A few weeks ago I went to The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA. It is pretty self-explanatory, seeing as it is a festival... of books. Needless to say, it was awesome. While there, I went to a panel with John Green and David Levithan, where they discussed the book they wrote together: Will Grayson, Will Grayson. The panel was sold out (tickets were only a dollar and that was really just for the ticketmaster fee), so I got there early for the standby line. I was running late, because I stopped to pick up a copy of WG, WG and frankly, UCLA is large and confusing. I was worried I'd be stuck at the end of a long line and would be the first person who didn't get in. That tends to be my luck. When I arrived I was the only one in the standby line. This was a little awkward, but I was soon joined by two others. They had come together and were loudly discussing how dorky they felt being early to the standby line. I was blushing up a storm and wishing I had brought a pen when they started freaking out: John Green was walking right past us. I was freaking out as much as they were, but I tried to keep my cool. I also couldn't help but notice that even though I live in LA, my most star-struck, paparazzi-like moment was with a writer. And not even a screenwriter When I got inside, I began to read the first few pages of WG, WG while I waited for the panel to begin. I was just getting into it, when the whole room erupted. John Green and David Levithan walked out, and if you didn't know, you would have thought they were rock stars. And, really, they were.
WG, WG centers around two different Will Graysons who both live in the Chicago area. When their paths cross, their lives spiral into directions neither ever expected. What is interesting to me, is the structure of the book. According to David, the novel is written to be two novels that cross like an X in the middle and then keep going. John wrote about Will, who goes to school with Tiny, and David wrote about will (lowercase because he has depression and that's how he thinks of himself), who goes to school with Mara.
Obviously the book deals with identity (hello? Will Grayson/will grayson), but it also deals with love in much the way Naomi & Ely did. What does love really mean? I was struck by something that David said at the panel. As I said, I didn't have a pen to write it down, so I'll paraphrase--he talked about how society has stolen the word love so that we only associate it with sex and romantic love. But love isn't just about sex, it is so much more than we allow it to be. The book really explores that and I loved the scene where Will Grayson declares his love for Tiny Cooper and Jane isn't sure if he is coming out or asking her out. He's asking her out, but he is declaring war and taking back the word love.
Listening to the authors talk about their writing process gave me a totally new reading experience. For example, both of these authors consistently give us great, likable characters. In the panel, they talked about the creation of Tiny Cooper--not so tiny, but very gay. He loves musicals, but he loves football. He doesn't mind being a stereotype, but he's also not going to let that define him. It was interesting to learn that John actually created that character, but most people assume that David did. He even told how his own mother actually thought he had written John's chapters because she thought for sure that Tiny was David's creation. John and David also seemed to have very different writing approaches. John seems to be obsessed with rewriting (writing is rewriting after all) and seems to be overly critical of his own work, where as David seems to really value honesty and sincerity in his writing. It was interesting reading the book, after they both spoke about their different approaches and the challenges of working with another writer. It probably gave me more insight into the formation of a novel than any other book I've read.
As a side note, I'd like to add that after the panel I stood in line for an hour in order to get my books signed (WGWG, Looking for Alaska, and Nick & Norah). While in line, I chatted with a high school girl about AP tests and college and all that fun stuff, which made me feel old. However, she was a nerd fighter and made me promise to go watch the VlogBrothers. I was duly impressed, and must now ask you to go and watch as well.
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