I met one of my characters--at the airport

Has this ever happened to you?

I’m sitting at the airport in Dallas on Sunday waiting for my flight to board. I’m reading through Original Sin (for the millionth time—I obsess, I can’t help it) and I hear a male voice behind me say, “Ladies,” in a sweet Texas drawl. I turn around and almost fall out of my chair. No, it isn’t Garth Brooks or Tim McGraw. It’s Dusty.

I know that means absolutely nothing to all of you, but he’s a character out of one of my novels. This guy had longish curly blond hair and blue eyes under a brown cowboy hat. He was beautiful in a rough, cowboy sort of way. He was wearing dark Wranglers with a big silver belt buckle. He might have been twentyish, a few years older than my Dusty, and I gleaned from the conversation between him and the girls sitting behind me that his name was, in fact, Travis, not Dusty, but everything, from the way he looked to the way he talked, and even the things he said, couldn’t have been more Dusty.

I felt all giddy and really wanted to say something, or take his picture or something, but that would look, well…a little crazy, or at best, stalkerish, so I didn’t. But I still really wish I had—maybe a quick cell phone pic on the sly…

So, I closed Original Sin, and opened Dusty Lane, which I’m revising for my truly fabulous agent. Now I’ll obsess over Dusty for a while. =)

So, is it just me, or do you see your characters sometimes?

Austin

I'm lecturing in Austin this week for a great group of really nice people. One of my local teaching assistants took pity on me. She loaded me in her car last night and showed me around her lovely city. Though I've been to Austin before, I've never really seen anything except the airport, my hotel room, the hotel ballroom where I'm lecturing, and the inside of a really loud Irish pub. (which I only vaguely remember) It was fun seeing the city, but I'm starting to question my grasp on reality.

Part of my first novel, Dusty Lane, is set in Austin and, as we were driving around, I found myself looking for Dusty's (my lead character) truck. And I was sure I saw his aunt's ranch from the air as we flew into the airport.

Okay...so, I'm mostly joking. I know he's fictional. But it's kind of fun to look around a place I've written about and see how accurate I was with descriptions. It's also fun to imagine that I could actually run into my character here.

Does anyone else do this, or am I in serious need of professional help?