Answers Numero Uno

(Facebook people, this is crossposted from my blog.)

Look at me, all answering questions right away. Old guy on a bike, indeed. It's late at night right now, so I'm only going to do a few.

Saya asks: any chance of you coming to DragonCon in September? The South misses out on a lot of the Potter fun - like any of the PotterCast tours, or WizardRock stuff, and I can't justify the plane ticket for LeakyCon though I'd love to be there... So I think it would be really wonderful if you could be at DragonCon (And even better if you can drag any of the other PotterCast folks down this way with you =)

We would ALWAYS love to come to any gathering of fans, but getting four people to and fro is a lot of money that we can't justify spending right now. I'd love to come myself, to do book stuff, and will definitely look into it. I've heard a lot about Dragon*Con (all good things).

Sharanya asks: When did you know that you wanted to write Harry: A History? Will you be writing another novel soon? PS: I'm sorry, I'm sure you've been asked this before, but I really haven't come across it anywhere, and I'm dying to know!

First of all, it's OK! I'm happy to answer whatever needs answering.

I first had the idea for writing a book about the phenomenon in 2003, sometime right before the first conference, Nimbus. I only know this because there was a panel there about publishing HP-related books, that I went to, for that reason. The idea got a little bit shelved for awhile. For a very short time it was teased around some Leaky staff as a kind of collaboration, a "let's list everything that's happened in fandom" kind of thing. But we never did any actual work on it. We just talked about it at three gatherings or so. In 2005 the idea started to gnaw at me in earnest and I read other books documenting cultural phenomena, and other nonfiction books that read as easily as fiction books, and started really exploring what Harry could become if I focused on it. I still thought it was a "one day" project.

Here's the part of the story I don't get to tell often enough, but love telling because it shows how seemingly random life can be (and why I believe it's not random at all): I was at a birthday party for a friend in October of 2005. Cheryl came with me at the last minute. I and the person whose birthday it was had a mutual friend named Rebecca; she was an acquaintance, I saw her perhaps once a year, I met her through the Rent fandom (such as it was in terms of what we mean now, when we say 'fandom'; I really use the term out of convenience and will expand on that in another post someday). I knew she worked in publishing, somehow, so introduced her to Cheryl, who she knew because the entire publishing industry is about the size of my fist. She asked what I was up to, I told her, and somewhere in the conversation I mentioned that "one day," I'd like to write a book about the phenomenon. She kinda nodded and we went on to other topics.

The next day she had written me an e-mail, reminding me that she was an agent at Writers House and was I serious about that idea? Because if I was serious we needed to meet for lunch. We met. She made it clear that I needed to get right to work if I wanted it out before the seventh book, or anywhere near it. I worked on Leaky, my job, and the proposal for the book throughout all of 2006, driving myself to near insanity and thinking I was going to give up the whole thing many times. I gained 20 pounds. In early December I was finally done. We sent out the proposal. I sent Jo a letter letting her know what I was doing. While we waited for the book to sell, and came to terms with the possibility (really, honestly) that it would not, I decided to leave my reporting job, even if it meant going home to live with my parents. January 17th was my last day. That night the staffers took me out and got me drunk. Right before I left for the party my phone rang. It was Rebecca, who was now my agent. The book was going to sell. I was going to be fine. I got to send out my goodbye e-mail with that information, and left the job with a real appreciation for what I had learned, the work I had done, and the work I was about to do.

And that is a much longer answer than your question demanded, but I wanted to get that story down. :)

As to the other part of your question: will I be writing another novel soon? I'm not making fun of you when I say, I haven't written a novel yet; novels are fiction. Don't feel bad, I'm on record calling my book a novel in We Are Wizards, and I cringe every single time I see it. :) But to answer your question, yes, I want to write more books and have several ideas (and have done some preliminary fuffing around with each of them). Right at this moment Leaky is demanding most of my time. I'm hoping that when tax season is over, and a few other things get cleared away, I can re-set up that wonderful writing schedule I demanded of myself in 2007.

More soon! If you read this and want to add to the growing question list, please do in comments.