The House Part 41

Acknowledgements and Author's Note

Yes I know. That was a really weird and pretty bad ending. But it had to end and all will be explained in the sequel which will be written once I think up a plot for it. But it will involve aliens and cats and food and politics and awesomeness. Now I have to thank some people

Obviously the first people I want to thank are my family for giving me life and being behind me for this process of writing a novel in 30 days also if I did not thank them first my mother would probably hire a hit man to track me down and kill me and I quite like life. I also want to thank my friends and specifically my writers' group and my old Mock Newbery Book Club for making me both a better writer and a better person and also for giving me people to name characters after.
This book has numerous characters who are named after friends of mine but I only intentionally from the outset based one character on someone I know and that character is Margret. Margret is based on a girl who I was in a play with and, a few weeks into rehearsals, I had a dream outlining the basic premises for this book. I greatly changed it during the writing process but one character from that dream always stuck with me and that character was Margret who, in the dream, took the appearance of this girl who I was in this play with and didn't know very well.
As the play rehearsals progressed I got to know the girl much better and I realized that she was not the dark and mysterious girl who Margret was originally going to be but rather a nice, happy, funny girl who I then tried to convert Margret into.
I also want to mention two of my other friends who I named characters in the novel off of and who I probably need to apologize to. Brien May and Ben September were named after two of probably the kindest people who I know and two people who I like a great deal. So(because I'm such a great friend) I decided to put them in the book originally as the semi-villains. Yeah I know I'm strange.
Anyway, originally Brien was going to be a raving lunatic and I was going to try and get the reader to despise him with a burning passion. But then I came down sick.
While I was sick I laid in bed and did two things: watch legal dramas and play tetris. When I first was sick I tried to work on this book but I wasn't able to concentrate enough. But I did write a little. And the legal drama tv show that I was watching obsessively seeped into the dialogue that I was writing and Brien began to sound like a prosecuting lawyer.
Now I recovered as most people who are sick do and sat down to get some serious writing done. I continued to write the scene right after Philip's death. As I was writing I realized more and more that Brien had some really good points to make and was a much more interesting character than I originally thought he would be and that is when the story began to spin out of control.
To some writers that might be a terrible thing. And maybe it was, but I sort of liked it. I think that it made it more surprising and more natural. Or maybe it is just impossible to follow, who knows.
Anyway I need to thank Brien and Ben for, hopefully, being good sports. You see, I haven't exactly told Brien yet and Ben was a little annoyed when I told him but he hasn't read the book yet so I'm hoping that he will change his mind..
I also want to thank various music artists who got me through this writing process. The main ones that jump to mind are Billy Bragg(who is the best live act who I have ever seen, he is also probably the fourth live act who I have ever seen so that might not be saying much, but he was fantastically great. And his recorded stuff is also amazing), Matt Nathanson(who can write some really sad love songs and is also hilarious live), Steven Soundheim(who has written some of the best show tunes ever), The Hold Steady(who's acoustic version of Hurricane J is so awesome that I listened to it like twelve times in a row) , Pete Seeger(who's cover of the song What Did You Learn In School Today, originally by Tom Paxton, I have listened to an obscene amount of times), Bad Religion(who wrote a song called Sorrow which I have listened to like thirty times in a row. In case you have not noticed I like to listen to certain songs over and over again), Rise Against(who are good both as a hardcore punk band that screams all the time and as a acoustic band), Stephen Schwartz(who wrote Wicked, do I need to say more?), Steve Earle(who wrote the song The Devils Right Hand which I have listened to....yep you guessed it! An obscene amount of times), Screeching Weasel(who wrote a song called Cool Kids which I...like ok..but seriously have much fun is it to say the words Screeching Weasel, go on say it...come on...ok yeah tell me that isn't fun) and so many others that I can't even think of their names. I also want to thank the websites Grooveshark and Youtube for keeping me in music for this month and, hopefully, for the rest of my life.
I also wish to thank some of my favorite authors for just being so darn awesome. They include, in no particular order: Vivien Vande Velde(Who wrote one of my all time favorite books, Heir Apparent, which I sort of ripped off with the ending of The House and I am not going to apologize because I really sort of hope that she sues me and I'll get to meet her in court.), Janette Rallison(who's books showed me how to write sweet teenage romance), Nick Hornby(who is just great in how he balances the sadness of his plots with humor), Megan Whalen Turner(Who I referenced with the Order Makes Me and I Make Order line. Funny little anecdote here that I will share with you despite the fact that you will probably will not find it funny and almost certainly think that it is self serving and egotistical{I am counting this author's note in the word count as I desperately try to get to 50,000, so I am trying to talk as much as possible. So before I share the possibly hilarious short little story which took place in my life let me say that I wish to thank you from the bottom of my deep deep deep heart and I would also like to quote the incredibly wise Charles Dickens[who I will speak about in a moment] he wrote at the beginning of his masterpiece[which I have never actually read but there are a great deal of words in this paragraph] The Tale Of Two Cities, and this is a direct quote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”} Anyway, I once met her editor at the American Library Association Summer Conference and I totally geeked out. I started threatening her because Megan Whalen Turned publishes all her books so slowly. I then told her to tell Megan Whalen Turner, remember that this was her editor I was yelling at, that I would pay her to write more and she replied “I do pay her”) David Levithan(who is just plain hilarious and is also quite touching. His Are We There Yet is one of the scariest books that I have ever read and Boy meets Boy is one the most interesting. He also showed me that one can write sweet teen touching romance, whether it's gay or straight, without making it too clichéd), Brandon Sanderson(who wrote the Alcatraz books which work both as comedy and as science fiction) Charles Dickens(who gave me so much song writing material and who I just ripped off to bump up my word count) Aaron Sorkin(who is simply one of the best, if not the the best, dialogue writers around. Quite possibly my favorite writer), William Shakespeare(who, among other things, wrote my favorite play, Romeo and Juliet), Suzanne Collins(who changed Young Adult Literature for the better), Agatha Christie(who always kept you on your toes and surprised you at the end) JK Rowling(who is amazing and deserves every penny that she has made and probably more. I watched the Deathly Hallows Part One while I was writing the House and it greatly influenced me. {I also have a really pathetic crush on Emma Watson who plays the character of Hermione Grange. who's favorite book, I found out, is the Little Prince which I happened to have just been in a stage production of. So hey, I can think of much worse things to build a relationship on}).
I also feel the need to mention several tv shows that either helped me get through this month or are just plain awesome and need more viewers. They are The Practice(which is where I got all the legal stuff), The Daily Show(which I spent hours watching while I wrote. In fact, even as I write this now I am watching Jon Stewart, he truly is hilarious), Psych(I watch it at least once a week, it never gets old), Glee(which is purely mindless not always fun but...well I like about one actor in it and that is about it. So I am not totally sure why it is listed here. But it is words which I need), Fawlty Towers(John Cleese is fantastic. Enough said), Babylon Five(a really really good and complex science fiction show.), Agatha Christie's Poirot(David Suchet is fantastic as my favorite detective), Sherlock(a new detective show which updates Sherlock Holmes very well for my generation) Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip(Matthew Perry, Aaron Sorkin, Bradley Whitiford, tv comedy, and all the other fantastic actors who's name I cannot remember, do I need to say any more? I think that I do not), Sports Night(fantastic cast, Aaron Sorkin, and...well, awesomeness), Doctor Who(if you have never heard of Doctor Who I do not even want to talk to you), Family Ties(Michael J Fox as a far right republican and some clever writing, need I say more? Maybe but I can't think of anything else to say it's been about a year since I watched it and....well...word count.), Friends(good cast, decent writing, it's light and fun, deal with it), and The West Wing(we in the tv fandom have a special nickname for this show. We call it pure perfection).
I realize that I have just spent a great deal of time writing something that only about four people will ever read, but hey it's words to add to the old word count. Cheers, ESB