The creative process

I want to be a novelist. That’s my dream job, right there. To be able to kick back and create wonderfully imaginative stories, then share those stories with the world. I have several ideas, but I’ve yet to really get working on any novel. I mean, isn’t everybody trying to ‘finish their novel’? It’s one of those extreme jobs, like a rock star, where you have to work really hard, and even then there’s only a slim chance that you’ll get your big break and be discovered.

The work will be worth it though. I love to write. This blog and my day job are proof of that. I just need to find somebody who will pay me to write what I want to write.

I’ve wanted to write books for a long time now, books or comic books. But ideally, I want to write a novel. An adventure story. Something exciting and character-driven. I have no interest in writing a screenplay and trying to get discovered in Hollywood. Working on a TV show is probably a blast, but that’s still lower on my list than writing a popular novel. So I thought I’d share with everyone My 6 Favorite Authors. These are writers whom I’ve read extensively and have loved almost everything they’ve done. I’m not as well-read as I’d like to be, so maybe I’m missing out on some great stuff, but I’m happy with what I’ve read. Maybe I’ll even get some of you interested in checking out their work.

And much thanks to Alyssa for introducing me to several of these authors.

6. K.A. Applegate: This one is a call back to my childhood, or at least my teenage years, when I absolutely adored Applegate’s Animorphs book series. I devoured those young adult novels through middle and high schools, and they probably laid the ground work for my interest in becoming a writer, let alone my interest in books. I know now that she had a lot of writing assistants helping her out on the books, but I didn’t know back then. It was her name on the books, her ideas. Remember those book orders from elementary school? I was still using those in high school just to get new Animorphs books. It’s true, I was a huge dork in high school.

A kid turning into a beaver makes more sense if you read the book.

I forget how I discovered Animorphs, but I definitely started reading after I’d finished Goosebumps by R.L. Stine, which was a much more popular book series when I was a kid. Animorphs is an ongoing adventure story, told over a series of 50+ young adult novels, about a group of kids who have to repel a secret alien invasion of Earth. They do so with the power to change into animals. Crazy, I know, but it makes sense when you read it. The books were character-driven, with plots that stretched from the mall to outer space. Plus Animorphs was one of the first instances where I really latched onto a story and started thinking up my own ideas to add. I thought up my own original Animorphs characters, and I wrote out detailed descriptions and story ideas for them. I’d planned on mailing them to Applegate so that she’d recognize my awesomeness and let me write the books with her.

Is it too late to still do that?

—————————————

5. Ken Kesey: This is my cheat entry for this list. I don’t know anything about Ken Kesey and I’ve never read anything other than One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But that book is so brilliant that I want to include Kesey on this list.  Cuckoo’s Nest was on the list of books I read in one of my advanced English classes in high school, and it stood out as the only book in all of high school English that I actually loved and wanted to keep afterwards (they made us buy our own copies). It’s also the only high school English book I’ve gone back and re-read.

Couple'a troublemakers. You know, Chief, somebody has to clean up that mess you left

Being a guy who loves superheroes, of course I’d absolutely love protagonist Randle McMurphy. Sent to an insane asylum even though he’s perfectly fine, McMurphy’s rebellious and hedonistic ways have a transforming effect on the depressed and dour patients. Soon he’s leading them on field trips and secret parties, until the system beats him down and ends his life. We all wish there was a Randle McMurphy in our lives, or that we could be him.

—————————————

4. F. Paul Wilson: Repairman Jack is the man! Who’s ‘Repairman Jack’, you ask? He’s the lead character in F. Paul Wilson’s Adversary Cycle of novels. Sort of. He appeared in one of the early novels in the Adversary Cycle, then got his own spin-off series that’s lasted about 12 or so books. And they’re all pretty much fantastic. Alyssa introduced me to the the Repairman Jack series and I haven’t been able to put them down. I’m two books away from the finale, and then I have to read all of the Adversary Cycle, which deals with a great evil destroying the world. But the really good Wilson stuff I’ve read so far stars Repairman Jack.

Jack is righteous!

Repairman Jack is a one man A-Team. He’s a skilled fix-it artist, who will solve your problems, even if they delve into the supernatural. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, then maybe you can hire…Repairman Jack! Wilson writes with an exceptional ear towards realism and character. Jack isn’t some super-trained Jason Bourne-like urban ninja. He’s just a man who knows how to accomplish certain things. I remember one of the first novels I read, Jack attacked a mugger, and I was impressed how Wilson treated the mugger’s gun with a lot of respect instead of just having Jack swat it away, or something equally as action hero-y. Jack is a hero, by all means, but he’s very grounded in reality. And for that, I salute Wilson as a writer.

I started with Legacies, the second novel in the series. It gives a good introduction to Jack and his supporting cast, and presents a very realistic problem for Jack to fix. It was also published about 15 years after the first novel, The Tomb. So big gap there. It’s surprising how quickly Jack’s world starts to become wrapped up in the supernatural. Along with Legacies, I recommend reading them in order from there, with Conspiracies, All the Rage, and Hosts being especially good. Unfortunately, the series starts going downhill at about Infernal, the worst of the series. By then, Wilson starts really tying the Repairman Jack series into the rest of the Adversary Cycle, sacrificing some of the personality and relationships that made early Jack so good.

—————————————

3. Christopher Moore: Funny, funny books. Another Alyssa suggestion, Christopher Moore writes comedy novels, often about the supernatural. They’re not very long, and very easy to get into. The novels are character-driven, often with a unique or wacky plot to go along with them. Moore writes witty banter and jokes with an overall sense of fun. His protagonists are usually dorks, to some degree, so that’s perfect for a guy like me. Moore also uses Emperor Norton as a crossover character in many of his novels. Extra awesome points for that.

When I become a famous author, I hope I get to play with puppets

Some of his best include A Dirty Job, about an average guy who becomes a Grim Reaper; Coyote Blue, a Native American whose spirit animal is the legendary trickster coyote; and my favorite: Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff. It tells the story of Jesus Christ through the eyes of his childhood best friend, Biff. What happened between when Jesus was a child in the temple and then a man at age 30? Biff tells all! Fantastic book, with wonderful humor and a brilliant look at faith and belief. There’s also Moore’s vampire trilogy: Bloodsucking Fiends, A Love Story; You Suck; and Bite Me. Fun, down-to-Earth look at what it might be like to be a vampire without all the glitz, glamour and overstylized iconography.

But don’t bother with Fluke, Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings. That book sucked.

—————————————

2. John Grisham: The law-based books of John Grisham were the first adult novels I’d ever read. I still remember the day I went to the school library looking for some real novels to read. My idea was that I’d read a book that had a movie based on it, so that I could watch the movie later. The high school library had a few Grisham novels, and my first was The Firm. I loved it and quickly went back for more. Suffice to say, I ended up reading several Grisham novels before ever getting around to watching their movies. Soon I was buying them for cheap at used book sales and the like. I loved the action, the courtroom intrigue and the fully-rounded characters. And I liked the focus on the law so much that I once considered becoming a lawyer just because I liked Grisham’s books so much.

That is one handsome man

My favorite book of all-time is one of Grisham’s, The Rainmaker. It’s the story of a scrappy, young attorney, fresh out of law school, who falls on hard times when his promised job at a big-time firm falls through. Forced to scrape together on favors and friends, Rudy finds himself clinging to an insurance scam lawsuit on behalf of a grieving family. I love the book because Rudy, the ultimate underdog, just keeps kicking ass as the takes the evil insurance company to task. There are wonderfully hilarious and cute courtroom scenes as Rudy runs circles around the greedy bastards. The movie kills some of these moments in the name of bigger drama, but I prefer when Rudy wins in the novel.

Other favorites include The Firm, The Pelican Brief and definitely The Runaway Jury, one of the twistiest and most intriguing novels I’ve ever read. Again, all are better than their movies. Unfortunately, Grisham’s gone downhill since his earliest works. The middle stuff like The Testament, The Brethren and The Street Lawyer are all just OK. Though non-law book, Skipping Christmas, is nice. I loaned my copy to a Korean friend in college, and I assume she still has it.

Godspeed, little book

I have this theory, that along the way, John Grisham became so rich and so popular that he just didn’t know what to do with himself. Hence The Summons and The King of Torts, back-to-back books that are both about a man suddenly coming into a whole lot of money, and then blowing it all on airplanes; the first one learning to fly and the second one just wasting cash on hiring private jets. The two books have entirely different plots, but both involve a lot of money and airplanes. The Broker is essentially just a tour guide to Italy, with snippets of plot at the beginning and end. I assume Grisham loved his Italian vacation. Another one of his later books, no spoilers, involves a guy being blackmailed…and then ends with the blackmailers skipping town before the cops can spring their ambush. So the bad guys, who harass the protagonist through the whole book, just get away without any sort of showdown or climax.

How lame is that?

—————————————

1. Neil Gaiman: In recent years, thanks again to Alyssa, Neil Gaiman has eclipsed John Grisham as my favorite author. I love Gaiman’s whimsical style, and his creative exploration of fantasy. He has such full and lofty ideas, then lays them out with such grace and detail on the page. I haven’t read nearly all of Gaiman’s work, but I have read most of his fiction novels and have loved every one. His comic book work, of course, is legendary. Gaiman is just a very creative fellow, and I especially love the way he blends the fantastic with the mundane.

Another total stud!

Of his novels, I’ve read Good Omens, Neverwhere, American Gods and Anansi Boys. My favorite would probably be Anansi Boys, a sort-of sequel to American Gods. Both take the idea of the ‘gods’ as having physical forms, and then mortals trying to deal with these gods. American Gods is an epic, very serious story about war between ancient gods, like Odin, and new ‘gods’, like television. Whereas Anansi Boys spins off one of those ‘gods’ into a tale of whimsy and relationships. Gaiman is brilliant when it comes to cute little bits of whimsy. Like the thing with the orange at the end of Anansi Boys, or the creative characters of Neverwhere. That is one wild book.

Of course, Gaiman’s comic book work is heralded as some of the best in the industry. His Sandman series is a masterpiece, telling the story of Dream and his ‘family’. Morpheus is the King of Dreaming, who rules over and helps shape your dreams when you go to sleep. He has many wild and unique adventures, both in his kingdom and in the real world. Like when Satan gives him the keys to Hell, or his friendship with the never-dying man, or the true origin of cats. Brilliant, very imaginative and just so wonderful.

On second thought, maybe you don't want him appearing in your dreams

I think my favorite Gaiman work is a short story called Chivalry, from his anthology Smoke & Mirrors. I heard Chivalry as an audio piece, read by a polite English fellow. Perhaps it was Gaiman himself. If you’d like, you can listen to it yourself here. Anyway, it’s about a little old woman who buys the Holy Grail at a second-hand shop and puts it on her mantle, because it looks nice. Then Sir Galahad shows up seeking the Grail, and the story is about how Galahad has to barter with the old woman to get the Grail, because she thinks it looks really nice on her mantle. It’s short, it’s cute and it is a wonderful example of the type of story I love, blending the fantastical with the normal.

And that’s why I like to read in the first place.