Special Guest: Greg Logsted

Please help me welcome today's guest blogger, Greg Logsted! Greg currently lives in Danbury with his wife and fellow author, Lauren Baratz-Logsted and their daughter Jackie. He is the author of Something Happened, Alibi Junior High and coauthor of The Sisters Eight. Find him online at www.GregLogsted.com and www.twitter.com/GregLogsted.

Thank you, Fictionistas, for having me on your site!

One of the things I really love in books and movies is time travel. I just can’t get enough of it! Last summer I read a really great time-travel novel called REPLAY by Ken Grimwood. It’s about a man who keeps dying when he’s 43 and waking up when he’s 18 to live his life over and over again. It made a fantastic summer vacation even better. Sun, sand and a good book – it’s the simple things in life that give me the most pleasure.

I suspect that my love of time travel is one of the main reasons I love to write YA and MG novels. I’ve had two published, SOMETHING HAPPENED and ALIBI JUNIOR HIGH, and I’ve got others in the pipeline. When I write a YA novel I’m able to shift my whole thought process back to my teenage mindset. It’s a fun semi-time-travel type of routine that’s also quite ironic since I spent the majority of my teenage school years staring out of various classroom windows daydreaming.

About now I bet you’re thinking, “Greg, do you want to write a time-travel novel? And if you could, would you also like to have a real life time-travel adventure of your own?”

These are both great questions. Thanks for asking.

Well, to answer the first question: yes, I would like to write a time-travel novel and I suspect one day I will. But the second question is a little more difficult. Would I like to really time travel? To go back to my teenage years and see all my old friends? To re-experience what I loved? To change all my mistakes? The answer to this question is…I’m not sure.

Think about it. Let’s say I’m suddenly zapped back into my teenage self. How can I possibly do ANYTHING without looking like a complete moron and head case? I mean I go to school and then what? I’m not going to remember half of my friends’ names, my locker combinations, or my class schedule. I’m not going to even remember the majority of my teachers’ names. (Sorry, guys, there’s only a handful of you that I actually remember. I know you all tried. Hey, if it’s any consolation the only thing I remember from a whole term of economics is three words: “supply and demand.”)

Anyway…there’s no way I could possibly fit in. I would stand so far out that there’d be an excellent chance I’d be locked up in a psych ward within twenty-four hours.

Unless…unless of course I had a plan, and guess what? I think I’ve got one.

So here’s my idea of what you should do if you ever find yourself transferred back through time. First of all DO NOT try to fake it. I repeat, DO NOT try to fake it. Like I said before, you’ll never blend in. Instead, here’s what I think you should do: find yourself a lonely road. Hit yourself on the head with a large rock (not too hard, just enough to leave a bump – AND it should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway, make sure no one actually sees you doing this) then lie on the side of the street all twisted and turned in an abnormally strange angle until someone finds you.

There’s possibilities there, isn’t there? You see what I’m getting at, don’t you? It’s so simple that it just might work.

Anyway…that’s my time-travel thoughts for the day…WHAT’S YOURS? IF YOU COULD TRAVEL BACK IN TIME, WOULD YOU? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?