Fictionaut Five: Brendan Halpin

Brendan Halpin is the author of novels for both adults (Dear Catastrophe Waitress, Donorboy) and young adults (Forever Changes, How Ya Like Me Now.) His latest — and possibly last — book for grown-ups is I Can See Clearly Now, the story of a group of idealistic musicians who, in 1972, hole up in a New York studio to record songs for an educational TV show. Publishers Weekly called the book “clever and infectious.”

At his blog, Brendan covers weird stuff he’s seen on TCM and a proposed screenplay to a sequel of 80s classic The Breakfast Club.

If you weren’t a writer, how would you spend your time?

Well, I spend a significant chunk of my time teaching already. I suppose if I weren’t writing I’d probably read more. And watch a lot more horror movies.

Which book do you wish you’d written?

China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station is an amazing tour de force of imagination. It’s so far beyond what I’m capable of that I’m kind of in awe of it. So yeah, I wish I could do that. Sales-wise, though, I’d be happy if I’d written Twilight. Or The Secret. That couldn’t have taken very long to write. I’ll bet that works out to a nice hourly wage.

What are the websites you couldn’t live without?

I may be too old for this question. I lived happily for years with no websites at all, so I know I could live without pretty much any of them. I like Twitter a lot, though, and I use wikispaces.com and gradebookwizard in my teaching work, and I’ve found them very helpful in keeping me organized. And the websites that all my utility and credit card companies operate allow me to pay bills without sorting through stacks of paper, so I like those as well.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on two young adult novels with Emily Franklin. I also have a YA comedic fantasy novel in the works, as well as a horror novel. All of these are in very early stages.

Do you listen to music while you write? What?

I always listen to music while I write. What I listen to depends on what I’m writing. So when I wrote  I Can See Clearly Now, which is set in 1972, I listened only to music from the 60’s and 70’s. I just finished writing a YA novel in which my main character is a black metal fan, so I listened to a lot of that while writing in order to get into his head. (Many thanks to Pandora for allowing me to listen to black metal when I need to without having to actually buy it.) When I wrote Long Way Back I listened to a lot of old school punk and the Who’s Tommy. I listen to the Misfits and Roky Erickson while writing horror. So it really depends both on my mood and on the mood I’m trying to evoke.