Your Questions, My Answers

Thanks to everyone (like, the 9,600 people) who made my livechat yesterday evening on blogtv so much fun. Hank and I will be doing more of that, and we'll be working on ways to make it even more collaborative and conversational. And now, allow me to answer some of your questions:

Q. If you could improve the US educational system in any one way, what would that one way be?

A. I would make teaching public school a highly lucrative and desirable job. (I would also minimize raises for seniority, however.) So I would make starting teacher pay at public schools, say, $150,000, which would be the same pay teachers would get for their entire careers. (I mean, adjusted for inflation and all.)

Q. What do you predict will be the new popular mythical creature of YA literature after vampires/undead get overused?

A. I am amused by the notion that vampires have not yet been overused. But I'll guess fairies.

Q. What bands do you like other than the Mountain Goats?

A. There are bands other than the Mountain Goats?

Q. You were asked a question about what makes a book literary and how symbols and such are usually involved. Do you use any symbols in your writing? Do you use a lot of symbols? What are some of them?

A. I do use symbols in my writing, but I think it sort of ruins the process of reading to get into them in detail. (But, like, for instance, is there not a clear reason that certain characters in Alaska smoke cigarettes, and others do not? Don't the cigarettes seem to pop up at certain times and in certain contexts?)

Q. I like the old covers of Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines better.
A. Well, the old cover of Looking for Alaska isn't going anywhere; the new edition they're printing is a premium edition, which means it has a different size and a slightly different page layout and stuff.

Q. Do you prefer pie or cake?
A. I prefer them both simultaneously.

ALA Anaheim

I've just gotten back from the American Library Association annual conference in Anaheim, California. Ten thoughts on the topic:

1. Having grown up in Orlando, I obviously hate Disney World and Disneyland and the Disney Channel (there were actually seven different Disney channels in my hotel room). But I found myself enjoying a lot of things about Anaheim unironically, including A. its walkability, and B. the fact that every time people leave the hotel, a teenage employee says, "Have a magical day!"

I mean, obviously, it sucks to be that teenager. But you should have seen the kids' eyes light up.

2. Librarians can get pretty rowdy.

3. People claim to like Paper Towns. But, I mean, are they going to claim otherwise in front of me?

4. I did this thing where I ate pizza with Nancy Werlin, Jay Asher, Steve Kluger, and a few dozen teenagers. And then after the pizza we talked about books. It made me wish that life involved more pizza and talking about books, and less--you know--sitting in the basement alone trying to write them.

5. I met Steven Chbosky, the author of Perks of Being a Wallflower, who was very kind and gracious while I fangirled him.

6. Speaking of my fangirling, I also saw Laurie Halse Anderson, who said nice things about PT, which she then repeated on her blog.

7. I also had the opportunities to sign some copies of the forthcoming holiday anthology Let It Snow with the magnificent Lauren Myracle (the book contains long stories written by Maureen Johnson, Lauren, and me). There are as yet no copies signed by all three of us, but hopefully this will change soon.

8. It is, in fact, a testament to how great Lauren Myracle is that I was able to thoroughly enjoy going to Disneyland, even though I hate Disneyland, because she and her made-of-awesome son were there, and also my editor, Julie, and our editor friend Tara.

9. I received the first in-print review of Paper Towns, which appeared in Booklist magazine. The review ends: "Yet, if anything, the thematic stakes are higher here [than in Looking for Alaska], as Green ponders the interconnectedness of imagination and perception, of mirrors and windows, of illusion and reality. That he brings it off is testimony to the fact that he is not only clever and wonderfully witty but also deeply thoughtful and insightful. In addition, he's a superb stylist, with a voice perfectly matched to his amusing, illuminating material."

10. Some nice and rather unexpected things happened for Paper Towns that I can't entirely get into.

The Book Is Really Finished

In comments to the previous post, YossiTime asks, "Is there anything you wish you could change about the books you have written now that they are out? (If I'm not mistaken you did change the 5AG's versions of the Advanced Readers Copies of Paper Towns.)"

The 5AGs, for those of you who do not spend a lot of time on youtube, are the Five Awesome Girls (previously seen here, singing nerdfighter rock). And I did indeed insist on blacking out one late-deleted section of their ARCs of Paper Towns. I don't stop revising until I have to, but now I have to, and that's okay. A book has to become finished somehow--and running out of time seems to be the only way.

(The deleted section is only a couple sentences. Julie actually brought up the possibility of deleting it years ago (literally), but I didn't realize how right she was until the last second. In a recent post, I said that "editors are almost always right," and Julie commented, "Almost?" I am inclined to cede the point.)

Anyway, I haven't read Alaska since the fall of 2004, and I've only read Katherines once since it came out, but I remember them both pretty well. I'm sure I'd make small changes to the text if I could, but I don't think I'd make big ones. This is not to say the books are great books (I don't think they are), or even that I am pleased with them. They're just finished.

That feeling of finishedness does not come all at once, and it is not easily won, but I think once you get there it is hard to go back. But I do think I've taken things away from the experience of writing my previous books and having them read that feed into my writing all the time. (Example: Many people will say that Paper Towns is 'like' Alaska, that some of the relationships are analogous and so on. I don't agree with this, but it is true that in some subtle ways PT is written against Alaska, as a kind of response to what I see as the insufficiencies inherent to telling that story.

And now we are edging dangerously close toward preemptive responses to expected criticisms, which is an exceptionally bad idea.

All is well here in Indianapolis, although the humidity reminds me of the beginning of Absalom, Absalom--that "long still hot weary dead September afternoon."

(And thank you, Mr. Faulkner, for reminding me that it will be worse after noon, and worse still in September.)

More Questions Answered

Sometimes, I take your questions from comments, and I answer them.

Q. What do you think of writers who have a formula, and write, for instance, a book a year, a la Danielle Steele?
A. Well, these days writing only one book a year seems downright quaint. (James Patterson, for instance, writes four or five books a day.) I have no problem with people who write the same book over and over again, but I'm glad I don't have their job. (I should add that many great books have been written in less than a year, and that not all prolific writers are formulaic. See, for instance, Joyce Carol Oates.)

Q. What makes a book literary? Is it the style it's written in, the language, the timelessness? What exactly does this mean?
A. Good question. The only answer I can think of is that you make a book literary (or not). You are ultimately the person who engages with a novel's symbols and themes as well as its characters and story. If this happens, the book is literary. If it doesn't, it isn't.

Q. What's new with Paper Towns?
A. If you click that link, you can see a silly little video. (In unusually high quality!)

Q. Do you know where you and Hank are going to be touring and organizing Nerdfighter Events this fall?
A. No. When we do know, I will tell you OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Do not worry. You will not be underinformed when it comes to my tour schedule. I will repeat it so many times that you will know it like you once knew your state capitals.

Q. How long does it take you to read a book as long as Looking for Alaska? (OMFG NEW COVER!)
A. Two four-hour reading sessions, I would say, although the internet is making me dumber.

Q. The paperback for An Abundance of Katherines will only cost four bucks? (OMFG NEW COVER!)
A. No. It costs less than four bucks! (Although not much less.)

Q. Did you get Willy from a breeder or a shelter?
A. We got Willy from a family who bred a litter of Westies to give to their adult children, but then two of their kids deployed overseas with the military.

Q. Do you still watch Lonelygirl15?
A. No, but Brotherhood 2.0 would never have happened if it hadn't been for LG15, so I'm very grateful to that show and the community that built up around it in those first few weeks.

Q. How do you say Buhfriedo?
A. Well, it is a made-up word, but I say Buh-FREE-doe.

Q. What's the weirdest job you've ever had?
A. The one I have now is pretty weird. The graveyard shift at Steak 'n Shake was also fairly odd.

Q. What is the first book you want to read to your children?
A. I always said that when I had a kid, I would immediately read him/her Absalom, Absalom in its entirety. It's a book that teaches an infant two important lessons: 1. The past is not dead--the world you've just entered is "peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts." Also, 2. Only Faulkner can get away with so many adjectives and so few commas.

Karl Rove's Comments about Obama

So which is it: Does Rove think Obama isn't a person, or does Rove believe in country clubs full of talking cigarettes?