This one's a bit different because this book is not out yet. This picture is what a book looks like when I run it out of my printer, which is one of the first things I'll do after I complete writing a novel and get ready to send it (electronically) to my agent and editor.
This is Stick, which will be coming out in 2011. And yes, if you can see that handwriting on one of the bottom pages, that's my writing to myself. It's how I keep track of things I'm working on as I go through the manuscript (obviously, this was not a "final" version).
And, like a lot of my books, this one makes literary references to other works that are important to the characters and setting. Near the end of the book, the main character, a kid named Stark, picks up a copy of a book that was very important to me (although Stark has never heard of it) when he is looking for his missing brother.
The book is all about changing, and accepting things. It's not a coming-of-age story so much as it is an account of wonder. And it's when he is forced to spend a couple ill-fated days on a houseboat in Oregon that Stark plays this following song on a record player:
