The Spinx.. of Imaaaagination...
For those of you who were curious, I did hear back from Sarah Rees Brennan about the publication date of The Demon's Lexicon. Here is what I wrote to her:
Brilliance! I absolutely love it!
One short story that has stuck with me over the years is "The Lady or the Tiger" - I'm unsure of the author. It's one that many people have read in school, but it always struck me as rather unique and thought-provoking.
On a somewhat unrelated topic, I have a quick question.. Do you know the exact date that The Demon's Lexicon will be coming out? I have calendars that need marking and friends to bully into buying it! [Though really all I've had to do so far in the way of bullying is tell them the premise of it and my glowing reviews of your fanfiction-that-reads-so-much-better-than-typical-fanfiction to get them interested.]
And her reply:
Thank you, I am so glad you liked! And though I have seen many window displays, oddly, for the Lady or the Tiger, I have never read it, and I should.
I do not have an exact date yet. My copyedits had 'June 23rd' on them, so I thought that might be it, but my agent said it was possible it'd be early June or even late May. I should know the precise date sometime in the next month, fingers crossed. (And thank you very much for pimping to your friends. :))
Also, today she reported that she has seen the semi-final cover! There is a cover, folks! I can't wait for June. Most books that I build up anticipation over like this turn out to be disappointments, but after reading so much of Brennan's work already, I highly doubt this will be the case with The Demon's Lexicon.
In other news.. This Tuesday in creative writing Mr. X put on this hypnosis CD by Hypnotica, called The Sphinx of Imagination. You can hear a 20 minute sample here. The whole thing takes about an hour and 45 minutes my teacher said, but we only did maybe 40 minutes of it in class. It was freaking hilarious. I mean, I did try to take it seriously. Mr. X said we could lie down on the floor if we wanted, so of course we all did. But once I was settled on the floor I began to think about what germs people had tracked in on their shoes from the bathroom, and what I might be breathing in, and could I sit up without disturbing the people who actually had gotten the trance thing? There was one point where I felt like I made some progress.. I suddenly noticed the barriers of my mind felt like they were gone. I felt like I could reach out and touch things with my mind.. But when - ever hopeful - I tried to, I lost it. My teacher said that if we brought in large enough flash drives, he could put the file onto it and we could try the whole thing at home. He said he would be really curious to hear if we got anything out of it. Apparently he's tried it several times, and it's worked a little for him, though sometimes he gets stuck on how ridiculous it is. Because it's soooo ridiculous. Towards the end of class, there was one part where the speaker goes, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was reeeeeeal.. [Something I didn't here] wasn't just a story.. Was James and the Giant Peach just an allegory?" Li started snickering then [she would later tell me she could barely hold in her laughter through the whole thing by stuffing a fist in her mouth], and that made me laugh. That was the point where we stopped the CD. Anyway, I'd be curious to try the whole CD at home, in my bed.. Perhaps after having taken the cough medicine that makes me really woozy. However, the only flash drive I have is too small to fit the file. Would it be worth the lulz/possibility of working to buy it? My dad actually might have a flash drive big enough that I could borrow.. I'll have to ask him.
And once again, it's gotten late without me noticing and I'm exhausted. My report on the Book Club and Writer's Block meetings will have to wait for tomorrow.