If I was capable of counting the zillionth man who said, “Oh you're a writer? I have a great idea for a book,” I would be some sort of math genius. I would be the first woman to comprehend a zillion-trillion-billion-gazillion.
“I know you wouldn’t think so," he'll say, "but I've always wanted to write a novel.”
No, Guy, I didn’t see this coming.
But the fun part of this conversation is when he says, eyes squinted and lips pursed in a flirty voice, “Do you want to know what it's about?”
Why, yes of course!
Here are my favorites:
1. Light sabers.
2. A gay man who wasn’t really gay at first, has a daughter and he then decides to be gay later in life and dates her ex boyfriend.
3. Africa.
4. A man is in an abusive relationship with his mother and she beats him with wooden spoons until he finds a magic hole in the backyard to save him.
5. A guy is a professional boxer and gets knocked out too many times.
6. Three friends follow Phish around the US for a summer. They do a lot of drugs and realize that they are good friends — through thick and thin.
7. Bears, big ones.
8. A guy in a band loses his fame and money.
9. An interracial couple in Detroit loves music and cars.
10. Wall Street guy is actually a good guy and raises a good family in New York and has a lot of good things going for him because he’s a really good guy.
11. There is a guy who is lost in the woods and is saved by his thought-to-be-dead dog who can actually live just as long as a human.
12. Struggling on food stamps as a kid and taking care of three siblings after his parents die in fiery plane crash, guy falls in love with his sister's best friend. Sister is a lesbian and is in love with best friend. Life ruined.
13. A geeky high school kid who plays too many video games gets clear skin and becomes the man on campus in college, twice.
14. Porn found in the woods.
15. Obvious things you learn in business school, obviously.
Call me a snob, but I really do have a soft spot in my heart for these conversations. Just maybe my novel is about a boxer in Africa with a dog-bear and a magic light saber.
Crissy Van Meter is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn.
I like how 4 is kind of a cross between A Child Called It and James and the Giant Peach.
@Ten Thousand Buckets Yes! And I like how 12 is kind of Election meets the Glass Castle meets something else. (Maybe the Outsiders?)
I think the fun part of the conversation is when the theoretical novelist is someone who doesn't even read much. You want to write but you're not a reader? That's not a thing. You're not a thing. I bet if I cut you, green slime or pennies or dryer lint would pour out instead of blood because YOU ARE NOT A THING.
@JessicaLovejoy
How about a book about a person who never reads yet one day sits down at the computer magically writes the Great Amercian Novel. And all the MFAs in creative writing are soooo jealous but they learn all about outsider art and grow to become better people.
@JessicaLovejoy Heh, "pennies."
But, not a thing? Oh, contraire. I think you've just described everyone in America.
@Tuna Surprise Yes! And can that protagonist please have a cousin who's a published author, who has to apologize at the end for her superiority complex as well as for being a bad cousin who never supported the protagonist's attempts?
@Tuna Surprise I think you should've kept that one to yourself because it's actually really good idea. Yes a little Good Will Hunting and a little threadbare, but I we're all ready for that now.
@JessicaLovejoy heh. The best part is when you take creative writing, and the teacher asks the class "what is your favorite book?" most of the class answers, "The Notebook" or "I don't read".
@JessicaLovejoy DRYER LINT.
Ok, I can't lie, I would totally read #6. I have no desire to live the touring life, but I'd love to read about it! You know, live vicariously and all that jazz.
But I'm pretty sure #11 was already written Dean Koontz...
@batgirl I can send you my ex-boyfriend's phone number. He loves to reminisce about those days.
(And he has a framed photo of Jerry Garcia hanging in his apartment.)
@batgirl Oh God, I just realized that this sounds like I'm trying to set you up with my ex. I'm not trying to be a creepy internet matchmaker, I swear! Don't date him. I was just suggesting a correspondence based on mutual interests. Oh, and kind of making fun of my ex-boyfriend.
@batgirl #11 sounds awesome as a sci-fi comedy starring Zach G and directed by Tim & Eric. It's a sequel to The Snuggler.
@theotherone Don't worry, I know you're not being a creepy internet matcmake, but please feel free to continue making fun of your ex. That's a mutual interest I think you and I share!
Is there anyone who HASN'T found porn in the woods?
@punkahontas That was probably mine. In middle school we would bury it in garbage bags in central locations to all of our houses - we were anarcho-punks, but we were also horny middleschool boys who wanted (OR needed?) to see boobies of all shapes and sizes.
Then sometime early in highschool the internet started being around, and we probably just left it there.
@punkahontas I was/am scared of woods. Once I saw a rattlesnake in woods!
@leon.saintjean The one we found was naked dudes! I think those are pretty rare when it comes to woods porn. Or wait, ha. I guess it WAS wood porn.
@tragically ludicrous I would not go in any woods that had rattlesnakes. But at the time, we kind of didn't have anywhere else to go, except to ride skateboards to Wawa, or get someones mom to drive us to the mall.
@punkahontas Did you grow up in Connecticut?! Wawa's!!!! Um, and also general lack of anything to do.
@wee_ramekin Delaware! I still love Wawa though. It's like a really good 7-11. We hit it on the way back to NY last weekend so I could get a blue Icee, a bag of Doritos, and a cowtail.
@punkahontas Finding naked dude porn in the woods has "Heathers" written all over it to me....
Wait, what if one of those people you know sees you spreading their secret ideas all over the internets? Is this allowed? Also, am I allowed to steal? Doing it! Backyard Woodenspoon Safehouse. Your fault!
#14 sounds like a sexy version of The Blair Witch Project. Tell that person it's probably geared more toward a movie than a book.
@major disaster
Or like 11-year old boys standing in the forest around a cache of rotting old cooter magazines. Like STAND BY ME with back issues of Hustler instead of a dead child.
I have a story for you: I was manhunted! I just got back from Nam and I was hitchhiking through Oregon. Next thing I know there's a bunch of cops chasing after me through the woods! I had to take them all out, it was a bloodbath! Think there's anyone who'd be interested in a story like that?
@parallel-lines MANHUNTERS!
@parallel-lines Only if it happened twice.
@parallel-lines Did you throw a rock at a helicopter and make the guy who was trying to kill you, despite rigid protocol, fall out of the helicopter and die? Cause I think that'd be awesome. Maybe you should have something in there about tunneling out of a mine.
@notjenny Holy crap, HOW DID YOU KNOW?!
@parallel-lines And throw in a bunch of buffoonish National Guardsman, they always kick it up a notch!
@parallel-lines I could say something about Jung's universal subconscious but I won't.
You're just jealous because men are inherently superior writers to women.
Fact: Either Ryan Reynolds or Bradley Cooper will star in every single one of these ideas translated to the big screen in the next five years.
@applestoapples I'm particularly looking forward to Bradley Cooper in #2.
@Lucienne And adds elements of #7 and #9 where he and Anthony Mackie move to Michigan and meet a bearded Russell Crowe at a gay bar called The Den.
@applestoapples Nothing the internet does today will be better than the idea of that movie. Time to go read a book.
@applestoapples I'll totally rent #12 with Bradley Cooper and Mila Kunis as the sad/broke/horny siblings.
I call it, "Billy and the Cloneasaurus."
@dracula's ghost "Oh you have got to be kidding me, sir."
I would totally read number two!
Was this aimed at me? I just finished my morning of working on a book I'm writing. Hairpin, this feels personal.
@fleurdelivre No, because unlike these losers YOU are actually doing the work. Pat yourself on the back.
How is #1 not pure gold? Light. Sabers.
#10 is that movie with Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid!
Wait a second, my mother whacked my brother with wooden spoons because he was a complete pain in the @ss, not because it was an abusive relationship! She should have wired his jaw shut from 4-18 instead as well.
no 4 is essentially just Where The Wild Things Are. Only with fewer Wild Things, and more spoons.
Try being a book editor. Yowsa.
@Stevie Or a book editor's assistant. Headdesk x infinity.
@Stevie Oh, geez. I'm screwed aren't I?
I'm pretty sure I have already read number 14?
A gay man who wasn’t really gay at first ends up dating his daughter's ex boyfriend. Problems arise when the boyfriend ends up having a lightsaber in place of a dick, because his mother whacked his real penis off with a wooden spoon. Eventually, a dead dog leads them to a magic hole in the woods that is filled with porn. This hole transports them to Africa, where they meet a professional boxer with brain damage from getting knocked out too much, who bemoans the fact that he wouldn't have become a boxer if he hadn't suddenly become popular in college instead of going on a road trip with his three Phish-loving friends. Coincidentally, while in a gay bar for bears, the unlikely trio runs into one of those friends, who had started a Phish cover band and gotten famous, but lost all of his money when a really nice Wall Street guy who had learned some obvious things in business school convinced him to launch a guitar company. They learn that the company tragically failed because the spokeskid was in love with his lesbian sister's best friend and committed suicide with a guitar string and posted it on YouTube. The book concludes with the touching reunion of these lost souls, years later in Detroit, where they bond over their love of cars, music, and lightsaber dicks.
TL;DR
@MollyculeTheory Oh, I totally read this even though it was much longer than the books I'm used to reading. And it was FUCKING BRILLIANT.
@MollyculeTheory P.S. is your avatar picture thingy a Manticore? Because that's awesome.
@MollyculeTheory
And the title is obviously TURN ON YOUR LOVE LIGHT. (Let it shine, shine, shine ...)
#2 Sounds suspiciously like what a friend decided should be the years-later epilogue to 'Charlie Barlett' - if you took off the "not gay at first" thing, anyway, She's aware of the existence of bisexuals.
BEAAAAAAAAARS
Now I think there's something wrong with me because I NEVER get ideas for books. Sheeeeeitt.
I think I'm going to publish a book that is one page, and it will say "TL;DR".
Smart girl wins Andrew McCarthy Genius Grant, reluctantly takes break from research to go see Phish for the first time, then uses the money to follow Phish around for a summer and do drugs, falls in love with a guitar player, finds happiness selling hand-crocheted hacky-sacks at music festivals and on etsy.
I've never even tried to come up with an idea for a book! It's probably because I don't read books.
Kidding. Well, not the first sentence.
Love this. This male "author" seems a close second to those people who post on craigslist about how they're looking for a ghostwriter for their amazing book idea (loosely or closely based on their own AMAAAAZING life). Then they offer to split royalties with you, after you've done all the work. News to craigslistman: I've written a novel and it was legit published and I have yet to see one thin dime. We're in a recession, books are a dying luxury animal.
I hope Porn found in the woods is kind of a modern story with hints of James Joyce. Something that is at least 900 pages. In fact forget Joyce. Let's hope that it is actually several stories that transcend time and geography. One instant the porn is in the woods and the next instant the narrator AND the porn is in a city. They go on some sort of long journey and the porn talks. Maybe it comes to life like some sort of painting and speaks like an oracle.
And then? someone wakes up and it is all a dream. The dream of a dog who goes for a walk in the woods.
Hopefully it will be beloved by three academics and some beardy guy who claims it is his favorite book but really he couldn't finish it and watched the movie.
I would actually ask about how you got into the business, agents, and publishers, and editors, and so forth. But, come on, Light Sabers! Think of what you could do with that!
For number 3, do they mean the continent or the song? because I would read a book about the song. plus, number 9 sounds like something mariah carey and nick cannon would do together. it would be called... glitter 2: electric boogaloo.
You sound like you might be a little bit mean. And everyone clearly wants to read number four.