Who was it who suggested that we begin at the beginning? Bilbo Baggins? Winnie the Pooh? I swear I can hear Pooh say it. And far be it for me to dismiss a silly old bear without his due consideration and poke in the belly.
I suppose the beginning for me, though I didn’t know it at the time, was when my daughter (then 6) brought home Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from her school library. I was sucked in from the start, to JK Rowling’s humor and way of putting things, and after I’d put my daughter to bed, I closeted myself away with the book and fell in love. Santa brought us the first three of the series for Christmas, and the Goblet of Fire followed on my next trip to Sam’s Club. We had to wait for the 5th, which at that point was only marginally hard, but Order of the Phoenix made me a die-hard fan, forever and inexorably.
In 2005 I joined a fan site (HPANA) and sought out the community forums to find other fans to discuss the books with. I found a place called the “Wizard War” dedicated to predicting what would happen in the next two books. There I met not nameless people, throwing out ideas and disappearing, but real people who visited daily, with well thought out ideas, personalities (and quirks), silly banter… an online family of sorts. And a lot of silliness ensued. Without them, though, I don’t think it ever would have occurred to me to dig as deep, explore as far, connect as many dots… and without that, I don’t think I ever really would have understood what was required to write.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always written, but before this it seemed a muse-inspired random occurrence, like getting hit by lightning… sometimes it just happened. But that isn’t how it is. It is, in reality, a list of a lot of pieces that all need to fit, that can be connected through the puzzle of prose. A broad outline of main events, sprinkled with details, and then connected through the relationships of the characters becomes a book.
I tried my hand at this first with a story called The Other Prince. I had a theory that Lord Voldemort required all Death Eaters, as initiation, to kill their own fathers. I decided to explore it through Eileen Prince (Snape), who I imagined went to school with Tom Riddle. And amazingly, I found a readership, but more amazingly, I finished my first ever very long work (it runs about 200 pages) and was sucked into writing for life.
So I just need to thank those Wizard Warriors who pulled me in, and helped me understand what went into a true book, and my earlier readers (Tara, you’ll always be my first!) and the seed planters who encouraged me to write something entirely original (Natasha, this one’s on you). And Cheeser-when I get my book contract, I promise to become a site supporter rather than a moocher…
*sniffs*