Writing about the Wicked

Day after day, I stop at red lights in the middle of nowhere, pay my bills even if I feel I'm being extorted, and ignore my neighbors when they start their home improvement projects at seven in the morning on a Saturday.

I'm not wicked. Not even close to it. But sometimes I admire people who are. Like vigilantes and bank robbers and assassins and, for the more supernaturally inclined, werewolves and vampires. As long as I'm not the victim of their unlawful actions, I can enjoy reading about them or watching them. The HBO show Dexter is a good example--he's such a lovable sociopath.

My story for 60k in 60 Days contains characters who behave in morally questionable ways. For example, I googled "How to Run a Strip Club" yesterday--something I never thought I'd need to know. And I have to say that I'm enjoying writing about bad boys and girls. Virtuosity is often good in real life but boring on the page.

I believe that everyone possesses inside themselves the potential for both good and evil, light and dark. Thankfully, movies, television shows, novels, songs, and video games let us explore our dark side in safe and healthy ways. In the end, when I self-publish my current project, I hope that people enjoy my wicked characters as much as I am