Undriven Books
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Soundtracks
When I
write, I like to create soundtracks for the project I’m working on. Sometimes the songs I choose reflect the time
of the script - lots of swing for J. Edgar Hoover - or comment on the plot or
characters - lots of Queen for J. Edgar Hoover.
Brackets was defined by The Go
Go’s, the Pixies, and the soundtrack for A
Clockwork Orange. Gods and Monsters had a lot of British
pop and naturally a little Amanda Palmer.
The project
I’m working on now is a difficult one, meant to evoke emotions that are going
to be tough to take. I won’t go into the
specifics of what it’s about - not yet - but I will share the playlist.
A lot of
hints in there, but not in the way you might expect. The one thing they all have in common is the
ability to put me in the world of the book I’m working on right now, exactly
where I need to be.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Origins - Brackets
Neil Gaiman
famously said that people don’t really have origin stories, and while that’s
likely the case for you and me, it’s most definitely not true for stories. There’s usually a single moment, a
flashpoint, where the contents of one’s brain mesh with some outside stimulus
and whamo! An idea is formed.
Ever
wondered where writers get their ideas?
This is how it happened for Brackets.
The story
behind Brackets actually begins a few
years ago at my day job. It was one of
those periods where nobody in the department was getting along with anybody
else. Happens in every work
environment. Not a day goes by that
someone didn’t want to strangle someone else.
But here’s
the weird thing about it. The conflicts
were very specific. Person A hated
Person B. Person C hated Person D. Person A didn’t care about C or D and vice
versa. It was all very one on one.
Now, I have
a lot of time at my job. It’s just the
way the task I perform is structured. So
one day, bored out of my mind, I came up with a brilliant way to solve the
departmental angst: a fighting tournament.
I made a
little bracket on a sheet of paper, lining up the combatants. We even had a nice open dock area in our
building where the bouts could take place.
It was a goof, a kneeslapper, something to acknowledge what everyone
knew was going on as well as take the edge off.
I showed it
to my then boss. He thought it was
hilarious. I showed to everyone in the
department. There was much jocularity.
And then I
tossed it in a desk drawer and forgot about it.
Until one
day when I was doing the dishes.
No,
seriously. I was doing the dishes. I’ve read that Agatha Christie got her best
ideas while doing the dishes, so I got that going for me.
Anyway, I
don’t remember how the wires connected, but I do recall having the thought
about tournament brackets, “Hey, that’s what they should do in high school.”
Wham-BLEEPing-o!
And it all
pretty much came to me instantly. The
basic characters, the structure of the book, the tone, the whole nine.
This is
what people mean when they say things like “Write what you know.” No, they don’t mean write reportage about
your day to day life. What they mean is
take something you know and place it in another context. Use the raw material you have and turn it
into something greater than itself.
There was
just one tiny problem with the “fighting brackets in high school” idea: I
didn’t believe it. I mean, I thought it
was a fantastic idea. But something that
came together so effortlessly had to have already been done. Not that I was a thief. But sometimes you read something, forget
about it, and then the brain dredges it up later as an original idea.
So I sat on
it for awhile. I wrote down what I had,
but I continued to search for wherever I had cobbled the notion from. Yes, there was Battle Royale. And The Hunger Games had come out, but I
wasn’t aware of it at that point.
Besides,
this was a contemporary story. The way I
saw it, it was Fight Club meets A Clockwork Orange in high school. Fueling the idea, bullying had become a cause
célèbre with It Gets Better and other anti-bullying efforts.
Eventually,
I gave up trying to find where I had seen the same story before. I hadn’t, at least not the way I wanted to
tell it.
It was finally
time to write, but that, of course, is a whole other story.
Declaration of Principles
So what’s
this blog going to be? Well, first and
foremost, it’s going to feature news about all the Undriven Books titles as
well as those from our sister line, My Blanket Fort Books. It’s going to let you know when they’re
coming out, where to get them, and all that jazz. It’ll also give you an occasional behind the
scenes look at the titles.
What we’ll
try to avoid here is the endless “woe is me” of the life of an indie
author. There’s nothing wrong with that,
but there’s more than enough of those blogs online if you really want to read
that.
It isn’t
going to be all Undriven Books, though.
We’ll have a few reviews, some rants, the occasional recommendation, and
a look at some of the other people doing awesome work online.
So stick
around. I’ll try not to suck.
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