introducing charlie's dad

When I first read the manuscript for Bye, Bye, Butterflies, the character of Charlie made me think of a drawing of a little boy that I had done in my sketchbook while I was living in Paris.  That was what I started with when I was trying to figure out how Charlie would look.

I had no idea what Charlie's dad would look like, except for the fact that I knew I wanted him and Charlie to share a bit of a resemblance.  Since this story is based on something that happened to the author, Andrew Larsen, and his son, my editor suggested that perhaps my character of Charlie's dad might resemble the author.  I played around with that idea and ended up liking the result. I don't know that the drawing looks a lot like the author, which wasn't my goal, but it was inspired by his appearance in the one photo that I saw of him online.