Hello!

Hey, that's original. Hello, indeed. I'm mostly doing this because I'm stuck in bed after wrecking my back again and I'm bored. I'm sure my hordes of fans would like to hear that I hurt myself while engaged in a fierce struggle with my next-door neighbor, Mr. Bushida, or that I started a riot at Barnes and Noble and hurt myself trying to escape, or that I had a terrible accident with the anti-tourist jellyfish launcher.

The truth is, I was doing housework. There, I said it. Plain old housework with no monsters, enraged editors, speara guns, or exploding baristas. But boy, is my office clean! I shall post a picture of it in all its glory soon.

Here's the brave part. Even though I am wracked with hideous pain, I have managed to do my day's quota of writing, five pages to be exact. My current project is called SUPER! and it's about a boy who gains the ability to turn into an adult with amazing powers. Except that nothing happens like he expects, and he finds his life complicated in ways he never imagined. In other words, it's quite dark, a theme that appeals to me right now. Also, it doesn't appear to be a common theme for middle grade superhero novels. I've read a few, and they seem to take a lighthearted and fantastic view of the whole thing. I, on the other hand, shall take the more sinister and realistic road.

In other news, my big people book (as ace book reviewer Sue Corbett calls it) has had a couple of nice months, sales-wise. I'm not sure why, but people are buying it and that makes my agent and me happy. Not happy to the point where we've ordered up solid gold Ferraris, but happier than we were. No, I'm not going to say what book it is. I didn't spend all that time thinking up a cool pen name just to give the whole thing away.

A good MG book that I recently read: GROOVES: A KIND OF MYSTERY by Kevin Brockmeier. Interesting characters, weird plot, and lots of dry humor that had me chuckling. There's moist humor, too. That would the opposite of dry humor, right?

Another good MG: LARKLIGHT, by Philip Reeve. Jolly fun, that one. Lots of space travel, lots of pirates. I suspect that some of the humor will go over the heads of the target audience, as Reeve likes to tweak the British empire-building attitudes of the 19th century, but still, lots of action and colorful characters.

And now, today's email:

Dear Dr. Missy,

Sometimes your posts really scare me. Why is that?

Linda (not my real name)

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Dear Linda,

They don't call me the Hunter S. Thompson of children's literature for nothing. Ha ha! Seriously, I have no idea why you are afraid of my posts. It's not like I know where you live or anything. Well, actually I do, but I've got the bad back thing going on and I have to stay in bed, so you're safe. Unless you read this, and then you'll be even more scared. I don't know what to do about that.

Your friend,
Dr. Missy

Okay, that's it for today! If I can figure out how to post pictures, then we'll really have some fun!

Ta.