This interview was conducted in the author's plush country home over a snack of coffee and jellybeans.
TDB: Mr. Varicella, it is said that you pioneered the idea of the blog as novel--your blog features fictional characters and story lines that play out in headlines, stories, and even the comment section.
Varicella: Is there a question in there somewhere, Bubba.
TDB: It's Sally.
Varicella: Whatever.
TDB: What inspired you to attempt to not only publish novels for free on your website, but also to fictionalize the entire blogging process?
Varicella: I was struck by lightening.
TDB: Excuse me?
Varicella: I was on the roof during a thunderstorm--I won't go into all the details here, let's just say I was having sex and I was wearing a metal colander on my head--again, I won't go into the details here--when lightening struck--literally. It blasted me off the roof and I landed in some bushes in the neighbor's yard. Luckily the bushes were not hurt. Anyway, I went home the next day, and I just started blogging. I'm not sure if there was a connection or not between the blogging and the lightening strike, but they were both things that happened at about the same time.
TDB: Wow! That must have been wild!
Varicella: The sex on the roof, or getting struck by lightening at the precise moment of orgasm?
TDB: Um... the orgasm thing I guess.
Varicella: It was definitely the most fun thing I've ever done while being struck by lightening.
TDB: Back to the blog novel... Is it a novel?
Varicella: Well, it's novel in the since that it's new. I don't know of anyone else doing it.
TDB: By that you mean a fictional blog with invented staff writers who interact with one another through their stories, reviews, comment sections etc...
Varicella: No, I meant blogging. I never knew anyone who wasted time that way. It seems like something only people on television do, but it turns out any idiot can do it. Even me.
TDB: You famously wrote a book in which a woman had sex with a dinosaur. What was your process like for preparing for that scene?
Varicella: Well, I lived in the Museum of Natural History for about three months. I snuck in through the ventilation system one night after closing, but I never found a way into the museum proper, I just got stuck in the ceiling. Eventually I tunneled my way out, and, funny story, it turns out you can just go into the museum during the day and see almost everything. They even give tours. So I was on the tour one morning, and I see this mammoth Wooly Mammoth, and right next to it was a dinosaur. I thought to myself, "I wonder what it would be like to have sex with that dinosaur." I asked the tour guide, but he just looked at me in a funny way and then walked away. When I got home, I happened to be working on a book chapter in which a woman also has sex with a dinosaur, so I just made up a bunch of stuff and put it in there.
TDB: What has been the reaction?
Varicella: None whatsoever.
TDB: You tend to write multiple books at the same time. How does that work?
Varicella: I have an idea and I start writing. Then I stop. Then I have another idea and I start writing that. Then I stop. Then I start writing the first idea again, only I forget which idea I'm writing, and pretty soon I have two books that have the same chapter, only one is chapter four in one book and the other is chapter seven in the other book and neither one makes any sense unless you've read the first three chapters of the first book and the first six chapters of the second. It gets kind of confusing.
TDB: How are your readers able to stick with it?
Varicella: So far they haven't been able to.
TDB: How does that make you feel?
Varicella: Fine.
TDB: I heard you respond to fan mail with a form letter rejecting them from admission into your fan club.
Varicella: That's true, although technically I haven't been able to send it out yet, since I haven't received any fan mail yet. I thought I might post it on the blog as a preemptive strike.
TDB: What are you working on now?
Varicella: It's a novel about a redneck zombie created by a demented medical school dropout.
TDB: When can we expect the next installment?
Varicella: Chapter three is finished and half typed. It will be posted soon.
TDB: We'll be looking forward to it. Thank you for joining us.
Varicella: Where else would I be?
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