At the end of this month, my newest picture book BROBARIANS with Two Lions, an imprint of Amazon Publishing, will pub on March 28th. I’m so excited to share this book with all of you for many reasons, but mostly because I never thought this book would be published. I honestly didn’t think anyone would get it. It’s weird and quirky and has nods to the writing of John Milius, who isn’t exactly the poster boy for childhood. Yet here we are, a month out from publication thanks to all the fabulous people at Two Lions who believed in it too.
Let me start from the beginning. My husband has this list of must-see movies. He’s very particular about them and feels that they are necessary to be a well-rounded viewer/human being. In other words, if you haven’t seen them, he won’t think much of your movie taste. What can I say, he’s particular about his movies. One of the movies on his list is Conan the Barbarian, written and directed by John Milius, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. I know what you’re thinking. Really, that’s on the list? Yes. And like all of you, I thought could this movie really be worth two hours of my life? But my husband insisted. Apparently my life would be stunted without it this viewing experience. So we watched it. And to be honest, I hated the first half hour of it. It was campy, cheesy, and completely ridiculous. But then something strange happened, I started to enjoy the campy, cheesy, and completely ridiculous dialogue. It was so over the top. This movie represented everything I would typically pass on, but for some reason it all worked. By the end of the two hours I loved it. And better yet…and book idea was forming.
I realized that the voice of Conan the Barbarian is what really sets it apart. I don’t mean Arnold’s voice, but rather the words of John Milius, the writer. This is the same guy who wrote Red Dawn, Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry, etc. An over the top, larger than life writer and director in the movie business. In fact, if any of you have seen The Big Lebowski (another movie on my husband’s list) the character played by John Goodman is based on Milius. I imagine you have to be pretty bold to create his resume. Days after watching Conan, the voice stayed with me.
And then I remembered a story my husband told me about he and his brother when they were little. My husband is two years older than his younger brother. By the time his younger brother was walking around with a bottle, my husband had already been weened off of them. But that didn’t change the fact that he still wanted one all the time. So on occasion my husband was known to steal his younger brother’s bottle and go hide behind a chair while he gulped it down. This lasted a whole of five minutes before their mom would figure out what had happened and take the bottle away. Apparently this became a household routine.
So between the Conan voice bouncing around in my head and the story my husband told me…BROBARIANS was created. As soon as the idea popped into my head, I wrote the first draft in one go. The story went through many, many, many drafts and revisions. But finally I was ready to create a dummy and send it to my agent. She must have thought I was crazy the first time she read BROBARIANS. I knew it was going to be a tough sell because the voice was so adult. But I also knew that’s where the humor was. This idea of babies juxtaposed with this over-the-top narration was too funny not to try.
We went out on two rounds of general submission and magically two houses were interested! I couldn’t believe someone was going to let me publish this book. Even now I still feel that way. Ultimately we felt that Two Lions and Amazon were a great fit for BROBARIANS.
After finishing the book, I received the best editorial letter yet, to which my editor said:
“I can say with certainty that this is the only time I have ever said this to anyone: thanks for watching Conan the Barbarian.”
So…here’s the point of this post: you never know where your ideas will come from, least of all a movie night with your husband starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who’d of thought?
I’m thrilled to share BROBARIANS on March 28th! I hope you all find it as funny as I do!
Lindsay
To pre-order BROBARIANS, please click here.
Make sure to check back during the month of March for more posts about the making of BROBARIANS!
