Why Boston Proper? Especially since I have not even been to Boston. Well, I didn’t really have a choice. It was a story that was in my head, and to keep it from rattling around up there, I had to put I to paper. That’s how it has always been for me. Even when I was little.
For anyone who is creative at all, you can appreciate how “ideas” come to you. Sometimes they are just a spark – an idea. Other times, they can come to you nearly fully formed.
Being nearly fully formed is how the story of Boston Proper came to me. Don’t know how, or why – just that it did. As I had mentioned, I had never been to Boston. I didn’t have any relatives or friends from there. I literally knew nothing about the city, let alone the Boston from more than a century ago. But there it was. This big story is about battling social factions wrapped in a love story.
Of course, I needed to develop the structure, characters, and plot point, etc. But essentially, it was just a matter of finding the time to sit down and put it to paper.
It was May 1997. I sat down and put the outline together on my new Apple Power Book computer. It took me a couple of days. My initial thinking was that something was missing and I didn’t know what. At that point, fleshing it out would be way too much work. So, I shoved it in a drawer and there it sat until the year 2000.
I had thought about the story a lot while it sat in my preverbal desk draw. One day, I pulled it and it hit me. I figured out what was missing. Boston Proper wasn’t a novel. It was a mini-series for television. Of course! So, I broached an agent and I pitched it. He immediately said, “The mini-series is dead. Nobody wants them anymore. Write a book,” he said.
I threw the damn outline back into the draw and there it sat for another year. I didn’t know if it was a movie, a television series, a novel, or a series of novels. But I really liked the stories. And the characters – they haunted me? I know it’s totally weird. But I felt like I was denying the character’s life – to be in the world. As asinine as it was, I felt guilty. I could hear Xander’s voice in my head. Victoria would rally me with one of her speeches to her father. They needed to live. But how? In what form?
I got into UCLA and pitched the outline as a television series again. The professor said I was absolutely right. He had me develop the scripts over the semester. Then Downton Abbey aired. That meant death to Boston Proper. For every agent and producer I pitched, the answer was the same. There was no room for two Downton Abbeys, even if mine was set in America.
My storyline was nothing like Downton Abbey. It had a similar structure and that was about it. It didn’t matter. Boston Proper as series was dead. That was 2010.
A few years later, I started my Master’s program. The same professor who had advised me about Boston Proper before approached me. He said he had thought a lot about the story. He urged me to write as a novel. “Holy cripes,” I thought. Enough with the BP already!”
Over that Christmas break, I pulled out the outline again. I began to write Boston Proper as a novel. It took me six years to write. Win or lose, I’m putting it out there. And it’s NOT a f’in Downton Abbey.
As a funny side note, someone on the promotion team came up with this idea to help market the book. “If you liked Downton Abbey, you’re going to love Boston Proper.” WTF! Hope you like it.