I'm fascinated by the Watchers. For those of you who don't watch Highlander, the Watchers are a group of people dedicated to observing and recording the lives of the Immortals.
Highlander fans are often called Watchers, for this very reason. We record the lives of the Immortals, discussing every little bit of information about the Immortals they watch. I find the Immortals interesting, of course. As a fanfiction writer, I'm even more of a Watcher, recording the lives of Immortals that may never make it onto the screen. Greer came out of this fascination. She was the product of a "what if?" situation, in this case being "What if a Watcher became Immortal?". Her name came out of a baby-naming book that I own. The reason she's called Greer is because Greer is short for Gregoria, which is a feminine form of Gregor, which means "watcher".
So Georgina "Greer" Lewis was born. Since I started writing her story shortly after the episode "Eye for an Eye" (5th story, 2nd season) was shown, her development was affected accordingly. For one thing, the Watchers had just been introduced, and no one had any idea how they were structured. The swordfight in the end was somewhat influenced too.
I had lots of fun with "A Change of Perspective". A friend, who had helped me the previous year with one of my stories, got to help me this time as well. I'm sure "okay, I have to figure out how to kill off a character in a warehouse..." was not what she was expecting that day. But the idea of the electrocution was hers.
I didn't know much about Greer at this point. Oh, I knew her age range, that she had a couple of friends, and hadn't seen her family for a long time. That was the extent of her background. And I wasn't expecting her to be in love with Michael. But she was.
So, at the end of the story, I had a sad parting, and a character that lothed watching. What next?
She ended up in a second story. This time, I wanted to know how she'd react to meeting up with another Watcher who knew full well what she was. So she ended up in Seattle (yes, I know it's Seacouver - I've actually been to Seattle!) seeking out Joe Dawson.
This one had its fun touches as well. The place where Greer has her first face-to-face with Richie is outside a shopping mall that I was in once. A very good shopping mall. I'm very fond of bookstores, and so Joe's bookstore made its appearance (this was still second season).
I had some difficulty with the plot. The main bad guy didn't make his first appearance until late in the story. Neither Jasper nor Robert were meant to be bad - they just ended up that way. Later drafts would clarify that part of the plot.
I found out a lot more about her in this story. She was having trouble seperating from the Watchers. She was semi-suicidal, due to her reluctance to be in the Game. And she ended up with a dislike for Watchers and Joe Dawson in particular.
And that should have been the end of Greer's stories. Right? Wrong. By this time, I was starting to branch out to write other Immortals. My next project was "Watchful Eyes" which Greer is not in at all. However, Greer's good friend, Michael, gets quite a bit of background in it.
Thanks to "Watchful Eyes" (which is still being edited), I decided to write a Greer-Michael reunion. This turned out to be "Limitations" which is still being written. Since Sacramento is my home town, I got to put in a bit of local detail in both stories as they were set there.
While I was becoming frustrated on both of those stories, I decided, for fun, that I would write something for a friend. This turned out to be "Differing Varieties", which is a crossover with the British/American series "The Tomorrow People". I started writing this in April, during the third season of TP, but didn't finish anything recognizable until October.
In October, I found an editor that was familiar with both programs. So, I got to do my second rewrite of "Differing Varieties". And some things finally fell into place.
I'd made Greer left-handed in "These Daughters" because I'd accidentally had her holding her wrist in a way that would have exposed her tattoo if she'd been wearing it on her left wrist (where her tattoo was). So, in "Differing Varieties" she finally admits that she is left-handed (like me).
She was unsure about killing, which made her a perfect candidate for Adam's arguments. She felt guilty (as did Michael) for leaving the Watchers with one less person, so Lisa ended up in the Watchers.
Other things I finally put in for Greer in DV were such things as her birthdate (December 23, 1993), her middle name (Annette - I'd been watching too many old Mickey Mouse Club programmes), and the fact that she had never been overseas before.
Greer has surfaced again in "Understanding" where she overdid a demonstration of who she was. I was having insomnia one night while writing another story, and so this one surfaced.
That other story was "With Human Blood and Human Tears", which I am working on as I type. The original story idea had no Greer at all; instead, the Greer story that I was writing has merged with this one. So, I have two people with problems, and I'm having fun figuring out the rest of the plot past page 15 at this point.
Of course, I am having fun with this one. Greer is not a pop music fan. Despite this, Ace of Base's "The Bridge" plays almost continually during this story. This is because it is a wonderful album, and the song "Que Sera" has a lot of influence, not only because I feel it is evocative of Greer, but because it has some very valuable advice:
"There's no return, we live, we learn/ The game goes on and on..."
Which is what some people in the story so far fail to realize, that we must get past our problems because we can't change our past, but we can resolve not to make the mistake again.
Greer does appear in two little vignettes that I wrote, which I am not dropping to a list because they're no big deals. They're related to another story I'm writing which has no Greer in it, but does have a slight relationship to Differing Varieties.
And I'm sure Greer will show up again. I've had too much fun writing her.