Characters who talk about me behind my back, packing and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

So, I’m at the ‘seriously-I-don’t-have-more-clean-underwear?!’ stage of packing for my trip to London and the SCBWI Symposium at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair when I realized that my main protag Cyd jumped out of my book and wrote a guest posts on Ailie Mooney's blog, the main character of Melanie Jackson’s y/a novel Midnight Blue Marble.

Writers talk about characters that have a mind of their own and take over the story. I’ve experienced that. In the first Megabyte Mystery Dead Frog on the Porch the dad was on sabbatical and the mom was around. In the second in the series Dead Bird through the Cat Door the mom wasn’t going to be in the book and the dad would be the main parent. Then the girls’ teenage sidekick Todd (he had a small part in the first book) developed a crush on the mom so I had to leave her in.

But never have I experienced a character leaving the pages of the book and writing a blog post. The blog post is called Out, Out Damned Frog. And Cyd talks about me which is a bit creepy since she's never met me! Check it out!

I’ll be taking a bag of assorted Reese’s Peanut Butter products to my friend Kate in London. You’ll remember Kate from the blog post about what lime marmalade teaches us about character development. Well it turns out that Kate loves Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups more than Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups love themselves! Mind you, she's trusting me with them and who knows how many will be left after the flight ….