“Where do you get your ideas?”
I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked that – because I don’t know how to count to zero.
But if/when I were asked that, I would try to BS my way clear, and then ask if they’d like more coffee. I am a Peet, after all.
See, it’s like this – most of the time the weirdness just flows through me, and I spend a fair amount of effort tending to the walls that keep the weirdness in, and keep me out of long-term lockdown. I read stories, I see things, they pair up – or they don’t – and I wonder how that works out.
F’rinstance, I read about a bear adopted by Polish troops fighting in Italy in 1944. The bear performed heroically and was made a corporal. He even has a statue. Post-war did not go well for him, as he was imprisoned in a zoo and turned mean. Did he have PTSD? Was he planning to bust out, start a new war so he and his old friends could re-live their glory days? Who knows? The fun part is, I can make up these stories and nobody can argue that they’re crazy. After all, we’re starting with a heroic bear.
Stories are all over, and it’s my job to pay attention, think and feel about which tales I can best tell.
The fact is, our world, all these people, are more fun to watch than cat videos, and I know that’s saying a lot. The stories fly all over, we’re swimming in emotions, and we’re all trying to make sense of things, get through the day/week/month/year/life. It’s ‘crazy’ and ‘order’ duking it out, and I sit here like a commentator or color man.
The fact that I place my stories in places that don’t exist, my people using tools that can’t be, isn’t important if I do it right. Stories is stories, and people is people, and really that’s all we care about. Little piggies is people, mermaids is people, Godzilla is people – ‘people’ is all we have a hope of understanding (and we’re not doing that well at that), so every character is someone you can relate to, feel with, speak for.
They all have to play in my sandbox, where the hero with a thousand faces saves the cat over and over.
Almost as often I’m asked if I’ve been published. This might lead to an informative discourse on how the publishing world has changed, awards are not what they used to be, indie publishing …. An oral essay no sane person wants to hear – this might be why s-f authors talk about this stuff so much.
As far as milestones – I’m re-entering the fray. I’ve had earlier versions of books e-published and pulled them. Now I have a proper site, improved books, and I even bought a special gold-plated rake to deal with all the cash bound to flow in. I have three books out and a fourth getting perilously close. My partner in rhyme Lindsay Petersen has two out and a third also close.
We have ‘deals’ on offer, we might even cooperate on crossover packages. Who knows? She can be awkward.
Lindsay Peet, 8/18/2022
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