M. Harmon Wilkinson 4/29/24 M. Harmon Wilkinson 4/29/24

The idea: August

I had the idea for August quite a long time ago. (My first notes are from 2012.) It was originally going to be a road trip, the protagonist meeting a new someone chapter by chapter, with each person who helps him having their life changed in some way. Some of that road trip is still in the book, but it morphed into a love story along the way. The root of that idea was there from the very start, as the protagonist was to escape his retirement home and go off in search of his old love. I simply shrank the road trip part and expanded the story of what happens when he finds her.

M. Harmon Wilkinson 4/15/24 M. Harmon Wilkinson 4/15/24

The idea: Writers on the Storm

This idea came to me a couple of years ago in Japan. I was quite excited by it and immediately went for a walk with my wife to tell her about it. She thought it was great. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That’s clear from my early notes on the project, which contain whole scenes written out. In fact, this idea was supposed to wait while I finished The Time Well series, but I couldn’t turn it off, so I opened a Scrivener file and started typing. What came out over the course of a year writing on and off was Writers on the Storm. It’s my first try at making humor a significant aspect of a novel, and I’m not sure I really pulled it off. I think the humor got taken over by the plot somewhere around the middle of the book. But I like it. I may try to amp up the humor in the editing process, if that’s possible.

M. Harmon Wilkinson 5/21/21 M. Harmon Wilkinson 5/21/21

The idea: A Scowl Becomes Me

All my male protagonists are alike. They’re all me, except better looking.

M. Harmon Wilkinson 9/20/20 M. Harmon Wilkinson 9/20/20

The idea: The Time Well

What I have written now is too much story for one book, but not enough for three.

M. Harmon Wilkinson 9/14/20 M. Harmon Wilkinson 9/14/20

The idea: The Keeper

A foreigner living in Tokyo does not want his daughters to have to live with the pain of their father’s suicide. So he decides to get himself murdered. That’s not a simple thing to do in Tokyo.

M. Harmon Wilkinson 9/9/20 M. Harmon Wilkinson 9/9/20

The idea: Vision More Glorious

Vision More Glorious follows a young English teacher in Tokyo who takes part in a drug trial for a new antidepressant. To his amazement, it quickly alters the range of light he is able to see, giving him a wonderful, though almost useless, superpower.

M. Harmon Wilkinson 8/29/20 M. Harmon Wilkinson 8/29/20

The idea: Kintsugi

When the fates of two couples intersect, the complications test their characters and relationships. Can they mend them kintsugi-fashion to be better than before, or will they simply have to sweep up the shards and throw them away?

M. Harmon Wilkinson 8/21/20 M. Harmon Wilkinson 8/21/20

The idea: The Man Terror Club

Perhaps the most surprising experience of writing The Man Terror Club was how much I came to like the characters. While all the women have been betrayed, abused, or discarded, they remained kind, giving, and caring. Their love for each other heals them, and that healing is most of the story, not their terrorism as they lash out at the evil men do.

M. Harmon Wilkinson 5/25/18 M. Harmon Wilkinson 5/25/18

The idea: Neyuki

I was working at a small university in rural Japan. The faculty were a terribly dysfunctional lot. It was really quite disturbing. So I started writing a novel as a sort of self-therapy to deal with all of the craziness.

M. Harmon Wilkinson 4/27/18 M. Harmon Wilkinson 4/27/18

The idea: Under Shōko's Bed

I told her that I wished I could remain a little longer, that I would be happy just to stay under her bed. She laughed and I said goodbye and went home—and started ruminating. The idea of someone who is so shattered that he would curl up under a friend’s bed stuck in my imagination.