Long Time No Post
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?
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 9:18 pm by Michael Grant and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 26th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
[...] Gossip in the City created an interesting post today on Long Time No PostHere’s a short outline4- Talked to various Hollywood weasels re: ANIMORPHS and GONE. Results: blah blah blah, we respect your work, blah blah blah. [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 4:15 am
[...] dog adoption & dog rescue placed an observative post today on Long Time No PostHere’s a quick excerpt2- 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. [...]
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:16 pm
[...] according to Michael Grant’s newest blog post at Stupid Blog Name, it looks as if an Animorphs movie is still in discussion amongst him and some Hollywood producers [...]
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
[...] to Michael Grant’s newest blog post at Stupid Blog Name, both him and K.A. Applegate are planning on making some special appearances in this month of [...]
May 5th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Did you get your ed. comments in electronic form? I hate those. Hate, hate. Gimme a pile of marked up papers any time.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I don’t do paper, so I guess I’d rather have it electronically. But you know what’s even better? No notes.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I just wanted to drop you a note to say THANK YOU! I have been trying to get my twelve year old son to read. He said he hates reading. He hates books. Books are boring…. blah, blah, blah.
Well, I went to Borders yesterday to do some research for a novel I’m currently working on. Once I found what I was looking for, I stumbled into the YA section in hopes of snagging SOMETHING to entice this child to crack a book open.
Fortunately, someone had faced GONE out. I skimmed through the blurb and then the first page. What did I see:
Disappearing teachers. Vanishing adults. Sheer chaos.
I figured if this didn’t grab him, nothing will.
Imagine my shock—SHOCK I TELL YOU—when he takes the book (begrudgingly, I might add) and then reappears twenty minutes later asking me to look on the internet for the sequel! Then he runs back into his room and slams the door so he can dig back into the book.
The boy hasn’t been able to put it down.
THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.
Finally, my son is actually a reader. He’s also asked me to pre-order the next book.
You have NO idea how grateful I am.
May 31st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
http://www.thefayz.com/
Great source of information possibly about future events in the book. Michael, this book was truly amazing. I am 14, dispised reading, untill i started reading Gone. I was instantly attached and finished it in 2 days. I then pre-ordered Hunger and finished that book in 2 days. I’ve never finished a book in my free time untill i read these books. I’ve read great books like Harry Potter but never finished them because they were unbarebly boring. Keep up the good work, i’m getting people in my town to start reading the book. They all love it, and it’s becoming well known. After Hunger i am left thinking about Brittany, what her power may be. I believe it is the ability to indure fatal forces, and withstand powerful attacks. That would make her very effective by Sam’s side.
Thank you so much for the great read. Praying there will me a Movie off of this series, because i would love to see a directors view on the book, and really see everything in action. It wont be as great, but i’d still love to see everything right before my eyes.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:28 am
1. Last January I read the Dutch Edtion of Gone.
2. Yesterday afternoon I finished reading the English edition.
3. It’s a signed copy.
4. The signature says M Grant.
5. Probably.
6. I’m halfway through Hunger.
7. I’ll finish reading Hunger tonight.
8. So there.
July 12th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
michael grant, you are truly an amazing author. i love the Gone series and they are the only books i will read on my own times. its a relief to read books full of such imagination were kids rule. and no adults! i never get to read books like this in school. anyways i love the covers of the books because whoever the models are, they match what i think that characters would look like. if these books were evermade into a movie i deepy wish those models would be used to play the characters. i dont think i can wait a year for Lies to come out. these books are just too amazing. i thank you, Michael Grant , for writing this fantastic series. i have one question though, will Sam and Caine (and Diana) ever be friends? just something i havealways wondered because Caine and Diana are my favorite characters and towards the end of Hunger it didnt seem like Caine hated Sam so much. well anyways, thanks for such amazing books and i cant wait for the ones to come.