I read an article that Neil Gaiman had linked on twitter earlier this morning regarding the recent confrontation between the police and the students at UC Davis. (find it here) Regardless of where you stand on the Occupy Movement, it is a smart article that brings up some interesting points about how the protesters are being treated by the police and how this is different than what has worked for decades. I am left wondering what the hell is going on and why.
This has caused me to think a great deal about my book. I already have a pretty big social/political issue that has worked its way into this draft (and will have to be integrated into the first part from last year), but as I think about my characters, who they are, where they are, when they are, and how old they are...well, I am finding it harder and harder to imagine that they wouldn't at least be talking about what's going on in the world and on campuses nationwide.
I think about Matthew Norman's Domestic Violets (just buy it already) and how the economic crisis wasn't in the first draft. I think about how much it shaped the story, how different it would have been without it. The book would have been completely different and well, frankly, not as good.
There is much that comes out of the editing process (the ever lovely Maureen Johnson has a few words to say about this) and I am really looking forward to January, after some time away, to really sit down and see what comes of the next draft.
"One day I left my room, in the evening. It was freezing, the sidewalk shining. But it was okay. I wasn't lonely. I wasn't no one. I was just hoping for a bookstore like the one I prayed for and the music they play there would be Dinosaur Jr. and the people who worked there would be super skinny and super unfriendly and that would make me happy. That would make me happy."from Myopic Books by American Music Club
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