Thursday, July 25, 2013

on never getting old


Maybe it's just me, but when I look up there at that...

It reminds me of this:


Which is particularly creepy.

What that is is the opening page from Grasshopper Jungle. Not the human hand. That's some guy's painting in some beat up old church. I think Walt Disney did it.

Today I get to look at the first pass pages of Grasshopper Jungle.

First pass pages are the initial attempt at putting the book together, with the unrealistic hope that everything will be flawless. Of course, there are bound to be glitches, but these pages are what will be inside the ARC, and, in a perfect world where nobody makes mistakes, will also be in the final released version of the book which goes on sale February 20, 2014.

I think the ARCs will be out very soon, too, and I can hardly wait to actually hold one.

Grasshopper Jungle is my seventh novel (eighth book, if you count Losing It, an anthology whose first pass pages I have also seen, that comes out October 1), and there's just something about seeing those first pass pages that is always so thrilling. Because it really looks like a book, and you get to see for the first time how the artists at your publishing house--in this case Dutton/Penguin--apply their touches to your story to make a complete representation of the published product.

Well, everything about this is just so freaking amazing.

It never gets old.