finishing things

There. A finished ANANSI BOYS has gone off to the publishers in the US and the UK (although I need to write an Acknowledgments page to say thanks for everyone who helped) and I've just finished the second draft of the MirrorMask picture book and sent that off. Beowulf's almost done -- Roger Avary's currently got the script, and he'll e-mail it to me when he's wrapped up the final sequence and I'll give it all a final polish, but it'll still be with Bob Zemeckis before the May 1st deadline.

Chicago was fun.

I'm trying desperately to finish an outline for a Mysterious Television Project before leaving for the UK tomorrow, and there are a bunch of smaller things that I have to do, but I don't feel as nightmarishly stretched-to-snapping point as I did last week, when it all seemed more or less impossible and I was trying to remember why I'd ever thought writing for a living was a good idea when there were much more sensible jobs out there, like shovelling solidified fat-blockages from sewers...

It's astonishing how much more cheerful a place the world becomes when you start to finish things.

...

Lisa Snellings has finished her overhaul on my statue. I was expecting some glueing and dusting and a little fix of the motor. Being Lisa she's completely recreated it, repainting it (here's the rat before and after) attaching new things to it, reinvented it. I really hope that she can put up some footage of it moving.

...

Lots of requests from people in bookshops saying things like:

Hey, I work in a Barnes and Noble, and I was recently reading your entries from the American God's editing process, and you mentioned people requesting advanced reader's copies. Is there anyway for me, as a bookseller, to request that our store get a copy of Anansi Boys when it comes out? (Or even, better, more than one copy? I know of at least two other people I'll have to fight to get it.)Thanks for your time, love your work (duh!), and all that jazz.~Christine

and the honest answer is, I don't know. I think there may be advance copies at Book Expo America (and according to the Book Expo America site, I'll be signing there from 2:00-3:00pm on Saturday June 4th, at table 23). It may be that all they're giving out at Book Expo are chapbooks containing the first few chapters, though (I'm not quite sure). I do know that there's not any point asking me for Advance Reading Copies -- probably best to talk to your Morrow rep, or talk to HarperCollins directly (and if you're in the UK, talk to Headline).

But there aren't any ARCs yet, in either country.