Is Lewis obsessive?
He's a world class tennis player - does that mean he has to be obsessive in this day and age? Could anyone reach such a peak without being obsessive about their sport? Could anyone win Wimbledon without being driven by a burning urge to succeed?
I don't think so, and my character is guilty.
I don't play on it too much, but there are a few traits I bring to the party, like his superstitions near the end of the first book and the bloody-minded obstinacy he shows throughout.
Of course he is obsessive - it was his means of survival. When the brain can't cope with the horrors of life, it goes into auto-pilot and obsession easily follows. Lewis is traumatised at an early age and obsession is his salvation... thanks to a great Scottish coach and a manic Scottish widow...
Lewis learned at an early age what it felt like to be alone. What it felt like to have the world in the palm of his hands and see it run through his fingers as it turned to dust – ‘ashes to ashes’ indeed. Introvert by nature, he had no close friends to turn to. Every egg that he had, lay in one basket, and had been smashed by a truck on the M8 motorway that linked Edinburgh to his adopted home city of Glasgow. Lewis went in freefall, withdrawing further and further into himself, unable to face the breaking morning and its sick joke of a new dawn, never mind any opponent that vainly waited for him on a tennis court. If his mother was aware of her son’s desperate plight, she had no solace to offer, no help to give beyond her Faith which only made matters worse. It was Jim Murdoch who came along two months later and rescued the boy with a gift.
“Honour the memory by making him proud of you, Lewis,” he had said.
It took a bit of time, but it did the trick. Lewis sorted himself out, because Jim Murdoch had given him a single-minded purpose that drove him for the next eight years.
He's a world class tennis player - does that mean he has to be obsessive in this day and age? Could anyone reach such a peak without being obsessive about their sport? Could anyone win Wimbledon without being driven by a burning urge to succeed?
I don't think so, and my character is guilty.
I don't play on it too much, but there are a few traits I bring to the party, like his superstitions near the end of the first book and the bloody-minded obstinacy he shows throughout.
Of course he is obsessive - it was his means of survival. When the brain can't cope with the horrors of life, it goes into auto-pilot and obsession easily follows. Lewis is traumatised at an early age and obsession is his salvation... thanks to a great Scottish coach and a manic Scottish widow...
Lewis learned at an early age what it felt like to be alone. What it felt like to have the world in the palm of his hands and see it run through his fingers as it turned to dust – ‘ashes to ashes’ indeed. Introvert by nature, he had no close friends to turn to. Every egg that he had, lay in one basket, and had been smashed by a truck on the M8 motorway that linked Edinburgh to his adopted home city of Glasgow. Lewis went in freefall, withdrawing further and further into himself, unable to face the breaking morning and its sick joke of a new dawn, never mind any opponent that vainly waited for him on a tennis court. If his mother was aware of her son’s desperate plight, she had no solace to offer, no help to give beyond her Faith which only made matters worse. It was Jim Murdoch who came along two months later and rescued the boy with a gift.
“Honour the memory by making him proud of you, Lewis,” he had said.
It took a bit of time, but it did the trick. Lewis sorted himself out, because Jim Murdoch had given him a single-minded purpose that drove him for the next eight years.