I was reading the blog from another writer – do I name drop? If I do, will it mean anything, after all I was only reading their blog, it’s not as if I’d be saying something like ‘George, oh, yes me and George (Clooney) are hip’ – which we’re not, never met the bloke, his wife, or indeed any of his entourage, never even met a look-a-like…

Anyway, the blog I was reading, the writer was trying to explain the attachment they had to their characters, the connection that was somehow almost real, something very personal, akin to a friendship, and it struck a very real chord with me. I got where they were coming from, be their character a despicable axe murderer with a penchant for dressing in the skin of their victims, or a lifesaving saviour for mankind, the attachment is still the same.

I’ve been typing about young Miss Amy Grace for a few years now, and I’ve put her through some near intolerable situations, she has suffered some unspeakable pains, and all at my hand. I’ve typed darkness that has been beyond black, yet she has emerged time and again, and continued to move forward, never been stopped, never beaten.

If I met her would I like her, would she indeed like me, or would she cut off my hands so that she could stop the suffering that I keep piling upon her tiny frame? Academic, I know because she’s only a character in my imagination, a person who exists on page and paper, but sometimes I sit and I wonder what would Amy do…?

When (eventually) she becomes part of someone else’s imagination, when somebody else gets to read about her trials tribulations, her loves and her losses, will I feel jealous, that a relationship that was for so long just the two of us, is now a shared story? Or, will I be the proud parent, watching the little bicycle, without its stabilisers, trundle off down the lane?

I hope I feel the latter, I hope that when others encounter young Amy Grace, that they too feel warmth towards her, sympathy for her plight, and genuine hope that lasting happiness is just around the corner.

She is my character, I like her, and I hope when you meet her, that you like her too, because she has earnt it, she genuinely has!