Jerome Shalom and the Ham Sandwich

We were raking leaves when my brothers asked me what my NaNoWriMo story is about.

I briefly sketched out for the plot. Seeing that they were unimpressed, and feeling the need to defend my worth as an author, I said, "I've never been very good at plots. I'm more of a character person myself." Then I proceeded to tell them that sometimes, nothing really needs to happen in a book for it to be interesting.

"So somebody could write a book about someone going to buy a ham sandwich?" Little Brother snarked.

"Sure," I said. "It depends on who he meets on the way and what happens. Like if he loses his change on the way and then has to find it."

Baby Brother laughs. "And then the whole book is about him looking for his change and he meets a whole bunch of villain and doesn't even end up buying the ham sandwich!"

Little Brother named our character Jerome Shalom, which caused me to sketch out his backstory. "He's Jewish, and his parents make him eat kosher, but he's always wanted to eat a ham sandwich. So one day he sneaks out of the house to buy a ham sandwich-"

Baby Brother quickly sketched out about fifteen books of the Jerome Shalom series. First Jerome Shalom goes to buy a ham sandwich, but he loses his change on the way. While he's looking for his change, he discovers that his father is involved in a plot to rid the world of ham sandwiches. Then Jerome Shalom learns that his father actually stole his change. So Jerome Shalom recovers the change, but then his father puts him in prison. But then about three books later he escapes prison. Then he has to actually find a shop that sells ham sandwiches. And while Jerome Shalom wanders around looking for a sandwich shop, World War II starts, and he has to escape Hitler.

"We're not doing that," Little Brother said. Then I said that I had to go pick Little Sister up from the bus stop, so we all dropped our rakes and wandered inside and never figured out how Jerome Shalom escapes Hitler.