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70,000 words
I first wrote I'm On Fire in 1999. It was my second novel, after a very weepy affair called Spare Parts I wrote in the aftermath of a tumultuous breakup. For awhile, I was convinced Spare Parts was a fluke ... and honestly, it was more a a long novella than a real novel (then again, so was Segal's Love Story, and that made millions). The whole experience with Spare Parts was a lesson in writing and publishing. I got myself an agent who got a publisher interested. Ultimately, the publisher passed ... and then my agent dropped me. That was maybe not my favorite day ever.
In retrospect, it makes some sense. Though Spare Parts kind of captured a new trend in publishing - the so-called "dick lit" popularized by Nick Hornby and his ilk - it really reads like a first novel. And my main character, Casey, seriously cries every fourth page. (It was a really hard breakup.)
I remember sitting at my computer one day and thinking, I want to write a short story about a small town school teacher. That was all, but that was enough. And it's funny, that memory, because at once the story wasn't about the teacher at all, but about his student: Laurie Reardon, my very first attempt to write a lengthy story from a girl's point of view. (This would happen a few more times, especially in my high school novels, Welcome to Bloomsbury and Roller Disco Saturday Night). I also knew immediately that this would be a horror novel - which Spare Parts most assuredly was not - and that I wanted to incorporate a cinematic twist. It's not my only novel that has one of these twists, but it was my first, and some might argue it's my best.
I've tried to get I'm On Fire published a few times, to little avail. It was good enough to make it into the Top 100 in the Amazon First Novel contest (and millions entered), but not good enough to make it to publication.
Recently, the publisher who's been putting out my nonfiction for a couple years told me they were interested in my fiction, to be published as ebooks. I wouldn't get any advance (like I had with the nonfic), but I would split half the profits of the sale of the book with the publisher. I got very, very excited, in a way I wouldn't have back in 1999, when the concept of ebooks was inextricably linked to the idea of vanity publications. They were willing to take a look at all my work, not just the horror stuff, but it's a horror publisher and though I've written 17 novels, only three of them are horror (and only two of them are good; Wade's Game will likely never sit comfortably with me). It had been a few years, but I went back to I'm On Fire to see what I'd done.
Surprisingly, what I'd done ... wasn't bad. It was pretty good, in fact. Needed a polish, maybe, but ... okay, maybe a little more than a polish. Because, see, the core of the story was good, and I liked Laurie a lot. But she becomes damn unlikable fast, and the people around her remain ciphers. And her wicked stepmother, oh boy. If ever there was a villain without layers.
What I needed to do was bring the stuff I'd learned from writing all my other books back to this one. I do nuance better now. I do shades of gray far better. And I write teenage girls better, strangely enough. (I got better with my sixth book - a character named Tamatha Jenkins in a book called The Color of Blood and Rust - and I've never looked back).
So I'm On Fire is undergoing a massive overhaul. I'm basically re-writing it from the bottom up, and at this point I'm about halfway through. I like Laurie a lot more now ... but more importantly, I get her friends and her family. I even can empathize with her goddamned stepmother, a little. Everything is in line with how I write now, not how I wrote two decades past. Oh, and I changed all the CD players to iPods.
I'm projecting I'm On Fire to be done in July. I have two open projects - novels called Tangerine and American Storm - and both need care and attention. I want them to be finished. From there, I want to do at least one of my other novels over as I did this one - Roller Disco Saturday Night should really live up to its title - and then a new book, a fictional biography of a Bob Seger-like singer. I've literally got 15 other books beyond those that need some help, maybe a little, maybe a lot. It's a writing life, and I'm fully in it.
A few days ago, I launched a Kickstarter to help me on my way to finishing I'm On Fire. I made my goal of $950 in a single day, for which I am profoundly grateful. There seems to be a desire to keep donating, and I couldn't be more thrilled about that. I'm On Fire is a single project, and my fiction doesn't end with Laurie Reardon and her hometown terrors.
The Kickstarter is up for another week. If you'd care to donate, you can do it below. If not, I hope that when my book comes out, you'll read it and enjoy it.
Thank you to all my friends, colleagues, and supporters. Kevin Quigley is a support system for fiction; the work matters most.
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