Katherine Center
This is SUCH a great question!! It was not a specific inspiration--not consciously, at least! But what I've found is that the longer you hold the components of a story in your head, both before you start writing and then while you're writing, those components start to form little threads of connection. Eventually, those threads become so numerous that they kind of weave and hold the whole thing together. So there's that great line in the poem about "searching through the leaves of the night for your hands," and in the scene, Jake is searching through the leaves of the forest floor for his glasses . . . and that's just a perfect example of how those two things connected themselves like magic. Those threads, for me, are the thing that make a story 3-D and real.
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Susan's Reviews
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Katherine Center:
While I was reading Happiness for Beginners, I kept visualizing a young, spunky Annie Potts as Helen and a young James Franco for Jake. Do you model your characters on favourite actors or personal acquaintances? Your characters seem so real to me. By the way, I'm not a fan of sequels, but Duncan's story - or a character like Duncan - would be hilarious.
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