I Bet Parent Teacher Conferences Are REALLY Interesting

I'm starting to work on my next book, which is always exciting. At least for me. It's probably boring as bleep for everyone around me, because it's practically all I can talk about. I don't have trouble coming up with book ideas, as I've mentioned before. But still, I keep thinking about how people say that there are no original stories, so there's some pressure to come up with something original, or at least an original twist on a familiar concept.

The easiest way to do this is to get into a bunch of wild situations and then draw on them for your writing, but I would never do that. Snarf.

But seriously, do you believe that there are no original stories? Because I don't, and I'll tell you why.

I worked in research for a long time, and one of my projects involved administering confidential surveys to people about their health and risky behaviors. We didn't pull any punches; I asked people about drug use, unprotected naked time, and domestic violence. It always amused me that people would tell me that they cheated on their spouses or used cocaine but not how much they weighed.

Anyway, I once got a survey from someone who obviously decided to make everything up. I say this because I was proctoring the survey, and I know for a fact that none of the respondents was a 500 pound midget. I would have noticed that. And it got more outrageous from there. My respondent was a crack-addicted, transgendered, hermaphroditic (how you could be both transgendered and hermaphroditic at the same time, I don't know, but he/she/it was), fight clubbing, no toothed, STD-riddled, severely obese little person, and also a parent of 15 children.

And you've got to wonder, what do the kids call him/her/it? Mom? Dad? Your Wonkiness?

So I've decided to write a book about that person. Because I am sure that it's a story that hasn't been told.

Speaking of stories, I've added a few more books to the Read 50 Books in 2009 challenge. I read The Batman Handbook (very cool except that they did not mention eyebrows ONCE), Deathworld (which my teenage Christopher Pike loving self would have adored), and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (which is made of awesome).