Fall Tour Reminder

Hi, just a reminder that Mac Barnett and I will be visiting the Mission Inn Book Conference in Riverside, CA tomorrow, September 26th. Then it's off to Los Angeles to meet up with Jon Scieszka and David Shannon.

If you want to find out what all four of us guys are getting up to on the tour, visit our official tour blog, GUYS WITH BOOKS.

Frequently Asked Questions 4

Where do you get your ideas?

I guess all creative types get this question, to such an extent that it’s become a cliché. Kids don’t know it’s a cliché, though, so I try to answer it as best I can: I get my ideas in the same way you get yours–they’re a product of everything I’ve ever seen and heard and thought and felt. They’re influenced by books I read, things I watch, conversations I’ve had or even just overheard. I think the trick is not in worrying about your next idea so much as just having your arms open to it when it arrives. It’ll come around the mountain when it comes.

I believe there are unspoken questions that people are really asking when they ask “Where do you get your ideas,” however. I think the adults in particular are usually asking, “How come you can write a book and I can’t?”

Usually the answer is simply, “Because I’ve tried and you haven’t.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been approached by people who want to know how they can become a writer for kids too, and I ask,

“What have you written?”

and they answer,

“Nothing yet,”

and I have to tell them

“Well, try writing a little more than that.”

To those who have already tried to write and think they’ve failed, you might be interested to know that I didn’t finish the first story I tried to write either, or even the fifteenth. Maybe that’ll help, I don’t know.

Big Fall Tour

Later this week I leave for the start of a big fall tour, in which Mac Barnett and I (and, at many appearances, Jon Scieszka and David Shannon, too) will be traveling and attending events throughout California and Arizona.

I'll be posting reminders and updates about specific events as their time draws near, but here's an overview of the public appearances:

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26

Mac and I will be visiting the Mission Inn Book Conference in Riverside, CA


EDIT:

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
*All Four Guys
6:30PM
Crescenta Valley High School
Robot Zot/ Guess Again party!
Crescenta Valley High School Auditorium (entrance on Ramsdale)
2900 Community Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214


TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

10:30AM
Mac, Jon, David, and I will visit
Borders
9301 Tampa Avenue
Northridge, CA 91324


7:00PM
Mac, Jon, David, and I will visit another
Borders
125 West Thousand Oaks Blvd.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

6:00PM
Mac, Jon, and I will visit a
Barnes & Noble
6050 El Cerrito Plaza
El Cerrito, CA 94530


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2

6:00PM
Mac and I will visit
Copperfield’s Bookstore
140 Kentucky Street
Petaluma, CA 94952


SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4

1:00PM
Mac, Jon, David, and I will visit the
Leroy Haynes Center (sales through Mrs. Nelson’s Bookstore)
233 Baseline Road
La Verne, CA 91750


MONDAY, OCTOBER 5

9:00AM

5:00PM
Mac, Jon, David, and I will have an In-store signing at
Warwick's
7812 Girard Avenue
La Jolla, CA 92037


TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6

10:00AM
Mac, Jon, David, and I will take part in
Office Max Day/ A Day Made Better donation
Location: 1844 South 40th Street
San Diego, CA 92113


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8

7:00PM
Mac and I will appear at
Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 South McClintock
Tempe, AZ 85283


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9

6:00PM
Mac and I will appear at
Barnes & Noble
21001 N. Tatum Blvd.
Phoenix, AZ 85050


SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10

10:00AM
Mac and I will appear at
University of Arizona WALK (Wildcats Advocating Reading and Literacy) reading
*On the first Saturday of each month, typically 100-150 parents and their young children (2-5 years old) for Storybook Character Hour. *

2:00PM
Mac and I will visit a
Borders
5870 East Broadway Blvd.
Tucson, AZ 85711

Think Your Cover Concept's Approved? Guess Again.

My new book, Guess Again!, written by Mac Barnett, is now on sale. Check out these previous posts to learn more about it.

Finding the right cover for Guess Again! turned out to be more challenging than anyone expected, and a while back I thought I might, on this day, begin a multi-post series describing that process. But I don't think I have the strength. So I'm just dumping nearly every cover sketch I submitted to Mac and our editor in one ungainly post.

We always intended to have some sort of surprise associated with the cover–some funny dissonance between what you thought you were looking at and what you discovered once the cover was opened. So most of these are presented in pairs–cover on the left, inside page on the right.

I welcome questions, as even I have a hard time understanding what some of these were about anymore.

Click to enlarge.

Eliot Calls Our Bluff

You may already be familiar with my book Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, written by Mac Barnett, in which a boy's parents send away for a blue whale and give it to him as a punishment. Under the book's jacket we printed instructions for how to send away for you own blue whale. Recently Mac Barnett received this letter:

Keep checking your mailbox, Eliot.

Early Work 4

Yet another example of my early work–my first picture book, if you will, dictated and illustrated when I was five. Presented with editorial comments.
Click to enlarge.

Frequently Asked Questions 3

Oh, you’re an author? Would I know any of your books?

Well, that depends. My audience is primarily children. Do you have any children? If you don’t have children then chances are the only kids’ books you can name are Where the Wild Things Are (didn’t write it) and a few by Dr. Seuss (not him). In fact, I dread this question because even if you have children chances are good that you’ve never heard of any of my books, so you’re not going to recognize their titles, and then you’re going to get that embarrassed look on your face like you’ve caught me in a lie, like I’ve just claimed to be an actor when what I really am is a tour guide at Old Tucson and second understudy to Rum Tum Tugger in a community theater production of Cats.

But that’s fine, go ahead and insist that I tell you some of my book titles. Preface this by telling me that you’ll probably know them because you “read everything.” What you undoubtedly mean is that you read a lot, or possibly that you read a significant portion of the bestseller list. I’m pretty sure you don’t actually “read everything” because even if you restricted yourself to mass-market American adult fiction you’d still have to read a novel every thirty-five minutes.

I swear I’m going to start doing this to other people: “Oh wow, you’re an accounts manager for a medical equipment manufacturer? I love medquip manfac! I know all the companies–which one’s yours?

Guess Again!

He steals carrots from the neighbor's yard.
His hair is soft, his teeth are hard.
His floppy ears are long and funny.
Can you guess who? That's right! My












Grandpa Ned.

From Guess Again!, written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Adam Rex. Available September 15th.

Frequently Asked Questions 2

Can I get you a water?

No. Thank you, but no. This is my fault–I have a bottle of water already, and I should have put it in plain view. I understand from past appearances that if I don’t put my water in plain view you or someone else on your staff will continue to offer me some every couple of minutes until I either leave or say yes. You’re just trying to be hospitable, I know. You want to do something for me. An author in your library/bookstore/school is an apparition that’s equal parts magical and awkward, like a whale on a beach. And, like a beached whale, I am presumed to be vulnerable and in need of constant hydration.

I didn’t like how much bottled water I was drinking, so I bought this reusable bottle. Yes, it is shaped like a flask but no, it’s still water. The flask shape just happens to fit the pouches of my bag and if necessary, of course, my hip pocket. But isn’t it playful? Seeing this flask out in the open and so close to your children? It says that I’m one of you, that I do not spend every moment of my days in a child’s garden of verses–that I’m less Fred Rogers and more Shel Silverstein, but without all the whoring.

Frequently Asked Questions 1

Is there anything special you need during your visit?

I’m usually thankful for an easel and a big pad of paper. If the event in question is the sort of thing at which I could show slides, I like to have a digital projector on hand. Sometimes I’m asked about less practical things, however. Sometimes I’m asked if I have any sort of weird, non-negotiable contract riders like a certain thread count to my hotel sheets or a single ostrich feather for book-signing.

I got on this topic once with a library that was hosting me for a reading and signing on Dr. Seuss’s birthday. I no longer remember if I was just trying to be funny and broached the subject on my own, or if maybe the library started it by asking if I needed a bowl of all-green M&Ms or a bowl of everything but green M&Ms or whatever. How did green M&Ms become the yardstick of celebrity dressing-room excess? I Google it and find the legend attributed to Van Halen on one website and Aerosmith on another. Probably neither is true. Anyway, to the library I believe I answered that color was immaterial but that I wanted M&Ms with the “m” on each candy to be replaced with the Greek letter “pi”, and also a dozen live doves.

These kinds of events are generally booked weeks or even months in advance, so by the evening of Dr. Seuss’s birthday I’d forgotten all about the conversation. They anticipated this and had a copy of our last email exchange attached to the bags of custom M&Ms they gave me. It seems Mars Incorporated could not, at the time, put the letter “pi” on an M&M, but they could print “3.14…” They could print it on each and every green oblate spheroid.

It was all a very nice gesture, but it made me sensitive to where these sorts of careless jokes can lead. So now I just ask for the doves.

New Book

Who's on Captain Gluebeard's shoulder?
Gold is gold. That feather's golder.
Got a guess? It's time to share it.
It's Polly! She's the pirate's










Mother.

From Guess Again!, written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Adam Rex. Available September 15th.

Mail Call 2: They Make the Totally Difference Quality Taste

Got a package recently from Team Boov (previously) in Florida. They actually sent this stuff to me a while ago, but they unknowingly sent it to my old address, so I hope they all decide to check up on my blog eventually and see this post.

Included was a "really classy shirt," an artistic interpretation of a Boov in Philly, and a flyer for what they presume to be a Boovish restaurant. I give my full endorsement to all of these claims.

Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty is 3

And to celebrate they've put up a lot of art. Those of you who've visited CNLT before know that it's a blog kept by four kids of various ages (Elijah, Lily, Gracie, and Isaac) and their dad (Aaron Zenz), as a place for the kids' art. A fair amount of the art they post is inspired by books they read, so for the blog's third birthday Aaron thought it would be fun to ask some illustrators to create images inspired by the kids' art. CNLT fan art.

I'm proud to say those kids have posted pictures inspired by at least one of my books in the past. I've already blogged about it before. But I thought it would be overly self-indulgent of me to create fan art of their fan art of one of my books. Because what if one of them decided then to create fan art of the fan art of the fan art, and then the universe collapsed into an infinitely dense referential singularity. So I chose this one instead, by Gracie:

Click here to see more.

Early Work 3

Another bit of early work–another Santa, even, drawn two years after the last one. Again presented with editorial comments.

Click to enlarge.

Alaska Again

Okay, so I know you don't come here looking for photos of my recent trip to Alaska. Or maybe you do. If you do, go here.

But I don't want to drop the subject entirely without showing a group who came to see an evening teen/adult program I presented. They arrived wearing homemade Boov t-shirts and brought me one as well.

I present them here, along with some of the librarians who made my trip possible.

Click to enlarge.

And for those of you who're wondering when I'm going to get back to posting some art, here are some people I sketched while sitting in a Seward, Alaska coffee shop called The Sea Bean:

Mail Call

Interesting things I got in the mail recently:

Douglas Florian sent me a Frankenstein's Monster head he recently found on the streets of Hell's Kitchen (a neighborhood in New York City, not Hell's actual kitchen). Because I now hold the curious position of being a person of whom people are reminded when they see Frankenstein. It's so rough on the outside because it's actually a mold, once used to make some kind of soft-headed monster toy. Look at that detailed face inside.

I also received my first finished copy of Guess Again!, my next book with author Mac Barnett (who also wrote Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem). This book is going to make your head bleed rainbows. It was wicked hard to put together but worth it. I'll be posting art from it soon.

Land of the Midnight Sun

Actually, most of these outdoor photos were only taken around 10pm. I beg your pardon.

But I saw a moose! It was right on the shoulder as we were driving home. And after taking a half-dozen terrible photos I realized my lens was foggy with condensation. Hence they have an ambiguous, Sasquatchy quality to them. But this was totally a moose.

Earlier in the day I visited a library and got a hundred and twenty-odd kids to blow me a raspberry. Then I proceeded to take a bad picture of that as well, but these are totally human children.

Look how pretty Alaska is. That's glacier running down those mountains.

Pretty soon I'll get back to posting some actual art or something.

I Can See Russia From My Hotel

Other things I saw during my run this morning, in chronological order:

–Mountains hemmed in by snowy, languid clouds
–Plants with perfect little clusters of white flowers like they're boutonniere factories or something
–Fuchsia flowers like fireworks
–Violet flowers so intense you could wear them around your neck at a rave
–Mud flats!
–Fishing trawlers!
–Quietly still, heavy water
–Waterfowl!
–Instructions for what to do if I meet a moose
–A small prop plane AND a beautifully refurbished old blue and gold passenger train (slogan suggestion to the Alaskan Board of Tourism: Anchorage–Where the Twentieth Century Comes Alive!)

I had a great morning. This afternoon I have my first library visit, at the Z. J. Loussac branch. Pictures tomorrow.

7-Imp

Mac Barnett and the good ladies at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast and I are all talking about Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem today. There's a ton of art over there, including two or three pieces that can't be seen on this blog.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't give you something to look at. This is quite possibly my favorite piece from the book. Click to enlarge.

Citizens of Alaska!

I will be visiting the Anchorage and Seward areas in the coming week, talking about my work, reading, drawing on command, and signing books. Just look at all these events:

Tuesday, July 28th, 2pm at the Z.J. Loussac Public Library.

Wednesday, July 29th, 2pm at the Samson Dimond Branch Library
and 7pm at the Scott & Wesley Gerrish Branch Library.

Thursday, July 30th, 10:30am at the Muldoon Branch Library
and 6:30pm at the Z. J. Joussac Library again for a program aimed at teens and adults.

On Friday I'll be traveling to Seward.

Saturday, August 1st, 2pm, I'll be at the Seward Community Library.

Early Work 2

Another bit of early work, this time a drawing I did when I was three (EDIT: four, actually. I seem to have learned little about basic math since then). Again, presented with editorial comments.
Click to enlarge.

Misc. Department

This is apropos of nothing, but I had lunch at an IKEA the other day–doesn't "elderflower juice-box" sound like a lyric from an early nineties Beck song?

Early Work

Since moving back to Arizona my mom has dropped by some old drawings and stories of mine that she'd kept. I wrote this when I was seven. I present it now with editorial comments.
Click to enlarge.

Doodle

I little digitally painted head from last night, drawn and rendered with my Wacom while I was waiting for my wife to finish something up in another part of the house. I thought I'd been at it a while, but apparently the whole thing took twenty minutes. Which is telling me that I may be over-thinking things in my work as a whole.

Come Along and Ride on a Smektastic Voyage

I mentioned a while back that the paperback edition of The True Meaning of Smekday is out in paperback, and features a new 2-page story that didn't appear in hardcover. Naturally, I wanted to entice people to buy the new edition. But it's been out for a couple months, so I'm now willing to give the new short story away to readers of this blog. I want those people who were kind enough to read Smekday in hardback to read these two pages, so if you know such a person, please send them here.
Click the image to enlarge.