Long drive...

It's just over 400 miles from Buffalo to my hotel in Stamford, but it took me a solid 8 hours to drive it. Seems like there's construction all along the 81 and the 86, which slammed traffic down to one lane. That part I didn't mind as much because it was mostly through nice country -- hills and streams and trees at the end of their colors. There was a lot of orange and gold and yellow around, but there were also a lot of naked trees mixed in, muting their beauty.

No, it's dealing with the 95 at rush hour, headed away from NYC. It took me an hour to go 6 miles. It's like the 101 headed to downtown LA in the morning. How people can do that every day is beyond me.

But...I did get closer to possible artwork for the dust jacket on A65. I tested the idea of a photo of the book done in poster graphics with a broke pair of glasses lying before them. I've also jumped back and forth on whether to include Gertrude's face in the background...but that makes it seem busy, so I don't think I will.

I've also been playing with the tag line -- now thinking She was always more than a book is a better line, because it plays in with something Adam says once Casey gives him the Alice '65 -- "Books are my life. They're so much more than just the binding and pages and words within. Ideas and histories accompany them, as do all the people who've touched them or been touched by them. An antiquarian book is a universe unto herself if you're willing to let her become one with you."

I may put that on the back of the dust jacket.

Focus shifting to graphics...

Okay...I now have A65 printed up and ready for my (hopefully) last pass. I've sent out a few PDFs and requests to ask for feedback and mentioned I'm still aiming for a Thanksgiving roll-out. So I now need to figure out the cover for the hardback. I'm pretty much clueless, right now.

I came up with an interesting tag line -- She was never just a book -- which might work if I'm using a photo of the 1865 edition. I like the simplicity of that...and I can play around with the image in Photoshop when I get back from this job in Connecticut. Right now I'm slated to return on Thursday, so that'd give me the weekend.

Before I did the printout, I made a couple more changes -- clarifying what happened to Adam's father and replacing my dashes with em-dashes. I also changed one character's name because it's too much like the Connecticut client's name. We want no confusion here.

Right now, I'm kind of brain dead. I hope the drive, tomorrow, helps me recharge. I'm not happy about the minivan I have -- a Toyota Sienna, I think it's called. The middle seats have to go up against the back of the front seats, no stow-and-go here. That makes for a nasty blind spot over my right shoulder. I'll be driving a bit more careful than usual.

I keep forgetting I'm not heading for Hong Kong till the 14th. For some reason I'd convinced myself that trip was next week. Duhh.

Okay...I'm zoning...

302 pages, 64,900 words...

Again, I am done. Lots of changing and rearranging, clarifying and simplifying, but the latest incarnation of The Alice '65 is complete. I'm going to do a quick spell check to make sure I haven't messed up, there, then I'm sending it off, again, for feedback.

I want to do just one more polish, if the response is positive, enough. Make sure everything is in order and nothing is out of line when it comes to the antiquarian world. And the characters. There are a couple of spots where I just tell the back story rather than work it out, but I think that works within the framework.

I think the story's solid enough, now, for me to start planning the hardcover. I'm still casting around for ideas for the dust jacket. I want something eye-catching and nice that's reflective of both the chaos and drama of the story. Looking at other hardbacks and their jackets hasn't been of much use. Most seem to rely on either the author's name of the just the title being provocative enough to catch a reader's notice. So I don't know how that's going to turn out.

Tomorrow is preparation for the job in Connecticut, so I won't have a real chance to do my check till I'm at the hotel...and that could be late. We'll see how it goes...but at least I'm back to normal.

Next week is Hong Kong and China in Print. My 8th trip to the country. I have no idea what to do to keep myself occupied between move-in and move-out of the fair. I guess I'll check into some of the museums. Maybe take another trip to Macau and see the old village. I'll look into that later.

Guess I'm into a haven't got a clue stage, right now.

Back to bustin' it...

I worked on A65 all day and got through 136 pages of inputs. If I remember right, the biggest changes were in this part, so it's possible I'll be done, tomorrow. I've dropped about five-hundred words, to where it's hovering around 64,500. I think I'm adding some in the next part, but I won't know the final count till I'm done. I just know it's getting there.

I'm still thinking about the cover for the hardback and not coming up with anything that slays me. I'm sort of leaning towards a black and white of Gertrude lounging atop a big photo of the book, Adam's glasses in hand. The rest of the cover would be a complimentary color but nothing too vivid. I'll keep thinking and digging through Shutterstock to see if I can find a good shot for Adam and use that, instead.

It wasn't easy to get going, today. I'm still a bit uncertain about what good it's going to do me to publish another book under my own banner. I wonder if I should try to get an agent and see about submitting to a mainstream publisher. I don't know. That would take a lot longer to get the book out, and I don't think I have the patience to wait like that, anymore.

God, it's just too much to think about...to consider. And when you're not exactly gifted when it comes to things like graphic arts, that only makes it harder. I got lucky with OT's cover; that fell together without much thought, just a few tests and then seeing Jordan's photo and getting the okay to use it made it all happen. And I'm pleased with it.

I'll keep at it. Think about it while driving to Connecticut on Tuesday and home on Thursday. Maybe something will come to me that kicks everything else out the door.

Damn, that would be so nice.

I don't like having a helper...

When I do a packing or pickup job, I'm finding I don't like having someone to help me. It tends to mess me up, and things don't get done the way I want. Like this job in Key West. For the first part I had someone to assist in picking up the Judy Blume archives (which are now safely ensconced at Yale), mainly because she's a huge fan and, fortunately, got to meet Judy.

But she's also one of the owners of the company, and has her own way of doing things...which don't work for me...but it has to go her way or the situation gets tense. So that issue we had with Office Depot not filling my order for packing supplies got more complicated than need be.

If I'd been the only one handling it, I'd have just taken the substitute boxes and headed on. But assistant got into the middle of it and wanted a credit for the difference in the boxes' cost -- a whole $5 -- so there were credits to be done and recharging the boxes and some went on my credit card while some went on hers, and I have no idea what finally got paid or charged or credited, in the end. I think I wound up taking a hit of about $9...but I can't be sure; I might not have. So I'm swallowing it and figure I'll deal with it once I get all my expenses reimbursed.

I never have worked well with others. I do things differently and approach situations from odd angles, and it can cause friction very quickly. Like today, I was asked to prep a last-minute addition to the Boston Book Fair and I was working along and suddenly found half the work I did had already been done by someone else, and me doing it was messing them up. So they got pissed off at me for not figuring out they only wanted this half done and not the other half...and I felt like dirt because I thought I'd screwed up in some way.

Of course, the same went for my screenwriting. When I did try to put aside my concerns and just follow the lead of two people I thought were on my side, all I did was get angry and hurt and ruined a script I'd been proud of, not to mention permanently damaged my friendship with them. Because while they were doing what they thought was right, it was wrong for me...and for the story, really. Completely. And achieved nothing. The script is now dead, and I helped kill it by agreeing to do what they wanted until things went too far.

So now I write my books and get feedback and use what I like and ignore what I don't, and while I get freaky and angsty and irritable and euphoric, it's all on me...and that make me feel at least a bit better about what I'm doing.

I guess that's something.

More garbage work...

Today was figuring out where I am, financially, and working up the last of my expense reports. Plus prepping for another possible job, next week, in Connecticut. Where in Connecticut, I don't know yet. This is one of those double-secret probation deals where info is parceled out in dibs and drabs, making it hard as hell to plan for. All I know right now is I'll be driving; lots more flexible.

So I took my car in for winter servicing and was told I'll need a new battery, soon. Fun. Just in time for another storm in the Northeast.

I had no chance to work on A65...and I'm getting antsy. I want to get this draft done and off to a couple of people I know for feedback. I also want to start work on the dust jacket for the hardback and the look of the inside. I'm going for a 5x8 inch size, something smaller and more manageable than OT, which was 6x9.

I'm slowly reading through a design manual offered by a guy who's done a huge number of books for publishers (I checked his CV; he did). I also learned some tricks on OT that I can apply to working up A65. I think OT looks professional, but I'm not a professional so it may not be. Something that I do keep running into is how it's better to do different covers for hardback and paperback, hence my decision to use Zan's image for the paperback. It's better suited for that.

Right now I'm thinking of using the original Alice's Adventure in Wonderland front board (which is in public domain) and working the outline of Gertrude into it, with half of Adam's glasses over one eye, still. But I have to have time to do that...and I just don't right now.

Well...Thanksgiving was probably too optimistic a deadline, if I want to do the book right.

A65 Cover

Long, busy day so not much happening except I got the cover art from Zan Varin --

I like it and will use it for the paperback. I think the only thing it needs is some kind of highlight on the glasses bits so they're more noticeable. Any thoughts from anyone else?

I'm doing a different cover for the hardback, per the suggestion of a book designer I've met. And thinking of making the interior of the hardback something special, but still not sure about which way to go.

Too much going on in brain to continue.

More on A65

I made some notes for the ending confrontation on the jet, inputting them straight onto the file since I don't have the printout with me. I've been told what I want to have happen can't happen in reality, so I've come up with a fix that would sort of make it believable because it just has to happen.

I try to keep everything real and acceptable in the story, but sometimes you have to go with what feels right, even if it's not plausible. I'm not going crazy and having Adam become Superman, all of a sudden, so I'm just not going to worry about it.

I'm all done with the Judy Blume archives. Worked in an open warehouse and sweated my ass off...which I wish I could have done. It was like a Turkish bath, in that place, and I soaked my bandana. Took 4 hours then another 2.5 hours through driving rain to get to Fort Lauderdale to turn in the truck....only to find the location had closed early, for some reason. So I dropped the keys through their night slot and called a cab to the hotel. And it was still raining.

I don't like Florida. Not just because of the politics -- half the places I went to, be it hotel or restaurant or UHaul facility -- had Fox News playing on their TV. That, alone, would be enough to set me on edge. But there's also this very casual attitude in so many people down here to doing what needs to be done. The location for me to pick up my truck was changed 5 minutes before we left the hotel to pick it up. Getting the packing materials at OfficeMax -- which I'd ordered online and paid for and got a text saying they would be ready for pickup -- turned into finding the materials in the store and making do with cheaper bankers boxes because the ones I'd ordered and paid for and been told were on hand weren't.

And then when trying to drop off the shipment, the warehouse was locked up. No one answered my knocks. The only reason we got in was because a driver for the company showed up and let us in, after calling his boss...and he only did that because he remembered me from the Miami Map Fair.

Jesus, as if working in the heat and humidity wasn't tiring enough.

Part of writing history...

Well...since it's already being tweeted about, I guess I can say I'm helping move some of Judy Blume's archives from Key West to Yale's Beinecke Library. Picked them up, this morning, and will have them packed and on their way tomorrow. She was there to see them off -- 78 cartons of papers and CDs. She's a very sweet lady. I've never read any of her books because I always felt they were geared towards girls. That and she started writing after I was out of high school, so it would have been a bit late for me.

I never did get into the teen angst books that came out, anyway. I read Catcher in the Rye when I was in my late 20s, which is about 10 years past its due date. I thought Holden Caulfield was obnoxious and a very privileged brat. Lord of the Flies was too cerebral to be angst-ridden, really. The Confusion of Young Törless was to arch and symbolic. Plus I found the whole worship of James Dean and Marlon Brando confusing...

At least, I did until I saw the wide-screen version of East of Eden after having read the novel. I'd seen it on TV in the hideous pan-and-scan mode that only showed part of the frame at one time, and I disliked it. And I did still think the music was too much and some of the acting poor, when I saw it as Kazan intended, but James Dean scorched the screen, especially in his scenes with Julie Harris.

It was on a double-bill with Rebel Without a Cause. Between those two films, I got the whole idea of angst and confusion, even though parts of the second movie were just silly. Like Jim Bacchus putting an apron on over his full business suit in order to do some cleaning or cooking or something, and the drag race towards a cliff in a game of chicken was over the top. And Plato's socks switching feet at the end. (I used to blame that on poor continuity, but I've heard from editors that sometimes the director or producer will use a take with an error in it because they liked the performance more.)

Anyway, a lot of the teen angst stuff was geared towards boys, and Judy's the one who got it going for girls. Makes her historic, to say the least.

And I was part of history.

Typical travel travails...

I'm in Fort Lauderdale waiting for a flight and it's already been postponed to 8:10pm. Meaning I won't get to the hotel in Key West till nearly 10. This is after I got a call, yesterday, from the UHaul center in Key West telling me they don't have the size truck I wanted; I have to take a larger one. Drive it 160 miles up a two-lane bridge, tomorrow. What fun.

On top of that, this terminal does not offer power outlets for you to use, so one of my phones is about to die. I'm sort of charging it off my laptop, which has a really good battery, but it's not happy.

I read some of Robert Olen Butler's A Strange Scent From A Good Mountain on the flight down. It's a collection of short stories about the Vietnamese in Louisiana. He's got a lovely, tender style that whispers around you like a gentle trail of incense. I can see why he won a Pulitzer for it.

My favorite, so far, is the one called "Fairy Tale", about a former bar girl/prostitute in Saigon, Miss Noi, who now dances in New Orleans. She doesn't understand English, and the way it's written almost like he's channeling a woman trying to understand another language via her own language's thought processes. Its ending is just right and actually brought me to tears.

I will read more of his books, just to see how he works his verbal magic. I'm also going to read some other modern writers' works to expand on my basic grasp of English grammar. I've been too caught up in the classics for my own good. I try to make certain I've done the right thing as I write, but sometimes I'm not sure about when to end a paragraph or how to line up a sentence; I just do what feels right and let it go.

I guess I should reread Strunk & White, just to see.