My excuse for being late to my doctor’s appointment a couple days ago was really, really good. Even as I stood at the north end of Union Square in Manhattan with my fifteen minutes of just-in-case-I’m-late time ticking away, I was thinking, this is a really good reason to be a couple minutes late. Don’t get me wrong, something would’ve made me late anyway (I admitted as much to the doctor approximately five minutes before he informed me that chronic lateness was a common indicator of adults with ADD and then proceeded to rattle off a list of five other things that mark me as one of those fortunates), but this was a particularly, unusually good reason. I was waiting for my editor, Lynne Polvino, who was on her way out of her office with an advance readers’ copy of The Boneshaker for me.

My novel, in actual book form for the first time. On the train from 14th Street to Park Slope I held myself very still so as not to jump around and aggravate my fellow commuters. I flipped through the book, looking for the illustrations. I flipped through and read my favorite parts. I smiled until my face hurt. I yanked it out of my bag the second I got to the appointment and waved it in my doctor’s face. He played along like a champ, turning pages and oohing and aahing over Andrea Offermann’s gorgeous cover and illustrations, the font, the blurb on the front from Charles de Lint.

It really is a beautiful thing. I’d show it to you, but I’m currently without Photoshop and MS Paint and I tried and failed to work together for ten minutes before I decided I had better things to do with my time than lose more minutes I’ll never get back screaming at a photo-editing program. I’ll add an image as soon as I can. (Edit: here you go!)

Now, as if having the ARC alone wasn’t exciting enough, posts from last weekend’s ALA in Boston are starting to pop up, one or two actually mentioning The Boneshaker. Here’s one that even sports Jake Limberleg’s handsome spectacled face in its accompanying image:  http://tinyurl.com/ygftcsp.

It’s out there in the world now, I guess. Mysterious advance readers, hope you love it as much as I do.

Tagged with: Andrea Offermann • Charles de Lint • I am late all the time. • The Boneshaker

Recent Entries

• Brooklyn Book Festival Schedule is Up, and I Am On It!
• Alien Personal Nomenclature
• Life Changers, Part One
• Bradbury, Bookmarks and Toadstools: A Delightfully Busy Week
• Bookish Treasures on a Sweltering July Afternoon
• Books of Wonder and Places of Sanctuary
• This Wednesday at Pandemonium; BEA; and Some Very Important Questions
• Release Day!!
• The Informed Voter Project Concludes: The Nebula Novel Finalists
• The Informed Voter Project Returns: The Andre Norton Award Finalists

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 10:33 am and is filed under The Boneshaker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.