It’s funny how things combine to spark a story idea. Sometimes I don’t even know what all the underpinnings are until I am well into the story! That happened with a new book that I’m planning to publish in December.
I did not start out this year thinking ‘I will publish a new thing every month.’ In fact, I was halfway intending to slow it down. That fell apart with the pandemic, when ‘safer at home’ combined with being put on remote-work status by my employer meant I suddenly had a) 3 hours more a day of time at home (my car to train to bus commute plus lunch break) and b) absolutely nothing to do outside the house except yard work. No movies, no hanging out with friends, no dance lessons: lots more time to write.
In April I wrote a novella-length ‘Day in the Life’ which touched on thirty or so of the romantic couples in my stories. It’s set on March 23, 2020, the Monday after our safer-at-home order went into effect (and is linked as a free read on the home page of this blog). Writing that helped me figure out exactly where 30+ sets of main characters are at that moment in Story Universe time.
Which led me to one conclusion: some of these people were going to be unemployed. Some might have to leave L.A. How could I keep my community together?
The December book had three ‘what ifs.’ Those were:
what if I took a hookup scenario and gave it my particular twist;
what if I tried actually outlining the book, i.e. planning out where the big events would land and then working my way in and out of them;
what if I found a solution to the way the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 would unavoidably affect many of my characters going forward.
I will absolutely cop to the fact that I was inspired in part by Alexis Hall’s Arden St. Ives trilogy. I did not want to write a bildom trilogy myself; BDSM is not my bag and even if it were I don’t think I could do better than he did. (He was frying some interesting fish with that trilogy.) I would rather read his books again than do my own version.
But a billionaire was something I could work with. I have some other rich characters, but this guy is Rich. And that was important because while the bulk of the world’s entertainment is presented to the public by a few huge companies, the majority of the people on the production side are independent contractors. Meaning, self-employed. Meaning, paid only when actively working on a project. Then there is local entertainment: restaurants, bars, theaters. Some of those workers will have been furloughed, others laid off. Many businesses have closed altogether, and many of those won’t ever re-open. Same with personal services - gyms, salons, yoga studios, etc. - and nonessential retail.
In short, if my characters - dancers, actors, bartenders, yoga teachers, et cetera - were going to have jobs to go back to, I needed someone to put up some money. Someone who has good personal reasons to make serious investments in Los Angeles, but also is in a position to do so.
There are two key locations that I want to preserve for the future of the story universe. The first of those is the West Hollywood dance studio, Shall We Dance. As of 2020 in story time, studio co-owners Patrick and Dmitri are 65 and 61. Patrick is on the verge of retiring from his long career as an accountant. He is in good financial shape; their retirement is secure. Dmitri would not have chosen to retire at 61. But they may not be able to return the studio to its former mode of operation for years, if ever. He’s already been thinking about who to hand the business to. The problem is, none of those people have the financial resources, especially when the entire business has to be re-imagined.
The second key location is the Hollywood nightclub called Chrome. As I’ve envisioned it (though I haven’t spelled this out because it wasn’t necessary), it’s a freestanding building, on a street corner, with a parking-access alley between it and its nearest neighbor on Hollywood Boulevard. It was last renovated in 2012 and is probably due for an upgrade. The operating tenant is Tyrone Washington (CHAI AT MIDNIGHT), who is sixty-three in 2020. He’s already handed off most of the daily management to his lieutenant Terry (SHAKEN & STIRRED), but Terry isn’t in a position to take over the lease. It’s the same conundrum as the dance studio: the business needs a new model, plus money.
But now I have my billionaire in position. His book begins in 2015 and concludes in 2017 with his relocation to Los Angeles. By the time the pandemic hits, he’ll be thoroughly dug into life here, and because he’s a fan of the Underground Cabaret (and also a student of tango) he’ll have gotten to know a lot of my people. To someone like this guy, buying up a block in West Hollywood so as to preserve a few longtime community businesses, and buying up a club in Hollywood to create a new production center for streamed entertainment, will be no strain at all.
As it happens, I had a work-in-progress novella written in 2019, set in 2020, that got completely derailed by the pandemic (that is, things I had written could not have happened). I had already halfway decided to turn that project into a full-length novel because of the things I needed to change in order to make the story fit real life. One thing I can do, thanks to my billionaire deus ex machina, is start setting the scene for how my people can continue to live and work in L.A.