What a tangled web we weave…

I'm not sure how to begin, which for a writer is a very unpleasant sensation indeed. But every story has to start somewhere, and for me it began on an ordinary day in mid-August.

It was a normal day, bright and sunny, the dust motes spinning joyously through the sun beams that illuminated my office, my writing sanctuary, as I laid down spider-web thin plot lines with the utmost care and attention. My female lead had just begun her narrative arch, poised to leap into the adventure that she didn't know awaited her when, suddenly, there he was.

Dark liquor coloured eyes, hair the shade of polished bronze, olive skin marred only by a faint, puckered scar stretching along the length of his solidly cut jaw line, the blemish a story in itself.

"Well, hello there," I breathed, eyes scanning him. I had learned many years ago that this first meeting was the most crucial, for it was when the character was at its purest. I committed every detail to memory for future use: khaki trousers, solid boots, a well-worn belt made of snakeskin, a scratched and faded leather bomber jacket marked by several repairs. He was an adventurer, I decided, an adventurer who becomes a reluctant guide.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." His voice was a rich, soothing baritone with just enough growl and gravel to be alluring and assuring all at once.

I felt my female lead perk up, her eyes widening as she caught sight of him for the first time (opposite end of a dingy Spanish bar). Thoughts tumbled through her head faster than I could type. Slowly, as if sensing her scrutiny, my leading man turned to face her.

I am normally relieved when my characters have chemistry but, for some reason, the sparks that flew between them as I wrote ignited a slow-burning touchpaper of jealousy within me. But I couldn't stop now, not when the story was practically writing itself. More often than not it would take me a few attempts to incorporate my male lead, but with Alex…it was as if he had been there the whole time, crouched in the shadowed recesses of my mind, just waiting for me to discover him.

To fall in love with him.

Oh, I'd fallen for literary characters before - Mr Rochester, Theodore Lawrence, Enjolras, Richard Sharpe - but this was different because Alexander was mine. I'd completed this process dozens of times, assessing looks, motivations, character. I created their pasts, their presents, occupations, and lovers. Then, when it was all over, the day was saved, ces fin, they would be retired to my shelves, their lives retired to cardboard boxes.

I think I fell for Alex that first afternoon as I watched him protect my female lead. His quiet chivalry captured something in my heart, opening up dark rooms that I had sealed off long ago. He was not perfect, not at all, but he was perfect for me. Far too often I would find myself wishing he was real, wishing for him to reach out from the monochrome prison of typed words that I had trapped him in and come to me in my solitude.

Despite my growing affections, the story continued to flow from me like water -or blood. They grew together beautifully; mutual stubbornness fading into simmering attraction. The narrative sped along elegantly, the suspense mounting as the antagonists closed in. Yet still I kept their romance unresolved, convincing myself that it was merely writers' block and not jealousy that was stopping me from bringing them together.

But the longer it was delayed, the more painful it became. Vindictively, I began destroying my female lead piece by piece; creating poisonous scenes that once completed were instantly discarded, my guilt forcing me to chop away the malicious text. Time and time again I returned to that jungle clearing, lit only by the fire and the stars, the fire's heat the perfect metaphor with which to launch into the love scene. Time and time again I closed the document, ignoring the itch under my skin that begged me to continue.

The pressure and the pain built up, becoming harder and harder to ignore. I wished, I cried, I prayed, but it was to no avail. Alex remained a figment of my imagination and I remained alone, my heart as silent and empty as my house.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done, letting Alex go. As I took him aside one last time, my heart threatened to break. "I don't want to let you go," I admitted, drinking in the vision that I had created, "I don't want to be alone again."

He touched me for the first and last time, his gentle hand cupping my cheek, "I'll be here, always; you know that. It was you who created me after all."

I breathed in his scent once more, steeling myself to complete the inevitable. "I can't see you any more after this," I said forcefully, pulling myself away from him and feeling the loneliness once again engulf me, "you understand?"

He nodded once, pressing a feather light kiss to my forehead. "Thank you," he breathed, "thank you for giving me this life; for giving me her."

I stayed true to my word; I did not speak with him again, not even when the novel was finished and sent to my editor in a neat wrapping of brown paper and string. I push all thoughts of Alex away. Who has to know that I cried myself to sleep the night I wrote those final words, the night I wrote 'The End'?

The book has done excellently; bestseller list, number one in three countries, everyone raving about how excellent the characters are, how sensitively drawn the hero is. In some ways I wish I had never written it, that I had never created Alex. If I hadn't written the book and created him, I wouldn't now feel so very lonely; even lonelier than before.

But as I finish writing this, a low laugh sounds behind me, a warm, musical sound. I turn to see a stranger stretched out languidly on my sofa, his lanky legs hanging over the end.

And so it begins once more, as it always does and as it always will. I will follow this lonely, twisted tale I have given myself and can only live in hope that one day, my own hero will find me and give to me in real life what I have given to so many imaginary versions of myself; love.