Camellia’s story starts mid-adventure, with a dark backstory that I don’t think I’ll ever fully reveal.
What lies in her future, only Camellia can say. While I create the storyline for the rest of my dolls, Camellia negotiates her own. She wasn’t even supposed to star in this story – I had another doll altogether in mind. But the doll I’d selected had such a clear need for human contact that I couldn’t bear to send her out onto a deserted island (the eventual landing spot for the story). I chose Camellia for the role because she was the only doll I thought could thrive completely in her own company
But then I had to work with Camellia to figure out how she got on the island. I had a storyline already in place, involving a shipwreck, but Camellia rejected it, along with the next few scenarios I came up with. Ultimately, those stories made her journey a reaction to someone else’s action, and she wanted to create her own wave. So, one evening in barefeet and a ball gown she gets into a boat and sets off. In the morning, when she wakes up, she’s mid-ocean with no land in site. That’s where her story begins.