Retracing Damian Fowler's steps

Readers of my Waldorf Manor series know Damian Fowler has run away to Berlin - about three times now. Today was kind of a big deal, because I followed him.

Okay, not really. I created Damian. Obviously, he isn't real. So why, then, did I get emotional when visiting the places I said he frequented when in Berlin? I'll have been here eight days before returning to London and my German tutor made a point of taking me to the sights I describe in Unfailing Love (massive Danke, Herr Lehrer!) Because I'm a strange author girl and that's what we do. We get possessive, emotional and oddly attached to our babies/characters. Same difference. I am very fortunate to live in the digital age, whereby I can use google images to look at places thousands of miles away and describe them accurately. However, when I visited Brandenburg Gate and pariser platz, and sat on the very bench I imagined Damian Fowler had - it made me a little sad that he wasn't there. Honestly. I felt like he should have come up and sat beside me. My question to him would have been, why do you keep running away? Why are you so unhappy? I think it's time you go back to England.

and yes . . . it was strange to feel like he was there
when I know fine well he's fictional. But as an author I needed to feel his presence. It makes my work feel a little bit more legitimate.

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