Coming in last

Very near midnight March 31 is the 60th anniversary of Newfoundland and Labrador joining the Canadian confederation. This date is always occasion for the witless and assorted local Uncle Toms to rag me about the conspiracy that features in the film Secret Nation, for which I wrote the screenplay.  They demand “proof” for my assertion that the vote to join Canada was rigged.  That I never made it, that it is a plot point in a work of fiction, seems lost on them. (Peter Cashin’s argument back then, that there was “a conspiracy to sell …  this country to the Dominion of Canada” seems probably to have been the case.  There were certainly interests other than those of the people of Newfoundland in the mix. My personal feeling is that we became on that day a de facto colony of Canada. We have many benefits of citizenship but, with a mere seven seats in the Canadian Parliament, no effective say in our governance. Being culturally distinct from Canada this lack of representation is a problem.)

There is a related phenomena, that of people believing characters in my work are based on them.  Not loosely based, but something akin to portraits.  I usually hear this second hand, how so-and-so “read it and saw right away that she …”. There seems no way to disabuse someone of this notion without insulting them. “You see yourself in everything.” “It’s not about you.”  That Newfoundland is such a small community is an aggravating factor.  I know the author Michael Winter deliberately wrote earlier work by basing characters and events on real ones. I understand he finally desisted under threat.  I don’t even know how one would do it.   And it seems to deny the author one of his very few pleasures, to occasionally depart this world for one of his own invention.

As for the notion that lead characters in my books or plays are autobiographical … alas, no. The protagonist in “The Nine Planets” was designed to loathe me.  And still, at the end of the process, having lived with him so long, he was beginning to convince me.

I try to make a cameo appearance in everything I write.  Sometimes I don’t make the cut.  I give myself the same character name in every case.  In the book I am currently working on this character has to surrender a Green Card owing to “some vice matter”. So by now he’s started to take on a life of his own.  He’s become a knowledgeable collector of furniture … something about which I know or care little.