I wanted to know more about how mania played a part in Stephanie's creative process.  Since she said she wrote the book "during a particularly manic period which I like to call Operation Zyzzybaluba."

I too have been driven creatively by mania and was very curious.  This is what she had to say about mania.

I love mania as long as it doesn't bleed into delusional thinking. I was very close to the cusp when I started writing scarlet begonias.

I'd been doing research on wikipedia like a mad person and have a drawer full of documentation supporting my theories, of which only a few finally became part of my research. So I need to write more to incorporate the other hypotheses.

Prime numbers, dark matter, and vacuums will be the focus of my next book. I think it will be a conspiracy theory mystery that also takes place in the dreamscape. 

Part of the Motivation

My part in the motivation was this, we had an idea to write Clive Barker's Third Book of the Art since he never has.  Many ideas at first came from The Great and Secret Show and Everville but then Steph took it off into a cosmic direction.  It became something far different and unique.  I originally wanted to help with the book but realized we wanted to head off in two different directions.  So Steph kept on going. I stayed behind to be her fan.  That's all I have to say about my part in this because that's all there is to it.  There is no one like Stephanie!

What Motivated Stephanie to Write Scarlet Begonias?

I asked Stephanie today through email what motivated her to write this book.  She gave me a very interesting answer.  Along with the interesting answer came one million other interesting answers.  Sorry Steph, I'm only giving out the first answer so far...so far...

What motivated you to write the book?

I was trying to design a time machine with you during a particularly manic period which I like to call Operation Zyzzybaluba….Then I got hung up on needing a prime directive and realized that it wouldn’t so much be a time machine as a perception machine…and then I read this:

Official Kilogram Losing Mass: Scientists Propose Redefining It As A Precise Number Of Carbon Atoms

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2007) — How much is a kilogram?

And I read this:

Time Machine - Atom Smasher (1st test yesterday in Switzerland)

 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080910/ap_on_sc/big_bang

 The CERN experiments could reveal more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle — the Higgs boson — which is sometimes called the "God particle" because it is believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe.

The start of the collider came over the objections of some who feared the collision of protons could eventually imperil the Earth by creating micro-black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.

And then I started to wonder about this:

"If something exists, it exists in some amount.  If it exists in some amount, then it is capable of being measured."

Rene Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, 1644

Cosmic Pal

Hi, I am cosmic pals with Stephanie Geman-Marcotte.  I am hoping to be able to share some of her insight here with her fans.  This is the deal, I plan on interviewing her from time to time.  Asking her maybe only a question or two.  Sometimes it might be about her books and sometimes it might be questions about the meaning of life and then again sometimes it might be about toast.


This is just a fun place to share her thoughts from  her biggest fan and cosmic pal.  Or I might just be a stalker.