Meet Lobo, or a picture of someone resembling my character by that name. In my young adult paranormal/historical series, The St. Augustine Trilogy, Lobo is a modern day Native American Shaman living in America’s oldest city. Advanced in years, big, tough, and mysterious, this character is all that stands between fifteen-year-old Jeff Golden and death or insanity.
Some of Gary's work
In developing Lobo, I placed him physically on a tree-shaded peninsula modeled after an artist friend’s property who actually lives in St. Augustine. Gary is an excellent painter and my original intention was to have my character possess that same skill. I definitely wanted Lobo to be a creative artist of some kind and that choice seemed very logical.
Egyptian Wings of Eternity
Then after pondering that intention for a while, I decided to give him an artistic skill that I possess–wood carving. It just seemed to be more Native American oriented in so many ways that it fit beautifully. Unlike Gary, I’m a rank amateur at my carving but I have fun and give the results to family members as gifts. You can see several of them in this posting.
The Lion in the Dillon family crest
In thinking about it some more though, it sort of struck me as a bit egocentric and even lazy to give Lobo one of my skills. Even so, in the end, egocentricity and laziness won out. I just couldn’t resist describing carvings that Lobo might create. In using something so personal it gave me great motivation in developing the character. Later on, as I continued to develop the trilogy, I found that my selection fit beautifully into certain historical and paranormal threads. In fact, Lobo as a wood Carver so fully supports the books’ plots that I can’t imagine him with any other skill. Interesting how things work out sometimes, isn’t it?
Believing firmly that there are no true coincidences, I’m continually delighted to see that understanding playing itself out in the choice I made as I work on finishing The St. Augustine Trilogy.
If you would like to see a small photo gallery of the limited number of carvings I’ve done, click here.
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