the trap door

If I took a picture of my office and posted it here, you would swear you were looking at an image from that television program about compulsive hoarders.

The rest of my house is not like this.

Just my office.

Well... my garage, too.

But, I ask you, what sane person has a tidy garage?

I blame it on my cats.

I blame most of the shit that happens to me on my cats -- them, and the Satan-worshiping Andrea Bocelli fans on the other side of the creek bed.

A lot of the stuff piled up in my office are manuscripts. There are thousands of pages of them here, all at various stages in the publication process -- from original edits through first-page typeset passes.

I will admit, too, that I have actually thrown away complete manuscripts. I have a hard time doing that, because (and I suppose this is symptomatic of compulsive hoarders), I feel an emotional attachment to the pages, especially once they acquire my editor's comments and marks (which are usually in pencil -- except for my Simon and Schuster editor, who marks in red ink) and me (and I always write editing notes in red ink on my manuscripts, which was kind of confusing when I did my last revision for Simon and Schuster).

So I had an idea for something I'd like to do.

I'd like to offer readers a "peek" -- just like Jack needs when considering a visit to Marbury -- at Passenger, which is the forthcoming sequel to The Marbury Lens.

I am actually going to give away some of the original manuscript pages (signed) from Passenger over the coming months, right up until the release of The Marbury Lens in paperback, and the ultra-creepy sequel, Passenger, in hardcover, which will be in the fall of 2012.

The pages will be random, and may include markings and comments from my editor, Liz Szabla (chimes!), which will be in pencil; and me, which will be in ink. Some of the ink markings may be in black (which I was forced to use when I was traveling and forgot my red pen -- and the only pen in my hotel room was black).

The first page up for grabs is page one of Passenger. It isn't actually page one, which would be the title page, but it is the first page of writing, which happens to be page five in the manuscript.

Also, this particular page is folded a couple times because I carried it around in the back pocket of my 501s for a few days, which is a superstitious, compulsive hoarder kind of thing I do with the first page of manuscripts before I stop pouting and start working on revisions.

Passenger has been a remarkably easy revision for me, but Liz (chimes!) and I know each other pretty well by now.

Want to know how you can win a signed manuscript, original first-page of Passenger?

Go to my friend Kristen's blog, which is linked below.

To my other blogger friends who conduct giveaways and cover reveals (and you know who you are), drop me a line and I might be able to set you up with a page for a giveaway, too.

I am willing to give out six pages or so. Maybe more.

I'll be sure to pick really good ones.

You can enter Kristen's giveaway here.

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