Cover lover

LOL. I’m a big fan of Melissa Walker‘s “Cover Stories” feature, firstly because I think book covers, esp. for YA, are pretty neat, and secondly because I tend to find out about books I might not have heard about otherwise. This was the case for today’s featured book, Gentlemen by Michael Northrop. The cover is to die, but also I couldn’t help but thinking, Um, I think Michael Northrop’s cover is my cover’s boyfriend. Observe:

It’s the concept that connects them, the “obviously a dead teenager” thing, but also I feel like they’re sort of inverses of each other–black/white, etc. Both our names are in red, both our titles are in caps. Both books are mysteries. I love it. When Gentlemen comes out (April 2009, I believe) I’ll be sure to buy a copy and then when I get a finished copies of All Unquiet Things they can hang out. Or make out, whatever.

Tired

Oh God, you guys, I am so tired. I don’t know what’s going on. I usually have a lot of energy, and even when I don’t I pull it together and least make it seem like I do. But man, this week: woof. It’s really just been the last few days, though. On Wednesday night I went to bed before midnight, but I woke up at 4 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep until 6 AM, which is fine if the next day is Saturday but when the next day is Thursday and your alarm is poised to go off at 7:30, losing two hours of sleep to sudden onset insomnia and also heat stroke (my apartment is like a sauna, which, considering we only have one radiator and it’s pretty much as far from my bedroom as you can get, is pretty amazing) is not the recipe for awesome.

I went through yesterday like a total zombie, and it just got worse as the day wore on, which it did, SLOWLY and TORTUROUSLY. I came home early last night from a coworker’s send-off party and crawled into bed at 10:45 after Big Love stopped working 11 minutes into the episode. It took me a while to get comfortable–my light down blanket wasn’t enough, but my comforter with the soft chamois duvet was too much–and just as I had drifted off to sleep I got a text message from my sister. When I woke up to it, I was like, “Fish, WHY ARE YOU TEXTING ME AT 2 IN THE MORNING” and then I looked at the clock on my phone and it was 11:15. I’d only been asleep for about twenty minutes.

She’d asked me a question about what Chinese restaurant she and I had gone to while she was here for film camp in the summer, and not only was I totally out of it so it was difficult to remember what she was talking about, I’m not quite sure I would’ve immediately remembered even if I wasn’t half asleep. I’d totally forgotten we’d gone to a Chinese restaurant while she was here, and I was wracking my brain to come up with it (“Did I take her to Chinatown? Really? I don’t even like Chinatown that much!” I kept thinking, sleep-addled, to myself). I even wrote back to her, “Sleeping, can’t think, tell you tomorrow” or whatever, but as soon as I sent that message I remembered: Ruby Foo’s*. It was delicious, too.

But then, of course, I couldn’t fall asleep for another hour, and getting up this morning was so hard. I have plans tonight so I can’t go home and pass out, but this weekend is about two things: sleep, and MB. Getting my cover (BTW I GOT MY COVER IT IS AMAZING BUT I CANNOT YET SHOW IT TO YOU I WILL AS SOON AS I CAN I PROMISE!) reminded me that I’m, like, a writer and I have things to work on. I’m going to do some finishing touches on MB so it can go to my editor as soon as she’s ready for it, and then I’m going to get to work on GR. See, the thing is, I was really in a groove in the first chapter of GR, which I finished a few days ago. Now that I’m at Chapter Two (or, as I’m calling it, Day One – 2; this MS is all kinds of different from the other two), I’m stuck. This is a sign that it’s time to stop writing and start plotting, which is important for two reasons: 1. I need a synopsis to turn in to my editor to fulfill my option after MB is accepted, and 2. I need a synopsis to write the book. This is how I get around writer’s block–there’s always something else to do.

*I just Googled it to link you, and it turns out that the Upper West Side Ruby Foo’s is closed! The Times Square one is still open, though, but, while it was delicious, I would rather stick chopsticks in my eye than go to Times Square voluntarily, so…good-bye Ruby Foo’s-day. (GEDDIT? Like “Ruby Tuesday”? Forget it.)

New covers for Douglas Coupland

I might have mentioned this before, but I have a literary crush on Douglas Coupland, the Canadian voice of Generation X whose novel, Hey Nostradamus!, I quote in the epigraph of All Unquiet Things. This is sort of apropos of nothing, but two other novels of his (both of which I’ve read, and both of which are very good, although Nostradamus is and probably always will be my favorite), Microserfs and Girlfriend in a Coma, are getting new covers (via The Book Design Review). Observe:

Microserfs

Girlfriend in a Coma

If you were wondering where the titles are on these things, my guess is on the spine. Anyway, I like the Microserfs one–it makes sense, because the book is about former Microsoft employees who start their own little dot com down in Silicon Valley and attempt to get lives–so the pixilation works well there (note also that one of the guys is completely naked), and I know they wanted the two covers to match, but I think the Girlfriend in a Coma one isn’t really enough, or something. It’s not like it’s a famous novel of his and people would get it right away. I really like the blurred, out of focus creepiness of the original Girlfriend cover, but hey, I’m not the one making the decisions.

Anyway, I just thought I’d drop some knowledge on ya.