heaving collarbones and menacing sexuality

Here is a YA book cover for your imagination.

Picture this: A pouting girl with voluptuous lips sits, turned at an angle with her chin down, on a cane rocking chair in a firelit, dusky cabin. Her wild black hair swirls unexplainably about her face, and her dress is open beneath her neck, revealing her obviously heaving collarbones and alabaster pale skin. Her eyes are unnaturally emerald-hued and she appears heavily burdened with sadness, mystery, and wild, insatiable sexuality. Behind her is a four-paned window, through which we see the menacing shape of a tree with more leafless and sharp spiny branches than a clustering orgy of spawning sea urchins, while three silhouetted birds fly off, ominously, into the ashy sky. There is a faint image of a muscular, shirtless young black man watching the girl through the window. For some unmedical reason, his eyes are yellow. The insanely beautiful girl with black black black eye makeup is trying to thread a very phallic needle.

Okay. Did that get you sweaty?

I figured that's the cover I'd design if I were trying to get The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be placed on the YA shelf of Barnes and Noble today.

I'd be an outstanding marketer!

The scene -- although liberally interpreted for the sake of art and sex, sex, sex! -- is right from the book, after all. Nobody needs to know ahead of time that it's the famous transvestite scene -- that the sexy maiden is actually Huck.

Yesterday, I spoke with my friend A.S. King about my idea to "redo" YA book covers if they had to be marketed to the only national chain bookstore today.

Oh! We had fun!

Just wait till I tell you about my To Kill a Mockingbird cover!

You'll have to take a cold shower!

I wanted to actually use elements from real YA bookcovers, but I would be sued, sued, sued! And some of those YA authors out there are known to be real scrappers.

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observations from a literary gandhi

I got this new kind of coffee.

It is really good.

You don't even have to brew it.

The reason you do not have to actually brew it is because it isn't really coffee. It is crystal methamphetamine, which is more like coffee times atomic weaponry.

I figured if writing is so dependent upon the ingestion of the stimulant, caffeine, then it would greatly be enhanced by nuclear caffeine.

Nuclear caffeine is a more pleasant way of saying "crystal meth."

I think about Gandhi a lot.

I thought about Gandhi one time -- I said to myself, What would Gandhi do in this situation? -- when I was walking in Paris, France, and was punched in the back of my head by a prostitute.

Imagine that!

It is a true story, the details of which I like to keep mysteriously vague, but, trust me, it did happen.

I think this coffee is interfering with what I am actually supposed to be doing right now, which is writing. Instead, I am rekindling memories of my youth in Paris, France, which is where I was not only punched in the back of my head by a prostitute (and, man, was she ever angry!), but was also thrown off a train.

That is also a true story.

These are also questions I am frequently asked: Drew, why did you get punched in the back of your head by a prostitute in Paris, France? and, Drew, why did you and your luggage get thrown off a train in Paris, France (Did I mention I had a sleeping compartment?)?

There is always some "tone" in the questioners' voices, too, which implies some prejudgement of initial wrongdoing on my part.

I am an innocent man!

I'll leave it at that.

This coffee is good.

Where was I?

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my favorite book

Over the weekend, I wrote about a question I am often asked, one that I don't see many other writers blog about.

Here is another one I get asked with almost predictable regularity:

What is your favorite book that you have written?

Can I say that they are all my favorite books in their own ways?

Because each one of them does something, tells a story, that the others do not. And my favorite book changes from time to time. It is almost NEVER the book I am writing, and it is absolutely, positively never, never, NEVER a book that I am finishing the edits on.

In the "finishing the edits" stage of the process is the precise time when I can certainly make a decision about which of my books I hate the most.

Right at the moment, though, I do have to admit that my favorite book that I have written is next year's Grasshopper Jungle. I like it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how twisted and demented -- and funny -- it is. I also like it because the book is like a hundred books all put together. It's a kind of tessellation, where all the little sharp pieces all end up clicking magically together and making something groutless and simultaneously unbreakable.

You will see.

I am really excited about this book.

Ask me again in 6 months, and chances are I will hate it.

But I doubt that.

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target and audience

Like most writers, I suppose, I get asked the following question with frequent regularity:

Who is the target audience for your novel?

I think that's kind of a weird question in a lot of ways, because I always answer the same way:

Me. I am my target audience.

I have never thought about anybody else when writing a book. It is a completely selfish, self-absorbed endeavor for me.

It's one of the many reasons why I bristle at the (I suppose necessary) labeling of what I write as "Young Adult" literature. The problem with labels is that they cause people to make narrow-minded and prejudicial assumptions, and then you get these stupid clusterings that are so confident and determined:

I'm an adult, and I LOve reading YA!!! YA is the ONly thing I read!!!(squee)

Or:

YA is for kids, and grownups shouldn't read it, but it's okay for grownups to play video games!!! (I am an acerbic, erudite social commentator!)

Labels are for idiots.

They say things like "Do not ingest" on bottles of Clorox.

You know who I'm talking about.

I refuse to say his name. And I'm not going to call him names, either. But... O! How I want to!

I truly believe he is not smart enough to read any book I have ever written.

I have never seen anyone reading porn on an airplane.

I need more frequent flyer miles!

Here is a mistake for writers who want to be good: Thinking of a "target audience" before anything else. And envisioning that target audience as being a circle in your cosmic Venn Diagram that excludes the circle of you -- the writer.

So, if, for example, you set out with a mission: I am going to write a satiric and biting commentary which will appeal to lovers of smug, sententious columnists who really have a take on manhood and masculinity -- it is going to be crap.

And -- By the laws of nature! -- if you are caught reading it on a plane, you deserve to be punched in the throat!

[Note: I would LOve to hear from the particular author I'm speaking about, and would welcome the opportunity to engage in civil debate in any forum with him. If you are going to comment, please do not mention his name, the publication in which his essays appear, or offer any links to the piece I am vaguely referencing, because I won't post references to him.]

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something always happens while someone else dances

Well.

That photograph is a clipping from yesterday's Publishers Weekly Rights Report about a book of mine I have been making myself sick over from wanting to talk about.

Before anything else, let me say this: Despite a description which includes an apocalyptic, monster-filled premise, this book is NOT horror/scary/terrifying. It is not intended to be. No. No. No. It is insanely funny, so don't expect a doubt-filled self-hating romp through Marbury. After all, it takes place in Iowa. How can you not smile about Iowa having anything at all to do with the end of the world?

Now here are a few things first:

1. The title: Grasshopper Jungle

Here's where that came from. I run every day in the open and unpopulated hills around my home. Every day, no matter what, which includes rain, snow, wind, and sometimes blistering heat. The trails I run on are nameless, but in my mind I have names for certain stretches based on animals I see there, dead things, rocks, trees -- shit like that. There is one curving stretch of trail where, during the summer, I get pelted by grasshoppers when I run. At first, I thought it was really disgusting. I hate bugs. But then I started calling the place "Grasshopper Jungle" in my mind, and a story started to come to my head.

That's how I write.

2. Dates: The story goes back centuries and continues through the end of the world. There is, in that case, no need to ever read another book.

July 7, 2011 was the day I began writing Grasshopper Jungle.

I don't know why I know that, I just do. I don't know the precise "birthday" of any other book I've ever written.

It took me longer to write than any book to this point. I finished on exactly October 14, 2011. It is 104,000 words in length.

Around the time I was finishing the book, I decided I wanted to make a change in my "job," and I asked Michael Bourret from Dystel and Goderich Literary Management if he would be willing to take on a particularly challenging client with an absolutely insane novel.

Truly, I doubted my sanity with this book. So I kept asking Michael if he thought I was maybe insane.

Michael doesn't joke around. He thought I was insane. But he also thought the book was good.

We submitted the book after the holidays -- in the first week of February.

Julie Strauss-Gabel was on our agreed-upon list of coveted editors/publishers.

She was also on jury duty that week.

Let me apologize now to the family of the defendant she no doubt hastily convicted in order to read the book.

She said this about the book: "Holy shit."

I did not know if that was a good holy shit or a bad holy shit.

Bad holy shits can be really bad.

On February 13, 2012, I spoke with Julie about the book.

Holy shit!

On February 14 (Aww... Valentine's Day), we accepted her offer to publish Grasshopper Jungle.

3. I have a tattoo of something iconic that appears frequently in this book.

4. Speaking of questioning my sanity: I wanted to know if my son thought I was insane. I never ask family members to read my books. They usually have no idea what I've written until ARCs are published, but I asked my son if he would read Grasshopper Jungle if I sent it to him. He is, after all, an intellectual English major at a prestigious university (and a damned good writer, by the way). I was kind of nervous because I thought he would tell mom to call the psycho squad on me. He read the book in a day, then told me he thought it was one of the best books he'd ever read. But he also thought I was insane.

5. The "playlist" for this book -- in order -- consists of 7 Rolling Stones songs from the albums Exile On Main Street and Let It Bleed. These albums and the songs are very important to one of the characters in the book, a troubled, sad kid named Robby.

This is the list:

• Sweet Virginia
• Gimme Shelter
• Ventilator Blues
• Love In Vain
• Rocks Off
• Let It Bleed
• Let It Loose

I listened to that playlist, over and over, for hundreds of hours writing the book. I cannot get tired of those seven songs, and when they play I can visualize specific parts of the book where they are mentioned.

6. If I made a cover for the book, it would look like this (modeled after the brilliant cover to Exile On Main Street, which, by the way, I have framed in my room, a gift from my son.

This is NOT the cover of the book, but every single thing on this image appears in the story:

Yes, there is an inflatable whale.

Let me just finish with this: I admitted to Julie Strauss-Gabel that I was a bit starstruck chatting with her. I can not wait to see what we do with this insane book.

Coming in fall, 2013.

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there wasn't anything until somebody made up a word for it

In continuing my periodic rants on linguistic determinism.


In the Beginning, well... it actually wasn't much of a beginning until people made up that word beginning and then came up with wrong conclusions about shit.

Second, while I was sleeping (I have been sleeping entirely too much this past week. The Che Guevara of my State of REM has been staging a rather successful peasant revolution against what I fondly refer to as THE WHORE BOOK) I received an email from an unidentified associate that began thus:

But he's been giving me insane and intense dreams. Last night, a real mash-up: my car got stolen, I stepped in dog poo (wearing my old slippers -- the ones with holes in them), my daughter and I could breathe under water.

How weird! I never step in dog poo.

Anyway, since one of the first real-world things I do every morning is read my email (my coffee makes itself automatically), I seriously had to spend a few minutes re-reading this one to figure out what the hell it was about.

Ha!

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alarmist rhetoric

I am back from my road trip with my son.

Here is what happened while I was away: Nothing.

I can't actually be certain, though, since I was not here to observe it.

Here is one thing I did observe: (In truth, I am certain this really happened because my son and I both happened to observe it simultaneously) We were walking along a street in Berkeley, enjoying the sights and sounds -- the smell of marijuana mixed with gelato and urine -- and we passed two guys who stood at the curb, staring up at a sign on a storefront.

One of them said to the other: "That is an incredible font."

I looked at my son. He looked at me.

He said, "I rarely encounter people who truly appreciate the magnificence of a good sans-serif."

Here is something else that happened to me up in Berkeley.

After dropping my son off at his dorm, I went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. While I was under the shower, I heard this:

BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP!

The smoke alarm in my room was alerting everyone on the fucking planet that there was some urgent matter involving smoke.

It would not shut up.

What do you do? I was... um... naked. And wet. And the alarm in the room stubbornly persisted:

BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP!

By the way, I do not smoke. I also do not fire up the hibachi when I travel.

BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP!

Standing there, under the shower, I decided a plan of action was necessary. My plan involved climbing up on the sofa and breaking the fucking thing, which I started to do just as there came a rattling at the door accompanied by the presence of the hotel smoke detector squad.

Did I mention that I was naked and dripping wet and climbing up on my sofa?

BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP!

Oh yeah. Good times.

Luckily, before entering the shower I did something I rarely do: I closed that little-metal-thing-that-looks-like-a-seagull's-wing-on-the-door-that-I-always-forget-is-there-and-BAM!-surprise-myself-with-why-the-fuck-can't-I-open-my-door-thing-that-I-do-not-know-what-they're-called
so I spared myself the complete awkwardness of being taken to the ground while naked, wet, and standing on a sofa by the hotel's smoke detector squad, although I did have to explain through the crack in the door: 1) why I was naked and wet, and 2) that I did not set fire to the hotel room.

But the thing still did not shut up.

BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP!

It is difficult to get dressed when you are being screamed at by a fucking plastic disc on the wall that refuses to be broken.

Later that night, this happened:

It was 3:30 a.m.

Exactly 3:30.

I was so asleep. It was wonderful. Right in the middle of this really bizarre dream about two superhero women (one wore a red suit, and the other wore white) who were fighting -- kicking the living shit out of each other -- in the branches of a very big, tangled tree.

It was a cool dream!

Guess what happened?

BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP!

Someone had set the alarm clock beside the bed to go off at exactly 3:30 a.m.

What do you do?

I was in alarm hell. I can't turn off strange alarm clocks. I don't ever use an alarm clock at home, but a foreign clock is entirely unmanageable to me. Besides, I am totally blind without my glasses.

BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP!

So, I had to get out of bed, find my glasses, turn on the lights, and figure out how to shut up the goddamned alarm clock.

I was done. Pissed off. No more fighting female superheroes in trees.

My nerves are shot.

I hate alarms. They do not save lives. They make people angry and stressed out.

Alarms -- all of them -- are killers.

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