Welcome to "The Rabbit Hole"

I could have named it "The Sh*tshow," and that would have worked too.

If you're reading this post, then chances are, you're interested to learn more about my debut novel, The Strangest of Places. If that’s not the case, then (how the f did you get here?) not much of what you read here will make a lot of sense, but you’re welcome to stick around anyway.

I’ve decided to name this blog “The Rabbit Hole” as a nod to my having made a similar reference in the book:

There was definitely a rabbit hole with this band, and I was eager to jump down into it.

For context, this is when the main character, Autumn MacLeod, realizes she’s intrigued by what she’s learned about Phish so far, and wants to learn more. If you’re here, reading this, then I have to assume you’re curious enough to poke around here to learn more, so “The Rabbit Hole” seems like a fitting title.

What, exactly, do I intend to write about here? Good question, glad you asked!

I’m not entirely sure but simply having the intention to write something is how the book came to be, and that seemed to have worked out pretty well, so let’s just go with it and see what happens. Now that I mentioned it though, perhaps how the book started is as good a topic as any. Let's start with the disclaimer:

What does "a work of fiction, influenced by memory" mean? For me, it means that I’m taking elements from my life and using them as inspiration for the story. If you ever saw the movie, “Shakespeare in Love,” it’s kind of like that; real life events influence what Shakespeare puts down on paper, but it’s not a direct translation. I'll cover that in a bit more detail in a later post.

Suffice it to say that this book initially started out as a memoir, but as it progressed, I wanted to introduce characters and scenarios that were either completely fictional, or else took place during a time that was outside of my target setting of 1993 to 1996. The end result is a bit of a hybrid between memoir and fiction.

Which is which?

I’ll never tell.

Or maybe I will, in future blog posts.

We’ll see.