Seven Years Ago I Saw This Video

And Then I Wrote This Book

I was already writing the Ivy Years books. I’d crafted a rather diverse, cerebral hockey team, and I was proud of it. But then I took my child to a football game at Dartmouth College. And a halftime, I saw this video.

By this time in my life I had dozens of LGBTQ friends. But when that kid looks into the camera at the :53 mark and says: “but it shouldn’t take courage to go into your own locker room,” it hit me hard. I realized that my hockey team wasn’t as fully realized as I’d thought.

Who, exactly, was nervous walking into his locker room?

That’s how I found the character of Michael Graham. He and John Rikker arrived soon after as fully formed characters. (That never happens!) But even as I sat down to write this story, I felt like I already knew them. I already knew Graham’s struggle, and I knew Rikker’s weary, wary New Guy journey.

I will never write 95,000 words so effortlessly again in my life. But that’s okay with me. Because it gave me Graham and Rikker.

And if you need to know that the world will be okay, watch this video a couple of times. They’ll show you.