If you pay attention (and even if you don’t), you will be given the gift of a bizarre set of characters for almost any book you’d like to write, though I should warn you, others are writing the same books. The problem is the difficulty of narrowing the field.
For example, in the 2014 race for mayor of Toronto (which race was won by John Tory), you might select from one or more candidates who had no chance of victory:
- Carlie Ritchie, AKA Mizz Barbie Bitch, a dominatrix who promised to “whip Toronto into shape”
- Don Andrews, leader of the neo-Nazi Nationalist Party of Canada
- Dave Mackay, who satirized incumbent Mayor Rob Ford under the stage name, Sketchy the Clown
- Morgan Baskin, a high school student who vowed to bring a young new voice to silence the city’s divisive political infighting
- Selina Chan, whose focus is to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana and prostitution
As I read about the Toronto mayoral election and as I continue to suffer the bombardment of attack ads in Arkansas, I realize the public arena in which the fights for political spoils take place is a parody of itself. It is as if the candidates are jockeying for position in line, hoping their absurd antics will lead to an offer of a book deal. They are working feverishly to create their own set of characters, none of whom have any measurable redeeming values.
These people are books that write themselves. Many of the are tawdry, ugly, poorly-written dime store novellas that haven’t been proofed, but they are books. At least they should be.
