Introduction
If I could be any of my characters, I'd be Magdelene. Not because she's the most powerful wizard in the world, although that certainly wouldn't suck, but because she's unapologetically who she is. She's curious, she's kind, she's lusty, she's lazy. She knows what she likes and what she wants and she's not afraid to go after it. She likes comfort and warm sun and cool breezes and men who make music. She's not beautiful and she doesn't care.
For the most part, she wants to be left alone to sprawl in her hammock and spit watermelon seeds over the seawall.
She has incredible amounts of natural talent and no ambition at all.
And she's very, very dangerous. Because she really is the most powerful wizard in the world... and some people tend to react badly to that.
When I created the Magdelene stories, I began with the premise of her literally being the most powerful wizard in the world. No hyperbole. No exaggeration. Fact. There's almost nothing she can't do, should she want to. Now these kinds of incredibly powerful protagonists are tricky because story requires conflict, and if they can't be challenged or defeated, they're, well, they're boring. This is why vampires – strong, fast, immortal, occasionally shape-shifting, almost always hypnotic – can be taken out with a sunlamp and a number two pencil.
I had to give Magdelene a weakness to balance her strength.
And that weakness would be... Magdelene. She doesn't much care about power. Oh, she enjoys it, and she certainly takes advantage of it, but she can be happily distracted by a little sweaty flexing or a slice of key lime pie. As there's no one else who stands a chance of taking her out, Magdelene, as the most powerful wizard in the world, is in conflict with her own nature.
And, occasionally, demons.
Creating plots got me thinking of stories about gunslingers in the American West. (Canadians didn't have gunslingers. We sent the North West Mounted Police out west first. And then Tim Hortons.) (Kidding. Do you honestly think we could get the police to go west if they didn't have coffee and Timbits waiting for them?) (rimshot)
Anyway...
I was thinking about the fastest gunslinger in the west tropes – saving the town, challenges from young hotshots, friends and family attacked to get to them – and I thought, what if the part of the gunslinger is played by a cheerfully lazy woman with no fashion sense and eye for a nice pair of biceps?
And that's Magdelene.
I hope you like her as much as I do.
The lizard? Oh, there must be lizards. Lizards are compulsary.