A writer in flux

The thing is:

I finished my novel Parkland last summer after nine years of work. Crazy, because while I was writing it, I actually completed two other novels (neither of which I have yet found a home for). Parkland, though, is different. I believe in all three, but this one is my baby. This one is the one I have been trying to make happen for all of this time, the one that was so hard to write I needed to take the breaks in which the others were written. This is the one I know will make it. All that remains is patience and perseverance.

My students ask me how I start writing a novel. Where do ideas come from? And I answer: damned if I know. I'm only being partially facetious. I know where all three of these ideas came from, but I do not know where the things that are in the books came from other than to say that the characters themselves created them.

I wrote a fantasy novel for young adults that began in 2003 while I was in Edinburgh--at about the same time I started Parkland. My goal in writing that one was simple: the fourth book in the Harry Potter series had come out and JK Rowling had announced that there would be seven; I could foresee a time when there would be this great black hole in the publishing world, a large vacuum waiting for something to rush to fill it. I decided to be that something. And I thought that something Potter-esque, but set more firmly in the real world (a world in fact in which Hogwarts was a bit of a joke) and steering clear of what I felt were some of the failings of the series (black v white characters, lack of technology, lack of interconnection with the "muggle" world, a kids v. world mentality, etc.) might be just the right thing. So I wrote this wonderful, expansive book with all sorts of twists and turns, only to find that Rowling, in her later books, anticipated pretty much every one of my issues. (Damn her.) It's still a good read, but it needs something more now, and I am going to have to work on that.

I wrote the second book because, over a Christmas break several years ago, I was motivated to write a few brief comic episodes essentially about my almost impossibly ridiculous family and living situation. Once I had begun what was a slightly fictionalized version of my reality, I found it enjoyable enough to keep going, and very quickly had written a slim book of 42 such episodes that told a complete story.

42.

I suppose I should explain 42: I long ago decided that any book I ever write will have 42 chapters in it, a tribute to one of my favorite writers, the late great Douglas Adams, one of the most original comic minds ever to open a computer. 42, for those who have never had the incredible pleasure of reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and what the heck is wrong with you???), is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

(You need to read Adams to understand. OK, you won't even then, but it will be funny.)

As to Parkland, this is a story I have always wanted to write because, in essence, it is my story. Or anyway it is my story as I wish it could have been (give or take the horrific elements). At this point I will settle for being a huge advocate to LGBT (and especially transgender) rights. It is a story that needs to be told and needs to be out there because TG people are still way too misunderstood.

I think novelists get their ideas from their own lives a lot of the time. But they can also come from pretty much anywhere. I tell my students to start being aware of the world around them. To read the paper. Watch the news. Listen to conversations. That's where ideas come from. And if one comes, run with it.