So ALA Conference was a blast. I'm a bit exhausted after all the hullabaloo, but on the whole I'd say that the event was a complete and total success. Aside from getting to hang out with all the wonderful folks at Penguin, I also got to meet some actual readers who attend actual high schools, which I don't get to do enough. It was really great to hear their thoughts about Looking for Alaska.

Okay so but that's not the story. The story is:

So Saturday morning Penguin hauled my exhausted ass down to the convention center to sign copies of Looking for Alaska. I was pretty sure that no one was going to show up, but then much to my delight a lot of people showed up to have their books signed, including a bunch of really cool YA librarians and noted authors David Levithan, Cecil Castellucci, and Nancy Werlin.

Then I saw Judy Blume. And, you know, I like Judy Blume. I have liked her books ever since I was seven, and I still like them, and you can't say that about any other author--not even William Faulkner, who is no slouch when it comes to me liking him. Now, mind you, Judy Blume was not standing in line to have me sign her book or anything. She was just there on account of how she is a Penguin author.

But then a very unlikely thing happened. Judy Blume sidled up to the table at which I was signing and she reached out her hand to me and asked me to autograph a copy of her book. Here is a picture of what transpired.

If you look carefully at this picture, you'll note that my editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel, is laughing hysterically at something that Judy Blume (whose face you cannot see so you'll just have to believe me that it's her, but it is her, I swear) has just said. I, meanwhile, look like I'm trying very hard not to pee on myself.

(Pre Dated--Scroll Down for New Content)

I'm going to be at the American Library Association's annual conference here in Chicago next weekend, so I hope any and all sparksflyup-reading librarians will say hi. I'll be signing copies of Looking for Alaska twice on Saturday, June 25th:

From 10-11 AM at the Penguin booth.

And from 3 - 4 PM at the Children's Plus booth.

I'm pretty worried no one will come to either event, so please drop by if you have a second.

For those of you who haven't finagled a pass to ALA Conference, I'll be doing several events open to the public in July with the Chicago Public Library. I'm very excited about these events, and I would tell you all about them right now, except I don't remember the dates. So, another time.

Somehow or another, I ended up the privilege of hosting the indomitable Cecil Castellucci, author of the noted YA phenomenon Boy Proof. Like, right now, as I type this, she is sitting on my couch. If I turned my head to the left and spit really hard, I could probably hit Cecil Castellucci. (Not that I would. I'm just commenting on the current proximity.) Life is good.

So my apartment currently contains my roommate Shannon and Cecil Castellucci, which is great. But it also contains a mouse, which is very very very bad news. Now, I realize that:

1. Mice are probably not sentient, and that
2. Even if they are, they probably don't read well, and that
3. Even if they do read well, they probably don't have Internet access, and that
4. If they do have Internet access, they most likely spend their online time looking at mouse porn and not reading my blog, but then again
5. You never know, so:

Listen up, mouse. I'd like to make you an offer. I hereby offer you all the space in the world not currently inside my apartment (hereafter referred to as Outside). In exchange for giving you proprietary rights to Outside, I would ask that you grant me exclusive access to the 1,300 square feet of my apartment. You get 99.99999etc% of the world; I get my apartment. Deal?

I've only had one proper job in my life. When I moved to Chicago in the summer of 2000, I was 22 years old, and I needed work. For starters, I needed money, but mostly I needed a reason to put on pants.

I went about six weeks without a job, and it was the most pantsless time of my life. I could go for or five days without putting on pants. In a sense, I was happy--what pantsless man isn't? But in another, deeper sense, I was horrifically depressed.

And then one day in July, a temp agency called me. (I'd put on pants to register with them a month earlier.) They offered me a job at the American Library Association. "Well," I thought, "it will get me out of the house, at least."

And it has, for five years. Booklist ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me, except for Sarah. And there's no way Sarah and I would have ended up together without Booklist, because she probably wouldn't have fallen in love with a bitter, pantsless, unemployed hermit.

The saddest part about leaving Chicago is leaving my job. I've never gotten up in the morning and gone anywhere but Booklist, and I never thought I'd have to. But alas.

I'm very lucky to be leaving for a job with another company I love: mental_floss. I'll be their books editor beginning on July 1st. Another great job with great people. (By the way, preorder the new mental_floss book now. I wrote a chapter.)

But there is one potential problem with my new gig: I'll be working full-time from home. So here's my plan: Every morning, no matter what, I will wake up at 8:00 AM. And then I will put on pants. We'll see how it goes.

God this blog is so damned daily that had it been published in 100 BCE, ancient Romans would have ditched their sundials and used my blog to keep time.

Progress continues on An Abundance of Katherines. It's slow, but it's progress. I'm typing more than I'm deleting, which is hopefully a good sign. But this blog is not about my daily adventures in second novel writing. It is, of course, about weddings.

Weddings, as it turns out, require quite a lot of planning, particularly if you are having a big Southern wedding (which, so far as I can tell, is the only kind of Southern wedding you can have). So Sarah and I are deeply engaged in the process of planning our wedding. A lot of people complain about wedding planning, but so far I have found it absolutely delightful. It's a great way to spend time (and money!) with Sarah, and we have a pretty good sense of humor about the whole thing. Also, I haven't really had to do much yet. The other day I had to IM my brother (who writes a great column for a newspaper in Boulder) and ask him to be my best man, but that was really pretty straightforward:

birdlives1: Hey. Will you be my best man?
Hank: Doesn't that question warrant a phone call?
birdlives1: I don't have any minutes right now.
Hank: Yeah of course I will. I've been writing my toast since you started dating Sarah.
birdlives1: Excellent.
Hank: Hey, do I have to buy anything?
birdlives1: You have to rent a tuxedo, I think. Mom and Dad might pay for it though.
Hank: Can the tuxedo be hilarious?
birdlives1: I sort of doubt it.
Hank: Can it have sparkles?
birdlives1: You're ruining the moment. This is a moment of deep love between brothers who love one another deeply. You're supposed to say you love me and you're proud of me.
Hank: I love you, Sparkles McHomecomingDance.

(Side note: "Sparkles McHomecomingDance is a reference to the tuxedo I wore to the 1993 Winter Park High School Homecoming Dance. The tux featured a silver cumberbund and bowtie covered in fake diamonds. What can I say? I thought I looked disco fabulous.)

Man, this blog is so god damned Daily it could run for Mayor of Chicago.

Truman Capote famously said of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, "That isn't writing; it's typing." That quip has been in my head recently, as I've been doing a fair amount of writing/typing myself.

(Side note: When I was in twelfth grade visiting colleges, I met some outlandishly hot sophomore girl at a party at Kenyon, and she was going on and on about Trollope or Proust or someone. And then she asked me what the last great book I read was, and I said On the Road, which I thought was a perfectly respectable choice, and then the girl said, "Oh, you'll grow out of that," and I hated her for saying it. I still do. I still like On the Road. So there, whatever-your-name-was.)

(Side Note 2: I remember her name. I just don't want her to google herself and then email me a pretentious email where she attacks my fondness for On the Road.)

But anyway: Truman Capote could have stood to learn a thing or two from Kerouac about typing. I love Capote's books and stories (particularly In Cold Blood), but the guy spent the last decade of his life pretending to be writing some fabulous big literary novel that he hardly worked on. Writing is hard work, for sure--but Capote knew as well as anyone that typing ain't easy, either.

Okay, back to it. The fingers on the keys. Typing. And, God willing, writing too.

When Looking for Alaska was inching toward publication about a year ago, my editor asked a lot of people to read it and consider writing a blurb to go on the back of the jacket. The only person who even agreed to read it was the extraordinarily talented K. L. Going, who wrote the great blurb that appears on the hardcover edition of Alaska.

And so I made a solemn vow that I would always, always, always read first novels if I was ever asked to do so, even if I decided against blurbing them. I figured this was the kind of solemn vow I could safely make, because I couldn't imagine a time when anyone would care about my opinion of a book.

Well, I'm still not convinced that anyone will care, but I was asked to blurb a book recently: Will Leitch's Catch. In the interest of full disclosure I should note that I knew of Mr. Leitch before he ever wrote a novel--he used to write a wonderful column called Life as a Loser, and we struck up a correspondence after I sent him fan mail.

(Let this be a lesson: Always send fan mail. Hint.)

As it happens, I really liked Catch, and I was thrilled to be able to blurb it. But man, it was a lot of pressure. I can see why people don't like doing it.

I wonder how much blurbs really matter. Do you (and by "you," I mean "the four readers of this blog") place a lot of weight on blurbs?

When one is procrastinating as much as I have been lately, it becomes difficult to find things to do. There is the obvious googling of one's self, of course, which provides endless hours of entertainment (I mean, look how many kids like me on livejournal). But in the end, a time comes when one can no longer procrastinate: The dishes have been washed; the bed has been made; the Internet has been scoured for pictures of Kirsten Dunst--and it comes time to write your second novel.

But wait! There is your blog! Your long-neglected weblog that no one reads, not even your lovely fiancee! (By the way, I got engaged. Also by the way, I am moving to New York in August.)

A few days ago, I had the following conversation, word-for-word, with Julie Strauss-Gabel, my editor at Dutton:

Julie: "Why don't you ever update your web site?"
John: "Because I am very, very busy not writing my novel."

And that's the truth. It is extraordinarily time-consuming, not writing. You'll have to excuse me; I need to get back to it.