Here’s the problem with having a contest in which the only task is to finish the sentence, “MJ should send me Suite Scarlett because . . .” I read all of the entries. Three times. And there are a lot of them. And they are all really good. I learned that a lot of you have never won ANYTHING, EVER. I found out that Scarlett has been creeping off her card and following quite a number of you. Just look at some of the reasons that came in!

catherine said…
Oh, and I also wasn’t able to participate in the Amazon challenge because I was away at my grandmother’s house, which smells like cabbage and broken internet.

MJ: Does your grandmother live in my old high school? It sounds like she might. My high school REEKED of cabbage. It was the sisters’ #1 favorite side dish at dinner. Their favorite main dish was yelling at me to pull up my knee socks.

italianeyes83 said…
MJ should send me a copy of Suite Scarlett b/c
my only sister just ran off to Italy and I don’t know when she’s coming back.

MJ: If she sends you 13 blue envelopes, let me know . . . because I think she’s in my book.

norah said…
MJ should send me Suite Scarlett because I Googled “Maureen Johnson” and discovered that MJ the author no longer has any Google gainers! In fact info on, about or by Maureen takes up the entire first page except for one hit somewhere in the middle that is about the girl from Rent.

MJ: Ha ha! Take that, Johnson! You may still have a tango, but I rule your Google world!

jen said…
MJ should send me Suite Scarlett because I am fighting the good fight against the oceans. Last time I went to the beach I didn’t go in the water once, I just stood and gave that pool of evil my most steely glare.

MJ: YES! YES, YES, YES!

How am I supposed to choose? Why do I have so few copies? Am I going to have to take my personal copy and come to your houses and read it to you? It’s an idea, but frankly, this would not be so good for you, as you never know when or in what state I will arrive. You will just hear the clank of my ladder hitting your bedroom windowsill, and there I will be, book in hand. I’d be worse than J.K. (Well, that may be overstating it a bit.)

At least I planned for this eventuality, and I recruited a crack team to help me, which included John Green and Oscar Gingersnort. They assisted me in the effort of reading and going through the anguish of choosing one winner.

After much consideration and hand-wringing, this was the chosen entry. It appealed to the judges because it was all about bringing Cheer to others, and because the winner had been shafted in the Amazon Challenge (which, as promised, provided bonus points):

laurenzo said…
You know why I should receive Suite Scarlett? 

Because I want it. Really, really badly.

I have never won a contest of any sort EVER in my short, pathetic little life, but maybe that’s only because I’m hardly into it yet. My life, I mean. Regardless, I shall use that important point to lure you into giving me a copy of your precious novel. 

Secondly, I did not get much for Christmas (a truckload of pajamas and some chocolate), because my family gave most of our Christmas money to St. Jude’s hospital, in order to help Spread The Cheer to kids who were in more need of it than I was. And Suite Scarlett would be the ultimate belated Christmas present. Much more rewarding than trivial items such as cell phones and video game consoles (because I play Super Mario OLDSCHOOL, YO.)

And to receiving those extra special BONUS POINTS (look, capslock!), I will not hesitate to inform you that I have been away from my computer during most of this Christmas holiday, and missed out on the Amazon Challenge of Awesome.

Laurenzo, please send along your address. Scarlett is on her way.

The good news is: I have another copy!

Whenever I get a copy, I obviously have to give it away, so . . . this means I have to think of another contest. I thought about having a contest in which people give me suggestions for contests, and the winning contest suggestion won the contest . . . but that logic made me so dizzy that I had to go sit down for a while. I will come up with something.

Today, I want to talk about The Writing Of Books.

I have many things on the To Do List for 2008 besides writing the next Scarlett book. One of the big ones is . . . revamping this site! And one of the big things that this site needs, I know, is a big FAQ to help you with your book reports. I know this because I get letters almost every day from book report sufferers—and most of them contain ten questions or more that you need answered IMMEDIATELY!

The sad truth is . . . I’m almost never able to reply to these, not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t have time to answer them all individually. However! I want to make something that helps you! So I am compiling a list of Questions You Think I Should Answer in an FAQ.

But since it seems to be the height of book report season, I’ll answer one I’ve gotten a lot recently, one all authors get . . . where do you get the ideas for your books?

You know, I asked Libba Bray this question the other day, just to see how she would react. She did exactly what I do . . . she got a spooked, far-away look in her eye, like she was noticing Zac Efron slipping out her window with her prize hamster in his jaws.

Almost every writer I know hates this question. We are, by nature, a lazy people. Hard questions disturb our state of mind. This is one of the hardest of the hard, topped only by things like “How do you write a book?” and “Why are there so many headless girls on the covers of your novels?”

I always try to make something up . . . some weird, cobbled-together, IKEA-quality answer that will definitely fall apart the second you attempt to deconstruct it. This is because, for me, there IS no answer.

The ideas just come from my brain. I store stuff up there, and the brain monkeys play around with it and put together different combinations. They come to me with stuff all the time, as your brain monkeys must do for you. They are not always helpful.

BRAIN MONKEYS: Hey! Guess what we put together today! That time you got stung on the lip by a bee, your hatred of fried eggs, and that wallpaper pattern from your bedroom when you were little!

ME: That’s nice. What am I supposed to do with that?

BRAIN MONKEYS: We have no idea. We just put stuff together. Now we’re just going to run “My Humps” through your head for an hour while you try to work.

ME: #%$#$&*^&^!

BRAIN MONKEYS: Oh, and that question you were going so crazy about . . . what was it, two weeks ago?

ME: What question?

BRAIN MONKEYS: About that scene you were writing, with the thing . . . anyway, your iPhone cord is in your purse.

ME: That’s not what I asked!

BRAIN MONKEYS: Yes you did. You were wondering about that an hour ago. About an hour. Maybe it was yesterday. Anyway, that’s where it is.

ME: What about the scene?

BRAIN MONKEYS: What scene?

ME: You just said you figured out that scene I was having problems with! What scene was it, and what’s the solution?

BRAIN MONKEYS: Oh, we don’t have a solution. We were just thinking about it. That was a tough one. We have some random facts about squirrels, if that will help.

ME: It won’t.

BRAIN MONKEYS: How about the smell of blue cheese after a wild summer rainstorm?

ME: Do I even know that smell?

BRAIN MONKEYS: Probably not. We were going to work on it for you. Do you think Fergie felt at all self-conscious when she sang the words “my lovely lady lumps”?

ME: Just shut up, okay? Turn off the song.

BRAIN MONKEYS: If you want. We have some commercial jingles we were going to play for you later, but if you want them now . . .

The writer’s brain is always at work.

But every once in a while . . . a great while . . . they get lucky with the soldering iron and make something I can use. In the case of Suite Scarlett, for instance, I can tell you that I was sitting at my desk when then the brain monkeys handed my something that went roughly like this:

BRAIN MONKEYS: Hey! You know how, when you were little, you liked stories about a lot of people crammed together in one building, like in The Westing Game or the All-of-a-Kind-Family stories?

ME: Yeah . . .

BRAIN MONKEYS: You know what buildings have a lot of people in them? Hotels.

ME: That’s true.

BRAIN MONKEYS: And how you love New York, where you live? And how your best friend was the poster child for Easter Seals when you were in third grade? And all those hours you spent in theater school sitting on the floor watching actors learn how to do stagefights and pratfalls? And how you love Patrick Dennis? And we found this Art Deco sunburst pattern.

ME: Slow down . . .

It went on like this for a few hours, a string of pictures and voices and memories of all stripes. By the end of it, I had written the premise of Suite Scarlett. All six Martin family members arrived, along with Mrs. Amberson, their long-staying guest. The Hopewell Hotel landed right on top of me, like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where the house lands on the Wicked Witch. Obviously, the book wasn’t done, and it took a long time to develop it all, but that’s how it started.

I think this is, in some fashion, how all ideas for books come about. Your brain fuses together a bunch of things. So, you can either take “I don’t know” or “Brain Monkeys” as my official answer. When I make the FAQ, that’s what it will probably say!

If you have questions YOU think would be useful for the FAQ and any potential book reports, please leave them in the comments! I will be coming up with another contest for the next galley.

In the meantime, you can also see me rambling about myself in this quickly-made video. Hank Green (brother of John Green) tagged me in this YouTube thing where you have to say five things about yourself. I am not proud of my answers, but that has never stopped me from answering anything before.

Posted: Friday, January 11th, 2008 @ 6:36 pm
Categories: Libba Bray, Suite Scarlett, monkeys, writing.
Subscribe to the comments feed if you like. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.