Last spring I began writing about the Angel Snakes. Every day. Somewhere in there, I created the paper "action figures" that you see in the photos. They were to be mere representations of the "real" Angel Snakes. Then I started a separate blog about the Angel Snakes. Soon I realized that they needed to tell their own stories. It would be more fun that way. So I wrote in their voices about the "adventures" that we had together.
So far so good. Then school started in August and as I introduced the Angel Snakes I spoke of them just as I had written of them. But speaking face to face is different from reading and writing. Something happened then. I am not sure what. I would slip into character and be the Angel Snake caretaker instead of Mrs. Pogue, the English teacher. That's when the new students began to look at me like maybe a screw was loose. A concerned parent even asked the counselor if I was "okay." She replied that I was eccentric and creative. Some of the students got it and began to ask to take an Angel Snake home to spend the weekend.
Several months ago when I began working on a chapter book, I had to make the Angel Snakes even more real for me. As I make the specific figures and write about them, they become more and more real each day.
Taking them places and photographing them almost always means I will meet someone new or interact with someone I already know in a new way.
What could be more real than that?
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