Dear Micah-

I’ve asked several authors this question and haven’t yet heard a good answer: How do you come up with your ideas? How do you ensure that the ideas you’ve come up with haven’t been used by someone else?

I’m always afraid that one of my stories has been written by someone else, and I’ll be accused of plagiarism. Since there’s no way to read every short story out there, I wonder if this has already happened.

Thanks for listening,

Shannon

You haven’t heard a good answer because there is no good answer. I can’t summon ideas—they arrive on their own schedule. The most persistent ones are put to paper. The rest are filed away for possible future use.

(Sometimes I get an idea that is both persistent and awful, like a lousy song that keeps repeating in my head. Here’s the most recent: owner of heavy metal record store is contacted by a former Nazi scientist, to help retrieve a lost amulet with supposed magical powers. One year that idea has been pestering me. So I’m posting it, and giving you all permission to take that idea and make it into your masterpiece.)

As for the fear of plagiarism…don’t worry. Let’s say that by some wild chance your story bears similarity to a previously published piece by, oh, I don’t know, John Cheever. Let’s say you have similar characters (the disaffected husband and his shrewish wife), a similar setting (cabana in the Florida Keys), and even a similar resolution (disaffected husband realizes his existential futility and goes for a walk on the beach, never to return). Despite all that, your two stories will still be completely different. Why? Because writing is a sum of infinite variables.

I do like your question, though, because it contains a unique idea: the author’s doppelganger, which now that I think about it isn’t so unique. Stephen King did a story like that. The one where Johnny Depp played the author. Right?

But if you’re still worried that somewhere in the world, someone published a story that you’ve already written, use that fear to spur your reading. Tell yourself you’re researching potential doppelgangers, and grab a book of Cheever’s stories.

It’s a gray, rainy day in Boston so I’ll end this post on a pithy note: All art is homage, anyway.

A few years ago, after reading Tobias Wolff’s novel Old School, I wondered what had taken me so long to discover his work. Fortunately I read Old School after finishing my similarly-themed first novel. Otherwise–and I can pretty well guarantee this–Wolff’s voice would have crept into my work, looked around, and asked: “Just what the hell are all these adjectives doing here?”

Which may not have been a bad thing. Anyway, I’m proud to announce I’ve been selected as a finalist for the Tobias Wolff Award for Short Fiction, for my story “The Love Life of Tigers.” I’ll make the story available on my site after the judging is finished.

What else. Two years ago saw the Coolidge Corner Theater premiere of my short horror film “The Last Job.” Since then I’ve been kicking around the idea of expanding the script into feature length, and last night (2 a.m. to be exact) I decided I’m done kicking that poor idea. I’m giving the damn thing a shot. Granted, most 2 a.m. ideas are not so good–we’re moving to Perth, we’re replacing our siding with vinyl, etc.–but this one just might work.

Quick note: My wife and I have never considered a move to Perth, nor a switch to vinyl. Given the choice, we’d take Perth.

It’s been a long time since I received any Gods-related fan mail. Back when it first hit the shelves, accompanied by a sprinkling of publicity, a few readers sent their praises and criticisms. Then it launched in Italy, and clawed its way to the top of the best-seller heap (courtesy of Sonzogno’s killer marketing team), and the fan mail I received was all in Italian. I didn’t understand a word of it. Well, maybe a few words. Mostly the good ones.

But it seems Gods is still floating around out there, in the capitalist version of limbo: the dollar store. A recent emailer came to read Gods courtesy of a Dollartree, and he wanted to tell me the backstory. I love backstories, especially when they end with praise.

Hello Mr. Nathan,

This would be the first time in short life of 22 years that i’ve actually written a letter or e-mail to anyone I don’t know.  Normally, doing something like this would just be an afterthought and I would go about my life, soon to forget it.

However, I was… entranced by your book and the almost funny circumstances surrounding how I came to procure your novel.  Before I start, I just want to let you know that I am long winded but out of respect, i’ll try to keep my story short and sweet.  Anyway, without further ado…

I work at a small independent advertising sales office and i’ve been working their for two years, now.  I have often wondered if it would ever get any easier to call unsuspecting businesses around America asking them to advertise with us but after all this time, it hasn’t.  My boss had me run an errand to get the whole office (5 people in total) a bunch of energy drinks to help us get through a particularly dreary day and as I was waiting in the line at my local Dollartree, standing behind two elderly ladies paying with what seemed to be a bunch of pennies, I saw your book and thought that reading might help me get through my day.  I saw “Gods of Aberdeen” amongst some of the other books and I read through a couple synopsis’ of the books, including yours. Gods was the most intriguing.

I didn’t expect much, to be honest with you.  I thought you were a female author when I first saw the name because I had a co-worker who was named Micah and she wasn’t with us, too long but still, that was the only other time I had ever heard or seen that name.  I couldn’t imagine a first person narrative coming from a male character being too accurate coming from a female author as they have just not been on that side of the fence while growing up but, during the first third of the book; I found the narrative to be incredibly intimate and I was sucked in, almost effortlessly.  This book absorbed me from cover to cover and I found out after those first hundred pages that you were a male author and it made more sense so…

Anyway, I just want to tell you that I really enjoyed the book and I almost feel bad for only spending a dollar on it.  I felt like I owed you this letter, at least.  It must take ages to finish a novel and while I have wanted be an author since I was young, the undertaking has seemed almost futile.  The allure of a safer job in accounting or something like that beckons me when I think of my dream of living in a house on the beach in Oregon, someday.  But your book has kind of helped to remind me that i’m still young.  I still have time to make a change in my life and i’ll have to make a decision between following my heart and following the almighty dollar.

I don’t want to rant on too much longer but I just want you to know that I loved Eric and the rest of the characters in Gods.  I don’t read books too often and when I get something good, I don’t stop reading until i’m finished… only i’m always disappointed when a good book ends because that’s the last thing i’ll know about a character that i’ve grown attached to.  Keep up the good work and i’ll keep my eye out for any future works you come out with… and not just at the Dollartree.

Take care and thanks for being an author,

Caleb Lowrance

I’m heartened to hear the synopsis actually performed its duty–that is, selling the book without giving away too much. Writing book jacket copy is a nail-chewing prospect, and the good news is your marketing team takes on the challenge, then sends you the first draft. The bad news is that we authors are a territorial, nit-picky bunch. I spent way too long editing the synopsis, and I’m pretty sure my final version was close to my first version. The hours (days) spent between first attempt and last, desperate gasp were almost useless. Almost as in 90%.

There are far more experienced writers than I who can talk about the inherent futility of the writing life–and maybe years from now I’ll look back on this post and chastise my younger self for saying futility is inherent, rather than symptomatic–but I don’t think this futility is a bad thing. All artists struggle with futility, even the really happy ones. In fact, forget I said artists. Futility finds its way into all pursuits, so you may as well let it find its way into a pursuit you love.

My essay “The Blonde or Brunette” appears in the newest issue of Boston Globe Magazine. Credit goes to my editor for giving it a better title than “Weird Science.” Evoking LeBrock, Hall, and Wells was not my intention. Give it a few days–it should hit the stands (do people use stands anymore?) by early next week.

It may be that “Murakami” is a common Japanese name, like Brown or Smith (though I’ve only met one Brown in my life, and two Smiths), and coincidence has nothing to do with the sudden entry of both these excellent artists into my life. Or it might be some sort of sign, which would be nice. It would mean the universe is actually paying attention.

Whatever the cause, fate-tinged or not, I’ve recently discovered both Takashi Murakami and Haruki Murakami. The former through a NYT article first published in 2003, which caught my attention because the reviewer called T. Murakami’s work “visually ravishing…surrealistically hair-raising, which argues against dismissing it.”

I’m not sure what the rationale is for dismissing any art, other than personal taste, but I didn’t even look at T. Murakami’s work after that article. I just knew I liked him. And I figured one day, somehow, his paintings would come to me.

Cut to this 2005 article, then to this 2008 feature, and I finally, finally saw T. Murakami’s work. It was like recognizing a face from a recurring dream–more assumed than experienced, but still real. I’m not a big fan of anime and manga (I like the concept, but the application is almost always…I don’t know, disappointing), yet T. Murakami distills the best of Japanese pop art into a colorful, saturated nightmare. It’s like Bosch with a sense of humor. And a penchant for handbags.

The second Murakami (though chronologically he should be the first) is quickly becoming one of my favorite–oh, hell. He is one of my favorite writers. Haruki Murakami. Writer of novels and short stories, keeper of nostalgia and carrier of Kafka’s torch. I tried to avoid using Kafka because citing influences never tells us as much as we’d like, other than performing marketing shorthand. So forget the Kafka reference and enjoy H. Murakami for what he is: A fine writer who combines surrealism with humanism better than anyone in the biz. No small feat, I assure you. Start with his recent collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. You’ll like it. Even more than R.O.T.O.R..

So today finds me two weeks removed from finishing Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends. I’d recently soured on the essay form—figured it was a stopgap between novels, easier to sell than poetry and slightly more relevant. Trouble was I hadn’t found anything that got me excited. Which should be the point, right?

Until this passage leapt from the pages of Chabon’s essay, Trickster in a Suit of Lights: Thoughts on the Modern Short Story:

I’d like to believe that, because I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period. Oh, I could decoct a brew of other, more impressive motivations and explanations. I could uncork some stuff about reader response theory, or the Lacanian parole. I could go on about the storytelling impulse and the need to make sense of experience through story. A spritz of Jung might scent the air. I could adduce Kafka’s formula: “A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.” I could go down to the cafe at the local mega-bookstore and take some wise words of Abelard or Koestler about the power of literature off a mug. But in the end — here’s my point — it would still all boil down to entertainment, and its suave henchman, pleasure. Because when the axe bites the ice, you feel an answering throb of delight all the way from your hands to your shoulders, and the blade tolls like a bell for miles.

Annotations help a little (“Lacanian” refers to Jacques Lacan, the French psychoanalyst; “parole”—and this gets a little tricky—refers to Lacan’s concept of word or speech, from Lacan’s belief in the primacy of speech as forming human relation), but even without knowing Abelard (you know him, even if you think you don’t) or Arthur Koestler (you should know him, even if you think you shouldn’t), Chabon’s words are vital.

Not just because they echo stuff I wrote about two years ago, in my book tour journal, and not just because Chabon has the chops—and the awards-cum-legitimacy—to write about slumming it in pulp land. But because he’s right. That Kafka nonsense about ice-axes and frozen souls is the sort of eyeroll-inducing purple prose that attempts to elevate the story qua entertainment (all my complaining about eye roll-inducing and here I go and use qua) to something “better.” As if story by itself isn’t elevated enough. Really. Do we need an ice-axe breaking our frozen souls?

Well, yes. But the writer doesn’t have to lead with that. The writer can lead with cracking good yarns. The ice-axe is better off as a seducer. Get our guard down. Please us. Then slip it in and leave us wondering just what the hell you did.

Murakami’s Dance, Dance, Dance is the perfect example of my ice-axe-better-off-as-a-seducer alternative.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with fiction for entertainment’s sake. Damn profundity—make it readable. Chabon finally said it. The scholar with street cred. Thank God. Onward…

An emailer from Coldwater, Michigan wondered if I’d seen any of H.P. Lovecraft’s film adaptations. Specifically, Dagon. And if so, why don’t I include it in my list of “fun and terrible” movies.

I don’t consider Dagon that fun. It has its moments, of course—its chase sequence through the rainy, dank alleyways of a New England coastal town comes to mind—but Dagon drags, and sputters, and isn’t inept enough to keep our attention through the slow spots.

You want fun and not-so-terrible? Rent From Beyond. Fantastic stuff. You’ll never look at a pineal gland the same way. How’s that for a tagline?

It’s long overdue, but I’m finally attending this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, which makes me realize how long I’ve wanted to go. I tend to avoid conventions; my first was the BookExpo America in 2005, when Simon & Schuster launched Gods. It was okay, but I was too stressed to take it all in (highlight: dragging my publicist to the Wizards of the Coast booth, where I geeked out on D&D nostalgia with a fellow thirty-something).

In ages past, Comic-Con was the provenance of geeks, a lousy word (geeks, not provenance) that doesn’t mean anything, other than a caricature of intensely-devoted, whip-smart creative types (of course the old meaning of geek–a circus performer who bites off the heads of live animals–is a tremendous word, and should be brought back into the mainstream, though in the interest of animals, soy substitutes should be used). A love for comic books seems to be a prerequisite for geek-status, but the publishing world has avoided that stigma by calling certain comic books (the ones that cost 20 bucks) graphic novels. I like graphic novel as much as the next writer. It sounds impressive. But does that mean regular comics are graphic short stories?

Of course the geek part of Comic-con is long past, co-opted by the economic power of niche marketing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I do feel a little, I don’t know…sheepish. I missed my chance to get there in the beginning. Before it became the trendy launch pad for those comic book franchises we’ve been waiting years for.

It used to be slim pickings. Remember the first Punisher? The one with Dolph Lundgren, where he lived in the N.Y. sewers, rode his Harley through the tunnels, and meditated in candlelit sewer rooms, naked, contemplating his violent ways? I convinced myself that movie was awesome. Even though I knew it wasn’t. It was the Punisher. It had ninjas. It had Louis Gosset Jr.. It was good enough.

The aesthetic of the absurd provides a clearer critical lens than most cinemaphiles are willing to gaze through. It’s a shame, because for all the criticisms labeling the publishing world as conservative and befuddled, genre continues to rescue the book industry from the highbrow monopoly. Dumas’ swashbuckling masterpieces are hailed as such, Hammett is given his due, and McCarthy’s The Road is the first zombie novel to win a Pulitzer (and one of the most readable books published in the last ten years).

The canon of “important” films, however, has been penned by critics of the same mind, offshoots if not first cousins of the literary fetish clique in the publishing business. An important film is automatically hailed as a good film. A film that exposes forgotten injustice, that anchors itself in real horror rather than caricatures, is given critical leeway. And perhaps this is necessary. Perhaps this shows the value of art as education, the fictionalized form of truth that makes us let down our guard so the nasty stuff can seep in.

But there should always be a place in the critical canon for terrible films that are fun to watch. Not shielded by irony or rationalized by contrarians looking for profundity where none exists. Just fun and terrible. By “fun” I mean hilarious and unbound by the constraints of act structure (start watching the film at any time and it’s just as enjoyable). By “terrible” I mean films bearing the mark of low quality. We all know terrible when we see it, yet terrible is not awful. Terrible is the opposite of awful. Awful wears the countenance of quality. Awful is where the writing has gone through the eager hands of a dozen uncredited writers and script doctors. Awful is where the editing is crisp, the actors weep convincingly, and we are left with something that looks fantastic but can’t keep our attention, like a lobotomized runway model.

The 1989 sci-fi movie R.O.T.O.R. is the opposite of that lobotomized runway model. It’s the earnest, fifteen- years-past-her-prime low-rent strumpet at the end of the bar wearing a bootleg version of Chanel #5. Spend an evening with her and you’ll have a story to tell. As it is with R.O.T.O.R.

A clip for the uninitiated, the skeptical, or the morbidly curious:

My next book may be a return to the world of prep schools and precocious teens. It won’t be another “Gothic Tweed” tale as The Buffalo News labeled my first book. But I’ll stick with that label for now because it was so spot-on for Gods, and it suggests my first novel was the harbinger of a new genre. Flattering, of course. Accurate for my next book? Not so much.

Provided I can make it past the first few chapters—the equivalent of leaving a Spartan child on the mountainside and letting it fend for itself—I’d like to finish this as-yet untitled Gothic Tweed novel quickly. Figure six months, give or take a year. I’m in a rush because I’ll need a clear desk to start work on the sequels and prequels to Jack the Bastard.

Sequels? Prequels? That’s right—I’ve stolen a page (or several) from Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub. Most stories are fit for one book, some require two or three sequels, and a rare few demand a world made flesh. JTB falls into the latter category. I’ve already added a novella to the JTB canon, an urban chambara titled Harlem Shogun. We’ll see where that tale of bloody satisfaction ends up.

My essay “Weird Science” will be in the May 11th issue of Boston Globe magazine. I’ll link the text on the Essay page.

One other thing. Game designer Tim Schafer is one of my gaming industry heroes, and his upcoming title Brütal Legend looks incredible. Heavy metal roadie vs. demons. What more do you need?

I’m both antsy and drained these days, after a year that saw me finish two novels. It might be the weather–the gray days of March in Boston lend credence to that childhood nonsense about lions and lambs. But gray days or not, my persistent ennui is a symptom of an author’s most dreaded time: the creative lull between novels.

I don’t like authors who complain about their jobs so I’ll spare you the hypocrisy and paint a rosy picture of the author as content, spending his free time at the boxing gym, in the garden, playing Streets of Rage 2 on his Sega Genesis emulator. The author is also halfway through writing a text game for the iPod, a little post-apocalyptic tale called Wunderland (working title). I grew up playing Steve Jackson CYOA books, and from there the progression to Infocom was both necessary and inevitable. So I figured a text game for the iPod would be a fun side project, my (very) humble homage to the geniuses at Infocom. When it’s available, I’ll post it on this site. 100% free. No registration, no email required. Just download, play, and send me your feedback.

What else. The Boston Globe magazine is running my personal essay in their “Coupling” column, pub. date unknown but likely coming soon. I’m reading Japanese Tales by Royall Tyler. Great stuff. Some of which may find its way into my next book.