Just wrote a scene where my 10-year-old protagonist is worried that her grandfather is too old to be fighting the forces of evil, and I took a second to calculate how old he would likely be.
She has a sister several years older, so if I figure his daughter was around 22 when she started having kids (she finished university), and he was maybe 20 or so when he had her, then he might be around 60 now. So I wrote the lines:
“How much of the island did Thatha try to protect? He was almost sixty! He needed her!”
…and then I remembered that I’m 52-and-a-half, and apparently, am decrepit and about to expire, at least in the eyes of a 10-year-old. Maybe I should go take a nap. (I actually slept 10 hours last night, but I am still tired. Hoping a swim after brunch will wake me up for my last panel…)
This horrifying moment brought to you by my breakfast writing table at CapriCon. I usually try to justify the cost of the $30+ hotel brunch by sitting there for 2-3 hours and eating a lot while writing, or at least dealing with e-mails.
Working well for me so far, especially because the kale pesto frittata, potatoes lyonnaise cooked in duck fat, and especially the shakshuka (with a spicy tomato sauce) were all delicious. I’m about to have some New Orleans-style bread pudding to top it off, with another cup of tea, and then they can roll me out of here…
