Nine Was Fine

But eight will be great.

Life As We Knew It will be 8th on the New York Times Children's Paperback Best Seller list Oct. 12 (I have no idea how or why the publishing industry gets this information so early, but it does and I have proof):

8 LIFE AS WE KNEW IT, by Susan Beth Pfeffer. (Harcourt, $6.95.) A girl’s diary reflects the catastrophe that ensues when a meteor hits the moon. (Ages 12 and up)

Okay, that doesn't really look like proof. I could have just typed that myself, instead of doing such a fabulous cut and paste job. Although, entre nous, I would never describe the action of LAWKI that way. I like the "ensues" part (a clever play on my name), but frankly just because a meteor hits the moon, that doesn't mean there's going to be a catastrophe. I'd say something about how catastrophe ensues when the moon moves closer to Earth.

Actually I'd say something about how incredibly brilliant the book is, before getting to the part about girls and diaries and moons and the suchlike. And maybe even something about how the incredibly brilliant author has a brand new pair of pale pink eyeglasses, chosen in part so that her glasses wouldn't look quite so much like Sarah Palin's. Now that I think of it, I'd also put it something about how the incredibly brilliant author is nice to her mother. And doesn't litter.

More to the point, the two of you who have offered to buy another copy of LAWKI should it reach 7 on the best seller list really don't have to worry. It's beyond astonishing it's made it to 8, and I have no reason to think, hope, or fantasize that it will get any higher on the list.

Meanwhile, my brain has been hard at work on the once again untitled third book. Originally I'd been adamant that it wouldn't be in diary format. But I'm hearing it that way, so I'm leaning towards Miranda picking her journal up again. Nothing is definite, but I'm just about positive Baby Rachel is a baby boy, and one problem Miranda is going to have is bonding with a real human being and not her imagined baby sister.

Speaking of which, I've figured out a very clever way of getting all that meteor/moon stuff out of the way in the very beginning of the book (there is an off chance someone will read Book 3 without having read LAWKI or the dead and the gone). Miranda is going to write a diary entry about having a dream where she tells Baby Rachel what happened to the world. Just the tsunamis and volcanoes, etc. Not the personal stuff. Why would even a dream Baby Rachel care that Megan and Peter and Mrs. Nesbitt died?

My editor, by the way, has expressed concern with just how many characters I intend to kill off. As of the moment, all the core characters are alive at the beginning and end of the book (and in the middle for that matter). But you can't kill off all humanity without somebody dying, so I'm looking around for possible victims. I'm sure I'll find some eventually.

I'm off to check my e-mails and see if my agent has anything to report. When there's an official deal, I'll let you know. Until then, I'll see what other words rhyme with 8.