day of the dead

I have no reason to write anything about Halloween other than to say the holiday does play an important role in the most recent novel I wrote... and that the next time I dress up in costume for a party, I'm going to wear exactly what the main character in that book wears.

It's a great Boy Book, too, perfect to read during BoNoBloMo.

So many times I have been tempted to put portions of my novels on this blog, especially some of the Halloween stuff from this latest work, but I think that blogs are for blogging, and not for writing... and that serious writers should never post their work-to-be-published on line.

Ever.

Just my opinion.

So, it is fitting that BoNoBloMo ends on Halloween, and this day marks the 68th consecutive day I've written a blog post. I'm not going away, either, but I know I'll be laying off the blog for a week or so when I leave the country next week. I'll post about that, too.

Tomorrow, November begins, and as all writers know, November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. I am not competing in the event, but I am writing a novel at the moment... and I have no intent to finish it in the coming month because I have enough other stuff that's still out there, and this one is requiring much research (which is all I'm doing on it right now).

Another fitting recent event for BoNoBloMo is yet another flattering review of Ghost Medicine from School Library Journal. My editor notified me this morning that on the SLJ website, there was an article called "On the Hunt" that stated:

The most recent survey report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicated that in 2006, 12.5 million people aged 16 and older enjoyed hunting a variety of animals within the United States. While many hunt for sport, others do it to supplement commercial food sources. The National Rifle Association offers a variety of hunter education programs for youth, as do many state wildlife agencies and the Boy Scouts of America. If hunting is a popular activity in your region, think about featuring magazines such as Field & Stream, Hunting Illustrated, and Petersen’s Hunting to pique reluctant reader interest.

...and then went on to list what, apparently, were the best books for boys who liked to hunt. And right there on that short list of five titles, just next to Wilson Rawls' Where the Red Fern Grows was this one:

SMITH, Andrew. Ghost Medicine. Feiwel & Friends. 2008. Tr $17.95. ISBN 978-0-312-37557-7.

Gr 7 Up–Seventeen-year-old Troy is working through some issues—his mom just died, and his father doesn’t seem to be able to be part of his life. When given the chance to work on a local ranch, he jumps at the opportunity—he’ll be close to his friends and beloved animals. Befriending an eccentric old woman creates unexpected results for Troy and his friend Tom, giving them hope for the future. But when the local bully and sheriff’s son, Chase Rutledge, kicks up his game a notch, the friends become prey for human hunters. Heart-stopping suspense on horseback.

Woo hoo! Thank you, School Library Journal, again, for another very nice review of my book.

By the way, as I've said in older posts, I have nothing at all against hunting. It was the primary way my father put food on the table when I was a kid. Unfortunately, the opportunities for boys to experience such things in this day and age have declined with the shrinking of America's wilderness.

So... I'm not dressing up for Halloween this year. I fully plan on getting that special costume for Halloween 2009, though, for the end of the second official BoNoBloMo.

BoNoBloMo

live from an attic in texas

Well, here we are with only one more day left in BoNoBloMo. This means I've been blogging every day without missing one for over two months.

I realize that it got easier as time went on. Not that I am ever at a loss for something to say, anyway.

So... that picture? It was taken last night in an attic in Texas. Pretty creepy, huh? Well, very many years ago, when I was young and reckless, I shared a backseat with that guy driving up through Mexico with two of my best friends, Mike and Steve. I don't know how I got stuck in the back... but Mike was driving, and Steve is taller than me. So... yeah.

Talk about a crazy boy story. I better not tell it on a blog, though... I think Mike and Steve's wives still like and respect them. Or something.

Anyway, the guy in the picture and the whole road trip from Mexico kind of got woven in the story of my next novel, in the path of falling objects. Yesterday, I got the final, galley-ready pages to look over some very minor copy edits. There is something that's really cool about seeing the copyright page in your yet-to-be-released work that says "copyright 2009 by Andrew Smith," has the short Library of Congress summary, and gives an all-new ISBN number.

I know.

I'm a geek.

But I am agonizing... I know this is not at all hard to believe considering the magnitude of my self-contempt, over ONE WORD. That's it. Just one word that I can't make a decision on. I mean, I can see both sides... to change or not to change.

Ugh.

I am such a loser.

And I'm not going to say what the word is, either. But somehow I will have to come to that decision and be okay with it within the next couple days.

Maybe I should make a tequila-based determination. Just like the three of us did all those years ago when God only knows how we made it back out of Mexico.

BoNoBloMo

q and a day

I've been doing more than a few interviews this week, and I thought I'd put a few of the better questions and answers up on the old blog today.

So, here goes:

1. Are there any writers, teachers, or other individuals that have had a major influence on your writing or helped you further in your career?

I honestly think there were a couple high school and undergraduate writing instructors who taught me what I needed to know to get started. But that education is dwarfed by what I learned from my agent, Laura Rennert, and my editor, Liz Szabla. My writing “influences” are many… and I know I’ll think of a dozen more after I answer this, but I would list major influences as Hemingway, Faulkner, Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain. Okay… you can call me ethnocentric, but I just happen to think American writers are the best. I will say, though, that I also consider myself to be influenced by Hardy, Dostoevsky, and the great author Octavio Paz, all of whom I mention in Ghost Medicine.

I would also like to say that my dear friend from high school, Kelly Milner Halls, a Middle Grade Non-Fiction author of more than a dozen books, gave me critical advice that helped me steer clear of the damaging mistakes that newbie writers inflict on themselves.

2. Can you briefly describe the process you go through when writing a novel or book? Where do you get your inspiration?

I am a firm believer that there is no substitute for experience; that people may want to write, but if they haven’t lived yet, what they produce will be less than genuine. So I lived through enough wild and reckless experiences in my life to fill at least fifty novels, and that’s where my inspiration comes from. For example, in my youth, during a time when I was really into Hemingway, I camped out, by myself, for a month in what was then Yugoslavia. One day I know I’ll weave that experience into a book. My writing process begins with thinking… for a long time. Then I usually write down some notes on characters and the first few pages of the manuscript. Next, I put that away, sometimes for months, and let the ideas stew in my head. When I’m ready, I write. In that phase I write sometimes as much as ten hours per day until I am finished… completely finished, with no revisions or changes to come. That part drives my family crazy, and, I will admit, it’s probably a little self-destructive, too. But it’s how I do it.

3. You’ve created some very interesting characters. What is the character development process like for you?

I start with names and descriptions. I keep these in my notes file. I like to think that all my novels are intensely character-driven, so it is very important to me that my characters are as real, believable, and individual as possible. One of the things I do is I keep a file on the characters in each novel, and I find photographs for every one of them. I do this by just randomly searching around on the internet until I find a picture of a person who really looks like I imagine my character. From time to time, I’ll pull that picture out and try to visualize how that character would phrase things, or how he or she would react to certain events… how their faces might change when they encounter stress. I haven’t heard any other writers say they go through this process, and maybe it’s crazy, but it works for me. And before anyone asks, no, I will not show the pictures I used to create any of my characters.

Okay... so there you go.

BoNoBloMo

wiped out

The signing last night at the Barnes and Noble in Thousand Oaks was the best such event so far. The crowd was truly appreciative and engaged, and it was so obvious that manager Michele Kantor and her staff truly love books.

I'd like to thank Michele, as well as Rose Anne Savo, who also participated in the event, and runs a regular Monday evening class at that Barnes and Noble for a local community college. It was, as I said, the most positive in-store signing so far.

It was very gratifying to see students from several local high schools in attendance and asking such terrific questions. I met the librarian from Newbury Park High School, also, and plan on paying that school and its students a visit very soon.

After a late-night dinner, and now operating on less than four hours' sleep and ready to start working again today, I'm as wiped out as the shelves at Barnes and Noble.

Yeah... we sold all the copies of Ghost Medicine... but I understand they've been selling out there a few times in the past couple weeks.

BoNoBloMo

sleep deprivation

So, I am conducting a self-imposed sleep deprivation experiment.

Let's see how long I last.

It's going to be a long stretch. This evening, I'll be in Thousand Oaks, California, again, reading and signing copies of Ghost Medicine at the Barnes and Noble in the Westlake Promenade, beginning at 7:00 PM. I have a lot of friends and family in that area, too, so the expectations for the wild after-party preclude any possibility of sleep before, say, Wednesday.

Sorry for the brevity of this post. I have lots of work to cram in to the hours between now and then.

I hope to see lots of you this evening at B & N.

BoNoBloMo

want to see something you'll never forget?

Okay, so I don't know if I said everything I wanted to say about yesterday's SCBWI Writer's Day in Thousand Oaks, but now I don't think I can remember everything, either. But I will try.

I remember that in my speech, I also gave my What Would Liz Do? story, about how influential and empowering my editor has been over the years (years???) I have worked with her, and I think that boosted a lot of the aspiring authors' hope for their own progress. Afterwards, I spoke with a group of writers who seemed stressed out by a widely-held idea that once you write your first book, the pressure of coming up with subsequent novels was so great that most writers couldn't do it.

Well, again, I have to say that I really don't know anything about anything, but I do remember that when I wrote Ghost Medicine, that I kind of believed that I wouldn't be able to write another book... like I was emptying myself in some way, and I wouldn't ever be filled up again. The truth is, though, that the next books I wrote came easier than Ghost Medicine, and they are completely different in every way imaginable: tone, setting, voice, and structure.

Again, I do not believe that writing is easy at all. It's a complete pain. And I did confess to Jamie at the conference that I believe the way I write is pretty self-destructive... that there is a physical and mental emptying out that actually takes me two or three months to recover from. So I wouldn't want to write more than, say, two books a year, because I think it would literally (no pun intended) kill me. But, yeah, I think I can manage getting two out. So, I'm on my second one of the year, and when I get all the research finished and arc the story out it will be back into the manic, self-destructive phase for Smith.

Yeah. I'm looking forward to it.

The cool thing about the conference was that Feiwel and Friends had sent a big box of books and freebies to SCBWI to use as prizes, and everyone was so appreciative of the great stuff my publishers sent. But that's how they are, and it seems like everywhere I go in the writing biz, people keep telling me how incredibly warm and kind the folks at Feiwel and Friends are.

But I've known that for years.

Okay... best part of my weekend:

I got home pretty late last night and I was incredibly tired (never sleep very well in hotel beds). So I went to sleep early. When I woke up this morning, I saw that I had received an email during the night from Jean Feiwel herself.

Wow.

Two things: Wait, three things:

1) I am a total nervous dork when it comes to Jean Feiwel because I am so in awe of her.

2) The email came in very late... so I think she must have stayed up late at night reading the final version of in the path of falling objects. This is a good thing.

3) I am not going to put what she said on my blog, but she said the most amazing, incredible, flattering things about this book of mine that's going to be coming out next fall.

Hell yeah.

Thanks, Ms. Feiwel.

So that explains the title of this blog post. It's a quote from the first page of in the path of falling objects. And like I replied back to her... just wait till you see the next stuff.

BoNoBloMo

quick throw up

Okay. So I'm quickly throwing something up here (not that blogging actually counts as writing) just to keep the streak going.

Can you say OCD?

Whatever.

I spent the day at the Southern California SCBWI Writer's Day at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California. And I wasn't stalked or harassed. Yay for me. And I know you will find the following statement suspicious, especially considering what a loser I am, but the day was really amazingly uplifting.

(soft music begins in the background)

No. Really, it was. From the faculty dinner where I got to sit down and talk with some amazing storytellers to the actual day where I got to hang out and listen... and then practically soil myself when it was my turn to talk, all I can say is Wow.

First of all, I got to hang out and talk with Jamie Weiss Chilton, who is an agent with the same agency that reps me... and she is, like, uber-cool. And I met Dan Hanna, an illustrator who really knows how to put on a show, and Tim Egan, an author/illustrator who really can tell a story. And Patrick Collins, who works for Holt (in the same building as my publisher) gave a great presentation on cover art... so be nice to him next time you see him in the elevator Feiwel folk, because he is a really great person.

I guess I gave a good talk, because people there went out and bought my book and asked me to sign it just because of what I said. I told them my "Holy Shit" story (sorry... you know I don't cuss, but there's no way around that one), and I told them about how my wife thought I was conducting an on-line affair when I wrote Ghost Medicine because she couldn't figure out what I was doing up in my office on the computer for so many hours a day.

Like she probably thinks now.

Oh well.

I'll put more up about Writer's Day tomorrow... there are still a few things I need to say.

BoNoBloMo