A quandry of sorts

Young, yes. Pretty, for sure. Something in her look. Something of the aura that one of the protagonists in my current novel would have, as I imagine her. 

And the background looks like a provincial railway station...

SInce my storytelling was for so many years audio-visual in my soap opera years I cannot now write without having images in my mind and so it is for me second nature to put together a 'look book' or 'mood board' when embarking on a new narrative, even in prose form. Pictures of locations, people, artifacts all inform my writing and give the gathering of background information... the drudgery of research... much more fun.

Anyway, I have lived with theportrait of this fresh country lass I shall call Emma for a good few months now. She comes to life with increasing reality as my manuscript progresses.

Now one of the visual research tools I use is a 'photo matching' application and about a month ago it lead me to more pictures of my Emma. The railway station was not deep in bucolic provinces but in suburban Prague where the girl in question had posed for some shots which one could term revealing. I imagined a besotted boyfriend digitally capturing his girl's undoubted charms and somewhat rashly sharing the photos with the big wide world via the web.

Okay, at a pinch such an eventuality was, for my Emma, not unthinkable although it might be cause for some regret in later years.

To cut a long story short there were further discoveries to follow.

That smile... that look in her eyes... Were I still producing soaps in Germany I would have cast her instantly as a sweet 'girl next door' with Dawson's Creek or Gilmore Girls somewhere in the back of my mind.

I guess I am losing my touch. In reality the smile and the look belongs to one of the up and coming generation of young Middle European porn stars who bear little resemblance to the tired and sad ladies engaging in similar activities in the San Fernando Valley.

We live and learn. I must now take care that my fictional Emma does not drift into any disquieting ambivalence!