,I Put a Spell On You, my new middle grade book, is out tomorrow. As most of you know, this spelling bee caper is loosely based on Watergate; the principle is pretty well based on Nixon.

I'm now half-tempted to post an excerpt from the sequel. I'm not 100% that Random House is going to publish the sequel or ask me to write something else, but the sequel opens with the recently-disgraced principal giving a big speech at the annual Breakfast for Supper Banquet, held annually in Preston, a small town that, lacking a high school football team, invests a LOT in the 6th grade spelling bee. The bee fever seen in the lead-up to the school bee in the first book is only a warm-up for how crazy the town gets over the district bee a few weeks later.

You see, Floren's speech is written to be very charming - it was supposed to be a mix of Floren's old Nixon-ness, Mike Huckabee-style humor and charm with a touch of straight up McCarthyism, as he claims that the upcoming district bee is not just about spelling, it's about small town pride and holding up small town values that, he claims, the students, parents and school boards in the bigger towns just don't share.

The reason I'm tempted to post it, despite the fact that the current draft (which was finished in January) isn't going to be the final one, is that the speech sounds EERILY like a Sarah Palin speech. Seriously. It's creepy.

The first five chapters of I Put a Spell On You are now online - three weeks before the book comes out!



Click to read!

New chapters will be added regularly (weekly?) until the release date!

There's this scene in Hard Times by Dickens where Mr. Gradgrind, the teacher, asks a student what a horse is. The kid says something like "Mammal. Quadruped. 32 teeth, namely 16 incisor, 16 bicuspid. Eats oats." The first review I got of I Put a Spell On You reminded me of that, in a way. It was pretty much just an incomplete description: "Middle grade. Spelling bee mysetery. Farce. Alternating voices. Belching for the reluctant readers, vocabulary words for teachers."


But today I got this from The Horn Book Magazine, which makes my day:

When Gordon Liddy Community School's resident tattletale-detective, Chrissie
Woodward, realizes that the adults are out to fix the big spelling bee, she
transfers her loyalty to her fellow students and starts collecting evidence.
The chapters, told from rotating perspectives, are presented mainly as
testimony gathered from the students, each of whom is distinct and breaks
stereotype (such as the boy who will eat anything for a dollar, but only in
hopes of discovering new taste combinations that will further his future
career as a chef). New arrival Mutual Scrivener, attending school for the
first time to participate in the spelling bee, retains a sweet naiveté as he
tries to decode the mysterious behavior of his fellow classmates, and his
outsider perspective provides humor but also some interesting insights. The
wit in this school story is directed almost entirely against the grownups in
a scathingly funny indictment of a shady principal and insanely competitive
parents. Sly references to a famous case of misused authority may lead
readers to look up the Watergate scandal, but even if they never catch on to
some of the jokes, they will still laugh out loud as the students band
together to fight corruption and triumph in their own ways.

Is this cool or what?



On sale September 9, 2008!

The guy on the lower right is supposed to be me!

It's official - nothing left to do on "I Put a Spell On You" except copyediting.

The best line from the "nixon resigns" newspaper in the new author pic is, without question from Mrs. Lois Miller of Bettendorf in the "Iowans respond" section.

She writes:

"I didn't want him to leave office. It's just like when they crucified Jesus Christ. They persecuted him until he just gave up...the country will be in chaos, and it will be open for Communist dictators to take over."

For the record, she wasn't EXACTLY right. Nixon's resignation was not JUST like teh crucifixion of Jesus. For one thing, Nixon was wearing a suit. And thank goodness for that.

I got a bit curious about this Lois Miller character - after all, it's been a long time since I made any really good prank phone calls, and she has EASY MARK written all over her. However, my search results have been inconclusive. My best guess is that she's probably been dead for years by now, but it turns out that there are a LOT of Lois Millers floating around in Iowa, most of them old. Davenport alone appears to have about 12 of them.

Looks like this will be my new dust jacket photo, probably starting with "I Put a Spell On You" (the spelling-bee-based-on-watergate book) next year:



pic by Jen Hathy, of course.

I'm trying to make a list of all the books and movies that have been influential on the writing of "I Put a Spell On You." I'm a bit shocked at how long it is. It includes:

-Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
-The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
-Band of Brothers (HBO series)
-assorted books on Richard Nixon
-King Lear, Titus Andronicus, Love's Labour Lost and a couple others by Shakespeare
-Lemonade Mouth by Mark Peter Hughes (my editor sent it to me last week)
-Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
-A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
-The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
-every summer camp movie ever made (almost)
-A Boy Named Charlie Brown (the really depressing spelling bee cartoon with that really messed up scene where Schroeder plays the 2nd movement of the Pathetique Sonata while Warhol-esque images of graves and the Pope float by and the really, really corny opening song by Rod McKuen)
-Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire by Rafe Esquith

and that's just what I've remembered so far.

I'm having an "artificial winter" night. I cranked the AC down a few degrees lower than normal, put on a sweater, and turned on my "three red albums" playlist - a collection of three albums that I normally play around October/November, on account of all the reds and a browns I see in the music. (For the record, it's Tom Waits' "The Black Rider," Marianne Faithfull's "Twentieth Century Blues," and a "Songs of France" compilation by an unidentified singer).

It's a remarkably pleasant way to get myself more into a "writing" mood. And none too soon, as it's really crunch time for "I Put a Spell On You," the "spelling bee based on watergate" book I'll be putting out late next year. The book is much more complicated than my others (so far), and building it up and breaking it down over and over, as one does in these revisions, is a challenge. Plus, this is IT. My last real chance to make the book into a great one. Not that it sucks now, mind you. But this is the last chance to make it all it can possibly be, and that's pretty nerve-wracking. My anxiety over getting "Pirates of the Retail Wasteland' just right in the last days of the revisions nearly knocked me senseless - but I do believe I nailed it. And I'll nail this one, too.

Finished the draft for "I Put a Spell On You" (aka "Gordon Liddy Goes Berserk," aka "All the Principal's Men," aka "To Bee,") and sent it off to my editor this morning, ready to settle into six weeks of just editing a couple of proposals and maybe starting in on the draft for the Spell sequel, which is due in the fall.

THEN, five minutes later comes the revision letter for "Pirates of the Retail Wasteland."

So now the issue is: do I do FOUR projects over the next two months, or push the start of the Spell sequel back a little?


Well, no matter for now. I must celebrate the finishing of Spell 1!

Here are my current projects:

- Pirates of the Retail Wasteland - novel. draft finished, waiting on revision letter from publisher
- I Put a Spell On You - novel. same as above
- Leon 3 - novel - early writing stages. hope to finish proposal by Feb. Finally have an opening I like after a few false starts.
- I Put a Spell on you 2 - novel. note stage. Need to have a draft by September
- secret nonfiction proposal - book length. note stage. hope to get a good jump on it by New Year's. enlisting the aid of my brother in this one.
- At Last, Okemah - screenplay. Need to get going on the revisions, now that a producer is apparently interested
- The Lock - play. Just got the idea for this.
- The Ghost in Paul Hazuka's Attic - short book. will probably re-write from scratch eventually. ont he back burner for now.
- songs for a new filk album to record next year
- episode 2 of the Weird Chicago podcast (should be up shortly)
- more Weird Chicago business


Spent today writing an essay on censorship and a few 'discussion questions' for the back of the paperback of "How to Get Suspended and Influence People." And reading. And working on a suitable display/frame for an object I recently ordered from a memorabilia dealer. And listening to bootlegs of the Dylan concerts from last weekend. Off to Atlanta tomorrow - don't forget the filk on friday, those so inclined! And don't forget to RSVP - not many people are confirmed as of yet.

Finished a draft of a book yesterday - a full three months before the deadline, which gives me time to work on it some more if I feel like it. But a time comes after a month or so of daily editing that one has to say "enough!"

Of course, now I find myself at loose ends. For the last few months, I've had one writing project or another to keep my occupied every morning. Typically, I get up a bit before 7, grab some cereal, then take the laptop down to the cafe, where I write until I'm done (1500 words minimum if I'm working on a rough draft, editing just goes til I need a break). Spent this last month on "I Put a Spell On You," the month before that editing "Pirates of the Retail Wasteland," and the month before that editing writing "The Ghost in Paul Hazuka's Attic" and editing "The Ultimate Hot Dog." June was a mixture of "Spell" and "Pirates," and May was spent working on the end of the draft to "Spell."

So, here's October - and what do I do now?

I'll be pretty busy with ghost tours and weird tours all month, of course, but that 7-10 part of the day is tough to fill. I have projects I could work on - a "Pirates" sequel is in the early stages, and I have 11 months to do the "Spell" sequel. But that's PLENTY of time for both of those. I could edit "The Ghost in Paul Hazuka's Attic," but I don't really feel like it at present - still have no idea what to do with that series. Maybe I can rewrite them as graphic novels or something?

Also not really writing any songs right now, so I can't spend my mornings working on that. It looks like October will be a month off from writing, except for taking notes on the two that I definetely need to write next year.

Maybe I could learn to sleep in....

Ah, Watergate. The story that just keeps on giving, 30+ years later.

John Dean Testifies in Favor of Censuring Bush

Dean was one of Nixon's counsels who started out loyal, and, for reasons unknown, had a change of heart and was among the first sources to indicate that Nixon knew about the cover-up early on (in the delightful movie, Dick, he has a change of heart of two girls (Kirsten Dunst and someone else) tell him that if he stays, he's just as bad as they are). He wrote a book about the Bush administration a year or so ago called "Worse Than Watergate."


I mentioned to a few people that one of my new projects is a kids book with an awful lot of Richard Nixon jokes - there is a character (not appearing, but refered to) named Johnny Dean - he's a legend among the kids for having once, according to the legend, painted the principal's dog purple. You can probably guess the name of the Principal's dog :)

Watched Oliver Stone's "Nixon" last night and found it fascinating, presenting Nixon as sort of a tragic Shakespeare figure. He could've quoted Richard III at any time and it would have fit right in.

There should be a production of "Richard III" starring a guy who's actually playing Nixon as the king.


Know who else ougtha play Richard III? Skeletor.

They're never, ever going to let me get away with this in the long run (and I don't blame them in the slightest), but the new working title for my current kids-book-in progress is now Gordon Liddy Goes Wild.


Well, I think it's funny.

I have an idea in my head for a movie about a spelling bee in 1593, in which only those with the most endurance can hope to compete.

The preview would start as follows:
ANNOUNCER:
"IN A WORLD where there are no spelling rules...and grammar is random at best...spelling bees can last for days...and only the strong survive!"
(cut to shot of a real goober kid)
GOOBER KID:
K-N-Y-G-H-T-E. Knight.
JUDDGE:
Yeah, that sounds about right.