A hectic two weeks came to a close yesterday, as the galley files for the fall 2005 MonkeyBrain Books titles were sent to the printer. In that time I did the layouts for one anthology, one nonfiction anthology, and an encyclopedia (!). Review copies will start going out later this spring, and will be handed out at BEA in June. I'm really pleased with the way that ADVENTURE came together, in particular, and I'm already looking foward to starting in on the second volume for next year.

In franchise news, the case sides and signatures (read, "covers" and "interiors" in publisher speak) of the two Shark Boy and Lava Girl Adventures books I cowrote arrived this morning, and look better than I'd have hoped. The movie is still due to hit theaters in June, and the books should be in stores by the beginning of May. The making of Sin City book, which I edited, was apparently mentioned on the Ellen Degeneris show this morning, though they neglected to mention the title or release date, and kept the book artfully hidden behind an arrangement of flowers throughout the entire segment.

I'm having to shift gears from editor to writer rather quickly in the coming days, as I've got to start work on writing PARAGAEA: A PLANETARY ROMANCE, due to be handed into Pyr by the first of June. The book, probably best described as "quirky," is one I've been fiddling with on and off for the last three and a half years, but while I've amassed hundreds of pages of notes and outlines--including handdrawn maps, complicated cultural histories, and mythologies--I've only written the first twenty-five thousand words. I've got a bit of reading to finish before I dive back into writing, but I'm really looking forward to getting started. Having only written fiction intended for young readers for the last few months (with a brief foray into writing for teens), the notion of writing for grownups again is an appealing one.