unstoppable corn

Here is the danger.

I am totally finished with everything.

No edits. No nothing.

At least I have had about a month and a half of not writing anything new. It is probably about time to start that next thing.

Yesterday, I sent off the final version of Winger to my editor at Simon and Schuster, and to my new agent, too.

Yes, I have a new agent. I will tell you about my agent some other time.

But I wanted to say that this last time working through Winger, I really fell in love with that book again. It's hard sometimes to get in and out of books when you write a lot of stuff, and when, as I said yesterday, nothing you write is anything like anything else you write.

One of the things that is cool about Winger is that the narrator draws stuff in the book, and he puts in notes and phone conversations (and he plays rugby, too). Anyway, I ran across this little self-portrait note from him toward the end of the book that I'd forgotten was in there, and I thought it was a cool cartoon.

I will not show you the cartoon, because I drew it, and there will be a different -- real -- artist doing the artwork for the book when it comes out in spring of 2013. But here's what the cartoonist/narrator has to say (don't worry, there is no spoiler -- not even a hint about anything that happens in the book):

You ever hear of Joseph Conrad? He said, "One writes only half the book: the other half is with the reader."

Mr. Wellins might say that I have made you a conscripted audience; that I didn't give you a choice as to whether or not to believe me, and, believe me, sometimes I can't believe myself.

Or something.

But I wrote this all down, and I tried to make everything happen the same exact way it did when I was seeing it and feeling it - real time - with all the confusion, the pressure, and the wonder, too; even though I did get off the page once in a while and make jabs at things. Which is kind of like the cartoonist drawing a cartoon of himself while he's drawing himself.

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wherever boys ride bicycles, paved roadways ribbon

Here are two things I think people will never say about me:

1. Drew is perky, bubbly, and excitable.

2. Drew's current novel is too much like another novel we already have on our list.

Um.

How was your NaNo?

Mine was good. I have not written anything new at all since October. That has been nice for my brain.

In October, I finished writing the strangest, most twisted thing I have ever written.

It is not like anything on anyone's list. Probably.

Nobody knows anything about it.

I am going to New York next week. If I run into Roger Sutton, I will high five him for reading my book, Stick.

I am going to get to see all the great people I work with in the Flatiron Building, at Feiwel and Friends; and also the great people I work with at Rock Center, at Simon and Schuster. I'm also going to hang out with Joe Lunievicz, the author of one of my favorite books that was not written by me, Open Wounds. I'm kind of hoping Joe arranges a pickup rugby game in Central Park. I will play.

Joe is also a rugger, and he has read Winger, which is about kids who play rugby. Winger is my first book coming out from Simon and Schuster.

But I wanted to say something about my next book that is coming out from Feiwel and Friends.

You know.

It is called Passenger, and it is the sequel to The Marbury Lens.

Almost nobody knows anything about Passenger.

I haven't even let my son read it, although I did let him read the very twisted and deranged 105,000-word novel I finished writing in October.

He liked it.

But, and I don't really like to use the term "favorite," but the guy who wrote my favorite book that came out last year and was not written by me did get to read Passenger.

I will not tell you what he told me about Passenger.

I will tell you eventually.

But I will say what my favorite book of the past year that was not written by me is: Rotters, by Daniel Kraus.

When Rotters came out, Daniel sent me a grave-robbing kit that included gummy body parts.

When Passenger comes out, I am going to send out black gummy worms.

You will see.

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grant wallace murdered me

Well.

Roger Sutton read my book.

I do not know Roger Sutton, but I have seen photographs of him. It makes me feel kind of weird to think that Roger Sutton has read my book.

He wrote a review of it, as a matter of fact, that is going to appear in the Jan/Feb Horn Book Review.

The book he read is Stick.

I do not know if he has read any of my other books, but if he wants to, I would be okay with that.

Here is the Horn Book review of Stick:

Stick
by Andrew Smith
High School    Feiwel    292 pp.
10/11    978-0-312-61341-9    $17.99

“Stick” is at least slightly better than his given name of “Stark,” but what he’s called is the least of this thirteen-year-old’s problems. Stick was born with only one ear, his narration occasionally spaced across the page to mimic his hearing, and his parents are secretly and sadistically brutal. For the slightest infraction of their petty and/or incomprehensible rules, Stick’s father will beat him and his older brother Bosten, a beating that is often followed by consignment to a locked room for a couple of days or even longer: “no lights, no nothing, not even any clothes; just a galvanized bucket to use for a toilet and a cot with one sheet.” Stick suspects that even worse is happening to his brother; after Dad finds out that Bosten is gay, both boys, separately, run away. The violence of the story is intense, but so is the deep loyalty between the brothers, and the melodrama of life at home is balanced by Stick’s sweetly nascent romance with a longtime female friend and both boys’ experience of true family love when they visit their Aunt Dahlia. She is perhaps impossibly benevolent, but, man, is she welcome. Readers who have appreciated Chris Crutcher’s and Adam Rapp’s forays into adolescent darkness will find themselves on uneasy but familiar ground. roger Sutton

Thank you very much for that, Mr. Sutton.

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hide the switch and shut the light

Yes, I have been gone for a couple days.

This was not only due to the fact that my son came back home from college for the long weekend. We also, for the first time ever, lost phone and internet service at el Rancho de Drew.

It was probably a good thing, anyway.

But yesterday, I received a copy of the Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books upcoming December review of Stick. A very nice review, in which, according to my editor, the last lines pretty much say it all:

Smith, Andrew Stick. Feiwel, 2011 [304p] ISBN 978-0-312-61341-9 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9-12

 

Born with only one ear, Stick has grown used to the teasing he endures at school. Worse, however, is the abuse he and his brother endure at home at the hands of both their mother and father, who express their displeasure with savage beatings and by locking their sons in a room bare of all save a cot and a bucket. Stick and Bosten have each other, though, and they each have a close friend—Stick has Emily, and Bosten has Paul, in a relationship that is more than just friendship. It turns out that they also have an aunt, and when they go to her house for their Easter vacation they realize how different home life might be. It’s hard to go back home, especially when they find out that their mother has moved out, leaving them with their father, whom Stick realizes has been sexually abusing Bosten as well as beating them. When Bosten and Paul are caught in a compromising act, Bosten has no choice but to run away, and Stick soon follows, only to run into more trouble than he left at home. This tragic story has at its heart a solid core of brotherly love and loyalty that survives even the worst of situations; it’s those situations that are exceptionally difficult to read about and conceptualize, with their harsh and gritty realism. Aunt Dahlia seems almost too good to be true if readers don’t think too hard about the fact that she hasn’t tried to see the boys for the first sixteen years of their lives; however, it’s enough that she offers a safe haven for them when they finally make their escape. The prose is strong and evocative, lapsing into imagistic poetry at times to reveal the intensity of Stick’s emotions. Readers should be prepared to have their hearts broken by these vulnerable, utterly lovable brothers.

So, thank you for that nice review, BCCB.

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openers

Everyone likes first lines, right?

Have some:

The garage steams with the smell of cat piss and something dead. The reek hangs in the still press of late August heat. 

Every one of us is sick and scared. 

I tell them, “We said we’d do it, and we’re going to do it, okay?”

-- That's the beginning of Passenger, which is coming from Feiwel and Friends next fall, just after the paperback release of The Marbury Lens.

Well, it's really the first lines of the actual story. There is one page that precedes those lines.

And this:

I said a silent prayer.

Actually, silent is probably the only type of prayer a guy should attempt when his head's in a toilet.

-- That's the beginning of Winger. It is coming in spring, 2013 from Simon and Schuster.

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lucky, a cigarette run, and the bison

Nobody reads blogs on Black Friday.

I can only hope you are sitting at home by the fire, looking out at the autumn trees and reading a book, as opposed to being conditioned to behave like good consumers by huge corporations with combined revenues that exceed the entire GDPs of more than half the countries on the planet called Earth.

When I was in Chicago, I had a very nice lunch with David Gale, my editor from Simon and Schuster. Among other things, we talked about my novel, Winger, which is coming out in the spring of 2013. David tells me there is a definite pub date for the novel. I hadn't even asked about that before, but when he returns to work in New York after this holiday weekend, I will find out and post it here.

I also know from my Macmillan people that the paperback version of The Marbury Lens will be coming out one month before the release of Passenger (the sequel), this coming fall, 2012.

I think there will be, like, a six-month party coming up in fall of 2012.

Anyway, back to this lunch. David asked some questions about rugby. The principal characters in Winger happen to play rugby, which is a sport that involves much more than just what happens on the field of play. It's kind of hard to explain.

You will see.

Anyway, Winger is definitely not a Sports book. It's just a book that tells a good story, and there happens to be sports involved. Although I believe that rugby fans and players will like the book, there is absolutely no need to pre-load your brain with any rugby information to enjoy the book.

It is illustrated, too. And there are comics and notes and index cards and scripts inside it, too.

David asked if I could send some photos of kids playing rugby for their artists, so they could get ideas about cover art. He even asked me if there were any elements I thought needed to be included in the cover art.

That was really nice.

Anyway, I have literally thousands of photographs I've taken over the years because I have coached high school rugby for many years (sadly, I don't do this now, as much as I love it... there just isn't enough time for me any longer).

So I thought I'd share some photos here, before sending them on to New York.

This is a lineout. Yes, you may recognize that the kids happened to be playing on the pitch at UCLA here. There is a funny story about a lineout in Winger.

This is a scrum. You can see our hooker's foot getting the ball in the middle.

This is what the bottom of a scrum looks like. The team in green was from Perth, Australia.

This is a ruck. Yes, it does hurt.

This is ouch.

One last look at a lineout.

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great big jar

The other day in Chicago, one of my co-panelists said something like this: Your imagination is limitless.

I thought about that for a moment.

Moment is a word that I rarely use. It sounds pretentious and condescending.

But I have heard that frequently. It's kind of like mass-hysteria.

Disneyspeak.

Your imagination has no limits.

Or shit like that.

Um.

Yes.

Yes it does have limits.

It has definite limits, and I can tell you precisely and to a pinpoint of accuracy where your imagination ends in the black, idea-less void of eternal dumbness.

Do you want to know where your imagination runs up against the sizzling barbwire fence of emptiness?

Even if it makes your head explode?

Okay.

Here goes: Your imagination is only as vast as the number of words you have in your head.

Period.

In fact, it would be a simple feat to mathematically calculate the exact dimensions of your imagination based on the combination of linguistic structures and the rules by which you apply the syntactical framework of understanding -- making sense -- of those building blocks to reality.

Words.

Sorry to burst your giant balloon.

Imagination = Finite.

You can't argue with that truth.

Go ahead.

Try this: Try to imagine something that is also not a word.

You can't do it.

Even if you get all righteously indignant and try to picture something that does not exist, you will not be able to picture anything unless you begin by giving it words -- colors, teeth, hair, geometric constraints, words, words, words.

Words are reality, and reality cannot exist without words.

Which brings me back to the topic of yesterday's post: Is there too much reality in young adult (I will no longer capitalize those words because I am punishing them for being bars on my cage) literature?

I believe this: I believe there is not enough reality in young adult literature, simply because there are far too many examples that can be held up to the light of scrutiny and reveal their predictable sameness, their application of one-size-fits-all imaginations.

We will talk.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Your brains are leaking out.

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