There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
It is somewhat occluded by the next bit of work heading my way like a train with spikes and flamethrowers jutting from its cowcatcher.
The flames make a pleasant, toasted marshmallow kind of smell.
People frequently ask me: Drew, when do you sleep?
1993, the year before my son was born.
That is when I sleep.
But I feel good about myself. Well. Comparatively speaking, of course. I felt shitty about myself yesterday.
I feel good because I am finishing the revisions for my novel, Winger, which is coming out from Simon and Schuster in early 2014. I have been a bit sluggish since I moved my son out to Berkeley. I should have been finished by now, because this is probably among the easiest, most fun revisions I have ever had to do. And it is a funny book, too, which is kind of weird.
It is almost finished.
Hooray. I plan on sending it off this week.
It makes me feel like 1993 again.
There is a light. That will cook me and impale me.
I have also been finishing another entirely different novel. Entirely different, as in a manifesto of of the consumptive effects of not having slept in any year that is not called "1993."
Soon I will climb back inside the cave with Passenger.
Imagine what that's like for a writer -- going from a book like Winger, which is quite funny, directly into work on a book like Passenger.
It does kind of make the people with whom I interact on a daily basis take notice that "something's wrong with that guy."
I smell marshmallows.
10 comments:
Nothing turns me on like the notion of an Andrew Smith comedy.
That is the best comment I've received in a long time.
I shared Winger with author Joe Lunievicz, because Joe happens to be a rugger (that's rugby-talk for rugby player), and the kids in Winger happen to play rugby, although the book is not really what most people would think of as a "sports" book -- but you could get away with passing it off on a boy and calling it such, or using it for a "sports lit" class.
That was a really long sentence.
There is something special that bonds rugby players, I think. And there is also something about the sport and players that is incredibly open-minded and accepting of differences in abilities and personalities.
This is something that is very true about rugby, and it is also an integral element to the story.
And the other good news about Winger is that it will be coming out only a few months after Passenger.
I've met Joe, and while I'm no expert on Rugby, I would have to guess that when he played, he was a Winger, too.
I don't know exactly how it all works, but Joe did not look big enough to be one of those brutes who get down in the middle of the scrum.
What are they called, again, Drew? Hookers or something like that?
I don't think you necessarily have to be big to play rugby. You just have to be English or Scottish. Welsh need not apply.
Jon's feisty today. The big guys up front are called forwards. Hookers are usually short and stocky. Backs (numbers 9 thru 15) are smaller, faster, lighter. Wingers can be quite small.
Got it.
I wonder if the title of this post has anything to do with trepanning.
Hmm... apparently there is a part of that book I gave you to read that has had some lasting effect on you?
But... no.
Yeah, kind of. I had heard of the concept before (like in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials) but had no idea the scope of it. Did you know there's a group that advocates the process even in modern society?
I can't help but find that fascinating. I'm thinking of having it done.
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