Hi Reader,
Kath and I work out at a local gym a few times a week. We often see Chris and Ted walking the track. Fantastic couple.
Chris reads my books and seems to enjoy them. But she's also fairly convinced I might be deranged.
She says it with a smile. But...
I get that a lot. The folks who've read my books sometimes give me odd looks when they meet me in person.
And it usually leads to a question.
"Where do you get your ideas?"
Which is a polite way of asking, "What the hell is wrong with your brain?"
Fair question.
Let me tell you where Fortunate Son came from.
When I was thirteen, we moved to a new town in a new state. I was a tall, awkward kid who was trying a little too hard.
New school. No friends.
I remember one particularly miserable day. Kids bullied me. A teacher embarrassed me in front of the class. And when I got home, my mother was angry with me.
I went to my room and stared out the window at the cars passing below.
I remember making a wish: that one of those cars would turn into our driveway.
They would knock on the door and explain that there'd been a terrible mix-up. I was in the wrong place. Somewhere out there was my real home.
A place where kids liked me, teachers respected me, and my mother was a little gentler.
Well, as you can guess, wish not granted.
I was a hurt kid who probably just needed a sandwich.
But that memory stuck with me.
Decades later, when I began thinking about writing a novel, I remembered staring out that window.
My story ideas don't come fully formed. They usually begin as something ordinary. A memory. A question. Something that knocks quietly.
Then I sit with them a while—start asking questions to see if there's a story hiding inside.
What if someone really had come to the door?
Switched at birth?
A hospital caper? Hmm. Not something that excited me.
Kidnapped?
Ooh, okay. Better.
But not just any kidnapping. What if it was the crime of the century?
Getting there, but...
Who was this kid? Who were his real parents? Why had he been taken?
I sit with it a while until something breaks open.
What if, in five days, his birth mother was about to be inaugurated as Vice President of the United States?
I remember sitting up in my chair when that one arrived.
I didn't have a plot. I didn't have an ending. I certainly didn't have Emma Noble.
All I had was a question:
What if the FBI told you that everything you knew about your life was a lie?
That was enough to get me writing.
The twists and turns that followed? They surprised me as much as they surprised my readers.
As a kid, I wanted someone to knock at the door and save me.
As a thriller author, I needed that knock to devastate my character and send him tumbling into an adventure.
That's how Fortunate Son began.
So where do ideas come from?
In this case, a miserable day when I was thirteen. And a grown man picking old scabs.
Maybe Chris has a point.
Happy Friday!
Andy
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