TKBs II

The cover meeting with the TKBs was excellent. I'm not surprised. Seeing the rough concepts on the big screen was pretty fun; some of them are very cool, and the whole process has me pretty excited. I won't say any more about the cover ideas themselves. Of course, once the cover's final, the Exile will probably be the first place it gets posted publicly.

Here are some highlights of the meeting:

• A cover mock-up designed and illustrated, with flap copy (a review from the Times!) and everything, by one of the TKBs. At the end of the meeting she handed it to me and said, "Happy birthday." Slightly late--or early--but I love it and will cherish it. I'd post here but since I didn't ask her if that would be okay, I won't.
• One of the senior TKBs: "I cried at the end. I curled up in a ball in the corner and cried." I took that as a compliment.
• After cover discussion, several TKBs decided to hurl a few questions at me, and they weren't softballs, either. That was hell of fun. I want a whole session of that right there.
• Adela, TKB advisor/leader, is planning to head to Pino's! As a native of New York (sure, Flushing and a Mets fan, but we must forgive our friends and neighbors), she undoubtedly misses our world-famous thin, floppy, foldable pizza, and has taken my review to heart! My apologies to her for not immediately realizing just what Pino's is. Not good with names, I suppose.
• I got a TKB T-shirt! It's black! (That means it's straight into priority rotation for this shirt, of course. Black T-shirts are always win.)

Overall, like I said, excellent. Those TKBs who read the book seemed to take something away from it, and generally I'd say they thought it was pretty good. So I'm happy.

Teens really do know best

I don't have any photos. YET.

Last night, the AE, myself, and the esteemed publicist from Carolrhoda went up to Dayton's Bluff to present |-1|, in all its bound-manuscript glory, to a room full of YAs: the intended audience for |-1|! It's not every author who gets the opportunity to present his work, so early in the production schedule and more than ten months before finished books, directly to teens! So, what gives?

Teens Know Best is a group of teens who, thanks to Adela Peskorz and Metro State University, in collaboration with the Saint Paul Public Library, get together to read, discuss, and review books (usually bound galleys; be jealous--their BG collection is swoon worthy) for young adults. This organization was, I think, the first to supply teen-written reviews to SLJ. They are the real deal, mister. And they're going to help us develop ideas for the cover and overall packaging of The Absolute Value of -1!

Each member has been given a bound manuscript of the book, and, once they've gotten through it, will start brainstorming, and photo hunting, and sketching, and concepting. AE has set up a blog (sorry, it's restricted) for all the TKB's to post their ideas and talk it over.

A few of the TKB's also seemed interested in reviewing the manuscript at this stage. While this is frightening, I am thrilled at the prospect, and so far, so good: one TKB insisted upon high-fiving me after reading just the first ten or twelve pages simply because they made her laugh. Sounds like five stars to me.

Adela, TKB's advisor and library liaison (and my professor of adolescent lit., by the way), will be supplying some photos, I believe, so hopefully by the time we drop by again in October, I'll have had the opportunity to post some.

Oh! And they promised me my own TKB T-shirt, which is so going on the list as soon as I get it.

Allow me to ramble and whine about T-shirts, please

I have several favorite T-shirts. Shall I name them? I shall:

Helmet (Meantime-era logo)
01000100 01000001 01000100
Space Invaders
Strong Bad I
Strong Bad II
Four Gregs
SAB
Rockford Spelling Bowl

That's all of them, in no particular order. But here's the thing: Helmet, due to intense wear, and Strong Bad I, due to my having worn it while painting Sam's bedroom, are no longer public appropriate. Clearly, I need to replace those shirts. But meanwhile, I haven't had the extreme pleasure of wearing my Helmet T-shirt in months.

I know!

I wear T-shirts all day, every day (writer lifestyle FTW!), barring some kind of fancy-shmancy social engagement, like a wedding, for which I obviously need to wear a shirt with a collar so the tie won't look silly. But meanwhile, I live in constant fear that my favorite shirts -- the ones still presentable -- will soon become worn and unwearable!

The solution is clearly to right now buy an extra of each of my favorite shirts. Does this sound like a good idea?

But more relevant: why am I wasting blog space and your time with this issue? Who knows.

Today, beginning at noonish, I will enjoy a surprise WYAOD. An hour or so of it will be for SAB work. But after that, I intend to attack YA MS the Third with a vengeance. Much revising needs to be done, and I'm the man for the job.

Ooh! And some friends have lent to Sam a cool little car thingy that lets him practice walking! Enjoy this video.