Sweethearts and Monsters started out as an exercise to see if I still ‘had it,’ after a long hiatus. This was my second book. My first, “Semiperfect Heroes” took ten years to write, starting out on a manual typewriter, and it upgraded with me as I graduated to electric typewriter to computer. Not long after I finished the first and started sending it around to agents, I saw a woman with some similarities to my main character appear on a morning talk show. She was promoting her book on her life, which had eerie similarities to my own novel. I thought I’d made her up…
A few months later I heard of people and situations from some of my short stories turning up in real life. That spooked me enough to keep me from writing fiction for ten years. I wrote mainly things like opinion pieces for our local paper, press releases and other publicity items for small charities, and long letters to friends and relatives. One I got online, it was e-mail. I’m at heart a storyteller; even if I wasn’t writing them down, I was still making up stories as a way of getting to sleep, or pass the time on long drives or in waiting rooms. Eventually a friend talked me out of my unreasonable fear, because she was convinced I could do a better job than the books she was reading then. I started playing around with a short story about computer geeks in love.
Doris never got to see the short story; she passed away a few days after she encouraged me to get back into fiction. I’d promised her I’d finish the story and publish it—on somebody’s website if I had to, because although I wasn’t actively writing, I kept in touch with writers and understood the short story market. Somehow the story turned into a book. It grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let me go! I was working sometimes 24 hours at a stretch, but it was the most fun I could imagine having by myself. I based the characters on people I knew online. Because in most cases I didn’t know what they looked like or their ages, this was fun on its own, assigning them names and living quarters and their own little quirks. One guy is afraid of heights, another hates staying in hotels because he owns one.
After finishing and publishing four books – three novels and one non-fiction, this one is still my favorite. It gave me some of the techniques I still use today, such as ‘interviewing’ a potential character to see why he or she belongs in that book. It also gave me the courage to take out things that don’t belong. I knew while I was writing that it absolutely must be the best I could do at the time. I couldn’t ease up on myself and let any mistakes slide. I knew people would be reading it, and many of them would be strangers. It’s the same thing as holding a meeting for the garden club or whatever at your house. Only in this case, you can’t close any doors or hide any dirty dishes in the oven. You’re going to vacuum, polish the furniture, and put everything away where it belongs.
This book made me glad I was able to write fiction again. I won’t ever need to feel frustration anymore when I see a real character ahead of me in line at the grocery store, or my husband comes out with a brilliant, funny line. I have the option now of adding them into the current book, or one later on.
As to the weird state of affairs of book things coming to life, so far it hasn’t happened again. I gave up worrying about it. For me, it’s more important that my stories get out somewhere and maybe other people can have the same fun reading them as I did writing!
