One of the most com­mon ques­tions I get in school vis­its is, “How long does it take to write a book?”

I answer with a ques­tion of my own: “Well, where should I start count­ing from? Is it from the time I had the expe­ri­ence that inspired the idea? Or from the time when I first real­ized it might be the root of a sto­ry? Or when I start­ed to make notes? Or when I wrote an out­line? Or do you mean how long from when I actu­al­ly sat down and start­ed writing?”

I think the truest answer is that the time it takes to write a sto­ry is how old you were when you fin­ished writ­ing it. Because when you’re writ­ing, real­ly writ­ing, you draw on every­thing you’ve expe­ri­enced from the time you were born up to that moment.

In the case of Aliens Ate My Home­work, the seed for the sto­ry came from some imag­i­nary friends that my across-the-street neigh­bor and I cooked up when we were 8 or 9 years old: a group of six-inch-high aliens that we put through var­i­ous prob­lems and adventures.

More than thir­ty years lat­er I need­ed an idea for a con­tract I was nego­ti­at­ing. Remem­ber­ing those lit­tle aliens, I came up with the title Aliens Ate My Gold­fish! (My thought was that the cov­er would show six lit­tle aliens roast­ing a gold­fish over a camp­fire on top of the main char­ac­ter’s dress­er … )  Lat­er I remem­bered the clas­sic excuse “My Dog Ate My Home­work” and changed the title to Aliens Ate My Home­work, which every­one thought was a much bet­ter idea. (To be hon­est, it would have been hard to find a worse one!)

To write that book I did some­thing I’d nev­er done before: I based the main char­ac­ter, Rod All­bright, total­ly and com­plete­ly on my kid-self. Every­thing from his basic clum­si­ness to his total and com­plete inabil­i­ty to tell a lie (and the rea­son for that!) were based on me.

One of the most basic rules of writ­ing, repeat­ed end­less­ly by writ­ing teach­ers and edi­tors, is “Write what you know!” With Aliens Ate My Home­work, I was lit­er­al­ly mix­ing what I knew (my fam­i­ly, my child­hood home, my best friend) with some wild imaginings.