Because it meant that I wrote my science fiction novel about the transformative power of art in a matriarchal society. This, in hindsight, was actually a great idea. So I traveled and I wrote what sounded like my least commercial novel ever, just because the idea gripped me so ferociously I could not help but put it to paper. Sure, just as soon as I buy this train ticket to Vancouver and spend three weeks running away from home with nothing but my extensive Brazilian music collection, my computer and some coffee money. You know, the one that would give me money to pay my rent. My sister told me to write out the idea, then put it in a drawer and get back to it when I finished that pesky novel I had under contract. When I described this novel to friends, they would paper their shock with kindly smiles and tell me that they were sure I’d figure it out. But The Summer Prince turned out to be the best bad idea that I’ve ever had. Of course, most are very, very bad and figuring out the distinction is not for those with a surfeit of common sense (luckily I’m a writer). What The Summer Prince taught me is that some bad ideas are very, very good.
The catalyzing ingredient was, in fact, a very bad idea. Which means that whenever I discuss my inspiration for The Summer Prince I end up babbling about matriarchies and fame and what a non-heteronormative society might look like when projected into the future of African diaspora culture in Brazil, plus music and art and human sacrifice (I thought about including reincarnation, but that seemed like overkill).īut since this series is called “The Big Idea” and not “a dozen or so somewhat large ideas,” I’ve had a long, hard think about the one idea that really made this book work.Īnd I finally realized: it wasn’t any of those good ideas I babble about. I tend to write my novels the way other people quilt, in a somewhat-ordered patchwork of varied materials that have arrested my interest. But sometimes, as Alaya Dawn Johnson found in writing The Summer Prince, there might be something to telling prudence to take a hike. Prudence dictates doing the former over the latter. Writers know that sometimes there is the writing you are supposed to be doing, and then there’s the writing you want to be doing.
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