Will McIntosh's Blog - Posts Tagged "monty-python"
Burning Midnight's Inspiration - Release Day!
It's release day for Burning Midnight! Eighteen months ago, when I learned the book would be released in February 2016, that seems like such a long, long time in the future, but here it is!
To mark the occasion, I thought I'd post a few thoughts on where the idea for Burning Midnight came from. Burning Midnight is about mysterious colored spheres that are hidden all over the world, and if you have two of the same color they give you something. Easy-to-find colors might give you straighter, whiter teeth; rare colors might give you high intelligence, or physical strength. In the book, two teens find a sphere so rare no one knows what it does. But everyone wants it.
So, where did the idea come from? More than any of my other books, this one came out of my past. I can think of at least four parts of my past that influenced Burning Midnight:
1. The Easter egg hunt. Burning Midnight involves palm-sized spheres in a variety of colors, hidden all over the Earth. I wasn’t aware of it while writing, but that’s very much what an Easter egg hunt is. When I was seven, my mother took me to a huge Easter egg hunt on the lawn of our town’s city hall. There were eggs of all colors hidden on the grounds, but only one gold-colored egg. If you found it, you’d receive some fabulous prize I no longer remember. I was squatting beside the boy who found the golden egg. He tipped a piece of drain spout lying on the ground near the building, and out it rolled. In my memory it is bright and perfect and magical. And I was so close.
2. The bottle dump. When I was twelve, my sister, a cousin, and I stumbled on a 60 year-old dump hidden in the woods. We spent a summer hunting for antique bottles, and built a valuable collection of something like 200 that we displayed on our porch. Burning Midnight is about hunting and discovering incredibly rare things in the wild.
3. Monty Python’s Olympic hide and seek skit. Monty Python’s Flying Circus came to America when I was fourteen. I fell in love. One of the many skits that become canon to me involved the Olympic hide and seek finals, where the seeker counted to one million while the hider could hide anywhere on Earth. The game lasted eleven years, then they switched roles and did it all again. Terry Jones is looking in a trash can in Madagascar as the announcer proclaims to the audience in hushed tones that he is officially “cold”, because Graham Chapman is hiding in a cave in Sardinia. This is the hunt for the rarest spheres in Burning Midnight. They could be anywhere, including a trash can in Sardinia.
4. I was a teenage comic book dealer. In the very first chapter of Burning Midnight, Sully is sitting behind a table at a flea market, selling spheres. When I was sixteen I sat behind a table at a flea market selling superhero comic books. In Burning Midnight, when you touch two spheres of the same color to your temples, you get some ability. If the spheres are Lemon Yellow, you grow an inch; if they’re Mustard, you become smarter. You get superpowers. Like a superhero.
I wasn't really aware of all of these influences while I was writing Burning Midnight. I try not to think too hard when I write. But after a little mining of my past, the influences began to tumble out in the light. Thanks for reading. If you get a chance to read the book, I hope you enjoy it!
(A slightly different version of this appeared on the Book-lover's website, Curling Up With A Good Book.)
To mark the occasion, I thought I'd post a few thoughts on where the idea for Burning Midnight came from. Burning Midnight is about mysterious colored spheres that are hidden all over the world, and if you have two of the same color they give you something. Easy-to-find colors might give you straighter, whiter teeth; rare colors might give you high intelligence, or physical strength. In the book, two teens find a sphere so rare no one knows what it does. But everyone wants it.
So, where did the idea come from? More than any of my other books, this one came out of my past. I can think of at least four parts of my past that influenced Burning Midnight:
1. The Easter egg hunt. Burning Midnight involves palm-sized spheres in a variety of colors, hidden all over the Earth. I wasn’t aware of it while writing, but that’s very much what an Easter egg hunt is. When I was seven, my mother took me to a huge Easter egg hunt on the lawn of our town’s city hall. There were eggs of all colors hidden on the grounds, but only one gold-colored egg. If you found it, you’d receive some fabulous prize I no longer remember. I was squatting beside the boy who found the golden egg. He tipped a piece of drain spout lying on the ground near the building, and out it rolled. In my memory it is bright and perfect and magical. And I was so close.
2. The bottle dump. When I was twelve, my sister, a cousin, and I stumbled on a 60 year-old dump hidden in the woods. We spent a summer hunting for antique bottles, and built a valuable collection of something like 200 that we displayed on our porch. Burning Midnight is about hunting and discovering incredibly rare things in the wild.
3. Monty Python’s Olympic hide and seek skit. Monty Python’s Flying Circus came to America when I was fourteen. I fell in love. One of the many skits that become canon to me involved the Olympic hide and seek finals, where the seeker counted to one million while the hider could hide anywhere on Earth. The game lasted eleven years, then they switched roles and did it all again. Terry Jones is looking in a trash can in Madagascar as the announcer proclaims to the audience in hushed tones that he is officially “cold”, because Graham Chapman is hiding in a cave in Sardinia. This is the hunt for the rarest spheres in Burning Midnight. They could be anywhere, including a trash can in Sardinia.
4. I was a teenage comic book dealer. In the very first chapter of Burning Midnight, Sully is sitting behind a table at a flea market, selling spheres. When I was sixteen I sat behind a table at a flea market selling superhero comic books. In Burning Midnight, when you touch two spheres of the same color to your temples, you get some ability. If the spheres are Lemon Yellow, you grow an inch; if they’re Mustard, you become smarter. You get superpowers. Like a superhero.
I wasn't really aware of all of these influences while I was writing Burning Midnight. I try not to think too hard when I write. But after a little mining of my past, the influences began to tumble out in the light. Thanks for reading. If you get a chance to read the book, I hope you enjoy it!
(A slightly different version of this appeared on the Book-lover's website, Curling Up With A Good Book.)
