insect wars

Okay, I'll admit it.

The title is a tease. I mean, who wouldn't want to read about insect wars? And I have this whole blog post planned out in my head (which is how I write, anyway), but I'm not going to do it. I'm saving that one for tomorrow.

And I know this is BoNoBloMo, and we are writing about all things male... but I am going to deviate from that course for today because I'm, like, crap... I don't have enough time to loosen up and write about the very guy-ish topic I have in my head. So I'll do it tomorrow... which reminds me, Bill Konigsberg (another BoNo) is all about the BoNoBloMo, even if he is a little uncomfortable with the name. Oh well... and I have to put a comment on his blog, too.

Ugh.

So I was thinking today.

Yeah... call the papers.

It was a good day. Three things:

1) I decided to never refer to anyone as "Joe Six Pack" ever again.

Oops... okay 4...

2) Dude... don't ever rip off a baseball quote. Ever (Say it ain't so, Joe).

EVER. Please... Baseball and Beer have now been... ew... soiled.

3) I know I'm going to wreck it, but... Hell yeah! Dodgers, baby.

4) I got the nicest message today from the managing editor about my next year's book release, in the path of falling objects: just a quick note to tell you that FALLING OBJECTS just hit my desk, and ... ye gods, i couldn't tear my eyes away from it to do what i need to do w/ it. keep up the damn fine work. i believe! your managing editor

I mean... HELL yeah! (again). That made my day. I can never tell. 'Cause, to me... this book has what every guy wants to read about: a psycho murderer, two brothers who fall in love with the same dangerous and beautiful girl, and a road trip from hell that you don't want to end. And that's the kind of stuff BoNoBloMo is made of.

Yeah. It was a good day.

BoNoBloMo

(Oh... thank you, Dave!)

fort building

Guys build forts.

I've even built forts in my own (current) back yard.

When I was a kid, we had a fort that was actually a big plywood box that we entirely buried out in the woods by the secret pond we used to have raft wars on (my parents would have killed me if they knew this because one of my friends almost drowned as a result of one of our maritime battles).

You'll have to forgive me if today's blog seems kind of rambling. I came home, opened my front door, and my smoke detector was blaring. I think my daughter's cats had a hookah party or something. I can't figure it out.

And things were moved around.

Cats do that.

My mother played in forts when she was a kid, too. She grew up in Italy during World War II. Her parents used to use her to smuggle things under her coat because they knew the Germans wouldn't look there. She was tough. She told me a story one time about how she and her mother were smuggling salt (salt?) and a German soldier saw her and my mom flipped him the middle finger. I think she was about 12 years old at that time.

After the war was over, she and her friends used to play in an abandoned German bunker. She found lots of handguns and ammunition there.

Nice.

One day, she and her friends opened up a case of ammunition, pried all the gunpowder out, and dumped it into a pile in the middle of the floor.

Then, like all good kids, they lit it on fire to see what would happen.

Well, they actually made a long line of powder leading to the big pile. Then they lit it and ran.

Ahh childhood.

The problem is, that one of her friends, a boy named Mario, didn't quite make it out of the bunker in time because his pants got caught on a spike in the doorway. But, kids being kids, of course my mother and all Mario's friends ran like hell.

Then the bunker blew up, with Mario inside.

I know... you're probably thinking, "Oh, this is just like the story about the time when Smith accidentally killed his aunt."

Oh... oops. I guess I didn't tell that one yet. Save it for another time.

Anyway, my mom and her friends then drew lots to see who would be the one to go tell Mario's mother that her son was blown up. When the lot was drawn, and my mother was assigned the grim task, all the kids set off for Mario's house. Just before they got there, Mario appeared in the road. All the clothes were burned off his body. He was naked, black, and hairless, and my mom told me he said something that roughly translates to, "You fat whores left me there to die."

Nothing like a good fort story.

BoNoBloMo

BoNoBloMo

Yeah.

So, here's the deal. The big surprise.

I am proclaiming October to be BoNoBloMo. From now on, that's it. I made it up and you can't have it.

You know how November is NaNoWriMo, right? (National Novel Writing Month) Well, I've often wanted to participate in that, but now I don't think I really can, even though I actually have written a novel in one month. So, I am claiming ownership of the month of October as BoNoBloMo (Boy Novelist Blogging Month).

It sounds cooler, anyway. Well, I guess it does sound kind of nasty.

So, this month, this particular Boy Novelist will be blogging every day about guy stuff, like pain, tattoos, sports, fighting, and messing around.

Oh... and running away to join the circus.

But not porn.

Oh yeah. Welcome to BoNoBloMo. If any other guy novelists that I know (or don't know, for that matter) want to chime in on this blog, feel free to contact me. I won't edit your words. Oh... and if Bono wants to blog, guess what? He can't. He hasn't written a novel and this isn't his month.

It's mine.

Because I happen to have a background in economics, today I had a group of high school boys ask me about the economy, why things were bad on Wall Street, and if I could explain what was going on with this controversial "Bailout" idea.

I like it when kids ask me things like that.

Well, to be honest, I really don't, but... whatever. I have to be honest. So, after a few minutes of my explaining to them how you probably wouldn't want to loan money to your unemployed alcoholic step-uncle, I told them that if credit goes away, they might as well stop studying for the SAT because they'll never get a student loan and never be able to afford to go to college anyway.

Heck, I said, they might as well just quit school right now and run away and join the circus, which is something that:

A) all boys would love to do, and

B) I only wish someone would have told me to do when I was in high school.

Then, I explained, they would thank me when, twenty years from now, they're smoking a cigarette, splayed out, hands bound against a painted silhouette target on a splintered plywood wall while some blindfolded alcoholic with poor grooming habits (hey, that's my step-uncle) throws knives the size of hams to see how close he can get to them.

Yeah, they'll say, thank God we consulted with Smith about our future.

Oh yeah, kids... thats' the future of our economy.

And you have an opportunity to play a big part in it.

If you have the balls to quit school and run away and join the circus.

Like now.

I think you get the idea.

BoNoBloMo

fitting end

Well, I have blogged every day for the entire month of September, and here I am at a most fitting end.

It works out for a number of reasons. Coincidentally enough, today I just finished the final editorial revisions on in the path of falling objects (Fall 2009), and sent it off to my editor in New York.

And, since the whole original premise for blogging every day for a month was to keep some running blah-fest about what it's like to have your debut novel come out (in case you forgot, Ghost Medicine was released September 2), I thought I'd say a few words about the work involved with actually being published.

Step 1: You write a book that someone other than you, your family, or people who owe you money thinks is good.

Easy.

The next part is the editing. Many writers I know dislike the editing portion of the journey, but it's one of my favorite parts. Then again, I've only worked with one editor, but it's been a blast for both of my books. I remember that when I gave her a manuscript of in the path of falling objects that she was thrilled and said the book was scary and tense.

I like that. I mean, after all, that was what I was aiming for.

But, through the editing process, she made it into an adrenaline-jolting-stuck-on-top-of-the-world's-biggest-ferris-wheel-during-a-major-earthquake ride. Now that's pure talent... to be able to get to what's really at the heart of a story by just making a few painless little slices here and there (and her editing suggestions have always been very minimal).

Have you ever read a book that you thought was a good story, but you said to yourself... wow, that guy could really use a good editor ? And then, other times, you'll read a book and everything is so seamless and smooth. Chances are, the latter case is when there's a talented editor on board. But they become invisible.


Okay. So that brings an end to the month of September, and the final installment of Blogging Every Day For A Month at bedfam 37, but don't think I'm through yet. As I've warned, I have something special coming up for the month of October, and that begins tomorrow.

BEDFAM 37

-- A. S.

first rain

Today we got the first real rain up here in the mountains.

It was nice, but came at a most inopportune time. We were on our 5-mile run, about as far from home as we ever get, on top of a hill behind the old church, and then it was all rain and thunder and lightning. I didn't mind, but my wife has this completely irrational fear of thunderstorms. She just freezes up entirely, even inside the house.

Then, she asks one of those zen-like unanswerable questions:

"You think it's funny, don't you?"

Well. Yeah, I do. But, of course I didn't say that. I just pretended like I couldn't hear her.

Oh yeah. I like scaring her.

My daughter used to have one of these life-size carcinogenic and lead-based plastic Barbie dolls that was, I guess, about 3 feet tall. My wife was scared of that, too.

So, me being the sensitive type that I am, one April Fool's Day a couple years back, I got up really early and put the Barbie on the stairs like she was coming up to our room. Oh yeah... one little detail... I had her arm raised above her head and I taped a big butcher knife into her hand.

Then there was the ketchup dripping down her face, too.

It was all very tasteful and artistic, in my opinion, but sometimes, I guess, there's no accounting for what the viewing audience will accept as "art." Anyway, I wasn't at home when the discovery was made, but I do remember fielding a very angry phone call later that morning.

And we never saw that Barbie again, either.

BEDFAM 36

-- A. S.

back to me

Okay.

Well, I'm going to rest for a while on the topic of boys and the damage that we've done to them in our public schools here in California. Time to move on to other topics, at least for the time being.

Today, I thought I'd talk a little bit about my writing, since I've kind of been working on a few things at once.

I'd exchanged a few emails over the past couple days with a fellow author, and I told her about how I'd written my last novel (345 pages and 85,000 words -- I had to double-check those stats just now) in five weeks, including a complete revision. I don't know why I did that, and I'd advise anyone not to do something so self-destructive. I had to send my wife and kids on multiple vacations during that time, and I worked for maybe 10 hours per day.

After reading Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle, I can really relate to his manic stonecutter, but at least I never resorted to eating instant coffee straight from the jar.

When you finish doing something like that, it's difficult to figure out what to do with yourself. Kind of like running a marathon, I guess (I've completed about 30 marathons in my running career). When I finish running 26.2 miles, it's kind of hard to grasp the idea of stopping.

Anyway, I've started two other things since that last novel. What I often do when writing is I'll write a few pages of a new novel and then put them away for months and just let the rest of the story play out in my head. When that happens, I can get back on those pages and the whole thing will come right out. So we'll see what happens with these latest projects.

This week, I am finishing my last edits on in the path of falling objects, which will be out in Fall 2009. I know it looks like there's a lot of work in front of me, but I am trying to finish by Wednesday. I work fast.

Finally, the picture on today's blog was just taken before sitting down here. That's a wooden skeleton I have hanging over my desk, staring at me all the time. He's also one of the first things described in in the path of falling objects, so when you read it, you'll get an idea of what the characters are looking at on that first bloody page.

BEDFAM 35

-- A. S.

the good word

One of the things I see happening increasingly in schools is the use of what are called "Reading Logs." These are timecard-like thingies where kids are supposed to keep track of the daily reading they do at home.

I'm sure no kids ever cheat their way through these things.

Again, this is just one more of those things where kids are supposed to be learning how to be more effective readers on their own, away from the school. Because God knows, at school the teachers are too busy with having kids make macaroni dioramas and such.

As Mark Twain would say, Hello Central!

Kids are supposed to be learning in school. They shouldn't be learning school stuff at home. I'm a teacher and a father, too, and I am here to tell you that right now: let kids do kid stuff at home (because they're going to, anyway) and teach them at school. Do not expect them to learn anything at home unless you don't care about the end results.

There.

That's how we got here, California.

Now fix it.

I'm going to end up today with a few words sent to me on this subject by my good friend, author Lewis Buzbee (Steinbeck's Ghost):

But you were wondering why don't teen boys read. Here's my answer, and a thorny one. Teen boys don't read because their fathers don't read. It's just a fact that it's mostly women who read and buy books--it's a feminine trait in our society. Men don't. Except for a few of us geeky types. But on the whole, men stop reading at a certain point, by which I mean, reading for pleasure. And if boys don't see their fathers reading, they won't read. No modeling.

It's a simple equation for reading--most of the time--if the parents read, the kids will read. Parents making kids read when they don't read is fruitless.

Well, that's one--rather depressing--take on it. From a bookseller's point of view.

So... I'm going to be calling out all guy writers to be the fathers of our reading and non-reading boys in the world. We can get them back to where they were, say, when I was a kid and, believe it or not, all my guy friends read, and we all talked about books, too, and shared them, passed them around when we were finished.

What do my kids (at home and at school, by the way) see me doing every day? Reading for pleasure. This week, I finished reading Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle and Bill Konigsberg's Out of the Pocket... which reminds me, I've got to send Bill a note.

Even though I write YA fiction, I probably read more adult fiction than anything else. People who know me, online and otherwise, know that I don't like to give reviews of other writers' work, but I love to tell other authors directly what I think of their stuff. I'm not sure what's next up on the reading list for me.

Okay. This is day 34 of blogging every day for a month. October will be something new... just three days away.

BEDFAM 34

-- A. S.