Lapses of Unknown
When I was a kid, I blacked out. I was at the supermarket with my mother, and we were walking along the dairy aisle. I can clearly recall the way the milk cartons glowed extra white under the refrigerators fluorescent light. Then, there’s nothing.
I didn’t faint or anything like that. I was just there–and then not. When I came to, and I was hanging off the front of a stranger’s shopping cart.
I had a student in Japan who had a similar experience. He went missing during the Kobe earthquake. He was ten years old. He was gone for six hours. When I asked him, what did he do while he was gone? He said, he didn’t know. He didn’t have any memory of it.
These lapses of unknown had been haunting me for a long time. What happened in that nothing? What if we went to a place? What if there was a place between being awake and asleep we could visit but never remember?
A lot of creative ideas are driven by wondering–what if…
For the past five years I’ve been asking these what-if questions, and trying to figure out how to turn these ideas into a story. Now, I’m excited to announce that Somewhere In Between is more than just wisps of inspiration, but an actual manuscript, and will be published by Kung Fu Girl Books at the end of the Summer.
What’s this short novel about?
Two friends find a portal to another dimension.
They first visit it as teenagers, then post-college twenty-somethings. For them, it’s like a blanket fort, a safe place for them to hide away from their responsibilities. But each time they visit, they alter reality.
The book is about changes–ones that we can control, and ones that we can’t.
It’s about running away and hiding and bad coping mechanisms.
It’s about commitment and friendship.
It’s about the in-between phases when you’re growing up have nothing but unknown ahead of you.
I’m loving every minute of writing this story, but I admit that I’m wandering into unknown territory–this is my first time publishing a book! In any case, I can’t wait to be sharing more about this world and characters in the coming months.
You can check #SomewhereInBetween on Twitter and Instagram for updates and discussion about the book. I’ll also be posting about up-coming events where we can meet-up and talk about books and strange stories in real life. The first one is TONIGHT at the Writers’ Room of Boston annual public reading–I’ll be reading an excerpt from the book!
I can tell you already, Summer 2015 is going to be epic.
And in the meantime, if you know of any bookstores or bars that would be open to hosting a book launch party that involves blanket forts, let me know.