travis pope had also molted during the night

There are rules about used book stores.

You have to know them.

I wonder if it makes me a bad person as an author if I love used book stores.

There is almost nothing better than a good used book store.

Berkeley, California, where my son is a student at Cal, has some amazing used book stores.

A few weeks ago, when I took my son up there to deposit him back in the dorms for spring semester, we went into one of Berkeley's used book stores one afternoon.

I found a book that looked interesting. I had never heard of it before. I showed it to my son.

"Have you ever heard of this?" I said.

He said he'd heard of it, but had not read it.

I opened it and read the inside flap copy. It sounded good.

Inside the book, which was about 20 years old, was a stamp that said:

FROM THE PERSONAL LIBRARY OF JAMES L. EDDLEMAN

And, beneath that, in pencil, was written N-111

I wondered if it meant it was James's 111th novel.

Who knows?

Also, the stamp was crooked, like James was in a hurry to read the book, or maybe to place it on his bookshelf.

Somewhere around page 260, it looked as though James had spilled some blue fountain pen ink on the bottom of the book. The stain does not obscure any print, and I am certain it is fountain pen ink because I had always used fountain pens for most of my early writing.

My son and I both agreed the ink stain was very cool.

In the middle of the book was a bookmark, possibly from the bookstore where James originally purchased the book, in Livermore, California.

When my son saw the bookmark, he said that I now had to buy the book.

He said it is a rule that when you find a used book with that much extra stuff in it, you have to buy it.

That's a rule.

I try to always put as much extra stuff as possible in all my books.

Thanks for letting me find this one, Mr. Eddleman.

---

kimber drive

It has been an interesting week.

I saw some more artwork for Winger.

What a book!

I am most thrilled about my fourth novel, Stick, being named to the American Library Association's 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults.

I have been thinking about this quite a bit.

I stopped myself from saying a lot.

I like the name: Best Fiction for Young Adults. I like the name because it says "here is a novel that might make a special connection to a reader who happens to be Young and Mature."

It does not say: Here is a Young Adult Novel.

This is a good thing, because I do not write Young Adult Novels.


I am an American novelist.


I make that distinction, American, because there are some important characteristics which make American novels identifiable and unique. One day I may talk about that idea.

I am NOT a Young Adult Novelist.

A lot of people are [there, I said it], and there is nothing wrong with that at all. But not me.

I wish more grownups would read my books. I think a lot of grownups do not want to read my books because somebody keeps telling them I write Young Adult Novels, and that I am a Young Adult Novelist.

Believe me, I am not young, and I rarely exhibit adult behavior.

But I am a novelist.

So let's clear that up right now.

Here is what I think: There is absolutely nothing positive I can say about "suffering for one's art."

Suffering for your art is stupid.

Experiencing setbacks in order to come out on the other end with some sort of wholeness or redemption is also stupid.

That's what I think.

I worked very hard over these past four years. I am not conceited at all -- I can honestly say that -- but I can also honestly say that it is a hell of an accomplishment to write four published American novels over four consecutive years and have every one of them named to the Best Fiction for Young Adults list.

I have been told that I write too much.

And I am here, sitting on a few more novels that are not even out yet.

And I am working as I sit here.

---

robby could have been a preacher

The American Library Association's YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) announced its list of the 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults books.

I am happy and flattered to say that my novel, Stick, made their list.

This makes four out of four on my novels, each of which has been added to the list: Ghost Medicine (2009), In the Path of Falling Objects (2010), The Marbury Lens (2011), and now, Stick.

In addition, The Marbury Lens was honored just yesterday to be named to YALSA's Top Ten Amazing Audiobooks for 2012.

---

the brain room

This is where I write.

No, you can't see the stack of manuscripts here. They are in the other corner, beneath the Conor Oberst concert poster.

Last week, I got to have a look at some of the sketches illustrator Sam Bosma is doing for Winger.

I know.

I really hate it when authors say stuff like, "Oh, I adore the cover of my new book, but I am not allowed to show it yet. Squee."

I hate the word adore, nearly as much as I hate the word-thing Squee.

Winger is coming out in spring of 2013. That is a long time away, I realize, but artwork for something like this is quite a bit of work.

Let me tell you a little bit about the book.

This is from my website's description:

Fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West may be the smartest 11th grader in school, but there are some things he just doesn't get. He's convinced that the woman living downstairs is a witch -- out to destroy his life; believes the girl he's in love with only sees him as some kind of pet; and wonders why his best friend -- the only voice of reason in Ryan Dean's life -- likes other boys more than girls. A funny, sometimes dark, part-graphic YA novel about fitting in, and the consequences that can occur when big deals are made over small differences.

So the book has illustrations in it. Ryan Dean West sees his life as a sort of self-deprecating comic, and he has an interesting interpretation of his reality. Ryan Dean likes to explain things through charts, graphs, notes, and other stuff that pops out of his head.

I can't imagine a cooler, more appropriate style for the illustrations than what I saw in Sam's sketches. If there is some way that line and shading can mesh with a narrator's voice, Sam has found it.

This really is going to be an amazing, one-of-a-kind book.

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considering the bison, and free will

Saturday morning brought a nice winter storm -- heavy rain and gusty winds.

I run every day, no matter what.

I enjoy running in the rain, the heat, snow, whatever. I do not like wind.

But I went out running, anyway. I have to.

There was nobody outside, no cars on our little streets; it was pouring.

At the end of the lake there is a trail that leads up into the mountains. I run this way nearly every day.

Just at this spot, there is also a junction box, or something like that, for the phone company. Yesterday, there was a worker there with his phone company truck doing something inside the box.

This is a true story.

It is my job to tell the truth.

When I ran past him, he smiled and said, "I guess I'm not the only one crazy enough to be out in this weather!"

(I added the exclamation point. I believe phone guy had "exclamation point" in his eyes.)

Oh yeah, Phone Guy. You. Me. Brothers.

This is what I was wearing: shorts, shoes, a cap, a vinyl windbreaker. I was already drenched, and I had about 6 more miles to cover.

And I said, "It isn't that bad."

In a flash, I considered the following: Why did I say that? What does "that bad" even mean? I would have probably said the same stupid thing if the ground were cleaving open and lava was burbling up at my feet.

Then Phone Guy said to me: "Yeah! But I'm getting PAID for being here!! Ha ha ha!!!"

What a jovial fellow.

And I said, "I have free will."

Last night, when I was lying awake in bed (I haven't been sleeping in the past 2 weeks), I was visited by my Psychotherapist In Glass.

We had an intense conversation.

I will tell you about it another time.

Psychotherapist In Glass is not a jovial practitioner.

---

when their sons uncomfortably venture toward asking them questions

I came back.

I needed to go away for a while.

When I was a kid, my parents neither wanted nor encouraged me to write shit down on paper.

I was created during the Age of Paper.

I have a number of friends who are writers struggling to be published.

I have this question for them:

What do you expect?

I'll get back to that in a while, but I want you to keep thinking about it: What do you expect?

And then what?

I bet you guys aren't even thinking two moves ahead as you toil over the positioning of your exploratory pawn.

Remember that stack of manuscripts I have sitting here in my office?

It got even bigger this week. I found another one. A version of The Marbury Lens from a while ago. I can't remember.

My office is very clean and open now. I should post a picture of it. Maybe I will, too, when I get back to that question that I want my as-yet-unpublished writer friends to keep thinking about.

I have a couple things I am obligated to turn in this year.

I have never, never, never written anything on assignment -- except for the stuff I had to do when I was a journalist.

I hated being a journalist.

I quit putting shit on paper and became a sort of bum with wanderlust because of it.

Someone -- harmlessly, I might add -- remarked something like Look at all those trees you killed! when I posted the picture of my original manuscripts (which is now bigger).

What can I say? I came out of the Age of Paper.

So, I am thinking I am going to write my next book by hand on the backs of the pages of my original manuscripts.

Somewhere out there, an agent and an editor just got a stomach ache.

My handwriting looks like it was done by a sleep-deprived seven-year-old boy on a tilt-a-whirl.

stet

My dear friend, the copy editor who is working on Passenger, said something like this: Next time you write a book, you should provide a list of words you choose to freakishly mutate ahead of time, so your editors' heads do not become troubled.

Well. She didn't say it exactly like that, but I probably should do that because I do derive some sick satisfaction creating lexical centipedes.

Are you guys still thinking about that question?

---

a good question for the books, i thought

If you have read my blog for a while, then you know that I almost never talk about other authors and their books.

It is not my job to talk about other authors and their books.

But I am going to deviate from my ethical constraints and do that in the coming weeks.

I am going to do that because I have been fortunate enough to read some books which are not yet published, and I want to say a few things about them because they are good.

I would never say anything about bad books because I can't get to the end of bad books.

Included in those not-yet-released books that I'd like to say a few things about because they are so good are BZRK, by Michael Grant (February, 2012), and The Raft, by S.A. Bodeen (August, 2012).

I admit that it is a rare occasion when I read Middle Grade books, but I will throw something out there -- go out on a tender limb -- about the YA titles I've read from 2011.

This is a prediction: You will see these three books in the Michael L. Printz Award corral for 2012: How to Save a Life, by Sara Zarr, Brooklyn, Burning, by Steve Brezenoff, and Everybody Sees the Ants, by A.S. King.

Let's see if I'm not right about at least one of those.

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