“Yes” and My Orange Self: Ringtones and Character Play

While my orange self gets compliments my ringtone is another matter. An explanation is in order….

Although my writing is on a brief hiatus while I finish up a research project, in another month or so my laptop will reconvert itself into a portal to Barcelona. It always leads to a woman laced in orange. For those that know me or have read my writing, color plays a strong role in my consciousness. Color represents different aspects of personality, sometimes facets that are contradictory. Colors are not stagnant. They breathe, fade, deepen, take on meaning and then shed it, just as we do as humans.

In Ruby Rest, Edda was red. My new protagonist is orange. While I try to separate myself as much as possible from my characters when I’m not writing, I have found orange seeping into my life in spite of my initial efforts to keep it at bay. Why the resistance? I know the orange character could take me down. She’s stronger than I am and knows it. Still, her genuine fear of orange has become my love affair, an exploration of a complex woman I both love and hate.

Orange now speaks to me even when my head is not in the story. Its instability makes me feel safe. Since I’ve started the story I’ve bought an orange puffer jacket and an orange hoodie. I’ve also been wearing a new orange sweater a little too often this fall. But I must confess that wearing orange actually leads me to a lot of conversations with people I don’t know and I like it. The ringtone is another matter.

When I got my new phone at the end of summer I was in the middle of a Jack Black in Be Kind, Rewind type of week. Somehow I became negatively charged without knowing it and anything electronic broke in my presence. First my iPod fell out of my shirt to its death and then the computer crashed. When I switched to my laptop it refused to function and most of my email contacts were lost that week. My Bluetooth followed suite and fried itself and then my phone abandoned me. At least only machines were hurt and no humans.

Since this was pre-research time, I was writing in the midst of the chaos, or trying to. When I got my new phone I was engrossed in the story, my orange character predominant in my brain. Coldplay’s “Yes” became my ringtone in honor of her, but somehow when I was setting it up it became the song everyone who calls me hears as well. Reactions are weird but now I don’t care. I know I’ll be back in the story soon and orange will take hold. Say what you will, but it’s all about the story, the story I have to write or will die trying.