What do we know about two of my 'Scrubber-Town' stars? Where did they come from and who or what inspired their creation?

About six or seven years ago, I belonged to an Adelaide writers' group.  One of the first stories I read aloud to this group was 'Scrubber-Town'. They seemed to like it and laughed in all the places I'd hoped they would; but one woman piped up and asked bluntly:

'Who's the 'we' in the story? I'd written it with a voice that I just referred to as 'we'. Someone was obviously behind the scenes, describing the new shopping centre, Scrubber-Town, but this voice could have been anything or anybody and was quite remote. The woman at my writers' group had a very valid point and I went away vowing to give the 'we' whoever they were, a proper personality  and this is how Lainie and Janie began. I had the idea of turning them into Roving reporters and sort of let them evolve from there.

I didn't really try to describe them very much initially and my idea was that readers could imagine Lainie and Janie for themselves and develop their own idea of what they looked like and what sort of people they were. A kind of Create-Your-Own-Image. But lately, I've changed my mind.

Part of the reason was that a few years ago, our then- teenage son returned home from clubbing one evening with a group of friends. One of these was a girl he sort of 'rescued' as she'd been left high and dry by her other friends and she was plainly drunk. ( Our son 'rescued' several girls over the years and sometimes he remained friends with them and sometimes not). I must have been still awake, because I remember being in the kitchen and our son introducing us. I took one look at this particular girl ( no, I don't remember her name) and she just epitomized 'Lainie'. Blonde and tousle-haired, very chatty and slurring her words, she was clearly drunk, but attractive and quite likeable. She also had an air of mischief. Had I been a casting director, looking for a 'Lainie ' for a televised version of 'Scrubber-Town', I would have said: 'You're it, you're my 'Lainie'.

I didn't have any such revelation about'Janie', but I've decided to fill her out a bit too. Janie is happy to be 'Besties' or BFF's ( whichever) with Lainie and they certainly get up to lots of naughty girl stuff! They love to indulge in weed,vodka or bubbly and chocolate, especially prior to writing their 'Scrubber-Town' Newsletters. Janie doesn't smoke, but Lainie does, though she's trying to give up. She's hoping that the new clinical psychologist Dr. Una Abels will be able to help with that. Dr Una has also encouraged these two to leave the 'Spite-Club'; a gang of rather delinquent girls who make lots of trouble at Scrubber-Town.

Janie, I imagine may be brunette, with hair cut in a sharp bob or even long hair cut into careful layers to frame her face. She's very pretty and knows it. She tends to be more devious than Lainie, who is more upfront and says exactly what she thinks. Janie loves her jazz ballet and drama at which she excels and her family is a bit more stable than Lainie's.  Lainie's big family is very chaotic.

Both girls are destined for exciting things, but you'll just have to read more to find out.

In the next chapter, read what the two girls say about each other.