Free Book Reports

Looking at the “webstats” for my website, I’ve noticed that for the past three years the single most popular page (other than the home page) has been the free book reports. Why is the book reports page so popular? I’ve never done anything to promote them, and the link to them is not prominently featured on my home page. How are people getting there?

The answer is revealed in the webstats, which list the key words used in Google searches that lead to the book reports page.

Imagine yourself at age fourteen. It is 2:20 a.m. You have been playing World of Warcraft for three hours. Your book report on Godless is due in six hours, and somehow you never quite finished reading the book. Time to get creative! What do you type into Google?

godless pete Hautman book report

And what pops up first on the search results?

Score!

Except…Pete Hautman’s book reports turn out to be not all that good. I would love to know if any of them have ever made it to a teacher’s desk.

Weather Report

In Minnesota we love to complain about the cold and snow. This year Minnesotans are kvetching about the warmth and dryness. Not me though. I like it. So does Mary. It was 54 degrees yesterday. I went for a run in shorts and a T-shirt, and I got overheated.

Last year

This year

New Website!

Amanita muscaria

I finally got around to buffing up my tired old website. Although the new site is not awesome, it's clean and easy to navigate. I added a bunch of stuff like videos, free book reports, and (ta-da!) a mushroom page.

Of course, being that it's a new site, there will be glitches. If you spot any, please let me know!

Check it out:
petehautman.com

Why I Wrote a "Romantic Comedy"

What Boys Really Want is now officially available in bookstores. 

This is an unusual (for me) book—a romantic comedy, of all things. Allow me to explain.


Way back in the latter years of the last millennium, I suggested to my partner, Mary Logue, that we write a book together. "It will be fun!" I said. "I have an idea."


The book would be loosely based on a true story. Many years ago, when I was in high school, one of my shirttail relatives (second cousin once removed, I think) decided to earn some money by writing, publishing, and selling a small handbook to his classmates. The title of the book was something like "How to Please a Boy."  He printed hundred or so copies, and had some success selling them at school. Later, I learned that his book had been cribbed from the "Wendy Ward Charm Book." (The Wendy Ward Charm School was a popular program offered by Montgomery Ward department stores. It taught young ladies how to dress, behave, enunciate properly, and attract a mate. It was quite popular in the sixties and early seventies.)


With this fuzzy and possibly inaccurate background story, Mary and I began work on our book. It would be a he said/she said story. I would write the boy's parts, Mary would write from the girl's point-of-view. We wrote about six short sections—maybe twenty pages in all—before the project sputtered, coughed, rolled over and died. The problem, as I recall, was that it was my idea, and I was too directive, too impatient, and too everything else. Also, Mary was working on her own book, and our togetherness project was taking up too much of her time. So we set it aside.

Fast forward five years. While organizing my computer, I came across the abandoned manuscript and reread it. I liked it. I asked Mary if I could take it on solo, and she gave me her blessing. I fiddled around with it for a few more years. After a time the story came together, and now, thirteen years after its inception, it is a book. You will find traces of Mary Logue in the first two chapters, but after that I must take full responsibility. 


What Boys Really Want is available as a bound book, or in ebook format. You can get it here:


Indiebound
Amazon
Powells
B&N
Or (best choice) your neighborhood bookseller.

Can We Control Sex?

Three more days until the official release date of What Boys Really Want, and only three more days to enter the drawing over at Miz Fitz’s blog for a chance to win a free signed copy.

The image to the right, BTW, has absolutely nothing to do with the book. I just like it. Science and Invention was a 1920s magazine published by the sci-fi icon Hugo Gernsback. (You can find a gallery of other S&I cover art here.)

Miz Fitz Recommends Monkey Fists

Miz Fitz is giving away a signed, first edition hardcover of my new book, a romantic he said/she said comedy called What Boys Really Want. If you are not familiar with Miz Fitz, please check out her blog. If you find the experience to be disorienting (many do), allow me to explain:

Miz Fitz is the blogging identity of Lita Wold, one of the two protagonists in What Boys Really Want. Under the guise of Miz Fitz, the fictional Lita offers dubious advice to the desperate and confused. So, yes, this is getting somewhat meta.

Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun channeling Miz Fitz, and spending way more time on her blog than on my own.

To enter Miz Fitz's contest, you need only visit her blog and send her a holiday-related question by December 31.  The winner will be chosen using random operations. As of this writing, your odds of winning are excellent—so far, Miz Fitz has received only one entry! Your book, should you be selected, will arrive the first week in January. 

In an semi-unrelated note, since I know you are all desperate for last minute holiday gift ideas, Miz Fitz suggests this lovely item—the "perfect stocking stuffer." I think they are called monkey fists because nothing is better for creating "monkey bumps."

Gilliam on Kubrick and Spielberg

Here's a short clip of Terry Gilliam talking about Steven Spielberg (not my favorite director) and Stanley Kubrick (God). I like it because I agree with what he says, and because the point he is making applies no less to literature.

A Brief Interview with Miz Fitz

In her own words, Miz Fitz's blog, "What Boys Really Want," offers "pithy, straight-from-the-hip advice" to her readers. Since she has generously recommended my new novel on her blog, I requested an interview. It did not go well.

Pete Hautman: First, let me thank you for taking the time to drop by to share your thoughts.

Miz Fitz: I am happy to do so, as it may increase my own blog traffic. Blogging is by nature incestuous. One cannot afford to be too fastidious.

PH: I could not help but notice that the title of your blog is the same as the title of my new book, What Boys Really Want. Was that intentional?

MF: Rest assured, I am in communication with my lawyers. They tell me you do not have sufficient resources for it to make it worth my time and effort to bring a lawsuit.

PH: Oh. Thank you. I think.

MF: You are welcome. Do you have a question?

PH: Yes. What do boys really want?

MF: Read my blog.

PH: I have read your blog.

MF: Have you learned anything?

PH: I learned a lot! For example, it had never occurred to me that some girls shave their toes. Do you shave your toes?

MF: Are you always so rude, or should I take this personally?

PH: You are very touchy.

MF: I prefer the term “discerning.” Goodbye.

I Have Been Inattentive...

...because I've been hanging out over at Miz Fitz's blog lately and not posting much here. Why? Frankly, I find Miz Fitz to be more interesting than me, which is in itself interesting, because I find myself to be endlessly fascinating. Writers.

What I like about Miz Fitz is that she can say things I can't, because she is "fictional." I've been thinking a lot about the concept of "fiction" lately, in part because I'm giving a talk at the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (IATE) conference in February. The theme of the conference is "Truth." I'm thinking that the title of my talk will be "Truth: It's All a Lie."

The other presenter at the conference is Ellen Hopkins. Why do I find that amusing?

Also amusing is the cover of the British edition of What Boys Really Want. I love that dotted line. Also, the hyphens.

BTW, Miz Fitz needs some questions.  I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment to ask her one.

Gillette

I had a great trip to Gillette, Wyoming last week—five days of presentations to junior high students, about 2500 teens total.  Kind of amazing when you consider that there are only about half a million people in the entire state. That's...um...some small percentage of one percent of Wyomingans (Wyomans? Wyomanese? Wyomites?), but close to ten percent of all the 7th, 8th, and 9th graders in Wyoming. My thanks to the students and staff at the Wright, Sage Valley, and Twin Spruce schools. Everybody was really nice, and nobody fell asleep or threw rotten eggs.

My host and handler for the week was uber-librarian Sue Knesel (above right), who started me off with a trip to Devil's Tower, and took me to, I think, every restaurant in the greater Gillette area. Thanks, Sue!

In other news, the mysterious Miz Fitz is having a contest over on her blog.  The stupendous prize is an ARC (advance reading copy) of my upcoming novel, WHAT BOYS REALLY WANT.  All you have to do is send her a question before the end of November, and then hope she picks it.  Since only a few people have discovered Miz Fitz's blog, your odds of winning are quite good.

Cognitive Dissonsance

The Obsidian Blade Cover Art

Nothing I like better than a really cool book cover with my name on it.  This one will be out in April.  Meanwhile, I'm working furiously on Book Two.  "Working furiously?"  What does that even mean?  I am not angry.  But I am, apparently, having a bad adverb day.

Video coming soon!

I Only Found One Mushroom This Weekend...

...but it was a fifteen-pounder.

Meanwhile, intrepid blogger Miz Fitz weighs in on offensive odors and breast size.  She is also very upset that something bewildering has happened to her blog. All her posts are suddenly appearing out-of-order, and some seem to be missing.  Miz Fitz considers this to be a tragedy of epic proportions, and she plans to give the folks at Blogger a Piece of Her Mind.

The Korean edition of Godless...

...has a very cool cover.

What Boys Really Want

I have a new book coming out in January, a romantic comedy called What Boys Really Want.  To celebrate, I've created a pseudonymous blog featuring the literary stylings of one "Miz Fitz," who suffers no fools.  Check out the new blog!

Drawing Dead...

The Kindle Version

The Nook Version

...is now available on both Kindle AND (finally) B&N's Nook.  This e-publishing is more confuserizing than I thought it would be.  My brain architecture seems to be incompatible with computer-think.  Or maybe I'm just impatient.  Anyway, it's done.  Both versions are priced at $2.99.  All the words are the same, but the Nook (ePub) version is a little nicer looking on the page due to Kindle formatting restrictions.

The Return of Drawing Dead

Original Cover Design

Most of you who visit this blog know me as the author of several "young adult" novels, but I’ve also written eight novels for "old adults." The first five of these are now officially out of print (boo-hoo), so I’m reissuing them as ebooks, beginning with my first published novel, Drawing Dead.

I began writing Drawing Dead while I was taking a writing class from Mary Logue, to whom the book is dedicated. In fact, I’ve dedicated several of my books to Mary, which says nothing good about my number of close personal friends, but a great deal of good about my relationship with Mary.

Drawing Dead was a critical success. It got a bunch of good reviews. Marilyn Stasio, in the New York Times Book Review, opened her piece with, “Whatever Pete Hautman was doing before he wrote Drawing Dead, he was wasting his time.” It was selected as a NYT Notable Book for 1993, and I thought I was gonna be the next Stephen King. 

I wrote four more books in the Joe Crow/Sam O’Gara/Axel Speeter series. Those books were also kindly reviewed, but sales were modest.  I became interested in other varieties of literary experience, and eventually they went out of print, to be consigned to the backwaters of eBay and your friendly neighborhood used bookstore curmudgeon.

Now, thanks to the miracles of digital technology, you can read Drawing Dead on your kindle, Nook, iPad, or other device.  For the Kindle version, click here.  For the Nook version, click here.  The other four books in the series will be available soon—assuming I sell enough copies of Drawing Dead to justify the expense of converting them.

My Hack-job e-Cover

For those of you who have read only my YA work, I should mention that in Drawing Dead the “f-word” and its variations occur 159 times. There are other discourteous words as well. Just so you know.

If you’d like to check out what sort of literary conceit you might be subjecting yourself to, Amazon lets you download the first four chapters to your device for free.

*Right now it’s only available on Kindle and Nook, but the other e-formats will be available soon.

About once every ten or twenty years, I write a poem.

A Note From the Dog*

When the freezer died

And all that meat

had to be eaten quickly

I was delirious with joy.

When you lost your job

And stayed home all the time

I could not have been happier.

When you had your cardiac event

And the doctor told you to go for a walk

every single day

I was ecstatic.

What ever would you do without me?

*FYI, I write fiction.  My freezer works fine, I haven't had a job in 25 years, and I have experienced no cardiac events.

About Mr. Was

Mr. Was, published in 1996, was my first “young adult” novel. Although not conceived as a novel for teens, when I finished writing the book I discovered that the main character, Jack Lund, was a teenager for most (but not all) of the story. This happened more or less by accident. Mr. Was is a time travel story. It covers much of Jack Lund’s life, and it happened that his experiences as a teen made for better storytelling.

Since then, Mr. Was has been through several editions. At this time, it is available in mass market paperback for $6.99. That is about to change. In a few months, a new trade paperback (large format) edition of Mr. Was will become available for $8.99, replacing the smaller mass market version. It will have a cool new cover design, and will include several minor corrections to the original text.

The timing of this reissue is fortuitous. The Obsidian Blade, the first book in my sci-fi trilogy, The Klaatu Diskos, will be released in April, 2012. The Obsidian Blade employs several of the concepts first developed for Mr. Was, and although it is not a “sequel” in the usual sense (the characters and settings are all different), I nevertheless think of it as a continuation.

Some people say that Mr. Was is my best book.  I do not agree, but I will say that during the writing process, Mr. Was surprised me in ways that none of my other books have.

Here is a link to the first chapter of Mr. Was

Green Magic and Solid Objects

In a perhaps doomed effort to stimulate myself to post more regularly, I am going to undertake to enrich the lives of those hapless few who find themselves dallying here, by suggesting certain nourishing literary endeavors. 

Hrrumph. Sorry. I have been reading Jack Vance again. It is, of course, impossible for anyone who is not Jack Vance to write like Jack Vance, but it is also impossible to resist attempting to do so. Clearly, I have failed on both counts. 

Those of you who have read more than a few of my books may have noticed that one of the recurring themes in my work is the careful examination of my own navel.* That is, I like to write about the thing I am writing about in a manner analogous to a painter painting an image of a painter painting. Allow me to avoid making myself clear. 

Two short stories that I love, and revisit often, are “Green Magic,” by Jack Vance, the tale of an ambitious magician who seeks to expand himself beyond his mortal capabilities, and “Solid Objects,” by Virginia Woolf, a story about a young politician whose life is changed by the discovery of a lovely lump of driftglass. Essentially, they are the same story seen through different ends of the telescope. 

Both are allegories concerning the creative process—at least as I read them. Both are brilliant. Both are available free online: 

Green Magic 

Solid Objects

 *Speaking of navels…on the morning after after our first date, Mary Logue called her sister to make a report. “He has an Audi,” she mentioned, referring to my car. Mary’s sister, hearing the word outie, said, “You learned that on your first date?”