Writing and Snacks - KvS proofs

KvS proofs

Nov. 7th, 2009 at 10:19 AM

Came home from evening excursions last night to find Kid vs. Squid page proofs waiting at my door. Of the many things that occur in the journey from manuscript to book, getting page proofs is turning out to be one of my favorites. It's the first time that a book starts to look like a book and it fills me with squee.

From Kid vs. Squid proofs

And then there's the somewhat more laborious part of publishing, which is writing the durn book.

From Last

Comments

( 17 comments — Leave a comment )

bogwitch64 wrote:

Nov. 7th, 2009 06:48 pm (UTC)

That is so awesome and cool. Thanks for sharing these things, Greg. I am filled with squee for you!

Link | Reply | Thread

bogwitch64 wrote:

Nov. 7th, 2009 06:48 pm (UTC)

(notice I mentioned nothing of the bagel this time. Hmmmm...bagel....)

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

lizziebelle wrote:

Nov. 7th, 2009 10:49 pm (UTC)

You beat me to it! ;)

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

bogwitch64 wrote:

Nov. 7th, 2009 10:50 pm (UTC)

Ha!

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

birdhousefrog wrote:

Nov. 7th, 2009 06:48 pm (UTC)

I see you have taken my advice: eat, drink, type. Judging by the "eat" part, you must be doing a lot of typing. I'm guessing the mug gets refilled. I mean, it would be silly to line up half a dozen filled mugs at once, right?

Oz

Link | Reply | Thread

_stranger_here wrote:

Nov. 7th, 2009 08:38 pm (UTC)

Oh, those adorable seashell section breaks! Like the publisher wanted to announce: this book is something special.

Link | Reply | Thread

tbclone47 wrote:

Nov. 7th, 2009 09:24 pm (UTC)

Fabulous! And good to meet you at WFC.

Link | Reply | Thread

gregvaneekhout wrote:

Nov. 8th, 2009 06:01 pm (UTC)

Good to finally meet you, too, Patrick!

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

colleency wrote:

Nov. 8th, 2009 03:44 am (UTC)

Squid Squee!

Link | Reply | Thread

michaeljasper wrote:

Nov. 8th, 2009 09:26 am (UTC)

Dude! I'm loving it.

So when's the release date?

Also -- is this Middle Grade? And what's the final word count? Just wonderin'... (having the whole MG vs. YA concerns w/ my own novel, worried it might be that weird tweener UMG instead!). OI!

Link | Reply | Thread

gregvaneekhout wrote:

Nov. 8th, 2009 06:12 pm (UTC)

May 2010, as far as I know. (We're not going to Jupiter to find out what happened to Dave Bowman, but at least I have a book coming out.)

So, yeah KvS is middle grade. The submitted draft was a hair shy of 50K words, which seems to be right in the middle-grade sweet spot. But the final book will be a hair shy of 40K -- on the short side of middle grade, I think.

I'm targeting upper middle grade for Last and still shooting for around the 50K mark.

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

michaeljasper wrote:

Nov. 8th, 2009 06:56 pm (UTC)

Oh wow -- 50k. That's gotta be hard to get all the story into that space. And then to cut it to 40k. Double wow.

So for the UMG book -- is your protag 14 or 15? I'm always curious about these "so-called" rules...

Thanks for sharing. And wooo! on the book and its design!

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

gregvaneekhout wrote:

Nov. 9th, 2009 01:46 am (UTC)

I have the opposite problem, actually. My habits tend more toward insufficient development.

In the UMG book, the protag is 14, though for various story reasons I'm not specifying his age. What makes this one UMG has more to do with tone.

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread