I've just gotten back from Grand Haven, Michigan, where I had the amazing experience of hearing parts of the Paper Towns audiobook recorded. The narrator, Dan John Miller, happens to be in one of my favorite bands. Also, he is a dapper dresser. More on this soon in video form.
Oh, hey: I think there is going to be a Very Special Guest in Chicago.
Soon there will be, like, an events page on this web site. And it will include many, many events--because I'm going to be in like 30 cities this fall. (And Germany! And possibly Sweden!)
But in lieu of a proper events page, let me just briefly tell you about two things happening soon in case you live nearby and want to go:
1. This Monday, I will be at the Spring Lake Library in Spring Lake, Michigan from 2 to 3:30. It will be awesome. The address: 123E. Exchange Street in Spring Lake, MI.
2. On 8 / 8 /08, there will be a huge and amazing and wonderful nerdfighting gathering at the Harold Washington Public Library at 2 PM. This coincides with Terminus, the Harry Potter conference, so nerdfighters from all over the country will be there. I will talk and read and hopefully find clever ways to decrease worldsuck. Then we will decamp to Grant Park and listen to some songs about "Looking for Alaska" and some wizard rock.
Like the moth to the flame, I cannot resist. Taken from E. Lockhart:
37 Odd Things About Me
1. Do you like blue cheese?
Not really. I think there are many superior varieties of cheese. (By the way, do you know that in Canada they call American cheese Canadian cheese? Or so I heard on TAL.)
2. Have you ever smoked?
Yes, I smoked from my teens until my mid-20s. I chewed Nicorette for a long time after that. I don't recommend either, really--both are expensive, neither is cool.
3. Do you own a gun?
No.
4. What flavor Kool Aid was your favorite?
Does Kool-Aid come in flavors? I thought it only came in colors. Red.
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
Sometimes.
6. What do you think of hot dogs?
I think they are a ticket on the express train to profound gastrointestinal distress.
7. Favorite Christmas movie?
Um, Elf? It must be said that I'm not huge on Christmas.
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Just a glass of ice water (I don't drink caffeine).
9. Can you do push ups?
Hold on lemme try. Yup. I mean, I don't think I could do a thousand of them, but I just did ten, and I only feel slightly dizzy.
10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
My wedding ring. (Also my only piece of jewelry.)
11. Favorite hobby?
Watching sports. I wish it weren't, but it is.
12. Do you have A.D.D.?
Probably not.
13. Do you wear glasses/contacts?
Um, sometimes I feel like this survey doesn't know me at all.
14. Middle name?
Oh great, and now the survey is trying to steal my identity. I'm onto you survey! Next you'll want to know my social security number and the name of my favorite childhood pet!
15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
Still sort of out of breath from the pushups, wonder what Hank is IMing about, that book I just read was good.
16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink?
Water, Crystal Light, and orange juice. (God, I'm a 1980s housewife.)
17. Current worry?
If I had just one worry, all would be wizard.
18. Current hate right now?
Malaria. What is your problem, malaria? Go away already.
19. Favorite place to be?
Fairview, North Carolina, on the porch, looking out at Little Pisgah Mountain, and writing.
20. How did you bring in the new year?
Chicago. Seersucker suit.
21. Where would you like to go?
New York.
22. Name three people who will complete this?
Well, definitely J. D. Salinger. Probably also noted meme-lover John McCain. And maybe my brother.
23. Do you own slippers?
No.
24. What shirt are you wearing?
This t-shirt I wore when painting my office Jalapeno Jelly.
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?
Yeah, no. That seems kind of disgusting.
26. Can you whistle?
Yes, but I cannot whistle a tune, although I often manage to convince myself otherwise.
27. Favorite color?
Jalapeno Jelly.
28. Would you be a pirate?
I really value my teeth, and I hate scurvy, and I'm also generally opposed to lawlessness, so I think probably not. I would be a ninja, though.
Miles. I already used all my favorite boy names in books.
32. What's in your pocket right now?
iPhone!
33. Last thing that made you laugh?
Well, when I went to look up the link for the Guacamole Ukulele Song, and then I played it, and laughed at the line, "When we began to regret it / Alex told us not to sweat it / Ukuleles pay for themselves." So true. Then I was thinking about unusual observations that are profoundly true, and I remembered Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock saying, "Never go with a hippy to a second location."
34. What vehicle do you drive?
A Volvo that formerly belonged to my parents. I'm not thrilled about it. I don't like owning a car.
35. Worst injury you've ever had?
I broke my nose and got a concussion when a bike messenger ran into me in Chicago.
36. Do you love where you live?
Um, I miss New York. But there are things I love about where I live.
37. How many TVs do you have in your house?
Oh, my God. I just counted them. THREE! THREE! That's terrible. (But one is only used for Wii.)
Why An Abundance of Katherines Will Only Cost $3.99
The paperback of An Abundance of Katherineswill be published on August 14. It will look something like this:
(In real life, the cover will be higher resolution and not clearly stolen from B&N.)
As you can see up there in the top-left corner, the paperback of Katherineswill be--at least for a while--a mere $3.99. Almost all trade paperbacks now retail for 10 dollars or more, and a lot of people have been asking why the book will be so inexpensive. Some reasons:
1. Books are ridiculously overpriced. Paper Towns will retail for $17.99. That's a lot cheaper than most contemporary fiction (Junot Diaz's brilliant novel is $24.99, for instance), but it's still expensive. I'm always interested in trying to keep costs low, but it's very difficult for a number of reasons, which I can get into if anyone ever wants a long and boring post about publishing economics written by a rank amateur in the field. At any rate, we were talking about how to launch the paperback of Katherines, and someone was like, "What if we made it so cheap that no one would make any money?" And I was like, "Now that is an idea!"
2. Of course, that idea was born of a nakedly capitalistic calculus: We hoped it would 'grow the brand' (someone actually said those words in that order; the brand in question being, I guess, me). We also wanted people to get excited about the October release of Paper Towns, which by the way you should preorder right this very moment! (Sorry, I am practicing my shitty salesmanship skills.)
3. Like all writers I know, I would much rather have readers than money. Books have always been luxury items. (Putting aside the fact that even voracious readers in the end prefer food to fiction, there is almost always a cheaper way to read than purchasing a book.) It is because books are a luxury that they are so expensive (ditto re., for instance, cable television, which is also outrageously expensive when you consider that you are paying for the right to watch advertisements). The unfortunate result of this is that purchasing and owning books becomes impossible for a lot of people. And there is real value in owning a book, in being able to return to the text repeatedly, in being able to highlight it and write in the margins and make it well and truly yours. So whenever there's an opportunity to lower the hurdle between a reader and book ownership, I'm for it.
The Newbery/Caldecott Awards banquet is the fanciest event in children's literature. It is, come to think of it, the only fancy event in children's literature, except when we, like, throw a prom.
Every year I have been invited to the banquet, I've worn a suit. (I only have one non-seersucker suit, but it's nice.) But this year I packed light and only brought a Gap jacket. And sure enough, the Fashion Police showed up.
(I'm at 2:51. And I'm out. Congrats to Laurie Halse Anderson, who when she is not busy being a lovely person and an award winning author is apparently a fashion designer.)
I would like to take a moment to thank the young people of America (and the rest of the world) for your thoughtful responses to my question from last week (why do you all want to be so famous?). I am again struck by the facts that A. the young people of America (and the rest of the world) are smarter and more interesting than is generally acknowledged, and also B. I have better readers than any of the other authors (yes, Maureen Johnson. Even you).
So now that you have all dealt with the topic so subtly and thoughtfully in comments, I will now unfairly simplify your answers into several dubiously selected categories.
Why the Young People of the World Want to Be Famous, According to the Young People of the World (as overly simplified by former young person John Green)
1. I want to be remembered after I am gone/make an impact on the world.
This seemed to be the most common response, and fair enough. The problem here, to be frank, is that you will not be remembered after you are gone, at least not for very long. Also, celebrity seems a poor way to maximize your remembered-time. Like, let us compare a hypothetical 40-year-old high school teacher with Puck from the Real World San Francisco:
Let's assume they'll both live for 80 years. The teacher retires at 65. When she dies, her last five classes will be between the ages of 32 and 37. Many of those students will remember her for their entire lives; some will even tell stories about her to their children. So it's reasonable to assume that a fair number of non-relatives will remember the teacher (fondly, no less!) for at least 50 years after her death, giving her a total 'lifespan' of 130 years.
Now, let's look at Puck. Most members of the youth of America are saying right now, "Who is Puck? The Real World had a season in San Francisco? John Green is so old." Now, I will admit that Puck is likely to be remembered, in at least a hazy way, by many people of my generation and perhaps even those born ten years after me. But by the time Puck is 65, no one under the age of 40 will have the slightest clue who he is. Awareness of Puck outside of direct descendants and possibly one or two future scholars of reality television has a very low chance of lasting more than 100 years.
So basically, if you want to be remembered, you are far better off teaching than being on television. (You are also probably better off teaching than writing novels, also; for a rigorous analysis I would have to call on the assistance of Brotherhood 2.0 Resident Mathematician Daniel Biss.)
But look, regardless, time is going to swallow you up. (This is the theme of Katherines.) That's a hard thing to accept but sort of inevitable.
2. You can make a bigger impact when you are famous.
I would strenuously argue that this is not, in fact, true. Like, here is an example: An overwhelming percentage of famous people in America wanted John Kerry to be elected President in 2004. And in the end, I think their support of Kerry either had no impact, or else it had a slightly negative impact.
(I will admit that famous people can make an impact on a lot of people, just because they have the ear of a lot of people, whereas non-celebrities can't. But because of the lack of intimacy, the impact is generally pretty small and passes quickly.)
3. John, you clearly want to be/are famous. Why don't YOU explain it?
For the record, I'm not famous and don't want to be. But I have always cared too much about doing work that gets recognized, and about people liking that work. For me, it is an extension of having always wanted people to like me, and to approve of me, and not make fun of me, and not pick me last for flag football, and not call me names. I came to the conclusion when I was, like, eight that while no one would ever like me, I might conceivably make something that people would like. Hence the writing. And the vlogging.
The reasoning behind all that is foolishness, of course--but it's a powerful foolishness.
An Open Letter to the Youth of America (and also probably elsewhere)
Dear Youth of America and also Probably Youth Elsewhere:
Why do you want to be famous? Can you explain it to me?
Best wishes! John Green
p.s. This question emerged in the comments to yesterday's blog post, in which by the way I was not trying to argue that all children who work in the arts go on to become drug addicts, just that there is not a lot to be gained from working in the arts when you are a teenager (particularly publishing, which is admittedly the only business I know anything about). Also, dear readers, I do not buy your 'examples' of 'normal' celebrities, because the whole thing about celebrities is that we feel as if we know them but do not; we have not even the slightest clue what their life feels like. We are clueless enough about what life feels like to those closest to us (empathy is a good weapon in the fight against existential isolation, but it blunt and imprecise). How impossible it is, as Joyce put it, to see ourselves as others see us (or to see others as they see themselves). And yes, early readers of Paper Towns, I am obsessed with these questions of identity and empathy.
p.p.s. I mean, I understand the urge to be successful. But I don't understand the urge to be merely famous, particularly now that celebrity has been more or less completely divorced from wealth (I mean, just look at all those recognizable Real World cast members traveling around the country, for whom capitalizing on their renown means at most a middle-class life).
The Career of Ali Lohan and the Survival of Civilization
Ali Lohan is a 14-year-old child who is related to Lindsay Lohan, a 22-year-old actress with a drug problem. And I think her story nicely captures everything good and promising about the contemporary world.
It's no secret that I'm generally opposed to children working professionally in the arts--I think it almost always tends to turn out poorly for the kids involved, and I don't think it helps the arts much either.
But, you say, Mary Shelley was a kid when she wrote Frankenstein! And fair enough. (She was 19). But let's not forget how bad Mary Shelley's other novels are--and I'm sorry, Shelley scholars, but they are--and let's also not forget that she died at 53 with her deceased husband's shrunken heart in one of her desk drawers. Not necessarily a life to emulate.
Right, but so anyway. There is very little to be gained in any long term way from kids working professionally in the arts (even if you're Lindsay Lohan; even if you're Christopher Paolini). But this is not why Ali Lohan's budding recording career portends the promising future of popular art in America.
Behold the first verse of Ali Lohan's debut single (I would worry that quoting this violates copyright law were it not so aggressively unoriginal as to presumably be uncopyrightable):
"Oh yeah I should have known it was you all along I didn't know what i had till it was gone Now i'm fallin' down, fallin' down, fallin' down
And the trouble with the truth that you face Is that you're haunted by all your mistakes."
It's possible that this song is intentionally bad, but I doubt it. That said, I know that a lot of songs have terrible lyrics. Debbie Gibson had terrible lyrics when I was a child; David Cassidy had terrible lyrics when my parents were young.
In fact, the recording industry spent its entire life looking for bands with poor lyrics and reasonably symmetrical faces that would appeal to a lowest common denominator audience, and that is precisely why they have floundered ever since a new model of art commerce began to emerge on the Internet. (In the new world, fewer people get rich but more people avoid poverty.) Ali Lohan may succeed (although I doubt it), but each successive Ali Lohan will succeed a little less than the last.
To whatever extent publishing follows in music's footsteps (focusing solely on blockbusters, celebrity, and the broadest, blandest work possible), our business faces precisely the same fate.
One of the best things about the American Library Association's annual conference is that one returns home with a suitcase stuffed full of new books. (I actually bring an extra suitcase, due to my being a gigantic nerd). Highlights:
2. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Everyone kept telling me I would be unable to put this down. Now, I don't think the quality of a book is directly proportional to its unputdownability, but The Hunger Games is that rare novel that is both utterly engrossing and deftly written. I enjoyed reading it, and I was also profoundly impressed by it. It stands equal to Westerfeld's Uglies series for me, which is high praise indeed.
Also, even though I just finished Paper Towns and have been busy enjoying the above books (and several others, including rereading Catcher in the Rye for the nerdfighter book club), I am still writing. Recent projects include:
1. David Levithan and I are just about finished with the first draft of the book we are writing together.
2. Along with secret sister Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle, I recently wrote a holiday book that comes out this September called Let It Snow. (Look at that cover! So girly! So delicious!) Each of the three stories stand on their own but sort of intertwine when all read together. It was so much fun to do this with Lauren and Maureen; I'm psyched it's almost out.
Thanks to everyone (like, the 9,600 people) who made my livechat yesterday evening on blogtv so much fun. Hank and I will be doing more of that, and we'll be working on ways to make it even more collaborative and conversational. And now, allow me to answer some of your questions:
Q. If you could improve the US educational system in any one way, what would that one way be?
A. I would make teaching public school a highly lucrative and desirable job. (I would also minimize raises for seniority, however.) So I would make starting teacher pay at public schools, say, $150,000, which would be the same pay teachers would get for their entire careers. (I mean, adjusted for inflation and all.)
Q. What do you predict will be the new popular mythical creature of YA literature after vampires/undead get overused?
A. I am amused by the notion that vampires have not yet been overused. But I'll guess fairies.
Q. What bands do you like other than the Mountain Goats?
A. There are bands other than the Mountain Goats?
Q. You were asked a question about what makes a book literary and how symbols and such are usually involved. Do you use any symbols in your writing? Do you use a lot of symbols? What are some of them?
A. I do use symbols in my writing, but I think it sort of ruins the process of reading to get into them in detail. (But, like, for instance, is there not a clear reason that certain characters in Alaska smoke cigarettes, and others do not? Don't the cigarettes seem to pop up at certain times and in certain contexts?)
Q. I like the old covers of Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines better. A. Well, the old cover of Looking for Alaska isn't going anywhere; the new edition they're printing is a premium edition, which means it has a different size and a slightly different page layout and stuff.
Q. Do you prefer pie or cake? A. I prefer them both simultaneously.
I've just gotten back from the American Library Association annual conference in Anaheim, California. Ten thoughts on the topic:
1. Having grown up in Orlando, I obviously hate Disney World and Disneyland and the Disney Channel (there were actually seven different Disney channels in my hotel room). But I found myself enjoying a lot of things about Anaheim unironically, including A. its walkability, and B. the fact that every time people leave the hotel, a teenage employee says, "Have a magical day!"
I mean, obviously, it sucks to be that teenager. But you should have seen the kids' eyes light up.
2. Librarians can get pretty rowdy.
3. People claim to like Paper Towns. But, I mean, are they going to claim otherwise in front of me?
4. I did this thing where I ate pizza with Nancy Werlin, Jay Asher, Steve Kluger, and a few dozen teenagers. And then after the pizza we talked about books. It made me wish that life involved more pizza and talking about books, and less--you know--sitting in the basement alone trying to write them.
5. I met Steven Chbosky, the author of Perks of Being a Wallflower, who was very kind and gracious while I fangirled him.
6. Speaking of my fangirling, I also saw Laurie Halse Anderson, who said nice things about PT, which she then repeated on her blog.
7. I also had the opportunities to sign some copies of the forthcoming holiday anthology Let It Snow with the magnificent Lauren Myracle (the book contains long stories written by Maureen Johnson, Lauren, and me). There are as yet no copies signed by all three of us, but hopefully this will change soon.
8. It is, in fact, a testament to how great Lauren Myracle is that I was able to thoroughly enjoy going to Disneyland, even though I hate Disneyland, because she and her made-of-awesome son were there, and also my editor, Julie, and our editor friend Tara.
9. I received the first in-print review of Paper Towns, which appeared in Booklist magazine. The review ends: "Yet, if anything, the thematic stakes are higher here [than in Looking for Alaska], as Green ponders the interconnectedness of imagination and perception, of mirrors and windows, of illusion and reality. That he brings it off is testimony to the fact that he is not only clever and wonderfully witty but also deeply thoughtful and insightful. In addition, he's a superb stylist, with a voice perfectly matched to his amusing, illuminating material."
10. Some nice and rather unexpected things happened for Paper Towns that I can't entirely get into.
