I love to laugh out loud. I treasure absurdity, irony, and good-natured spoofing. I find joy in tweaking the humor-challenged and the pompous.
Over the course of writing more than forty books, I've created several hundred characters. Many have a place in my heart for their courage, their heartbreak, or their commitment to honor, but especially dear to me are the characters who make me laugh. I cherish the light moments provided by self-absorbed mystery writer Emma Clyde and spacey mother-in-law Laurel Roethke in the Death on Demand series.
Yet, I've not spent many moments at the keyboard laughing out loud until now. As I write the third book starring the late Bailey Ruth Raeburn, fun pops out in the most unexpected ways, much like Bailey Ruth, my all-time favorite character.
Bailey Ruth Raeburn, late of Adelaide, Oklahoma, is an impetuous redheaded ghost who returns to earth to help people in trouble. She's willing to move a body, cherish a child, tapdance as she belts out Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, enjoy the latest fashions, and spar with an old foe as she wafts through this world discharging her duties. Sometimes you see her and sometimes you don't. I laugh as I write, which is definitely not the usual demeanor of authors hunched at a keyboard.
Bailey Ruth's effervescence fascinates me. She loves being a green-eyed redhead. Appearing and disappearing are a hoot. Beautiful clothes are a necessity, good for the spirit, you know. She adores kids, Christmas, hamburgers, the latest fashions, her late husband Bobby Mac, a fishing fool who is enjoying eternal aquamarine waters, her old hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma, and Heaven itself, of course.
But a funny thing happened on the way to writing that book. One day I sat down at my computer, fully intending to tell the story of the sister and her ghostly twin, and without warning an impish redhead - green-eyed, freckled-faced, eager, fun and funny, kind and loving, five foot five in slingback pumps - was striding up a Heavenly walk on her way to the Department of Good Intentions to apply for a job as an emissary back to earth to help someone in trouble.
Had I intended to write about Bailey Ruth?
No.
But sometimes I am smart enough to accept what is given. I followed Bailey Ruth around the corner of a cumulous cloud to the little train station which houses the Department of Good Intentions.
We've had a glorious time together, Bailey Ruth and I. I hope she lets me tag along until I join her in a Heavenly lane.
What book or series makes you laugh out loud?
Editor's Note: Carolyn Hart is the creator of both the Death on Demand and Henrie O series. The latest Bailey Ruth book, Merry, Merry Ghost will be released at the end of this month.
