When I was very young, perhaps six or seven years old, I decided to write a novel. It was very exciting for me. I sat at my small desk, lamp light on, and on a ruled sheet of binder paper, set out to compose what I conceived of as having never been done before. Fang was the title, and I was sure it was a brilliant idea. It would be about a killer snake slithering about and killing young victims. I remember a particularly powerful scene in the bathtub where a young woman was strangled to death. I may have been too young to understand the precepts of Freud but clearly my psychologist parents had made their impression. In total, after staying up a little later that night to work on the novel, the story was about a page long. I was disappointed with the length at the time but at a loss as to how it could have been any longer. Later I would try my hand at novel writing again with Fang 2: The Revenge of Fang (the snake goes to the city), and Fang 3: Fang’s Revenge (there were two snakes in this one). Each novel was the same length as the first and each time I finished I was equally surprised and disappointed. Little did I realize that my instincts for a genre franchise were dead on and about as substantial as any horror film series I’ve seen since.
The project was exciting and I felt special working on it. It helped that I had encouraging parents, but there was more to it than just their attention. They equally encouraged me to ride my bike, but I had no interest in the Tour de France. Probably because this wasn’t an instance of a practice version of an interest that could one day grow into something real. No, when I sat down to write my first novel, with that pen to page, I was engaging in the pure act itself without filter or proxy. I was, in fact, performing the same action (more or less) as any adult, legitimate author interested in the same.
There was power in this.
The same power of language and ownership and control I feel today when I write. A child living under the uncertain terms of a set of parents who would one day divorce, I had ultimate control and certainty in the practice of writing, which hugged legitimacy and stayed pretty well insulated from condescension (the worst crime against youth on youth’s terms).
Years later, in college, I struggled to write again. I had some major periods of confusion and absolute loss of control. It was through writing a story, Stockton, that I was able to stabilize myself and get perspective on a set of tumultuous family relationships.
There was power in that, but also a refreshing amount of honesty where truth was constantly in question. I decided to continue writing. I worked on screenplays for a large chunk of time in my late 20s and this resulted in a lot of wasted paper and long periods of time learning the craft of storytelling.
A year after working in development, and witnessing firsthand the treatment of writers in Hollywood, I decided to put moving pictures behind me and start a novel.
