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I owe the idea for this book to the confluence of two events: I joined Facebook in April last year, and my son was born in May. New moms are perfect prey for Facebook's seductive vortex of time drainage. We're up at all hours, we're often tethered to our couches holding a baby and/or laptop, and Facebook doesn't require us to do much short of writing status updates, which in the first months of motherhood are mostly things like "Sarah ate in a RESTAURANT."

I'd had grand plans for my maternity leave to work on--yes, I was that naïve--a novel. But two months in, all I could muster was Nick at Nite and looking at Facebook a lot, trying not to do anything noticeable that would time-stamp me at 3:21 A.M. I became fascinated with the Facebook news feed-that bastion, at least then, of new friendships, group-joinings and newly--announced fandom--but mostly in what people decided to write in their status updates. I noticed some people would overshare, saying things you wouldn't think they'd want 250 of their closest "friends" to know. Combine that with English-major baggage and the creative juices that flow when one can recall seeing every sunrise in recent memory, and one night I began to wonder: what's the strangest thing you could reveal in a status update? I thought about what Ophelia would write when she began to lose her mind. Something nonsensical about flowers? And soon, in the dark, I had notes for "Hamlet's" news feed: "The king poked the queen," "The queen poked the king," "Hamlet became a fan of Daggers."

The piece I wrote, "Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)" for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, became an online hit, and the idea became clear that this "Facebook treatment" could be extended to more classic works and authors. What would Dracula make of the vampire application? What would happen to Alice as she tried to navigate through the Wonderland of social media? How would Jane Austen cope with thousands of friend requests, and how confusing would James Joyce's status updates be? By the time my son was six-months old, I'd surrounded myself with classics (and a laptop) and was writing this book.

In my "25 Random Things" list, I joke that because of this experience, my advice to aspiring writers is: first step, get pregnant. But maybe there really is something to sleep deprivation--or at least being so tired you've stopped thinking too much--and inspiration. Any mom (new or experienced) will tell you: a watched pot will never boil. You'll only find something when you stop looking for it. And keep that pen and pad of paper close, because you never know when the most surprising of ideas will strike.

Sarah Schmelling, Ophelia Joined The Group Maidens Who Don't Float, Facebook, classic literature, satire, social networking, books, Penguin Books