Slacker Author Gordon Korman on Video Games, Writing, and Being Lazy Like a Fox

So let’s start at the beginning. I read in your bio that you published your first book, This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall!, at FOURTEEN years old! That will make even the most accomplished person feel like a slacker! How did that happen? And have you been writing ever since?
It actually started as my seventh-grade assignment. The track and field coach was covering our English class, and he’d never taught creative writing before, so he gave us carte blanche to work on whatever we wanted. That amounted to a 42-minute class period every day from February to the end of the year. (I got a B-plus, but to be fair, it was a neatness-counts B-plus.)
The result was the first draft of Macdonald Hall. I didn’t know much about publishing, but I happened to the class monitor for Scholastic Book Orders, so I figured I was practically an employee already. How could they ignore the keeper of the bonus points? My submission strategy consisted of mailing my manuscript (typed now, courtesy of Mom) to the address on the Scholastic flyer. It was only much later, as an adult, that I understood just how incredibly lucky I was that my manuscript found its way onto the desk of a real editor.

As someone who created a “Spanish Club” (which barely had one meeting en espanol) to pump up my college application, I have to admit, I definitely related to my new favorite slacker Cameron Boxer. What’s the most Slacker-like thing you’ve done?
This is a horrible thing to cop to on a book blog, but a couple of times in grade school I handed in book reports on non-existent novels I made up. And while it may have been a good creative exercise, it wasn’t much of a reading exercise, which was what my teachers probably had in mind.

After writing over 80 books, I would say “slacker” is the last word to describe you. But is there any part of Cameron you relate to? And what inspired you to write a character like him?
Actually, I think all writers are closet slackers, don’t you? When that long editorial letter arrives, isn’t the first impulse to get on the phone and argue with your editor? That’s not because we believe our editors are wrong; it’s because we’re too lazy to do the work. Maybe we should take a page from Cam’s playbook and form a Positive Revision Group to get us out of all that rewriting.
My actual inspiration for Cam was my older son who is a huge gamer. My wife and I are constantly expressing some version of “When that kid’s lost in Xbox, the whole house could burn to the ground around him and he’d never even notice.” Obviously, we didn’t mean that literally. But one day I asked myself, “Now, how might that happen in real life?”

What’s your process like? At this point I imagine it’s like clockwork! (Aspiring authors take notes!)
Clockwork? I wish! It’s true that once I have an idea, I’m pretty good at populating it with characters and developing a story. I’ve been doing this for three-quarters of my life, so experience should count for something. But that initial what-if can still be kind of elusive. It’s the most precious thing in our business, don’t you think?
Once I know what I’m doing, though, I’m a big planner. I won’t even type the words “Chapter One” until I know the beginning, the ending, and at least three or four major events in the middle. It’s funny—kids are always telling me, “I’m too lazy to make an outline.” For me, the total opposite is true. I make an outline because I’m lazy. Outlines are fantastic for lazy people, because they save so much work in the long run. When it comes to writing, the real slackers are planners.
What’s up next for you? (LOTS more books, we hope!)
I’ll be going back to some of the series I’ve been working on. My first stop will be the Swindle Mysteries, and my first ever holiday/Christmas book—Jingle, coming at the end of September.
After that, the third and final installment in the Masterminds trilogy will be hitting the shelves in March—Masterminds: Payback.
And, of course, I’ll keep on traveling, meeting my readers at the schools, libraries, and bookstores I visit. That’s always been a part of the gig for me.
Slacker is on shelves now.