A lot has happened.  Much of it boring.  Some interesting.  In no particular order:

1- I finished LIES: a GONE Novel.  I’m working on the rewrites right now.  Stage one:  Editorial Whack-a-Mole.  They send me the manuscript marked up with little red notes in the right margin.  Most of these notes say things like, “Deleted: and.”  Or “Deleted: ,”  I get a lot of those.  Apparently I, don’t exactly know where, to use, commas.  Anyway, there’s a little check mark inside the little comment box so I have to go through the not-quite-600 pages and hit the little check mark accepting all those “comma deleted” boxes.

2- Yep, writing’s kind of boring isn’t it?

3- Went to England.  Attempted to sign 1,000 books in one hour, like Meg Cabot.  Instead signed 1,300 books in four hours.  I have run the numbers:  I actually kicked Meg’s butt.  Shut up:  I did too.

4- Talked to various Hollywood weasels re: ANIMORPHS and GONE.  Results:  blah blah blah, we respect your work, blah blah blah.  

5- Hung out in Hollywood with “the boys.”  The boys are changing the entire face of web media.  And yet I end up picking up the tab.  Hmmm.  (By the way, the link takes a while to load.  Click on the arrow on the lower right of the screen.)

6- The boys want me to rewrite a TV script I came up with a  long time ago.   Are they paying?  Not yet.  So . . .

7- . . . I started work on The MAGNIFICENT 12.  Having so much fun.  I get to write funny.  I get to write silly.  So not GONE.

8- Editor Teresa asked me for cover suggestions for LIES, easy enough, and PLAGUE, the 4th book.  This is tougher because I have to commit to a couple of lead characters when I haven’t spent eight seconds thinking about that book.  I sent her some pix I grabbed from Google and Flickr.

9- The great and powerful K.A. Applegate is flossing, pauses to ask, “What are you writing?”  I answer, “Stupid Blog Name.”  She asks, “What’s the topic?”  I answer, “Topic?”

10- Much Purell being used around here.  No one wants the flu which I think should be called the “Carnitas Flu.”  See, it’s swine flu originating in Mexico.  Ah hah.  Okay, it’s not actually funny, but it’s mildly witty, right?  Right?

11- I totally missed the LA Book Fair.  Instead I mopped the floor.  Also wrote.  And cleaned the front of the refrigerator.  And bought shoes for the kids.  And ate chile relleno at Z Tejas.

12- My editors asked me to take down my old Facebook picture because it gave the erroneous impression that I was some grizzled, mean-looking old man who smokes cigars and drinks whiskey.  Not exactly the image we’re going for apparently.  So I replaced it with a picture of Katherine and me.  Awwww.  Sweet.

13- While I was in the UK I did a brief shoot for Wordia.  

14-GONE is sold out on Amazon UK.  Kinda cool, huh?  Unless they only bought two copies.  In which case it’s pathetic.

15- These kids?  Cool.  Demonstrating one of the themes of GONE: that kids can step up, be so mature, so capable, so good.  On the other hand, this story also demonstrates one of the themes in GONE: that kids can be every bit as rotten as adults.

16- I’m loving Southern California.  I bought actual shorts.  I won’t wear them in public, I’m not a sadist, but I will wear them in my yard when I write.

17-The thing I buy when I shop for food that I don’t actually eat:  cheese.  I love cheese.  But I kind of love it more when I’m at a nice restaurant and it’s a cheese course.  For some reason I don’t eat it at home.  

18- Next week we’re all going to Minneapolis so Katherine can do some big HOME OF THE BRAVE thing with the library there.  Also some school visits.  I’ll maybe sign some books at the International Reading Association.   Then I’ll take the kids to the Mall of America and eat junk food and hate myself for it.

19-End of May I go to Chicago, to Anderson’s Bookstore min Naperville for the launch of HUNGER: a GONE Novel.  Don’t miss it if you’re in the Chicago area.  

20- Speaking of Chicago, I wrote about the city for the London Telegraph.

21- In the battle of the XLT black t-shirts, I give it to Land’s End over Eddie Bauer.  If it’s XLT black polo shirts I take Eddie.  

22- Kind of sad:  my relatively cool Audi A6 isn’t as much fun to drive as my totally uncool Toyota RAV 4 (6).

23-Can you have a list that’s 23 items?  I mean, it’s a prime number, doesn’t it have to be a multiple of ten?