REMINDER: If you live in or near Birmingham, you should come to my signing on Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) at 1PM at Little Professor Books in Homewood. It will be fun.

Okay, so for the past four and a half days I've been at the NCTE conference here in Nashville, Tennessee (I leave this afternoon), and the conference is being held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, which is this massive enclosed space with 60-foot fake Christmas trees and a fake river on which you can (and I have!) take fake boat cruises, and a gigantic glass roof a la Biosphere 2.

Anyway, I have been here for about 110 hours so far. And here's the thing: I have not once, even for a second, left the Mothership. I was tempted a couple days ago to go into the hot tub, which is located about sixteen inches outside the walls of the resort, but I held fast. The full story, with pictures stolen from other writers, soon.

Are you on Team Pam or Team Karen? (Note: If you are on Team Karen, I don't want to be friends anymore.)

REMINDER: Come see me read at Little Professor Books in Homewood, Alabama the day after Thanksgiving (Nov. 24th) at 1 PM.

FURTHERMORE: Via Claire Zulkey, it has come to my attention that there is apparently a real American whose real God-given name is Outerbridge Horsey. And people think my character names are a stretch.

I'm on my way to Nashville, Tennessee today to attend the National Conference of Teachers of English. And I was thinking about how my 11th grade self (who had to write a paper about Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye over the summer to raise his English grade from an F to a D) would feel about my speaking in front of a bunch of English teachers, so I decided to go back in time and have a conversation with my 11th grade self:

Me: Hey, John.

11th Grade Self: Hey, fatso. How the hell did you get so fat?

Me: Well, when you get older, you marry this really hot girl who cooks really well. Plus, it turns out you can't just keep eating hamburgers indefinitely.

11th Grade Self: Who's the girl?

Me: Sarah Urist.

11th Grade Self: We marry Sarah Urist?!

Me: Yeah.

11th Grade Self: Seriously?!

Me: Yeah.

11th Grade Self: And she's still hot?

Me: She's really, really hot.

11th Grade Self: That's so awesome! I can't believe such a fat bastard got Sarah Urist to marry him. Did she go blind or something?

Me: You know you're making fun of yourself.

11th Grade Self: Sorry. You're just--I mean, really fat. So what's up?

Me: When you grow up, you become a writer.

11th Grade Self: Cool.

Me: And then you get invited to attend a conference of English teachers.

11th Grade Self: For real?

Me: Yeah. And you have to talk to a bunch of English teachers, but you feel like kind of an imposter, because--you know.

11th Grade Self: Because we suck so bad at English?

Me: Actually, we dont suck at it, exactly. You just skip class all the time.

11th Grade Self: It's a morning class. I have a moral opposition to morning classes.

Me: That's a poor excuse.

11th Grade Self: And plus Holly Brown has that period free and I'm trying to get her to go out with me.

Me: Yeah. By the way, that doesn't work.

11th Grade Self: Bummer.

Me: 'Fraid not, bud. So what should I tell the English teachers? I mean, I feel ridiculous standing up there since I was, like, such a miserable person to have in class.

11th Grade Self: Tell them to schedule their classes for the afternoon.

Me: You're rather insolent.

11th Grade Self: Yeah, whatever. Hey, while you're here will you buy me some cigarettes?

Me: You know it's really freaking miserable when we finally have to quit smoking.

11th Grade Self: Yeah, but that's your problem.

Congratulations to Richard Powers, who may be my favorite living novelist. Powers has been writing big, brilliant books for a long time, and his newest, The Echomaker, has just deservedly won the National Book Award. Hooray! (Powers' Prisoner's Dilemma and The Goldbug Variations, in particular, made me want to be a writer. All of his books are excellent, though.)
God, I'm so happy for Richard Powers. You could make a case for Powers winning a Nobel Prize now, even though he's only 49. So many of his books have been overlooked, so this is really great.

I'm also very happy for M. T. Anderson, who won the NBA this year for best book for children. Richly deserved, for sure. Congratulations to all the finalists, too.

First, I am going to be reading and signing Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines the day after Thanksgiving (Friday, Nov. 24th) at 1pm at Little Professor Books in Homewood, Alabama (2717 18th Street).

Second: A few schools around the country have started teaching Looking for Alaska in English classes (I know--it's weird), and as a result, I've noticed an uptick in people coming to sparksflyup via search strings like "'Looking for Alaska' essay" or "'Looking for Alaska' paper," or "summary of Looking for Alaska," or "themes of Looking for Alaska," or "I am a filthy cheater looking to steal a paper about 'Looking for Alaska' off the Internet," or somesuch.

It's possible that all these people are just searching for this fascinating comparative essay written by a high-school student who read both my Looking for Alaska and Peter Jenkins'. But probably, they are cheaters. And you shouldn't cheat. So let's make a deal. You won't cheat, and I'll give you a guide on how to write a paper about Alaska in a footnote. Okay? Okay.*




*First, you have to read it. I mean, seriously, the book is like 220 pages long. It has reasonably sized type. It has short chapters. I read it about 500 times when proofreading it, and I'm not that smart, so surely you can read it once. And I will promise you this: It is not the most painful reading experience you'll ever have, because one day you'll have to read Ethan Frome, and you will be pleading to the sweet holy Lord God Almighty to let you read Alaska again.

Okay, so having read the book, you no longer need "'Looking for Alaska' summary," because the summary is in your head. Now you need "'Looking for Alaska' essay," and perhaps a touch of "'Looking for Alaska' themes." And I realize that's no neat trick. Essays about books do not just pour forth from one's fingers after having merely read the book. So you'll need to come up with a thesis, an argument about the book. What, if anything, does this book do? Is it mere entertainment written in the hope of making the author rich? Is it about the meaning of suffering? The universality of forgiveness? The author's sublimated misogyny? Did the author write the entire book because he hates swans and wants them to be hunted to extinction? All of these are valid arguments. It doesn't really matter if your argument is true; it mostly matters if it's interesting. So come up with an interesting argument, and find some things in the book to support it, and then quote liberally from the book. Quoting liberally is the A#1 way to pad your word count. Also, it's good to write long and kind of repetitive closing paragraphs. Furthermore, your concluding paragraph should be very lengthy and redundant.

Now, if you're anything like me, you've finished your paper and it features a fascinating thesis, excellent examples from the book to defend that thesis, and a long and repetitive concluding paragraph. There is only one problem: The essay is not long enough. First, you will need to add a couple sentences that don't mean anything, such as, "Green's use of language is often very compelling, and reveals a great deal about his attitudes toward (whatever your topic is)." And then finally, to give yourself the last few lines you need to reach the minimum paper length, you need to switch your font to Courier New, which is the font God made for people who like their papers to look long without actually being long. And then you hit print. And you get an A, or a B at the worst, and you don't have to feel like a cheater.

NAFADOYBIMSCOM, aka NAtional Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month, is nearly half over. And yet I am not nearly halfway done finishing a draft of my book.

Clearly, there is no time to blog. So here's what we're going to do:

I would like to ask you, the loyal readers of the sparksflyup blog, to do my blogging for me over the next few days. How will you do this? Why, you will use the comments section of this blog entry to 1. link to interesting things, and 2. make jokes that aren't all that funny, and 3. complain about how hard writing is, and 4. talk about how much you like your wife, and all the other things that are usually contained in regular sparksflyup blog entries.

Thanks for your assistance.

An Abundance of Katherines is going to be reviewed in the New York Times Book Review tomorrow. Yay. That is all.

EDIT: The review is online. And it is so nice! (Thanks to Gwenda for the link.)

After going to sleep just after 4 AM, I awoke this morning feeling elated, excited, and thoroughly relieved. I'm referring, of course, to the news that Britney Spears is getting divorced. Obviously, it is a tragedy for the Spears/Federline family and everything, but it is really wonderful news for anagrammicians. I have long worried that as her marriage progressed, Brit might take Kevin's name, which would have negated one of history's greatest anagrams: As is widely known, BRITNEY SPEARS anagrams perfectly to PRESBYTERIANS.

In other news: I would like to publicly say thanks to my brother Hank (who lives in Montana) for voting. It is possible that Hank and his wife Katherine literally cast the deciding votes in the race for the U.S. Senate. Such are the joys of living in a state where you, as a married couple, represent 1/14th of the electorate. (Hank, by the way, runs one of the best blogs on the whole Internet.)

I put on my Montana Griz t-shirt the moment election returns started coming in, because I thought it would be close, but I never thought it would be this close. (Virginia, too.) But things look pretty good at the moment for both Jim Webb (who will be the Senate's only good novelist) and Jon Tester (who will be the only seven-fingered senator). But I'm going to keep my Griz shirt on until the rest of the results come in from outlying Montana counties. All I can say is thank God for Hank and Katherine.

I'm not going to do anything today except watch the polls, probably, and then I'm going to spend the entire afternoon trying to get access to the highly secretive (and usually massively unreliable) exit polling data. Come on, Montana! Come on, Virginia! Come on, Missouri! Show your true colors! (Note: Your true colors are blue.) You can do this! It's been 10 years since I enjoyed an election night. Hopefully that will change.

As for National Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month (NAFADOYBIMSCOM): I wrote 2,700 words yesterday. I'm writing a lot, and I'm enjoying writing a lot, but it's very hard to tell whether I am getting closer to the end of the book. This, it occurs to me belatedly, is the problem with NAFADOYBIMSCOM. There is no word-count cutoff. I'd better reign myself in, or I'm going to be looking at a Harry Potter 4 type of phenomenon. And no one wants that.

(NAFADOYBIMSCOM, or NAtional Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month, continues apace. Also, I had a great time in San Francisco on the final leg of my book tour. More on both later.)

This is an avowedly apolitical blog, but there are times in life when you must put aside your avowedly apolitical values in order to make a stand for something you sort of believe in, and this year anyway, I sort of believe in capital-c Change, so I'm going to make some endorsements.

In races for the U.S. Congress and Senate, I'm pretty sure that we should all vote for the Democratic candidate this particular year, even if that Democrat is sort of an idiot and possibly corrupt, because there needs to be a kind of accountability in the executive branch that does not currently exist. But the one Democrat I would like to particularly endorse three candidates, not that this will affect anyone's vote:

First, there is Montana's Jon Tester. I don't know all that much about Tester's political positions, but I do know this: He only has seven fingers. We need more seven-fingered senators.

I also very much like Jim Webb in Virginia, because A. he is a pretty good novelist, and B. unlike almost everyone in Congress, he has an actual family member fighting in Iraq, although C. he doesn't constantly talk about it, because D. he has integrity, which is E. more than can be said for his disgustingly racist opponent.

I'm also a big fan of Claire McCaskill in Missouri, because she worked as a waitress for six years, while her opponent, Jim Talent, looks like a dweeb. I mean, seriously. Also, he is opposed to stem cell research.

COME SEE ME THIS AFTERNOON AT 3:30 AT RAKESTRAW BOOKS IN DANVILLE, CA.

I made a NAFADOYBIMSCOM (National Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month) comeback yesterday and more than met my writing goal. I hate flying, but the one good thing about flying is that I always enjoy writing on planes, and the 5-hour trip from New York to San Francisco gave me lots of time.

I had a great time last night at Not Your Mother's Book Club, and the house was packed. There was also a special surprise guest in the form of Frank Portman, author of the excellent King Dork and lead singer of my favorite rock and roll band, The Mr. T Experience. (I have been a fan of the band for more than 10 years, so I kind of geeked out about being able to meet him, but hopefully not too much.) I can report that Frank is every bit as cool in person as his book and songs would indicate.

REMINDER: TONIGHT. 6:30. SAN FRANCISCO. NOT YOUR MOTHER'S BOOK CLUB. ME. TALKING. ABOUT BOOKS.

Well, my NAFADOYBIMSCOM (NAtional Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month) got off to a horrendous start yesterday, for the following very simple reason:

For about four hours, I was pretty sure that I had skin cancer, due to a long and complicated story involving a lot of borderline-idiotic behavior on the part of certain employees of my dermatologist. At any rate, it turns out that I am fine (I mean, for the moment), but there's nothing like spending a day contemplating your imminent demise to keep you from writing. Also I had to write a bunch of wedding thank-you notes, and I honestly believe that the wedding thank-you note is the most creatively demanding of all literary disciplines.

Anyway, assuming I don't get cancer tomorrow, it should be a little more productive. I have like a six hour flight to San Francisco; hopefully I'll get some writing done soon. I hope your first day of NAFADOYBIMSCOM went better, provided you are participating, and if you aren't participating, I think you should.

If you live in or near San Francisco, I hope you'll come see me (even if only to heckle) at the two bookstore signings I'm doing. Tomorrow, I'll be at Not Your Mother's Book Club at 7PM (Books Inc. at Opera Plaza -- 601 Van Ness San Francisco, CA). Then on Friday afternoon at 3:30 I'll be speaking and signing and Rakestraw Books (409 Railroad Avenue, Danville, CA).

As for NAFADOYBIMSCOM (NAtional Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Come On Seriously Month): It officially starts today. But I started two days ago, and already I'm remembering that 1. I like writing, and 2. it is more fun than the other parts of being an author, which have taken a lot of my time lately, and also 3. it is even more fun than googling yourself, which is of course very very fun. But of course NAFADOYBIMSCOM is only beginning, but I hope everyone is getting off to a good start.

And finally, we should briefly talk about the most remarkable eight minutes in the history of sport: I refer of course to Monday's Krystal Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship. If you're not from the Southeast, you've probably never eaten a Krystal, but Krystals are square hamburgers (similar to White Castle burgers, except slightly bigger) that are constructed out of the cheapest meat and bread possible. When I was a child, I believe you could buy a dozen Krystals for a halfpence. Anyway, Krystals don't taste particularly good, but they are--and this is important--rather filling.

Before Monday, the world record for Krystal eating was held by Takeru Kobayashi, the greatest eater in the history of the sport. In 2004, he ate 69 Krystals in 8 minutes. (For the purposes of comparison, I consider myself a pretty talented eater, but I couldn't eat 69 Krystals in 8 years.) But no one knew how great Kobayashi might be if pushed, because no one else has ever really challenged him, except maybe Sonya Thomas ("The Mia Hamm of Ham").

But lately a 22-year-old American named Joey Chestnut has been eating like a blue whale. And on Monday, at the Krystal Championships, Chestnut pushed Kobayashi. And Kobayashi responded with the stomach of a champion: In 8 minutes, Takeru Kobayashi ate NINETY-SEVEN KRYSTAL BURGERS!!! (Chestnut finished a heroic second place, with a mind-blowing 91.)

I can only hope that this story of hard work, perseverance, and competitive spirit will inspire us all as we begin NAFADOYBIMSCOM.