now get to work

I went out of my way to make sure nobody could ruin my day today.

I stayed inside and sealed the door with duct tape.

That's not crazy, is it?

Well, after yesterday's debacle when my day was entirely ruined, it's not that crazy. I guess in some ways, I'm kind of conservative. I like things to go as planned, to be predictable, because I'm always considering the opportunity costs of what is expected of me... what I'm giving up to fulfill some task that people are counting on me to complete in a competent manner. In yesterday's case, I could have been doing something much more productive than what ended up transpiring. Like working.

So I spent much of today looking through the galley pages from in the path of falling objects, and I have, so far, found them to be much cleaner than the galley pages were for Ghost Medicine.

But I'm not more than 100 pages in, and there may be some surprises. Who knows?

That's it for today. I still kind of have a headache from yesterday.

portrait of the artist as a tantrum thrower

You know I don't cuss. Honestly. And I'm not going to today, either.

You know I don't tell the whole truth on my blog. And I'm not going to do that, either. I mean, I don't make things up on here; I leave them out. I will leave some things out. And not just the cusswords.

So here's the true-but-leaving-some-key-details-out story. I threw a tantrum today.

Yeah... I know. Call the papers. Breaking news.

And I refused to read at the Lit Fest, and I left.

That's it. No more details. Entirely my fault for being such a colossal, tantrum-throwing loser.

Okay. But I did end up meeting and hanging out with Greg Taylor, a screenwriter of notable accomplishment, whose first novel Killer Pizza is coming out this spring from Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan, and that was pretty awesome, because I am always in such awe of meeting real writers. And Greg strikes me as the type of writer who never throws tantrums, but, to be honest, I think I saw his eyes light up knowingly when I talked about how many times I've folded my arms across my chest and stamped my foot down and said I am never going to fucking write again, so leave me alone because I am no longer speaking to the fucking world.

Like today.

Oops.

My bad.

Anyway, while I still can, I am putting in a request for an ARC of Killer Pizza, because it sounds... well... killer.

Now I am going to go outside and break something big.

now you really did it

Okay.

Now they really did it.

So, about fifteen minutes after I shut off the computer yesterday, the dogs started barking. A package arrived. I was finally holding the galley pages for in the path of falling objects, and they look incredible.

I know... what do you expect? It's not like you'd find a parent complaining his newborn is ugly or anything. And it's just black print on white paper, after all. But there's more to it than that, and I think people outside the publishing industry sometimes don't realize all the intricate steps involved in making a book. And how the words look on the paper is a lot bigger than you might think.

Well, I think the artist involved in this step "got it" on a number of levels.

First of all, I really wanted the title of the book (and my name) to be kept as all lower case, and the artist did this, and chose a perfect, rounded, and subtle typeface for doing this.

But it's the inner pages that really work for the story. First of all, in the path of falling objects is told on a number of levels: there are little bits of verse (very little), letters, chapters with punchy headings that are frequently assigned to different characters, and jarring, short blasts of tense/voice changes (I won't explain any further); and all of these elements contribute so much more to the completeness of a "book" when they present properly: with balanced white space, pagination, orientation, and size.

I think you'll agree when you see the book. It really looks great.

Now, time for me to comb through it for any mistakes.

Oh yeah... tomorrow I will be reading from Ghost Medicine (and maybe I'll read a bit of in the path of falling objects, too) at the Santa Clarita Valley Literacy and Arts Festival at William S. Hart Park in Old Town Newhall starting at 11:00.

Maybe I'll see you there.

seeing the pages

Well, I purposely held off on my routine-of-late, posting on the blog at around 3:30 a.m., because I've been waiting for the delivery of the unbound galley pages for in the path of falling objects.

If I've timed it right, any minute now the dogs will begin barking (for some reason they loathe the delivery man), and I'll be able to have that first glimpse of what the book will actually look like when it comes out in 2009.

The galley pages are the unbound layout for the book, typeset and designed exactly like the final product... so they're a beautiful sight. Well... at least they are to me.

For a writer and his editor, this is one of the last chances to catch any errors (weird ones seem to pop up at this stage), or make any changes before the paper-bound ARCs (Advance Review Copies) come out in a few months. And those mark the last time changes and corrections can be made.

Come on dogs. Bark.

40 minutes later... Still no delivery. But delivery dude has come as late as about 50 minutes from now, and being such a remote a location as where I live, he could be hunkering down like the Donner Party, stranded on the mountain, wondering why he didn't pick up a snack-sized hitchhiker when he had the chance closer to L.A.

Well... I'm going to go ahead and post. I'll let you know what the pages look like tomorrow. If you want to read little snippets, just go to the in the path of falling objects website.

the day at nphs

So I spent the day yesterday out at Newbury Park High School, and it rocked. I spoke before two assemblies of classes, that each had a couple hundred kids in them, about writing professionally.

It was really cool for a lot of reasons... First of all, I spoke in the school's Performing Arts Center, which is a beautiful building, and I had this enormous screen behind me, so I could show the kids all kinds of pictures while I spoke (I am a very prop-oriented speaker).

The other thing was that this was my old school, the high school I graduated from, and I hadn't been back there in decades. The community is easily ten times larger now. The kids laughed when I told them about a girl named Faye who once rode her cow to school when I was in eleventh grade. And my English teacher came back to see me (she currently serves on the Board of Education). She was most definitely a teacher who made a profound difference in my life.

The school's librarian, Lucia Lemieux, set up the event after she'd met me at a book signing at a nearby Barnes and Noble. She's a terrific host, and runs an awesome library for the kids. She is exactly why I think Young Adult librarians are so cool (and more important than most people give them credit for).

Barnes and Noble had also sold copies of Ghost Medicine through the library, so I stayed around at lunch and signed copies for kids and teachers, too.

Thanks for having me out, NPHS. I'll be going back soon to spend a little time with their Creative Writing class.

my old school

I may post something else later today... depending on when I get back.

Today, I am heading out to Newbury Park High School to speak to the kids there about writing and my books. It should be a great day, and I'll be sure to recap any highlights here.

But the other day, a friend of mine told me that he'd seen the new website for in the path of falling objects, and he said, "So I take it you have a penchant (who actually uses that word???) for writing about sad things?"

I shrugged. While I'll agree that Ghost Medicine is a pretty sad book, I don't think that in the path of falling objects is. I don't know... you'll have to be the judge. The thing is, some bad things do happen in the story -- just like life -- but, the story itself is kind of exciting and ends up being... well... I better not say, I guess.

I'm very excited to get the galley pages in my hand this week, though.

i am shrinking

Okay.

I have a few random thoughts to kick off the month of December. Horrible things, really. But I realized today that our next president is (and let me emphasize just barely) younger than I am. So, I'm like... WTF? How can that happen? I mean, I can remember going through the oh-that-pro-athlete-is-younger-than-me realizations through all the various sports. Now I don't think there is a single pro athlete who isn't younger than I am... well, except for the PGA Senior tour, I guess, where everyone -- thankfully -- is still older.

But golfs better.

Man... I now realize, too, that I elevate sucking at golf to almost religious proportions.

Hmmm... I guess this is not one of those great-for-Smith's-self-esteem days.

Because the other day I was with some family members, and one of them looked at my 14-year-old-son and said something like, "Hey! You're actually taller than your ancient, older-than-the-president-and-any-pro-athlete-on the planet Dad, who, by the way is a terrible golfer!"

Well... okay, I embellished it a little. And yes, when it comes to my life, I am a highly unreliable narrator.

But my son, ever the diplomat (where the hell did he get that from???), said, "It's just because of my shoes."

I wasn't barefoot. Fourteen-year-old yeti-boy is actually taller than his father.

Yeah, world... just keep piling it on.