Look everyone – i’m throwing my kids under the bus in service to my new writing career!

My debut novel – Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Not Reading – is about Charlie Joe Jackson, the most reluctant reader ever born, and his quest to make it through middle school without ever reading a single book.

So naturally, when I started writing it, I had to ask my sons – Charlie, Joe and Jack – what they thought of the idea.

They loved it, until they realized it was based completely on them.

Read more on the MacKids blog.

Look everyone – it’s my book-that’s-not-quite-a-book! ARC’s, oradvance reader copies, are bound galleys of the book that go to print BEFORE you make your last round of changes. meaning, when you get it you’re incredibly excited, until you open it up and see typos, mistakes and all sorts of things you thought you fixed three months ago. but, after the initial panicky freak-out wears off, you get incredibly excited again! which is what i am. because it means i’m an author-who’s-not-quite-an-author!

it looks like charlie joe jackson will be a series of at least three books – maybe even four or five! as they apparently say in the children’d literature world, woot woot!

but… the bad news is my editor thinks that the draft i had submitted for book 2 should be later in the series.

so i have to write a new book 2 from scratch, and it’s due february 1st.

so basically, nice talkin’ to ya.

now, i happen to think that my draft was book 2 was pretty damn good. and i was kinda ready to work on something else non-charlie joe jackson-related. but, since editors are never wrong – especially my editor, who’s a super swell peachy kind of brilliant woman, and i’m not just saying that – i guess it’s back to the old drawing board, macbook style.

i do know that book 2 is going to be called CHARLIE JOE JACKSON’S GUIDE TO EXTRA CREDIT, so at least we got that out of the way.

see you on the other side.

So, i’m pretty sure no one’s reading my website yet since the book won’t come out until July (when the traffic to the site will go WILD!), so is there any reason to update my blog?

Um, probably not.

But, I feel like i should start getting used to this whole blogging thing, so what the hell. Here goes…

How bout that election, huh? I don’t know whether to be depressed about the results or thrilled that it’s over. I guess both.

Life would be so much better if I could bring my dogs to work.

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants for winning it all, and to the New York Giants, for not sucking.

I just bought some new pants that took me up a waist size. So, so sad.

There, I’ve blogged. My words just fell in the woods. Will anyone hear them?

So i got the exciting news that the illustrator for CHARLIE JOE JACKSON’S GUIDE TO NOT READING is going to be JP Coovert!

We’re going to work very closely together to make sure his illustrations capture the tone of CJJ. It’s going to be a dynamic working relationship!

And I’ll probably never meet him.

Isn’t that wild? I guess that’s how it works in the children’s book business. Marriages between writer and illustrator might be made in heaven, but they’re not made in person.

It’s all good, though. We exchanged an email. And isn’t that how we ALL talk to each other these days?

finished first draft of charlie joe jackson book 2 tonight. i plan to rest on that laurel for 24 to 48 hours before going back, looking at it and realizing how much work it needs. so i think that calls for a yay period. no exclamation point just yet.

look everyone! you can enter to win an ARC of CHARLIE JOE JACKSON, plus a critique from me at this website:

http://writeoncon.com/2010/09/arc-of-charlie-joe-jacksons-guide-to-not-reading-by-tom-greenwald/#comments

you know what this means, don’t you?

i’m officially an almost-author.

it’s kind of like being almost famous, except for the famous part.

but it’s all very exciting and hopefully just the beginning of the journey… let’s do this thing!

p.s. if you enter and don’t win, i promise to come to your house and read the entire book out loud to you and your family.

football season is here, and with it another reason to not write!

mixed feelings of course.

i love to watch football – definitely my favorite sport to watch. but i’ve got several deadlines staring me in the race, and since i have a full-time job, sunday has always been my go-to day for writing.

now what?

today i may see if i can get some writing done while watching the games. if my story suddenly takes a turn towards the pigskin-related, you’ll know why.

so yeah, i guess i can call myself a writer, with my first book coming out next year, but my mom? she’s a WRITER. she’s a harvard professor who’s written scads of books on politics, leadership and business – enough to fill a bookshelf. but nothing she’s accomplished so far in her authorial career compares to what happened this weekend, when the boston globe website ran a picture of none other than SHAQUILLE O’NEAL reading one of her books!!

i know, right?!?!

here’s the link:
http://www.boston.com

i’m thinking we photoshop LEADERSHIP out, and photoshop CHARLIE JOE JACKSON’S GUIDE TO NOT READING in, then we’ll have something!

you think shaq would mind?

and if he does, you think he could beat me up?

i think it’d be a close fight.