R is for Rosemarie

 It's always fun to write characters that bring out a different (sometimes worse) side of the characters I love. And Rosemarie Alessio is one of those characters.

Marita's mother is the polar opposite of her daughter in every way, which is most definitely not an accident. Rosemarie is the upstanding wife of a judge, concerned about her reputation and status in the church she attends weekly, as well as the larger community. She is, after all, the wife of a respected member of the judiciary.

Marita, on the other hand, cares about none of those things. She is, as Rosemarie would say, "free-spirited," (though Rosemarie would fight the urge not to grit her teeth while using this euphemism). Rosemarie is a rules and regulations kind of woman; Marita is a break the rules and regulations kind of girl.

Or at least she was until she had Charli. Marita takes motherhood seriously and, while she wants Charli to have fun, she also wants to spare her the pain of learning every lesson from experience. Marita wants to have a different relationship with her daughter than she had with her own mother, one based on honesty, trust, and, as much as possible, friendship. Though she knows that rebellion is a normal part of growing up, her goal is to raise Charli in a way that will lead to a more G-rated version of rebellion than Marita's own teen years.

When I wrote the MAC books (my shorthand for the three novels starring Marita, Angel, Charli along with Marita's best friend (and partner in antics just short of crime) Bets), I had never seen a single episode of Gilmore Girls. It was only when I met an agent at a conference who told me that Casting the First Stone reminded her of Gilmore Girls that I checked the show out. 

The agent wasn't wrong. She was so right, in fact, that I'm certain that Lorelei and Marita would understand each other perfectly, a conclusion I've come to after seeing all of the episodes at least twice. And Emily and Rosemarie? They could spend multi-course meals dissecting all the ways their daughter have disappointed them.

Though my characters are never consciously inspired by fictional characters, they are sometimes inspired by people I know. Other times, I write them as polar opposites, as is the case with Rosemarie. I was fortunate enough to be raised by parents who told me if I tried my best, that was all they could expect from me. Marita was not so lucky. Her best is never good enough for Rosemarie, who ruled the roost when it came to parenting Marita.

One thing Marita and Rosemarie have in common is the thing that Lou Grant hated: spunk. While Rosemarie's spunk is suppressed and channeled into what she considers appropriate behavior, Marita's is more diffuse. Together with Bets, Marita puts her spunk to good use, standing up for what she believes in while having a genuinely good time, and encouraging her daughter to do the same.

If Rosemarie ever had a good time, she certainly isn't letting on. 

But she was definitely fun to write.