Fresh Meat: Character Introduction: The Trio

The Trio are based on my real best friends throughout high school.  They were the most wonderful boon when I was thrown to the wind and dragged to live in a state that I knew nothing about. They quickly corrected the misconceptions I had about the South. They were smart, kind, quirky, and made that four years of mostly hell bearable.

The Three Musketeers by SacredLugia on DeviantArt

Misty was the little bookworm, like me, and we would talk forever about our latest reads.

Jill was the tomboy, practicing martial arts and ready to kick everyone's ass.

April was the preacher's daughter and accepting of my morals, if not always my religion.

Sadly, we have lost touch over the years. We are all Facebook friends, and I was so proud when one published a book a couple of years ago. Unfortunately they are much like other people who you accept friend requests from that you haven't seen much since high school. Every now and again I see a post, but I don't know the context, am not really a part of their lives.

The book is a work of fiction and so very few of the interactions between the friends actually happened, but they are in the spirit of who we were and how our friendship worked. I had other friends throughout high school, but most of them get relegated to the personality of the trio who they fit most, because a reader would have difficulty keeping all of those "side characters" straight. But these three wonderful women were worthy of representing all of my friends who helped me through the most traumatic experience of my life and helped me forge the mettle to be strong enough not only to survive, but to thrive.

Sneak Peek: Hell School, Meet Sam

Today is an intro to my main character Samantha Havre. Her friends know her as Sam.

Sam, for those of you who don't know, is me. Well, the synthetically scrubbed version of how I saw/ see/ wish to be myself. There are some changes. For one she is notably native.

I am a Heinz 57 and the odds are good that there is some Native American in there, but nothing I can point directly to. Yet, despite that I have always had a draw to all things native. From the customs to the people, to their belief systems. When I was 12 my dad took us to a Rocky Boy Pow Wow in Montana. He was doing electrical work for the tribe and we got to stay for the three day event. It was amazing! There was a German Anthropologist there who was asking me about the dance and at the end was surprised that I hadn't grown up on the res. He said it seemed to him my heart was Native. Perhaps there is more. One day I might get a DNA mapping to see.

But this is about Sam. Hell School: Fresh Meat introduces us to Sam, a 14 year old mixed Cree girl who's family moves to South Carolina after her parents' divorce. Her cultural adaptation was very much my experience moving to South Carolina. I felt like a fish out of water!

Brenda Schad, much how I picture Sam

She is quiet and a bit shy, with looks that could make her one of the "popular girls" and a personality that puts her with the geeks where she belongs. There is a lot of blending who I was, and who I wanted to be with Sam's personality, down to her name. As a young girl I hated my name. I always wished I could have a name that had a cool nick name. Samantha was a name I always fancied as a child and I would have gone by Sam or Sammy. (though Samantha Sampson would have been horrible.) Ironically, I learned when I was an adult that my mom always favored the name Samantha too and wanted to be a Sam when she was young.

Samantha is ridiculously tall and developed for her age, When I was young my mom joked that I was her version of "Honey, I blew up the kids." and she jokes the summer of my 12th birthday I went from 12 to 21 in one summer. Sam was no different. Her womanly figure draws unwanted attention from both sexes, the boys leering over her and the girls despising her.

It also leads to the very unwanted attention of her very own stalker.

What else would you like to know about Sam?

Leave your questions in the comments below.