The second thing that I write about, which I didn’t know about until I created a body of work, I’ve now written 35 novels, so I didn’t realize this until about novel 28 which is I like to write about resistance to authority and I think that comes from when I was little and I was a storyteller I got in trouble with my parents all the time, I was the kid that always in trouble because I was making up stories or I was late, I wasn’t telling the truth, I got too curious and I explored something that I shouldn’t have, you know.
And then I would try and cover it up. So, and my parents were very strict, they had a lot of rules. So I had to knuckle under to authority. But because I was a rebellious kind of creative kid, I never really did it, I looked like I was knuckling under but then I would sneak out and do something else. So that kind of resistance to authority is, is in everything I write.
I did a four book series called Who Shrunk Daniel Funk which is a very funny series. And it’s about a boy who develops the ability to shrink down to the size of his, the fourth toe on his left foot. Well I think the reason I wrote that is because I remember growing up wanting to be invisible. Wanting to be little so that I could do what I wanted. All I wanted was to do what I wanted, to not have to finish the mashed potatoes at dinner if I didn’t want to.
Or to be able, I was not allowed to take the bus downtown in Los Angeles because that was deemed dangerous. I just wanted to take the bus, I didn’t want to do anything bad. So the idea of being invisible where you could go about your own, pursue your own desires, without a grownup saying mm, that’s inappropriate, no you can’t do that, no that’s not safe, was been so strong in me and I always found ways to get around it.
And I think writing is one way that I express that, it’s not to do unsafe things but just to be able to do what you want. You know my motto if I had a motto that was inscribed it would be you can’t make me. That’s you know, I remember saying that growing up, you can’t make me do that. I’ll do it but you can’t make me like it. So that’s kind of what I write about is a child who has, who knows so much what they want and who just wants to navigate the world on their own.
And succeeds in doing that, not in an unsafe way but in a way of sort of making the adults in their life understand that they have to do it their way.