it from the bones, up. After I finished it first time, Imposter Syndrome swooped in and nearly took my head off. I started it again with a stronger foundation, a better-balanced cast of characters and more realistic emotions.

Why tinker with the emotional environment? Because, unlike me, not everyone's first instinct is to bludgeon the sorry SOB who's done us wrong. (Right? I can hardly wrap my head around it either.)

Anyway...

This WIP keeps me in daily meetings with this adorable, absurdly handsome goofball. We're writing a story together.

(Perhaps that's not 100% accurate... He is one of the two players who decide how and where this trip ends up; I merely book the travel and load the map they need to get there.)

You'll meet my second Main Character (MC) tomorow. But for today, I'd like you to meet 22-year-old Torin Jackal. 

Torin is the leader of a sketch-comedy troupe that performs live shows for mainly college crowds, all across the US. He already wants more than anything, to be remembered for his ability to make people laugh...just help them forget their troubles for at least a few hours.

Right now, he's focusing hard on keeping his past in the past. That mischievous twinkle in his eyes masks more self-doubt and heartbreak than someone his age should be dealt.

His teenaged sister's gone missing from their family home. Was this by design, or a criminal act? Even when he finds out, you'll never know - he wasn't raised to share family business outside of their "community". It's a blessing to be out in the world, where no one knows of that suffocating place where you began. Torin still marvels at how different the people are out here, how many unusual ways people can make a living.

He wasn't raised around women who don't ask permission from, or walk behind, any man. They enthrall and fascinate him. Torin holds onto his European party-girl pal as hard as he can. She's worldly, exciting, easily bored and stunningly gorgeous. She's also a decade older than Torin. But they have a lot in common - including striving hard for a better life, and never looking back to the dark places from which they came. Where they differ is, Torin has no desire to experience highs from every substance known to man. 

She still drags him along for the ride. She has to, really - he's got the dependable-ish job that allows them to indulge. She repays him with tales of other lands and cultures, of all the heartbreaking beauty there is to see in the world. She's the only (semi) constant in Torin's life outside of Home. He'll do whatever it takes to keep her happy and in his orbit - often to his own detriment.

Conflict within the troupe over each other's romantic partners is already about to boil over. Caleb, Torin's skit-writing partner, literally rescued Torin from what would have been his muddy grave beneath a New York bridge after he barely escaped his abusive home alive. A debt of gratitude keeps Torin from antagonizing his best friend over his dim, quick-tempered girlfriend (and the astounding baggage she's about to saddle Caleb with). At least, he holds his tongue at first... But the troupe won't survive with two divas - both bossy and headstrong - around at the same time. 

Torin unwittingly adds a third such woman to help prepare food for them on the road and help him & Caleb keep operations orderly and complete, and the entire troupe happy. Torin has no way of knowing  that this new "helper" is not who she pretends to be. She coolly manipulated Torin into hiring her - and she does not have his best interests at heart.

These things alone are enough to keep tensions high, day and night, for all of them. And unfortunately, Torin can't even imagine what's about to happen next.

I hope you grow to love this character as much as I have.