#will osborne

[paperbackpurgatory]

Will Osborne's 13 Ghosts (1988)

Strange but True Stories

[artwordbw]

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randomhousekids -- Mary Pope and Will Osborne chat with "William Shakespeare" at a musical adaptation of Magic Tree House #25: Stage Fright on a Summer Night at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater in Florida!

[zane-riley]

“I’m taking the leap. NYU here I come.”

[zane-riley]

“Detention, huh? Is that why you’ve got chapped lips and a hickey?” 

Will’s hand clamped down on his neck before he could stop himself. Ben chuckled and shone the light from the desk lamp onto the medals. 

“What’s his name?” 

“Little boy jackass who needs a chainsaw up his—” 

“Whoa, language!” Will worked on the first medal as Ben inched in and examined the mark on his neck. “Looks like a vacuum cleaner gave you that. This guy must have lips like a camel.” 

“He does not,” Will snapped. Then he frowned. Since when did he defend Lennox? And to his dad, of all people. “He’s… crude. Awful. I can’t stand the sight of his stupid, beautiful face.”

[zane-riley]

Relationships

Whenever I talk about Go Your Own Way and With or Without You, I always focus on the boys. On Will and Lennox’s lives, their personal goals, what’s going on in their lives, and so on. The ins and outs of their lives take center stage. Who they each are and who they are together are important, but it’s equally as important to recognize how they each became who they are. Their own relationship allows them to grow, and even more so the relationships they have with other people who play important roles in their lives.

How fundamental relationships are to this story wasn’t something I was entirely aware of when I first wrote it. What I mean to say is that, I realized that this relationship over here was doing this for these characters and that this other relationship was doing that. I understood relationships as they were defined by individual characters as being important, but I didn’t grasp how foundational the concept of relationships was to the narrative.

The very dynamic Will and Lennox have is built on their history of relationships, and I mean all kinds of relationships. Romantic, familial, platonic, sexual, sibling, parental, and on and on. All of those types of relationships have shaped who each of them are at the start of Go Your Own Way, and as they build new relationships throughout that novel and With or Without You, that changes each of them further.

For Will, he has so many relationships that function in his life at the start. His dad, Karen, Aunt Mia, his friends, bullies at school, his grandparents, and now Lennox. From each relationship he gains and learns things—about himself, the world, other people, what it means to connect with someone. His dad’s taught him persistence, along with honesty and kindness. Karen’s given him a wonderful example of open-mindedness and patience. Aunt Mia’s someone he’s been able to openly talk to about his sexuality and sexual experiences. His friends encourage and bond with him over shared interests. He’s had so many positive relationships in his life that have given him the opportunity to become a wonderful young man. His life has all the necessary ingredients for that. Even with bullies at school taunting him or shoving him around, overall Will has a support network built into his life.

On the reverse side is Lennox. As a young kid he had that family support, but it didn’t last very long. In a lot of ways, Will and Lennox’s childhoods are like diverging realities. Will’s life stayed in a loving, good place after his mother passed, but Lennox’s family fell apart fast with his mother’s abrupt suicide. The parent left in Will’s life handled his grief, and Lennox’s didn’t. Most of that fallout was hardest on Lennox. At eight, his parental relationships were gone. Suddenly, he was trying to act as parent to his infant sister while his dad filled his sorrows with bourbon and cheap beer. His dad cut both sets of grandparents out of their lives. Lennox was on his own. Almost every relationship from that point was negative for him. His dad was a drunk, his mother gone, his grandparents weren’t around, he didn’t have time for friends or to join any sort of activities to make friends. The only positive he had was Lucy, and a baby isn’t going to be very helpful at guiding an eight-year-old through childhood or teenage years.

The people in your life—the relationships you build with them—have such an impact on the ways you grow and what you learn. Will’s had very beneficial relationships. Lennox hasn’t. Yet Lennox has discovered a lot of hard and difficult realities and truths that Will’s yet to experience. He understands the darkest parts of himself and knows how to recognize when he’s falling into those pits. He’s capable of pushing himself to keep going no matter how awful life gets. Lennox endures. He survives. Will hasn’t had that sort of struggling in his life. Not yet.

…That sounds so ominous. I’m almost sorry it’s so ominous, but foreshadowing…

I love foreshadowing.

[summers-in-sunnydale]

James Cagney with orchestra leader Will Osborne on the set of The Roaring Twenties,1939