I woke up this morning thinking about the novel I am working on, BEST OF BIPOLAR DISORDER. There is a fantasy element in the novel. It's the first time I am working with an element of the fantastic in a novel.

This makes me nervous. As much as I love to think about what happens when we die, as much as I love seeing movies about the afterworld, actually entering that realm in fiction scares me. Because so much of it has already been done, and also because one of the themes of my novel is that we should run like hell from people who think they know FOR CERTAIN the answers to the cosmic mystery.

Where do we go when we die? What is heaven like? Who gets to go there? These are questions we all have. Or should have. And issues of faith, too. It's one of the most interesting aspects of life on this planet. To me, anyway. How did the world all happen? Does science explain everything? Is there a God? Is one religion right? I believe these issues should be at the forefront of our minds almost always. And I further believe that the answer is like humility. As soon as you think you have it, it is gone.

Anyhow, it scares me and excites me to be writing about these issues. I woke up laughing, because I was thinking about a conversation the main character is having in a dream with his dead grandfather. Who is wise. Because he knows stuff. And the kid hates all that God stuff. I mean, the kids who beat him up are all Christian, so he's always been an atheist. Or so he thinks.

So just before I woke up, the kid is professing to his grandfather how much he places his faith in science. And the grandfather is telling him not to be too sure of himself. To prove it, he says, "Is this weren't real, could I do this?"

He raises his arm and a beam of light comes off his palm. It flickers. It goes away.

"Fuck," he says. "I hate when that happens."

He shakes his arms, but the light won't come back.

I loved this. It made me laugh. Because we've all seen that scene, right? When the wise old man, dead or alive, shows us something, and we learn. In this novel, there is some of that. But what if, I thought as I woke up, the dead grandfather is a bit of a doofus, and his ability to be magical is very flawed?

I want to do this throughout the novel. Create characters who go against not only type, but theme, repeatedly. If my message includes the idea that our perceptions are real, not just a lens through which we look, but they are actually real, I want to crack that facade at times. Sometimes, perceptions are NOT real, too. And the wise old medium they meet in Northern California? When he sees the kids and says, "I've been waiting for you," and it's the last line of the chapter, I want the next chapter to start with him thinking they are delivering him a new Tempur-Pedic pillow.

Nothing easy. Every time easy appears in such a novel, my new rule is: throw it out.