I Have A Pal And Her Name Would Have Been Sal

Until very recently, I used to say The Future Is Unknowable, but then I realized that if I knew the future was unknowable, the future was, to some extent, knowable. I called this Pfeffer's Paradox and it gave me a headache.

I bring this up partly so you'll be impressed I have my very own Paradox, but mostly to ease into the topic of the harsh reality of the publishing industry. A few weeks ago, Houghton Mifflin completed its purchase of Harcourt, beloved publisher of Life As We Knew It and the dead and the gone (well, beloved except when I'm waiting for advance or royalty checks).

How this will affect the Possible Third Book (aka P3B)? I have no idea. When I spoke to my editor about P3B (in that charming, whiny way I've mastered) back in November, I felt assured that if d&g did well enough, Harcourt would be open to discussing P3B. No guarantees, but certainly a willingness to listen.

But now new people have taken over positions of power at Harcourt, and I know nothing about them. Maybe they hate trilogies. Maybe they hate end of the world books. Maybe they love trilogies and end of the world books and hate me. Maybe their definition of success for d&g is nothing short of #1 New York Times Best Seller. Maybe they don't appreciate writers speculating about them on blogs. I dunno. In the immortal words of James Forsyte, father of Soames, "Nobody tells me anything."

A sane and sensible person would jot down a few notes about P3B and forget it, until such time (next fall, next millennium) as Harcourt expresses interest. But not me. My little mind keeps zooming along, brushing aside as much bleakity bleak as I'm capable of, while figuring out just how the end of the world would be run two years after LAWKI ends.

This is what I currently know: my heroine's name is Caitlin.

Before you go, Is that all you currently know? let me tell you, it took hours to name her. I must have gone through a dozen possibilities, all of which got rejected for very valid reasons. For at least two hours, she was Rachel, until I remembered Baby Rachel in LAWKI. Alicia got dumped because it sounds too much like Alex, the main character in d&g. Lauren got dumped because there's a minor character in d&g named that. Amy and Brooke got dumped when I remembered the heroine of my book Twice Taken was named both Amy and Brooke. I told my friend Hilarie at lunch the character was named Kayla, and then for a little while after lunch she was named Kaylie. I even considered Morgan, which was the name of my very first heroine, Morgan in Just Morgan. I thought it might be a nice, sentimental gesture. Dumped, dumped, and dumped.

So she's Caitlin, unless you hear otherwise (maybe Houghton Mifflin hates the name). And her father's a dentist. If I were cherry picking professionals at the end of the world, I would definitely save the dentists (lawyers, journalists, and Broadway producers can fend for themselves).

I've come up with at least a half dozen different ways Caitlin ends up in the acting company, with five or more of them too bleakity bleak. But I know this about the company- it's run by a gay couple, and at least one of them is a stage magician.

Which brings up a major bleakity bleak issue. Magicians have a lot of props, and touring entertainers have musical instruments, so there are things that have to be transported. I'd originally pictured a mule cart, until Hilarie at lunch asked where the mule came from. So I kept the cart and dumped the mule (I am very suggestible, especially at lunch).

What I need to know is how does the cart get transported? It doesn't have to be a real big cart, although I'd like it to be big enough to carry at least one person (I have this nifty image of one of the girls in the troupe falling and spraining her ankle and getting carried in the cart for one day until it's decided that's too much of a burden and they dump the poor girl on the side of the road, which is how Caitlin, taken on as an understudy, gets to be a regular member of the troupe. You see, by my standards, that's not too bleakity bleak, but then again there are an awful lot of corpses in d&g, and they didn't bother me one whit). I would appreciate suggestions, from you, oh beloved slowly gained readership,because, as of the moment, I have the kids in the troupe taking turns pulling the cart along, and there's a real chance of excessive bleakity bleakedness. Which, now that I think about it, I could blame on Hilarie, since if it weren't for her, they'd have a mule.

It occurs to me that I'd better be careful. Hilarie actually reads this blog (Hi Hilarie. You look fabulous!).

Heh. I wonder how Houghton Mifflin feels about mule carts. With my luck, they love them (and hate me).

Sheepless In Seattle

A couple of days have passed since I first had my long sleepless night of creativity, and I still love the idea of a traveling band of actors/performers, making their way around the post Life As We Knew It/the dead and the gone country.

It's been very tricky to work out the plot and characters, mostly because of my concern about being too bleakity bleak bleak bleak. That and logistics. It used to be when I'd write a book, I'd have to work out plot and characters. But now I have to work out plot, characters, and logistics, with, to some extent, logistics coming first. Maybe logistics is simply more fun; it would seem underneath all my creative impulses, I have the soul of a bureaucrat.

Here's how my mind copes with the practical issues. Back when I was writing LAWKI, I thought about creating a pony express kind of system, with messengers on bikes, traveling throughout the country in relay fashion to carry the mail. I pictured Matt leaving home to do it. But there was so much going on in LAWKI, I didn't do anything with the idea.

So now I'm thinking about my traveling troupe, and I can picture them running into one such messenger, only I'm thinking it'll be Jonny, which would be how I could bring a LAWKI character into the story (remember always, with Possible Third Book, that my poor beleaguered editor knows nothing about this, might hate it all, and might not want any third book whatsoever). Jonny (who grew into Jon in LAWKI, but will always be Jonny to me) would make something of a cameo appearance, but he could mention his family and let us know what happened to them.

All right. I like that a lot. But if I put all that nasty snow and ice on the ground, could people ride bikes great distances (we're into logistics here)? Would it be some combination of bike and cross country skis? Most likely the story will take place further south, where things would be a little bit warmer, but would the conditions be that much better than Pennsylvania and New York?

My middle of the night brain starts warming up. What about telegrams? I haven't gotten around to Wikipedia research yet, but my vague memory of the Childhood of Famous Americans biography of Samuel F.B.Morse makes me think telegrams predated electricity (I suppose electricity had always existed, so I guess I mean electricity humans knew what to do with, like for computers and microwaves and dvd players and all the other truly important inventions in my life). You don't need satellites to send telegrams. So maybe the pony express is more like Western Union. Either way, Jonny could be traveling around as a messenger.

So then (sleep, who needs sleep?) I start thinking about forms of power that predate electricity (or Thomas Edison, who I always picture inventing electricity). I'd already thought of coal, and of course there's wood, but what about wind power? Holland had all those windmills. I have no idea what they did, but wind power is an alternative energy source, and if Holland could build all those windmills without power tools, so could my post LAWKI world.

See how civilized civilization is becoming?

Then I started thinking about Miranda, Mom and Matt, and how they were doing, and I pictured them moving into a house that had a greenhouse, or at least a really good solarium, where they could grow enough vegetables to feed themselves. My guess is they could find some Burpee seed packets somewhere. But then I remembered I'd killed off sunlight; the solarium was now a cloudarium. Drat.

That was when I decided humanity would have gone through the five Kubler-Ross stages, and once they made their way past acceptance and didn't die, they'd pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again. Mom and Matt and Miranda and Jon would make their own windmill or whatever, and figure out a way of generating energy for artificial light, so those vegetables could grow. And they'd start trapping animals and fishing (two things they really should have done in LAWKI, but I just never got around to it).

How much of this might show up in P3B? I have no idea. With LAWKI and d&g, I imagined a lot and used a little. Presumably the same pattern will hold. But if I know the world my characters are surviving in, I can create their pasts and plan their futures.

Just as long as I keep things from getting too bleakity bleak bleak bleak, things should work out fine.

Next Time, I'll Just Count Sheep

I posted a comment, responding to other comments, in my entry about the ghost, where I mentioned that Life As We Knew It is about the mundane (which it is). If I were asked what its theme is, I'd reply, "Everyday survival in catastrophic times." I had a tenth grade teacher English teacher who was always asking us what the theme was. I resented it then, but as a grownup, I'm not so resistant to the concept. In fact, if you were to ask me what the theme of the dead and the gone is, not that you have or you will, I'd say, "Living on welfare in catastrophic times." Because basically that's what Alex and his sisters are going through, surviving on governmental and religious charity, while being required to follow their rules. Which is also a pretty mundane theme.

I mention all this because I lost a lot of sleep last night trying to work out the situation for the Possible Third Book (hereafter referred to as P3B). I haven't spoken to my editor about it since NCTE in mid-November. I haven't even given it much thought up until the past few days, devoting my brain cells instead to a YA that died aborning, and a middle group book that got written but stank. I think my brain returned to P3B because of the Junior Library Guild purchase of d&g. And it might have gotten pushed along by my editor's naive acknowledgement of her willingness to read blog reviews of d&g. That was all the encouragement I needed to send her a few, which meant I had to reread just about all of them, so I could pick and choose my favorites.

The last I heard, the earliest I would know if Harcourt will want the P3B is early fall, and even though it's sunny and sixty degrees outside, it's still January, quite a distance away from September. But my brain turned to the challenge of P3B, maybe because it's January, the same month I wrote LAWKI and d&g. Maybe my brain just expects to end the world when the days are so short.

This is the problem I've been wrestling with. LAWKI takes the most melodramatic of premises (The World Is Coming To An End! Yikes!) and asks, How do you do the laundry when the world is coming to an end. d&g starts with the identical premise and asks, How do you get by without resources when the world is coming to an end. Very mundane questions.

But when I spoke to my editor, lo those many weeks ago, the P3B would have dealt with brand new characters at a later time frame. Which is fine. Every single P3B (a sequel to LAWKI, LAWKI meets d&g, brand new characters) is fine. I'd be just as happy writing hundreds of books set at the exact same time, I had so much fun the first two go rounds. And I love the LAWKI and d&g characters, so I'd be delighted to find out what happens next to all of them.

But I have to work on the assumption (well, it's my assumption since I am very much queen of this particular universe) that further along, a year or two after LAWKI ends, things will be worse. It'd be nice if things were better, and frankly if I were devoting the rest of my existence to writing these books, I admit to being intrigued about what people would go through when things got better- if your childhood was spent under the circumstances I created, how would your adolescence be under improved circumstances. Never forget, I'm a sucker for consequences. But that would be a Possible Fourth Book, and I think it is extremely safe to refer to that as an Extremely Unlikely Fourth Book instead.

Back to P3B. If things are worse a year or two later, with diminishing resources, then any book would be even bleaker than d&g, which rumor has it, is pretty darn bleak (after all, my brother said it was, and he reads Scandinavian novels). And bleak is right around the corner from melodramatic, and once you turn that corner and start zipping down the avenue, it's hard to get back to mundane.

A couple of times I've come up with P3B plots. One I tried on my friend Christy and one on my editor. Both times they said, politely but firmly, Uh uh. Too ding dang dark. A couple of times I've come up with P3B plots that I've tried out on myself, only to think, Uh uh. Too ding dang dark.

And then there's the problem of the characters from LAWKI and d&g. I get e-mails from people asking what happened to the LAWKI crowd, Dad and Lisa, Dan, and of course Miranda. I hope I'll get e-mails asking me about the d&g characters, once more than a few dozen people have read it. If the P3B has none of them in it, then all those characters become gone, and there's a part of me that doesn't think that's fair. If I were going to read a third book, based on the premise of books one and two, I'd want to know what happened to the characters in books one and two. I even considered asking my editor if I could put at the end of P3B a character listing for LAWKI and d&g, you know, like, "Miranda got a full scholarship to Penn State," and, "Alex is now a United States senator." The thought flitted through my mind that we could have a contest, letting readers suggest what happened to the various characters, with the winning entry put in the paperback of P3B. I can be very ambitious in my fantasy life.

But last night, around 1 AM (sometime between the first and second sleeping pills), I came up with a setup for P3B that, at least on Jan. 8, I love. The way I see the post LAWKI world, things are very regimented. There's a limited amount of food and fuel, and the powerful people would see to it that they got the most of everything, followed by the people they need to make things better (scientists), followed by the support staff (doctors), followed by the laborers. A life support triangle, with the bottom two thirds desperately trying to become laborers, because otherwise they don't get food or shelter (I told you it was bleak).

Now what had been giving me grief was who to put into this plausible (to me at least) world. If I wrote about the laborers, then we'd be in bleakity bleak bleak bleak territory. Think conscripted coal miners (why should I be the only one to think it). Think Miranda doing all the laundry, but for strangers who are eating more than she is and who have the power of life and death over her. You think that's upsetting now? You should think about it at 1 AM, in between sleeping pills. And not only are such setups excessively bleakity bleak, they're also lacking in the mundane. Anyone can end the world and make things outside of our normal experience. The trick seems to be to end the world and still get the laundry done.

So what I came up with in the still of the night was a group of traveling players, sort of a cross between the actors in The Seventh Seal and a USO troupe. One of the great absurdities of America is the idea that in the middle of a battlefield a bunch of actors and singers should show up to entertain the soldiers. I pictured my little company as being mostly teenagers (the P3B is a YA, after all), four or five kids and an adult or two, traveling from place to place on a mule cart. They'd be legitimate laborers, with a schedule of performances for the upper level of the triangle, but giving shows on the road as well, for whatever food they're given and whatever supplies they can steal. One of the group could actually be a character from LAWKI or d&g, and certainly as my little band crosses America, they could run into someone from LAWKI or d&g (not too many, because that would feel like coincidence, but enough so that we can find out what became of at least some of the LAWKI/d&g crowd). We would see how things are in the US through the eyes of these kids, which would defuse the bleakity bleakness, and somehow (hey, the idea is less than 12 hours old), I'd pull off a mildly happy ending.

So that's where things are with the P3B. Whether it'll end up like this, or if it'll ever even exist, are unknowables. But I've always wanted to write a book about teen vaudevillians, and this would certainly be an interesting (to me at least) approach. And it just might keep the bleakity bleak monster from breaking down the door.

Ghostly Tale

Around ten years ago, the last time I had money, I bought an expensive new home on the other end of town. It was a center hall colonial, very fancy and up to date, and had had only one owner before me, a young family who had chosen to move closer to the school their children attended.

Within a couple of months of moving into the house, I was aware that there was something other than me and my cats living there. For lack of a better term, I referred to it as a ghost.

I am neither superstitious nor religious. I don't believe in any sort of afterlife. But I've always had a fondness for the concept of ghosts. And the one that came with the house was hardly more than an irritant. No blood curdling howls. No strange apparitions in the middle of the night. Just a tendency to knock things over and move things around. Twice it turned on cassette players (one upstairs, one down, neither time with a cassette in the player). A couple of times it tilted all the paintings on the living room wall. A couple of times it took my comb out of the medicine cabinet and left it on the edge of the sink. Things I hadn't done and my cats couldn't do. Just dumb little things, maybe twenty such incidents over the years I was there.

One day I was walking from the staircase to the kitchen when I ran into the ghost going the other direction. I was so accustomed to coexisting with it, I wasn't even particularly startled. I remember being sorry I didn't have my camera with me, but that was about it, until the next day when I thought, Wow! I saw a ghost!

My recollection of the ghost was it was two or three feet long, torpedo shaped, with no features. It was about four feet off the ground, and it seemed to know where it was going (at least it didn't stop to ask for directions). It was a gauzy translucent white and bore an unfortunate resemblance to Casper The Friendly. One would like one's ghost to be a bit more original in appearance

I did some internet research to see if there was any scholarly work being done on ghosts, since I would have been happy to participate, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. I did locate a lot of websites where people spouted fiction as fact (ghosts like this; ghosts don't like that-as though someone had done a Zagat for ghosts). One place had lots of photographs; my favorite was The Ghost At The Bagel Bakery, which was a photograph of a ghost at a bagel bakery (no report on whether it favored cream cheese or butter).

Sometime after I'd run into the ghost, I attended a small gathering, maybe ten people, all adults, all sane. The subject of ghosts came up (my guess is I brought it up). It turned out three other people at that gathering had seen ghosts. One of the other ghost witnesses was a World War Two veteran, who had vivid memories of seeing a ghost when he was a young boy.

It fascinated me to think that 40% of the people there had seen a ghost. Actually, it still fascinates me. So I'm putting a poll on the left side of the blog, to see how many of you, oh beloved slowly gained readership, have seen a ghost. And if any of you want to share stories by way of the comments section, well, I'd love to read them. Your ghost is almost guaranteed to be more interesting than mine, although it may have a way to go before beating The Ghost At The Bagel Bakery!

The Dead And The Gone ARC Lending Library Proposal

I'm a little concerned that Google doesn't understand the &. So from now on, all initial references to the dead and the gone will use the word "and" instead. And maybe even be capitalized, although I don't think that should make a difference in Googleland.

All right. That was just by way of explanation. Here's the real reason for this blog entry.

Way back in November, when I was at NCTE, I took as many ARCs of d&g as my greedy little hands could hold. Many of those copies I sent to as many of you, my beloved slowly gained readership, as I could (just as I have sent to you all copies I've been graced with since then), the recipients selected at random by way of the Bolivian hat.

But back in November, I kept six for my own distribution. One I kept for myself, and one I sent to Janet, to whom d&g is dedicated. The other four I scattered, one to my mother, one to my brother, and two to friends (I actually have more than three friends, but I try not to make them read what I write).

However, since that time, I've found that there are lots of people who want to read d&g, and are impatient (a character trait of my own) and don't want to have to wait until June 1 (me neither). There's one person named "anonymous" who's been particularly crabby about it. And I've long since run out of ARCs to send to everyone who asked.

I therefore requested all four of those ARCs that I gave to family and friends be returned. My mother and brother (well, actually my sister-in-law) have gotten theirs back to me. One friend says I'll have her copy within the next 24 hours. And while the fourth copy may take a little longer, I've already nagged that friend (you think I brag well- that's nothing compared to my nagging skills), so it should show up fairly soon. The idea being that with those four copies, I set up a lending library. This is how it would work (and what you need to consider):

I send out the three ARCs I have (or will have by Monday) to the first three people who decide to go along with this scheme, and e-mail me their names and mailing addresses via the cute little link to the left. The fourth copy will go to the fourth person whenever.

Then as the people finish reading d&g, they e-mail me, and I send them the name and address of the next person on the list. Each person would have the obligation of sending the d&g ARC to the next. Until before we know it, it's June 1, and then you can all go to the library and take it out.

Whoever decides to participate has to be comfortable with the following: First of all, two, or most likely three, total strangers will know your name and address. I'm one of the strangers, and then there's the person who will mail you the ARC, and then you'll probably put your name and address on the envelope when you send it off next. If you don't want strangers to have that information, don't submit your name.

Then there's cost. First class postage is sometimes $3.00 and sometimes $3.17 (don't ask me why it isn't always one or the other). So assume $3.25. Plus the cost of the mailing envelope, unless you reuse an old one. While I won't send you overdue messages, it would be courteous for you to read the ARC relatively soon after you receive it, because there may be someone else waiting to read it. So factor guilt into your equation. Not to mention the trip to the post office.

But if you're willing to be part of a daisy chain of death and despair (and who amongst us doesn't dream of such), then e-mail me your name and address. I promise I won't do anything with it, other than to send it to another person on the list, but again, if you're remotely hesitant, don't do it. Trust me, my feelings won't be hurt. This is just the best scheme I've been able to come up with to give people a chance to read the dead & the gone between now and June 1. When it will be warm and sunny and I'll be having my Cheap And Easy 75th book celebration party (and you can celebrate the fact that it's June 1, which on Jan.3 seems like cause for celebration enough).

PS- Because I just thought of this. I have no idea how many, if any, of you are going to participate, but those of you who have blogs of your own, or post messages at other places, don't mention this little scheme. There are still a lot of names in the plastic sandwich bag holding station, and I'd prefer they get first dibs at the daisy chain of death and despair.

PPS- There will be ARCs of d&g available at Midwinter ALA, for those of you who will be attending or will know someone who'll be attending. I've been meaning to tell you that.

It's Not Bragging. It's Not. It's Not.

And it's just a coincidence that I found the following out on Jan. 3.

I am delighted (actually I'm over the moon delighted) to report that the dead & the gone has been selected by the Junior Library Guild. They had previously published Life As We Knew It.

My editor tells me the JLG rarely takes sequels, which makes this even more exciting.

Okay, maybe that part was bragging. But just a little. And my mother says it's okay to (she's thrilled also).

I Am, By Nature, A Very Impatient Person

Happy New Year's Eve!

I worked up an entire blog entry for my last day of bragging, full of quotes and links, but I decided the heck with it, I'd start my New Year's resolution a day early.

Instead of bragging, here's a lovely painting that King Juan Carlos and his darling wife Sofia commissioned for my Chanukah present. They sent it media mail, so it only arrived this afternoon.

I think Mr. Velazquez captured both my inner and outer beauty, even if he did keep addressing me as Infanta. Or maybe it was Infantile. I was so busy posing, I couldn't really hear him.

As I bid farewell to 2007 (waah! I really loved 2007), I'll copy here, in its entirety, my favorite review of Life As We Knew It. Harcourt probably won't be using it, but I think it's so fabulous I'm going to bold the whole thing:

Life As We Knew It Susan Beth Pfeffer This book was soo predictable! The electricity is off now its on now its off now its on! School is canceled! Omg were so hungry, lets watch the news but we can't since the power is off! I don't want to spoil the ending for people who actually want to read it so its way down there: At the end nobody really important dies they just eat alot of food and live! Thats the WORST ending i've ever seen... Reviewed by Melina, 12

Here's to lots of food and wonderful endings. Happy and Healthy New Year to each and every one of you.