Thursday, December 9, 2010
the ruler of all the pieces
Okay.
So, first of all, I haven't really been in much of a talkative mood lately.
Weird stress trip downers are permeating my exceedingly porous cocoon of esteem.
But I'm not saying anything.
This weekend, I am looking forward to being in San Diego on Saturday and Sunday, doing the bookstore things. On Saturday evening, I'll be at Mysterious Galaxy's Holiday Bash. Doing stuff. With books and things.
Like, The Marbury Lens.
And, The Marbury Lens made it on to a couple more super-cool lists this week, too. That makes me feel really good.
You know what also made me feel good (after a really shitty past couple days)? A teacher complained to me because THREE students were reading The Marbury Lens in class, instead of paying attention to the teacher.
Yeah... that's me: singlehandedly undermining the standardization of today's youth.
Keep it up, kids. I will give presents.
So, cool lists for The Marbury Lens this week:
First of all, Jack made it onto Lauren's list of Great Books for Everyone on Your Shopping List, over at Mrs. Nelson's Books.
And, over at Galley Cat, The Marbury Lens was named to their list of Best YA Books of 2010.
Speaking on behalf of Jack, The Marbury Lens and I are very flattered.
Thanks so much.
Monday, December 6, 2010
four walls and adobe slats
Well, I have had a most productive weekend that followed a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me week, but that's another story entirely.
Thing is, I really like what I've done, I am satisfied, and I am just moments away from the initiation of National Not-Writing Month (which, in my universe, will probably not last exactly one month, but you know how things are in Marbury). It could be three seconds; it could be three years.
First off, cheers to all the folks I know who attended the Big Sur Writing Conference over the weekend. What could possibly be better than writing in Big Sur?
Writing at my house, that's what.
Kind of.
And, since I'm in the mood for sharing -- kind of -- I wanted to say thanks to the folks over at Attack of the Book! for posting such an amazing, thoughtful, and flattering review of The Marbury Lens on their blog today.
Yay.
Oh... and listening update regarding the audio version: the part where Jack meets Henry at The Prince of Wales gave me the chills. It's just that good. A most excellent reading/acting performance from Mark Boyett.
You can read the Attack of the Book! review of The Marbury Lens here.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
weigh what he said to help you shape the way you play
Well, it's been a week of very nice reviews and messages from readers and other writers.
Next weekend, on Saturday and Sunday, I'll be down in San Diego doing some bookstore visits. I'll post more on the weekend events later this week. Maybe there will be pictures, but I doubt it since I'm heading down there alone.
A few weeks ago, amid a completely off-base blog frenzy about hidden messages in The Marbury Lens, I got a very encouraging comment from a book blogger named Amy (from Canada) who said she was intrigued by the book and planned on reading it for herself.
On her blog today, here's some of what she had to say:
The world of Marbury and the everyday are intertwined through Andrew's amazing writing. This incredible personal story gets under your skin and stays there long after you have finished the book. The story flowed flawlessly and I despised everything that interrupted my time with the book. I loved how there were scenes that sometimes overlapped in both worlds, although they were drastically different.
So, thanks, Amy.
You can read Amy's complete review on her blog here.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
those noisy boys just might have spoken up too soon
Deadline is dead.
Actually, as I said, I received the copy edits package on Tuesday evening. I went through the entire thing and sent back a five-page corrections letter on Thursday.
Yeah. That's how I roll.
It helps when the following three things mesh:
1. You write fairly clean copy. Okay. I'll admit it. I am pretty good.
2. You have a really smart editor.
3. You have a brilliant copy editor.
Then things can be really easy. Not that I didn't have five pages of questions, comments, and explanations. But, again, to quote my son: Deadlines are my bitch.
And now Stick will be evolving (which, I understand is against the law in some parts of the country) directly into an ARC.
I can't wait to see it.
And I can't wait to see the cover art.
You guys in New York have a lot to live up to after the cover you did for The Marbury Lens.
And, speaking of that, I received what has to be in my all-time-top-five emails yesterday from a young guy in Pennsylvania who told me about how he was bored and started looking on the internet for a new book to read:
I begin my search for some good reads on Barnes and Noble's website and start by looking through some new releases and nothing seems to really jump out at me. I am also very picky when it comes to what I read (I'll come back to that). And then as I'm about to give up on my search an interesting cover catches my eye (you can see where this is leading...I hope..) and next to it reads "The Marbury Lens". I clicked to read the description and I thought,"Ok, this looks pretty interesting, maybe I'll give it a try...".
The next day I take a trip to the actual bookstore location nearby and picked it up. When I got home I sat down and began reading. And there went the rest of my week. I couldn't put the damn thing down.
Anyway, I won't quote the whole email here, but it definitely made my day, which probably wasn't hard to do considering the incredibly shitty mood I was in.
And, as I said, too, I began listening to the audio version of The Marbury Lens yesterday.
Mental tennis match:
Did I write this?
Damn. I wrote this.
Okay, it does really creep me out to hear someone read something I wrote. It's like listening to myself sing on a tape recording or something equally terrifying.
But this is really good, and I find myself unable to stop listening to it.
Mark Boyett does an amazing job with the voices and attitude. Perfect. I didn't think anyone could "get it" in terms of the voice/tempo/attitude changes, but Mark nailed it.
And his voice of Freddie is deeply disturbing.
I'm going to be wasting a lot of gas this weekend just so I can keep listening to the discs in my car.
Friday, December 3, 2010
the sound of the lens
I'm going to do something today that I have never done before.
Two days ago, an unexpected package arrived at my door. Usually when I get deliveries, they're from my publisher, I know about them ahead of time, and they're late.
This time, the box came from Brilliance Audio, and it contained copies of the audio book version of The Marbury Lens.
What I've never done before is listen to one of my books. And every one of them has been made into an audio book, too. It just kind of makes me uneasy listening to one of my books.
I don't know if I'll make it through the entire thing, but I am determined to set out on this ten hour and forty-nine minute journey through the audio for a couple reasons:
First, I think The Marbury Lens is a good book for read-alouds. That is, if you're not easily made uncomfortable listening to things like this.
And second, I actually got to audition the actors who'd been trying out for the part of the narrator's voice for this project, and one of them, Mark Boyett, who I later got to speak with on the telephone (the East Coast - West Coast thing), I thought nailed the whole attitude and voice of Jack perfectly.
We'll see.
I'm taking the discs and a cup of coffee out to my car for my morning drive.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
the son king
Ha! Deadlines are to me as dolphins are to tuna nets.
Do they still do those questions on SATs?
I know, I know.
Lack of sleep, like chain-smoking, will catch up to you.
And when it hits, it will kill you.
But, anyway, about this taking-my-son-to-see-Roger-Waters-perform-The-Wall thing...
In the last few weeks, my son (who is sixteen years old and getting ready to go off to college) and I have had some deep and life-changing (hopefully) conversations. Which reminds me that I need to write a post about our "coffee talk"; how coffee relates to women, and life, in general.
Hold me to that.
The coffee talk presents a fundamental view of the universe which my father never had the chance to share with me, but I have gifted to my son.
Just doing my duty to the species.
And it probably will only offend about half the population, so as guy-to-guy talks go, it's probably entirely genteel.
So, anyway. Back to the Wall concert experience.
Here's the deal: we quickly realized that there were, like, no sixteen-year-old kids at this concert. Okay, okay... by "no kids," I mean they were outnumbered, easily, about 300-1 by people from my generation.
Which isn't really so bad, I guess.
Wait.
Scratch that.
It was terrible.
My people are old.
Really old.
And, I'm like, holy shit... are these my people?
Look around you, son. Here we are at The Wall.
This is where the handoff occurs.
My generation to yours.
Look at us.
This is what you see, son. We are the guardians of the world, the stewards of everything we have left behind to you, and this is us:
We are old. Really old.
Look, son, many of us need assistance walking. And those who do use assistance for their ambulation have a hard time grasping their walkers with one hand without spilling their bong water on their hush puppies.
Yeah, son. Look around you. We are the ones in charge: old people who smoke pot.
Lots and lots of pot.
And I'm, like, son, let me apologize right now to everyone in your generation for this -- what you see, and what I just realized is our legacy to you.
My people are a bunch of really old people who can barely move, but we can smoke a shitload of pot and bring down the Western world's economy by refinancing our mortgages.
To buy weed.
Yes, son, that old lady there with the oxygen bottle and little air mask is smoking a fatty joint.
After that show, I won't pee clean until 2012.
Yeah, son, we're in charge of the world.
Look at us.
Some of us are so fat we can't fit in our Roger Waters $200 seats. We have to stand up (with assistance) and use our seat for a shelf for our bongs.
This is the world, son.
Like dozens, maybe hundreds of people present frying on acid or 'shrooms, son, I've just had a Pink-Floyd-induced epiphany:
This explains a lot, doesn't it?
No need to thank me for the world, son. Consider it my gift to you and all your little friends.
Oh. And it doesn't come with a gift receipt. There are no returns at the "World" store.
Don't kid yourself, son. It's not the Ninth Ring of Hell: a bunch of old people who can't move, smoking pot at a Floyd gig.
Oh, and the ones who can move either have to get up out of their seats and block your view every thirty goddamned seconds because they need to pee again, or they fall down a lot. It's a combination of all the booze plus the Nacho cheese sauce on the floor, which makes it really slippery.
And who eats wheelbarrow-sized portions of Nachos at a concert, son?
My people do, that's who eats Nachos.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
this wheel's on fire
Operating on just two hours of sleep here.
Not for the usual reason, like someone screwing with my universe.
Last night, I took my sixteen-year-old son to see the Roger Waters performance of The Wall in Los Angeles.
I could do something very weird and write an actual second music review post in the span of one week... After all, I do think I have a lot I could say about the show, which did have its share of awkward, not-quite-pulled-off-moments, as well as flashes of perhaps the most visually stunning eye- and ear-gasmic triumphs I have ever witnessed, but I'm not going to review the show here, I'm going to talk for a moment about something else.
[By the way, I am going to see the performance a second time in about two weeks, and I'm going to compare my notes to see if my original take on last night's performance has an enduring ring of truth to it, in which case I probably will write that review.]
Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool to go to the concert with my son. Going to see a Pink Floyd performance with me as a kid is probably something that would cause my father to want to unearth his casket and move his remains in to Dick Cheney's undisclosed subterranean place that's... um... undisclosed... and... under... ground. Or something.
But my son and I have similar taste in music (good, I might add), and we've gone to lots of concerts together. In fact, just this year, we've seen last night's The Wall, Wolf Parade, Cults, The Felice Brothers, Conor Oberst, Wavves, Magic Kids, Titus Andronicus, Best Coast, Abe Vigoda, Zola Jesus, and... um... I know there's more, but my head is still kind of ringing and I haven't slept.
Anyway, my son was one of the very few kids his age at the show last night. I'm glad he got the opportunity to see the equivalent of something like an outdoor version of Aida for people who grew up in my generation.
And I also hope we'll keep going to concerts together (and laughing at the people we invariably see who show up entirely wasted out of their minds).
Dude... maintain.
Just before we left for the show, a delivery arrived at my house: the copy edits package for Stick, which I keep reminding you all will be published in 2011.
So, before I stepped out the door, I ripped open the package, pulled out the stack of pages (hooray for publishers and editors who still send sheets of paper -- and sorry if I'm "outing" anyone who doesn't want to be "outed," but I really need the paper for copy edits), and, naturally, thumbing through the stack, I zoom directly to a page where
something
has
been done
that wasn't supposed to be "done." It happens. Copy editors, being the word-heads that they are, are always going to pick up on things that -- in the absence of a contextual examination of my universe [which routinely gets screwed with by random strangers and acquaintances and results in sleep deprivation] -- look like mistakes, but really aren't... so they get "changed" to make them "correct," and then I have to change them back so they "look" wrong, but are actually "right."
At least, in my universe.
Does that make sense?
Deadline, prepare to have your ass kicked.
I think.
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