things my first pass pages are teaching me

I’m doing the first pass pages for The Opposite of Hallelujah right now, and they’re surprisingly clean (not a lot of notes from the copy editor/my editor), but every once in a while there’s an interesting little thing I never knew. Like it turns out that this

Finally,
Mom would open the door, or if Hanna had locked it,
she would threaten to have my dad take it off the hinges,
which usually got Hannah’s attention.

is called a “punctuation ladder”, which the copy editor noted needs to be fixed. (The text won’t really look weird like that in the book, I’m just right-justifying to show you how the commas stack on top of each other, forming the “ladder”.)

Almost done reading. It’s not really as compelling as it’s been made out to be, mostly because here’s what I know about wine: if it costs more than $12.99, I’m not buying it. But also it’s basically a story about a bunch of rich morons paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for something they either can’t/won’t use or can’t ever prove is genuine. It’s just not that interesting and would’ve made a better magazine article. But anyway, my most insane takeaway so far is that the difference between flat-out wine forgery and just general chateaux procedure is pretty blurry. I guess it’s all about intent, but really, what’s the difference between some rando taking an old bottle and filling it with a new wine and passing it off as a rare, old vintage, and a wine chateaux like Lafite taking an old bottle with low wine levels (because of evaporation) and “topping it up” with a new wine and passing it off as a rare, old vintage? It all seems pretty shady to me, no wonder it’s so easy to dupe these people.
Pop-upView Separately

Almost done reading. It’s not really as compelling as it’s been made out to be, mostly because here’s what I know about wine: if it costs more than $12.99, I’m not buying it. But also it’s basically a story about a bunch of rich morons paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for something they either can’t/won’t use or can’t ever prove is genuine. It’s just not that interesting and would’ve made a better magazine article. But anyway, my most insane takeaway so far is that the difference between flat-out wine forgery and just general chateaux procedure is pretty blurry. I guess it’s all about intent, but really, what’s the difference between some rando taking an old bottle and filling it with a new wine and passing it off as a rare, old vintage, and a wine chateaux like Lafite taking an old bottle with low wine levels (because of evaporation) and “topping it up” with a new wine and passing it off as a rare, old vintage? It all seems pretty shady to me, no wonder it’s so easy to dupe these people.

Barring any sudden, unforseen changes (you really never know with covers), this is the cover for my new book, The Opposite of Hallelujah! It’s not yet available to pre-order, but as soon as it is you better believe I’ll let you know.The book itself should be out in Fall 2012, probably October, but as of yet I don’t have a firm pub date. Anyway, I really love this cover. I originally saw it like two months ago and I thought it was great; this is a slightly more suped-up version (the one my editor originally sent along had thinner type, and apparently they fattened it up and made it a brighter white so that it was more readable), but I can’t tell the difference, really. It still looks fantastic to me. When my editor sent it along in October, she actually sent two versions (the second version had my name in lower case and the title in upper, but we liked this one with the title in lower and my name in upper), but she also sent a third, totally different concept that she ultimately decided against. Maybe I’ll ask her for permission to post that someday, because it’s definitely an interesting take, and less traditional for sure. Anyway, thoughts? That’s what the comment tool is for! Let me know what you think.
Pop-upView Separately

Barring any sudden, unforseen changes (you really never know with covers), this is the cover for my new book, The Opposite of Hallelujah! It’s not yet available to pre-order, but as soon as it is you better believe I’ll let you know.The book itself should be out in Fall 2012, probably October, but as of yet I don’t have a firm pub date.

Anyway, I really love this cover. I originally saw it like two months ago and I thought it was great; this is a slightly more suped-up version (the one my editor originally sent along had thinner type, and apparently they fattened it up and made it a brighter white so that it was more readable), but I can’t tell the difference, really. It still looks fantastic to me.

When my editor sent it along in October, she actually sent two versions (the second version had my name in lower case and the title in upper, but we liked this one with the title in lower and my name in upper), but she also sent a third, totally different concept that she ultimately decided against. Maybe I’ll ask her for permission to post that someday, because it’s definitely an interesting take, and less traditional for sure.

Anyway, thoughts? That’s what the comment tool is for! Let me know what you think.