Contest Update, and a New Book

It’s cracking cold outside today—the sort of cold where the snow squeaks when you walk on it—but my “How to Steal a Car Video Contest” is really heating up! Although I have no evidence to support this, I’m expecting the first entry to be posted on YouTube any day now. I’m sure there are dozens—possibly billions—of nascent filmmakers slaving over their short videos, trying to make them Academy Award worthy. In fact, I have heard from an impeccable source (my fervid imagination), that James Cameron’s grandchildren (if he has any) may be partnering with Pixar to develop a ninety-second tour de force involving CGI versions of Kelleigh and her friends.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In my dreams. Hey, why don’t you make a video! It’s easy! It doesn’t even have to be good. You could win a bunch of signed books, or maybe fifty bucks! Check out the contest rules here.

In other news, I’ve just shipped my latest novel off to my publisher. The original title was “Shayne,” a nod to Jack Schaefer’s classic western novel, Shane. But because almost no one born after 1970 remembers that book, my wise editor suggested an alternate title: Blank Confession. Look for it next November.

I’m now deep into revising my next project—a novel in which nothing happens. Oddly enough, it is shaping up to be my longest YA novel yet. Writing about nothing takes a lot more words than writing about something. Just ask Marcel Proust. Or Thomas Disch, who called Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past the “dullest and best of all books.”