Writing Wrongs (and Rites)

When the act of writing is at its pernicious worst, I try desperately to gain some perspective by imagining that I could be, instead, cleaning out bedpans, toiling in a coal mine, or making solicitation calls (like I did right out of college). But, after doing so, I sink deeper into my tar pit of pity: after all, a candy striper—after administering a barium enema—doesn’t have her handiwork savaged on Amazon by some idiot named ReedM&weep@aol.com.

Sometimes all of the planets are aligned and writing can be enjoyable and perhaps even productive, akin to cracking open a piñata and feasting on the candy (unfortunately for this metaphor, the piñata is one’s head). And—these wondrous, fleeting moments of inspirational twinkle—make all of the slogging, procrastinating, doubting, and palpitating primal fear worth it.

My process involves poring through notes, grafting together shreds of ideas and hoping that some will play nice together, and researching the topic at hand (in the case of the Heck books, usually this has me sifting through lists of dead historical figures to find potential teachers best suited for the particular circle of Heck I’m fashioning).  At this point, some ridiculous plot-driven chain of events will avail itself and I’ll capture them within a synopsis.

I am both cursed and blessed that my subject matter—the Underworld—is so fertile and I have a lot of conceptual toys to play with. With Rapacia, my sandbox was greed, and—fortunately—research merely involved heading to the local mall. Oh, wait…it seems that one of you has a question. Yes, you. No, the guy with the dueling scar, seersucker suit, and glass briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.

Question: What were the events that affected you writing Rapacia?

Answer: That’s a great question, fabricated figment of my imagination. Most every event in my life led to the physical writing of the book, if you think about it. But I’m sure you mean the events that affected the plot line, specifically. Growing up, the only thing to really do was to hang out at the mall. Even though we never had any money, it’s what we all did, which is rather pointless since we either were wasting our time surrounded by things we didn’t want or torturing ourselves drooling over things we couldn’t afford! So this conundrum probably formed the basis of Mallvana: a place so wonderful and glittering and perfect and awesome that it is either Heaven to some, or Heck to others, depending on your particular circumstances (and credit limit). And, like Marlo Fauster (the just-teen kleptomaniac anti-heroine of the Heck books), I have—as an adolescent—run into a few sticky situations in which certain material items found in a store somehow made it to my backpack. But only a couple and—on both occasions—I did an even more daring act of returning the items. In fact, sometimes my friends and I would commit acts of reverse shoplifting, where we would smuggle stuff that we didn’t want into a store—weird stuff—and put it on the shelves. And also, like the first book, most of the turmoil and horror come from my experiences in middle school, a place that isn’t full of fun and laughter like elementary school, but without the responsibilities, empowerment and promise-of-impending-freedom that high school provides. A place that feels like eternity—and actually is—at least for a little while.

Lightning Round in which I psychically take unformed questions from the collective unconsciousness of my invisible audience

• What am I working on? I’m dusting off an older manuscript and—after doing so—may actually revisit it, if it will have me. In addition, I am working on the fourth Heck: Where the Bad Kids go book, Fibble (honest).

• None of your business, mom. Why do you always, always do this to me?!

• I am currently reading the writing on the wall, while my wife reads me the riot act. My favorite new author is the author that is really good but not too good. That just pisses me off. My favorite book of the year is Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters. My favorite book of all time is whatever book buys me a summer home.

• My favorite food is sweet, hard, wrapped in foil, brown (sometimes white), occasionally has nuts or raisins in it, and gives me a little “lift” just when I need it the most. No, it’s not chocolate…I forget the name, though.

• The writers that have influenced me the most are, in no particular order, Kurt Vonnegut, Roald Dahl, Tom Robbins, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and whoever wrote the “Do not open hatch while aircraft is in flight” sign, which has saved my butt on more than one occasion.

• No, that sound was my thighs rubbing against the Naugahyde chair.