What Boys Really Want was conceived as a he-said/she-said story written with fellow author Mary Logue, with each of us writing alternate scenes. The idea was that I would handle Adam’s parts, while Mary would write in Lita’s voice.
“It will be fun!” I said, channeling Adam Merchant. Mary wasn’t so sure about the “fun” part, but she agreed to give it a try. I sketched out an outline, and we began to write.
Four chapters later it wasn’t fun anymore. I think the problem was that I had come up with the concept for the book, and Mary, whose mind is as creative, active, and dangerous as Lita’s, decided she would rather be working on her own ideas. Also, I tend to be somewhat directive. Okay, pushy.
Mary and I agreed that it was no fun at all to do things that weren’t fun, so we abandoned the project and went to work on our own books.
A few years later I reread those early chapters of What Boys Really Want, and asked Mary’s permission to have a go at it alone. “Knock yourself out,” she said, or words to that effect.
I made a bunch of changes in what we’d written, and I took the story in a slightly new direction, but many of Mary’s words and phrases have survived my edits. Specifically, many of Lita’s best lines in the first four chapters were written by Mary Logue.
Thank you, Mary. I love you. Please don’t sue me.