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Peeps Week!

Posted on by scott

As you all no doubt remember, Peeps comes out this Thursday, August 25. This is my first novel to be released during the lifetime of this blog, so let the flogging begin!

This is officially Peeps week. And that means all Peeps, all the time. Peeps. Peeps. Peeps.

“But, Scott,” you say. “I already plan to buy several copies of Peeps. What more can I do?”

Excellent question. First, try to work the word “Peeps” into conversations. As in, “I could really go for a mouthful of chewy marshmallow Peeps at this time.” For this week only, each time you use the word “peeps,” you’ll be credited with one dollar (in nonredeemable peeps money, of course).

When that gets boring (as if) feel free to discuss these alternate Peeps covers with your friends . . .

Obviously, the two on the right were rough drafts only. They may look crappy at this stage, but I’m sure Razorbill’s excellent designer would have whipped them into much better shape. Still, I must say I’m glad that the mighty embossed cat eyeball won out.

Here’s what happened: Between those first two covers and the final at right, several agonizing weeks passed in cover limbo. Razorbill always gives Justine and me a fair amount of input, and I didn’t much like the psycho twelve-year-old of the middle cover, prefering the older look of the leftmost image. My publisher disagreed, though, as she was already worried about the book being “too old.”

Frankly, I wasn’t thrilled by the first two cover concepts at all. Somehow, spaced-out monochrome girls give me a weird junkie vibe. I’m not a huge fan of baby-poo yellow on title treatments, either. The only thing that we all agreed on was that the glowing eyes were cool. If only we had focused on that concept earlier, many lives might have been saved.

Cover limbo is like band-name limbo. It’s easy if you start out with something that everyone loves. But once the first few attempts fail, everybody involved–author, editors, designers–goes off in their own direction, until the whole process becomes an endless journey of random images.

During the limbo period, I was all about teeth. “Give me a real x-ray of a jawbone,” I proclaimed. “But with fangs!”

Strangely, no one could find any actual x-rays of vampires. Apparently, it’s like mirrors. They just don’t show up.

But fortunately someone (not me) realized that cats play a key role in Peeps, and came up with the final concept. When I saw the first rough I breathed a sigh of relief. Then when the final bound book appeared at BEA, the mighty eyeball embossing won me over completely.

What’s that? You can’t see the embossing online? Well, there’s only one cure for that.

Come this Thursday, go buy that, uh, book. You know, the one with that title . . .

Regular Blog Day!

Posted on by scott

Okay, I really don’t have very much to write about today.

After getting Boingled, though, my hit rate was sky high, and it’s drying up faster than a dead dog on a Texas highway. I just can’t stand to see all those readers slip away. So I’ll use the time-tested strategy of so many regular blogs, and tell you random crap about my week:

Random Thing 1: Today I wrote almost 2,000 words of Specials (Book 3 of Uglies). That’s an excellent day’s work, which is what I’ll have to manage from now until September 12, when it’s due. I think they were good words, but I never know until the next day. Plus, there will need to be an action scene soon. Or perhaps a hoverboard chase.

Random Thing 2: On September 13, Justine and I are headed to Mexico for a month. It’s a writing holiday for her to start on the third Magic or Madness book and me on a possible sequel to Peeps. I can’t wait to show you pictures of San Miguel.

Random Thing 3: The night before last we went to a party hosted by our friend Lauren Cerand, and the blogtastic Maud Newton was in attandence. It was tons of fun, although yesterday was spent with bodacious hangover.

Okay, that’s enough of this. Next time, a real post. But first, since we’re being a regular blog today, a cat picture:


This is Millhouse, who came with an apartment we borrowed in Buenos Aires. He is named after the Simpsons character, and made us love him with his quiet wisdom and impeccable comic timing.

Peeps is Boingled

Posted on by scott

Last night, Cory Doctorow posted a nice review of Peeps on ur-techogeek blog Boingboing. A short excerpt:

Scott’s managed to write a vampire novel without ever once visiting the tired old tropes of horror fiction. Instead, he invents marvelous, scientific explanations for the characteristics of vampirism . . . This is some seriously inventive science fiction, written in an engaging style that’s bound to spark young readers’ interest in biology and parasitology (there’s a short bibliography on parasites at the end of the novel). For adults, this scientific take on a hoary old subject will inspire admiration in the ability of an original talent to mine fresh ore from even the oldest veins.

But you really must read the whole review.

Boingboing is the first stop on my blogroll pretty much every morning, and yet my savvy publicist at Razorbill managed to spot it before I did. Thus, the news had already spread around the Penguin office, where it was pronounced an excellent way to start the week.

And in keeping with the theme of my last post, all of this happened because I pressed Peeps into his hot little hands at Worldcon. So thanks again to Glasgow, and to Cory, both for this review and for being a force behind one of my favorite media spaces.

Loving the tribe even more now.


Peeps comes out August 25,
but feel free to buy it now.

Hunting the Snark (updated!)

Posted on by scott

Whenever I see my writer friends react to reviews, I’m reminded of a certain Gary Larson cartoon:

Owner says to dog: “Get the stick, Rusty! Come on, get the stick! Good dog, Rusty! Isn’t Rusty a good boy!”

Dog hears: ” – – – – – Rusty! – – – – – – – – – – Rusty! – – – – Rusty! – – -.”

But it’s not our names that we writers get all hyper-aware about in reviews. It’s the snark.

Here’s an example: I once wrote to congratulate a friend of mine whose new novel had just received a fabulous, glowing review in Publisher’s Weekly. She wrote me back a one-word email: “Overwrought?!?!?!”

Oops. I hadn’t noticed that one bit of snark among all the praise. I had read the following words, “This extraordinary and accomplished novel, while overwrought in places, is hands-down one of the best books written this year, maybe of all time!” But my friend had seen only, “- – – – – – – – – overwrought – – – -!”

This Rusty-dog-like vision is why when writers see emails from their publishers with the subject header KIRKUS REVIEW, we flinch a bit. Okay, we flinch a lot. Kirkus must have some sort of snark-inclusion rule in their guidelines, and their anonymous reviewers follow this rule with relish. Even in their most positive reviews, there is always at least one damn phrase guaranteed to gets up the author’s nose.

Being as Rusty-dog-like as the next writer, I remember exactly two words from the Kirkus School Library Journal review of Uglies: “although lengthy.” (Gads. It’s that “although” that kills me. Like “lengthy” things are such a trial. “Although lengthy, my vacation was very enjoyable.” “Although lengthy, our marriage is a true union of two souls.” “Although lengthy, World War II defeated facism and saved democracy.” Argh.)

So when my upcoming Kirkus review of Peeps appeared in my in-box, I braced myself. (Plot purists take note, mild spoilers.)
 
(STARRED) Both medical thriller and science fiction, this fast-paced, captivating modern vampire story is enriched with biology and history. Nineteen-year-old Cal is a hunter. He works for the Night Watch, New York City’s clandestine organization to capture “peeps,” “parasite positive” people infected with an ancient disease that causes vampirism. They’re cannibalistic, violent and wildly strong. Cal tracks his line of contagion: an exgirlfriend, whom he unwittingly infected, and then his progenitor, the girl who gave it to him. Yes, Cal has the parasite, but he’s a carrier rather than a full-blown peep. Forced into secrecy and celibacy but possessing peeplike superhuman senses and strength, Cal simmers with adrenaline. He succeeds at his job in the dank, oppressive urban undergrounds, but he discloses secrets to an unauthorized, uninfected girl his age who becomes inextricably involved. Conspiracy issues arise; the parasite’s centuries-long history holds a profound revelation. Westerfeld intersperses relevant chapters on how various real-life parasites operate in nature. Entrancing throughout–but squeamish readers beware. (afterword, bibliography) (Science fiction. YA) (Aug 1 issue)

Rusty says: Not much snark here at all! In fact, it seems that the snark-quota was entirely expended in the phrase, “but squeamish readers beware.”

But this is good snark, because it will bring the non-squeamish running in droves! So when I performed my second writerly duty (after snark hunting) and cut the review down to a jacket blurb, here’s what I came up with:

This fast-paced, captivating modern vampire story is enriched with biology and history. Entrancing throughout–but squeamish readers beware.

See? The snark is in the jacket quote! Hah! Snark on that, anonymous Kirkus-oid!

My only regret is that they didn’t put an exclamation point after the word “beware.” That would have been much cooler. Maybe I’ll just, you know, add one. Who would notice?

ONE MORE THING: The release date for Peeps has been moved up to August 25. That’s four weeks and three days from now!

ONE OTHER MORE THING: Kirkus reviewers are the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings in the whole world. Any implied disrespect was for humorous purposes only. ‘Nuff said.

___________________________________
UPDATE! (in the sense of humiliating retraction)

OMG! I just got an email from my no-longer-anonymous Kirkus reviewer. (Not anonymous to me, anyway. I shall name no names.) She informs me that those haunting words “although lengthy” are actually . . . not from Kirkus! That review was from School Library Journal.

Mea culpa, oh, quasi-anonymous one!

It just goes to show you that although memories can be haunting, they don’t have to be, you know, accurate. So, like I said, Kirkus reviewers are the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings in the whole world. And this time, it is meant without the Manchurian Candidate vibe.

Tom Wolfe Warms My Seat

Posted on by scott

Okay, I have finally recovered from Book Expo America enough to post about it. In a word? Big:

Okay, this photo is by John Scalzi, and it’s from last year in Chicago. (I forgot my camera.) But let’s face it, the inside of one convention center is much like any other. Basically, it’s many, many football fields full of people pitching, selling, and giving books to each other. Books about food, religion, art, the Knights Templar, dogs, horses, wombats, lemurs, etc. In all, there are 30,000 people sharing 270,000 square feet of space with who-knows-how-many millions of books.

Justine and I were guests of Penguin/Razorbill, our mutual publisher, for whom I was going to sign Peeps. We were picked up at 10AM by a Penguin-sponsored car, including a driver with matching silver tie and handkerchief. (It’s noticing the little things that makes life interesting, okay?) Once at the Expo, we went by the Penguin booth and for the first time laid eyes on the incredible hardback version of Peeps:

You can’t see this online, but the cover features “spot varnishing” on the iris of the eye, which makes it really shiny.) But shiny things only hold my attention for so long, and there was free stuff to be schwagged! (Oh, yeah. We also met The Apprentice guy, who’s doing a book with Penguin. But we didn’t recognize him, because we were living in Australia during that whole “You’re Fired!” thang. Still, I will confirm that he’s got that business-guy handshake.)

Using the Small Beer Press booth as a home-base and schwag drop-off zone (many thanks, Kelly and Gavin), we proceded to raid the Expo for FREE STUFF. I will make a list for your envying pleasure sometime soon, but let us skip ahead . . .

As 3PM apporoached, it was time for me to sign Peeps, so Justine and I headed for the giant signing stalls downstairs. The set-up allows 22 authors to sign at the same time. Barriers channel the people toward the tables, not unlike cattle on a killing floor. We’d already checked out the space, and noticed that Tom Wolfe was signing in my slot (number 11) before me. Erp.

Fortunately my wonderful Penguin publicist, Allison Smith, was there to guide me to the warm-up room, stock me with pens and water, and generally make me feel less defenseless. Backstage with me were Henry “The Fonz” Winkler, superchef Mario Batali, and some football player I didn’t know who had “famous” written all over him. (Also a horde of writers like me, with “not famous yet” lightly sprinkled on us.)

When my appointed hour arrived, it was quite nervous-making heading from backstage toward the signing tables. Especially when I arrived and Tom Wolfe was still there, white suit and all, with a small crowd in front of him. But, hey, I gave the old guy two minutes to wrap up before I moved into The Chair.

Okay, I had six boxes of books (x 24 = 144) to sign, and only 30 minutes to sign them. That’s one every . . . 12.5 seconds! And surging down the channel like enraged salmon were a host of school librarians! (Well, okay, they surged like a host of very polite school librarians. But I wasn’t prepared for the numbers.)

At first I was very nervously keeping to my 12.5 seconds per book, which was weird. Try having a hundred or so 12.5-second conversations in a row some time; your brain will hurt. Then at some point I looked up and saw the dreaded . . . end of the line. But it seemed that only a few minutes had gone by. Was I going to sit there for another 20 minutes, all alone next to my gross of books, tragic looking, making a mockery of the Tom Wolfe Memorial Butt-Warmth?

But then I saw them in the distance, headed toward me, fresh from their 12.5-second dream dates with the Fonz: MORE SCHOOL LIBRARIANS!

Again I was besieged, and this time I husbanded my resources, personalizing and signing in 20- and 30-second chunks, having a good laugh and finally relaxing. But slowly the crowd trickled away, and a few stragglers started coming up to ask if I could sign a book for their good friend “Ebay Auction Winner.” Allison and I decided to wrap up, and I discovered something bizarre: I had gone overtime. The next author in my slot hadn’t shown up, so they’d let me dawdle, and what I thought was about 15 minutes had in fact been 40!

About 100 copies of Peeps were gone into the ether, hopefully to stew and simmer for the next three months, building up a mighty whispering campaign: must buy Peeps, must buy Peeps . . .

I was exhausted and, dare I say it, sweaty. Sort of like I’d been on a hundred 12.5-second first dates in a row.

So, with Allison’s help, Justine and I struggled back home, clutching giant bags of schwag and the one and a half remaining boxes of Peeps. (No, you can’t have them. They’re mine, mine, I say in a hissing voice.)

We also clutched an invitation to Holly Black’s Spiderwick Chronicles cocktail party. But I’ll write about that later, because I got all sweaty again writing this. Eww.

Let the Madness Begin

Posted on by scott

Welcome to my new-look site, now with 100% more blog!

First things first: This just in from my editor at HarperCollins, the rough cover of Midnighters 3: Blue Noon!

blue noon


Like all the covers for this series, it’s really great. I think it’s cool to finally see Jessica on the front cover, up close and with long red ponytail flying, but blurry enough not to upset any mental images of her. I’m also glad to see that she’s dressed to move. Actually, she looks pretty together.

Notice we don’t have a cover quote yet, just a space for one. Any ideas who I can get one from? All my favors were used up getting Ursula Le Guin and Garth Nix to blurb the first two. Bless them.

One note on these covers: The first one had the clock set to 12:05, the second to 11:55, and this one is dead-on midnight. Does anyone know what this means? Not me. Also, the color scheme went from blue to orange to purple. Turns out that this last color makes a lot of sense for this book. But that’s all I’m saying, lest I engage in spoilage.

I will, however, be posting an excerpt from Blue Noon in early 2006.

Hope you enjoy the new site and my occasional blogging. There’s a lot of information about my next novel, Peeps, which is about vampires and set in contemporary New York. Uglies fans will find an interview with me about the series that I did for Check Your Pulse newsletter. Another big new feature is News, which has a potted history of my entire career. (Future biographers take note.)

Special thanks to Justine for all her webmistress work. All the weird inconsistencies are my fault, I assure you.

That is all for now. Hope you guys like it.