This Is Your Brain on No Sleep

Dear readers,

I was at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference this weekend, which was loads of fun. But the thing about conferences is that they take up a ton of time, so I didn’t have a chance to write anything fun for you. Or, you know, write anything at all.

(NOTE: if you happen to be my editor, please ignore that last statement. It’s a big lie. THERE IS NOT ONE SINGLE MOMENT DURING WHICH I AM NOT WORKING INCREDIBLY HARD FOR YOU.)

The other thing conferences do is make you really, really tired. Most people stayed in the hotel where the conference was being held, so they could start thinking about going downstairs at 8:25 and still make it to the 8:30 sessions on time. But since the conference and my apartment were both in NYC, I stayed at home in Brooklyn. And that meant I had to get up at 6:30 to make it to those 8:30 sessions. If you give me an MRI at 6:30 in the morning, I guarantee that ZERO parts of my brain will light up, including those primordial parts that control my ability to do things like breathe and blink. So that was interesting. Suffice it to say that even if I HAD had time to write something for you this weekend, it would have been less than clever.

But here’s the thing about me when I get really tired: I start thinking about REALLY random stuff, and then I say that stuff out loud instead of just keeping it to myself. And shockingly, people keep laughing at the stuff I say. (I’m about 67% sure that they’re usually laughing with me, not at me.) So I thought I’d share with you some of the things I’ve been thinking about as I wallow in sheer exhaustion.

1) If I committed a crime and got sent to prison, do you guys think Delacorte would take away my book deal? There’s nothing in my contract that says I can’t fulfill my authorial duties while incarcerated. And I’d actually have a TON more uninterrupted time to write if I were in jail. I could probably churn out two books in the time it normally takes me to write one. Think about it, Delacorte…

2) Today, a friend suggested that writers should gamble in order to maintain our sanity; publishing is such a hurry-up-and-wait industry that sometimes we need the satisfaction of immediate results. But I think it would be more fun to bet ON the publishing industry. How many copies of The Fault in Our Stars will sell this week? Will book X be nominated for a Newbery? How many months late will Dan Brown turn in his next book? I think I just found my next career: BOOK BOOKIE. *rim shot*

3) Yesterday, as I was daydreaming about what my book jacket will look like, a realization struck me. If the designer chooses not to put my full name on the book’s spine, it’ll either say “RED CHERRY” or “CHERRY RED.” This situation is rather non-optimal.

4) I was walking down the street the other day when I heard a girl behind me ask her friend, “Is he hypoallergenic?” She must have been talking about a pet, but for some reason, my immediate thought was that she was talking about her boyfriend. And then I started picturing a hypoallergenic boyfriend store, where you could go pick out a mate whose dander doesn’t make you sneeze. This is the wave of the future, people.

Completely unrelatedly, I found an absolutely AMAZING animated short film about books yesterday. It’s called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, and it’s up for an Academy Award this year. Trust me, people. You want to watch this. It will make your day so much happier.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

And with that, I’m off to take a nap  work really hard on my book. Over and out.