Wow, between here and Twitter and Facebook and the Blueboards, thank you for the responses to my new book cover and the story summary! I still get a bit breathless when I look at the cover.
Speaking of what is now Imaginary Girls, do you ever wonder where your ideas come from? The smallest kernel of them? The defining moment?
I remember when this novel used to be a short story… originally inspired by two particular Cat Power songs (NO, I assure you, my novel is not about werewolves!). I looked back in my archives and found the moment I put down the first-ever words that are distantly related to the idea that became this novel: December 30, 2006. I wrote six paragraphs about two sisters living in a certain house you’ll still find in my novel.
Here’s a blog post I wrote on that fateful day, where I mention having a new idea for a new short story.
I was totally clueless, wasn’t I?
I was writing a whole other novel in December of 2006. I didn’t yet know it would end up living in a box under my bed and that the tiny little six-paragraph something I’d just typed out in a rush would—what? four years later—end up becoming this:
The world works in mysterious ways.
Where did your latest novel begin? Can you find the exact moment when it entered your mind? Pinpoint the kernel of an idea that set you afire and got you writing what you’re writing now? Remember an odd detail, like the music you were listening to when it came your way?
It’s a weird thing to look back, no? It feels like such a long time ago.
distraction no.99 