Lance Rubin's Blog, page 2

Santa Claus’s Candid Thoughts on Popular Xmas Songs

Last week I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to sit
down with Santa Claus and shoot the shit about some popular Christmas songs.
He’s a super guy, and I’m still kinda in disbelief that I got to meet him.
Here’s what he had to say:

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

Undeniably cute, but so much of this one has been
manufactured out of lies, which is just upsetting. One of my reindeer is named Rudolph, and yes, his nose does
shine because of a skin condition. Other than that, though, this business about
the other reindeer laughing and calling him names, about Rudolph guiding my
sleigh, is pure bullshit. All the
reindeer guide my sleigh. I don’t have favorites.

“Jingle Bells”

There’s two kinds of songs I hate: songs about instruments
and songs about weather. This one is both. ‘Nuff said.  

“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”

Look, I’m not a perfect person, but if I were going to mess around while
traveling for business, it definitely wouldn’t be with a woman who has kids.
Not that I’m saying I would mess
around with anyone–I love Deirdre, I love my children–but this song gets me a
bit hot under the collar because these are such harmful, accusatory words. The
idea of me–while on the clock—taking time to make out with a mom, in a spot
where her kids could just walk downstairs and see us? Disgusting. I’ve talked
with my lawyer at length about a libel lawsuit, but she says doing that would
actually make me seem more guilty.
Fuck it, you know? Sometimes you just can’t win.

“Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”

Easily one of my favorites. Hilarious concept, beautiful
execution. (Oh, wow, no pun intended.) I happen to like dark humor, though,
which I know isn’t for everyone. This is an example where the fact that it’s
based on an incident that didn’t actually happen is what allows me to truly
enjoy the song. If this had happened…
Good God. I can’t even imagine. Might have had to find a new line of work.

“Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Bruce Springsteen version)”

I really want to like this version of the song, I do, but I
can’t get past the feeling that Springsteen is mocking me and my whole thing.
Give it another listen, you’ll hear it. There’s this smile in his voice. To
which I say: Fuck You, Bruce. You’re
a joke, and all your songs sound the same! [Santa takes a deep breath.] Sorry.
Got a lot of demons as far as the Boss is concerned. High school girlfriend
loved him, got me into his music, blah blah blah. Not worth going into here,
but suffice it to say, very little of it is actually Springsteen’s fault. I
don’t like his take on that song, though. And I never will.

“Jingle Bell Rock”

Someone needs to ask the people who wrote this song if they
understand what rock music is. ‘Cause this ain’t it, kid.

“Santa is the Man”

I know you’re supposed to feed me song titles and I
tell you what I think, but this is one I gotta bring up. Because it’s the tits,
man. You want rock? This song is it. Seriously, get on Google, it’s a fucking
great tune. It’s like, “Santa is the man, and he’s got a plan, and he’s
super-strong, and he can get some serious shit done.” Something like that. I
keep waiting for this one to really catch on. This could be the year.

“12 Days of Christmas”

Sweet song and all, but I find it exhausting. By the time we
get to Seven Swans-A-Swimming, I’m like: This
thing’s not done yet? Honestly, though, even just the title makes me
feel tired, so maybe I’m a bad judge of this one.

“Frosty the Snowman”

Aw man, I was hoping you wouldn’t go there. [Santa takes a
moment to collect himself.] This one, unfortunately, is an example of a song
that is based on something all too true. Frosty was a close friend, and not a day
goes by I don’t think about him. Time has helped. Those first years after his
melting, I couldn’t hear this song without needing to take at least an hour to
decompress in my man-cave. I think I’ve turned a corner, though. Hearing the
song during last year’s holiday season, it actually made me smile. I can
finally hear it for what it is: a very nice tribute to a very great man.

–

Huge thanks to Santa for taking the time to sit down with
me. Happiest holidays, everyone!

Don’t Be Afraid to Smash the Glass

I wrote a piece for Cultured Vultures last week about my battles with perfectionism (or awesomeism) during the rewriting process. Here’s how it starts:

It always happens. As I transition into the rewriting that will
not-so-magically transform a first draft of a novel into a second draft
(or a second into a third; or a fifth into a sixth), I get timid. I get
contemplative. I get, well… I get scared. It’s like I’m tiptoeing around
a museum of precious artifacts, examining everything, but touching
nothing.

You can read the rest of the piece here.

Hope you’re all having a lovely Holiday Week Monday! I know some people are at work today, but you’re not actually accomplishing anything, are you? (If so, I applaud you heartily.) 

The DENTON e-book is $1.99 for a limited time! (ALSO A CONTEST)

Guys! I am delighted to announce that the DENTON e-book is currently $1.99 in all places where e-books are sold! That is an incredibly reasonable price for something that will (hopefully) provide you with hours of funny, thought-provoking entertainment.

It’s a limited-time deal that I believe will last through December 6th most places and through November 17th on KOBO.

To make this deal even more exciting, though, here’s a CONTEST!

This contest has two winners. Here is what those winners will win:

PRIZE #1: I will make you a personalized/signed deathdate cartoon drawing.

PRIZE #2: I will write you a personalized song on guitar. I will then film myself playing this song and put it on the internet. 

Here’s how to enter:

1. Buy the Denton Little’s Deathdate ebook for $1.99.

2. Take a picture of yourself holding an e-reader that features the DENTON cover page.

3. Post the picture on Twitter with this message “i bought DENTON for less than $2! that’s cheaper than [INSERT YOUR OWN THING HERE]! @lancerubinparty #DentonLittle” 

(Just to be clear, you should actually insert your own words at the end of the second sentence if you want your entry to count.)

4. You’ve entered the contest! Once the deal ends in December, I will randomly select two winners. And then I will contact you and let you know that you have won.

END CONTEST RULES.

Thanks, everybody! Spread da word!

Exclusive Never-Before-Revealed Secrets from the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy!

In celebration of tomorrow, October 21st, 2015—the future
date to which Marty McFly traveled—here are some previously unshared secrets
from the Back to the Future trilogy! 

* It’s become common knowledge that Marty McFly was
originally played by Eric Stoltz before the creative team realized he wasn’t
the right fit. But not many people know that before that the role had been cast with none other than Andre the
Giant. Director/co-screenwriter Robert Zemeckis had been impressed when he saw Andre hit Hulk
Hogan with a ring-bell in a 1982 wrestling match. “He had the perfect charisma
for Marty,” Zemeckis says. “But after shooting a couple days of footage, we
realized it just didn’t work. It’s called Back
to the Future,” he added, lightly chuckling, “not Back to the TALL.” 

* In
early drafts of the screenplay, co-screenwriters Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis
had indicated the DeLorean would travel into time once it reached a speed of 33
mph. “33 was Patrick Ewing’s jersey number,” Gale says, “and it
was very important to us to squeeze in that cool reference.” Universal
Studios, however, had other ideas. “They told us it had to be faster,” Gale
says. “Make it bigger! More explosions! Classic
studio stuff.“ Gale and Zemeckis fought tooth and nail but ultimately lost
that battle. “And you know what?” Gale says. “They were right. Now I hate the
number three. And Patrick Ewing.”

* Elsa Raven—who portrayed the Save the Clocktower Woman who
shouts at Marty and Jennifer early in the movie—had a brief but powerful love
affair with Christopher Lloyd. “I was only shooting for a day, and none of my
scenes were with Chris,” Raven says. “But he happened to be hanging around the
crafts services table, and we just clicked.” Within a few days, the
relationship burned out, but both still look back on it fondly. “She was a very
skilled lover,” Lloyd says. “Certainly don’t need a time machine to remember
that.”

* Once, while being driven from the set of Family Ties to the set of BTTF, star Michael J. Fox realized the
car was stocked, not with his preferred beverage, Diet Pepsi, but with 7Up. The
driver apologized, explaining this was the beginning of his shift and the car
had been like that when he picked it up. Fox said he understood but asked why
the driver couldn’t have checked the beverages before leaving headquarters. The
driver again apologized, saying he’d been running late so there wasn’t time for
a beverage check. Fox said it wasn’t that big a deal, but he definitely didn’t
drink any of the 7Up, instead staring out the window moodily for the rest of
the ride. 

* The shooting script for BTTF Part II featured some future inventions that ultimately didn’t
make the cut, including something Zemeckis dreamed up called the DataGrid,
which was very similar to what we now know as the internet. Gale had forced
them to take it out because it was “too far-fetched.” “Yeah, he won’t let me
forget that,” Gale says. “Like, seriously. He’ll just pound me with direct
messages on Twitter: ‘Oh, look, Bob, I’m
talking to you via the DataGrid. Not so far-fetched now, is it?’ ‘Hey Bob, how
could someone ever imagine that information could be exchanged in such a
ridiculous way as this?’ That sort of thing.” “I don’t want to be a dick
about it,” Zemeckis says, “but it does get my goat. I mean, nobody knows that I
thought up the internet, just with a much better name.”

* Though Huey Lewis and the News are now forever associated
with BTTF, it didn’t seem like such a
sure thing at first. “I’ll admit, when they approached me about writing a song,
I was skeptical,” Lewis says. “I’m a music guy, you know? I write songs that
play out of music things, like radios and stereos. A song that played out of a
movie? At the time that seemed pretty dumb.” Zemeckis and Gale finally
convinced Lewis by pointing out the songs he wrote for the movie could also
play out of a radio or stereo. Lewis says it’s the best decision he ever made. “Now
everybody’s playing music out of movies,” he says, “But we were there first.”

* Right up until shooting, Marty’s last name was not McFly
but TimeDude. “There was something so evocative about that,” Zemeckis says.
“You have this teenager who ends up being a time traveler, but it’s actually
been foreshadowed in his last name the whole time: Time Dude.” Lea Thompson,
who portrayed Lorraine McFly, was the one responsible for the
switch. “I said it made no sense that I would be called Lorraine TimeDude,” Thompson says. “Because my character
didn’t travel through time. Also I’m not a dude.” Zemeckis and Gale realized their error. In a rush
to come up with something else before shooting started, Gale looked down at
their fast food lunch and said, “Um, I don’t know, how about McFry?” “Perfect!”
Zemeckis said, though he had actually misheard it as McFly, which, of course,
was what it went on to be. “I still think about that sometimes,” Gale says. “If
it had been McFry, the movies might have been even more successful.”   

Block Out The Noise and Make the Thing

Six
months ago yesterday Denton was
released into the world.

Six
months ago today I had my first book launch ever, at Books of Wonder.

As
always, I’m incredibly grateful for all the support and enthusiasm I’ve
received over the past months from friends, readers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and festival
people. (Has Festival People been the
title of a horror movie yet?) (That was not a reflection on my specific festival people, who were lovely and
not horrific.) The book community is filled with kind, funny, passionate human
beings, and it’s been perpetually disarming. Thank you.   

But on this particular day, I want to talk about what’s been
going on behind the curtain. Because, on the internet, it’s easy for everyone’s
lives to look shiny and happy and great, and I think it’s important to remember
we’re all just people, hitting ups and downs, feeling anxious and inadequate,
trying our best. 

The release of my book, and the small tour that followed,
was without a doubt a magical time. It was all so new. After years as a
struggling actor, never coming close to doing anything even slightly resembling
a promotional tour, it was surreal to be traveling around the country telling
people about this thing I’d made, this tangible object I could hold in my hand.

When I found myself one May morning in a Kentucky high
school library (whaddup, Oldham County!), watching students work on a writing
exercise that I had assigned to them,
I felt slightly out of body. By sitting in coffeeshops making up words on my
computer, I’d somehow written myself to Kentucky, where random teenagers I’d
never met were writing something down because I’d asked them to. (They rocked
that exercise, btw. Those kids are awesome.)

The whole tour had that surreal quality, mainly in a
positive way. But I was also anxious. I don’t even think I realized at the time
just how anxious I was. Book events were completely uncharted territory. I
wanted everything to go well. I wanted my book to do well. I wanted to seem
like someone who knew what he was talking about. And I was missing my wife and
then-14-month-old son. (My absence sent my wife Katie down an anxiety spiral of
her own, which you should feel free to read about here.) 

My
anxiety was camouflaged from me, though, thanks to both my book excitement and
the necessity of staying on top of my life, focusing only on what was happening
the next day, and not on the big picture of how I was feeling.  

When I got home from my last book tour event, I segued into
final rewrites for the second Denton book,
and once those were finished in late May…I suddenly had time to actually feel
how I was feeling.

Which
was: pretty lost. And very unnerved by that.

I got back to work on my third book. I struggled a lot.

I couldn’t focus on anything.

Every time writing got uncomfortable—which was approximately
every 42.3 seconds—I went on the internet, hoping to find something, anything,
that would make me feel like a capable person. Maybe someone new had tweeted
about my book! Maybe someone new had blogged about my book! Maybe my book’s
Amazon sales ranking had gone up!

(Quick note on that: brilliant feature, Amazon. This
ranking—constantly changing throughout the day–was very obviously designed to
exploit the weaknesses of neurotic, insecure authors. Nailed it!) 

Inevitably, I would not find that someone new had tweeted
about my book but instead would learn of something amazing that had happened to
some other author I follow. And yes, there is joy in others’ success, but not
quite as much when you’re mid-anxiety-spiral.

In this June interview with the great Kurt Dinan, I compared the
comedown after a book release to the comedown after one’s wedding. Or, really, any
big event you look forward to for more than a year. I’d been thinking about the
release of my debut novel since I’d sold it to Knopf almost eighteen months
earlier. So once it happened, I realized I hadn’t thought much about what would
happen afterward.

I mean, of course what I thought
would happen is Denton would come out
and instantly hit the NY Times
Bestseller list. I guess rationally I knew that wouldn’t happen. But I still
hoped it would.

Spoiler
alert: my book has definitely not hit the NY Times bestseller list.

In fact, my book isn’t selling as well as my publishing
house hoped it would. (I know this because I had a phone call with my editor
and agent last week, where I learned that my book isn’t selling as well as they
hoped it would.)

As a result, the second Denton
book—which had a cool cover all set to go—is now getting a totally redesigned
cover and possibly a title change.

Meanwhile,
Denton Little’s Deathdate will get a
new cover for the paperback release, and the overall marketing/publicity
approach for both books will be reassessed. 

Meaning: the second Denton book will NOT be coming out in
April 2016, as planned. There’s no new release date set but it’s looking like it’ll be
Spring 2017.

Meaning: I am bummed. Even though I get why it’s happening and I’m glad Knopf cares about the books enough to reboot their design, I am still bummed. 

Meaning also: I will have lots of time to write really cool bonus
Denton material to help the wait feel
less long. Huzzah!

This is all very standard stuff that happens when a book doesn’t reach
selling expectations (as most don’t) but that doesn’t mean it feels fantastic.
I can’t help but hear a voice in my head, always whispering:

You haven’t done
enough.

I perpetually feel like that, like there’s more creative
marketing I can be doing, more writing, more tweeting, more reaching out to
other authors, more everything. Unfortunately, when I feel like that, I freeze.
Seriously. I am someone with A LOT of creative resistance. When my wife gets
anxious, it drives her to do things, do things, do things. I am the exact
opposite of that. That’s why I didn’t write any legitimate posts on here for
months after the book came out. Yes, I was busy with events, with writing my
second and third books, but not that busy.
I was mostly frozen.

Which I guess means I need to “Let it Go.”

(I’m sorry. You and I both know I couldn’t not say that.)

Would my blog posts and tweets have made the difference
between the book selling well and not selling well? No, probably not. There’s a
billion factors at play here, most of them out of my control.

But some of them are in my control. And so I’m doing my
damndest to unfreeze myself. My anxiety has dissipated considerably, and here’s
what’s helped the most:

Blocking out the
noise and making the thing.

In July, I finally got back into a writing groove with my
third book. It wasn’t easy and it was often messy, but I’ve created a huge chunk of
the thing.

And my most productive days always start and end with blocking out the noise. Look, I know
everyone has their own unique relationship to social media, but for me, Twitter
and Facebook and Instagram can be wonderful in a couple of ways–like allowing
you to connect with other humans when in reality you’re alone in a
coffeeshop—but they do very little for my creative flow. Often they just remind
me of all the book festivals I’m not at, of all the awards I’m not winning, of
all the NYTimes bestseller lists I’m not on.

Which is why the biggest
lesson I’ve taken from the past six months, which I am trying desperately
to internalize more and more is:

Block out the noise
and make the thing.

I’ve already decided that the next book tour I go on—which will,
let’s face it, probably be in 2017–I am not going to drop my writing practice.
I am going to enjoy the events, enjoy the people I meet, but I am also going to
find time whenever I can to block out that noise and make the thing.

Because, at the end of the day, the creative act is THE
THING that’s going to make you feel like you’re doing the work and earning the
right to call yourself an artist. 

Weirdly enough, having that phone conversation last week with my
editor and agent is helping me to thaw my freeze even more. It’s motivating me
to write this thing you’re reading now. It’s motivating me to feel scrappy, to
feel empowered, to feel all the ways I felt when I wrote my first book. Not
coincidentally, that first book was written from a place of darkness; I’d
just been dropped by my acting agent and manager and was feeling totally lost in the woods. I want to believe I won’t always have to rely on the fuel of
failure to really get me going, but if I do, so be it.

If
there’s any other wisdom I can impart from my first six months as a published author–other than telling anyone dealing with anxiety to read this, which was and continues to be very helpful–it’s that any career as an artist is not going to be a straightforward ride. One day you’re up, another you’re down, but if you keep your mind on the creating, maybe you won’t get jostled by the bumps as much.  

Really, I’m just grateful to be on the ride at all.

And with that said, please excuse me. It’s time to block out the noise and make another thing.

A deleted scene from DENTON. Don’t judge too hard.

Last week during the YA Scavenger Hunt, I hid a deleted scene from the very first draft of my debut novel Denton Little’s Deathdate. If you didn’t take the time to hunt and find it, well, you’re in luck! Because I’m about to post it RIGHT HERE.

If you haven’t read my novel yet, you can still read this
scene and it won’t spoil that much. This excerpt is the first chunk of what was, like, a
fifteen-page dream sequence. I’m ashamed to say I’m not even exaggerating. In
the final version of the book, a
dream sequence still exists, but it’s only a couple pages long. Which is a good thing.
Because here’s something I learned while writing this book: Most dream sequences are pretty boring. Nobody
cares about the dreams of real
people, let alone fictional ones.

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, and I
thought—through many drafts of my book—that what I had written was one of
them. I was wrong. But since I felt strongly that there needed to be at least a
tiny dream sequence in the book at that particular moment for story purposes, I
didn’t cut it entirely.

My book, in case you’re not aware, is about 17-year-old Denton Little, who lives in a
world where everyone knows the day they’re going to die. Denton’s deathdate is
tomorrow, the same day as his senior prom. At his funeral—because in this
world, you get to attend your own funeral—the man leading the ceremony
mentions that Denton may be reincarnated as a squirrel or a chipmunk. I loved
that idea so much that I thought, “Oh man, during his deathdate, I’m going to
have Denton pass out and then wake up as a squirrel and readers are going to
think he’s dead and actually got
reincarnated as a squirrel but then he’ll realize it’s a dream.” I thought this
was an awesome idea. In fact, during the writing of the first draft, I had a
short list of about five or six things that I knew I definitely wanted to happen in the book, and this squirrel dream
sequence was one of those things. Kind of hilarious in retrospect.

But I have no regrets! This scene isn’t the best (there’s a joke about nuts that I contemplated taking out of this post), but I
still have a deep affection for it. Because, at the time, it made me happy and
kept me excited about my book. So, may this excerpt inspire you all to follow
your creative impulses and let your process take you where you need to go, even
if later you’ll be mercilessly crushing the fruits of some of those
impulses.  

Here it is, folks:

The Deleted Squirrel
Reincarnation Dream Sequence

I open my eyes, and it is still a beautiful day. The sun is
shining, and a strong breeze is blowing in my ears. Not sure when it got so
windy, but it feels nice.

I take a
step forward and quickly realize the ground below me is not stable. It jostles
up and down, and I freeze in an attempt at maintaining my balance. But I soon
realize the ground below my feet is not the ground at all.

I am on a tree branch.

Very, very high up.

I look around me, and I seem to be
in the tree in our front yard. There’s our house right below me, but some
things are slightly off. For example, there’s an above-ground pool on the front
lawn. We don’t have a pool.

Also I have paws.

And a big bushy tail.

I’ve never been a big heights
person, so I head to the trunk of the tree, where I size up my options for
getting back down to ground level. It seems I can either jump from branch to
branch to branch till I hit ground, or I can race straight down the trunk.

I look down.
I am very high up in this tree.

I dig one of my paws into the tree,
and I get a surprisingly good grip, a lot of traction. The
racing-down-the-trunk thing might be feasible.

This would be easier if I wasn’t so
hungry. I search in the near vicinity for acorns. Is this acorn season? Does
this tree have acorns? Any kind of nut would be helpful right now. Ew, that’s
not how I meant it. Some nuts would not be acceptable.

A huge gust of wind blows out of
nowhere, and my fur bristles as I hold onto the branch for dear life, nearly
losing my grip.

I make a game-time decision to head
down the trunk, and after a tentative few steps at a near-perfect 90-degree
angle to the ground, I get a rhythm going. Soon I’m speeding, flying toward the
grass below, and it feels easy.

Naturally, as I reach the peak of
my confidence, I step onto a loose piece of trunk, which breaks off and sends
me careening face-first towards solid ground. I’m only about fifteen feet up,
but that’s high enough. I try to spread out all my limbs, so I can do that
flying parachute thing.

It doesn’t work. I land face-first
in the grassy dirt, in a weird rodent sprawl.

The impact isn’t too painful, but,
much like the sitcom-football-to-the-head that magically restores the memories
of the character with amnesia, it brings me back to myself.

I lift my head up and look around.

What exactly is happening right
now?

I guess I’m a chipmunk. Or a
squirrel.

This must be my next life.

The funny thing is I feel no shock
or surprise at this revelation. I was expecting this, and I’m mainly just
thankful that I’ve retained my human perspective on the world.

Pretty sweet, actually. Being a
squirrel could be cool.

Do squirrels have sex?

Yeah, right? They must. Do I have a
squirrel penis?

I slide a paw down to my squirrel
groin and start feeling around.

“TWEEEEET!”  I snap up on all fours and look into the sky.
Plummeting straight towards me, tweeting with gusto and fury, is the dead
bluebird.

It is undead.

And huge and angry-looking.

Do birds eat squirrels? That
doesn’t sound right. They eat worms. And cats. No, cats eat birds. Ah, no time
for thinking!  

I try to yell BACK OFF!, but all that comes out of me is a high-pitched screechy
sound. Dead Bluebird is screech-tweeting back at me, and I think it’s time to
run.

“Run, Denton!” I screech aloud to
myself, and I’m off. I’m impressed with my speed, as I use all four limbs to
propel myself forward, almost gliding along the earth. I hear Dead Bluebird
gaining on me, with that tweet like chunks of metal crushing into each other,
and a chill runs down my animal spine. I skitter wildly back and forth, finally
taking a sharp right around the above-ground pool.

I keep charging forward, but behind
me, I hear a satisfying smash as Dead Bluebird careens head-first into the pool
water. Yes! The bird issues sad, gurgly tweets that fade into nothing as I get
further and further away.

END DELETED SCENE

There it is. It went on for many more pages. Denton turns back into a person, sees his dad in a hospital, yadayadaboringdumbcutforareason.

Happy Friday!

a short meditation on birthdays

Today is my birthday. I tell you this not so that you’ll
shower me with internet love—though feel free—but because it seems like a nice
moment to share why I love birthdays.

Some people hate birthdays. Usually those people are older
than thirty. (I’ve never met any kids who hate birthdays. That would be kind of
unsettling. But also really impressive.) Those older people say things like,
“Let’s pretend it’s not my birthday! I’ll be twenty-nine for the rest of my
life!” But really, I think most of those people probably like having birthdays.
They just hate aging. It scares them. I get that. It scares me, too. I turn
thirty-four today, and I feel twenty-seven, tops. Sometimes I’ll be reading an
article in the newspaper, and they’ll refer to someone being thirty-five and I’ll
picture some really adult-looking man with a beard. And then I realize I’m almost thirty-five. And then I feel
like an idiot.

But, seriously, if the twenty-two-year-old
fresh-out-of-college me met me right now, he’d be like, “Whoa, that dude is married?!? With a kid?!? He’s so old. I mean, he’s really cool, but he’s so old.”
Then he’d go to someone’s rooftop and get high. But that’s neither here nor
there.  

Because, even though I’m perpetually surprised by my age, I do
not hate birthdays. I love them. And that love isn’t about a big celebration or
tons of presents or the parade of “Happy birthday”s on my FB feed or even the
attention. What I truly love is walking around with that feeling that it’s my special day. That’s a ridiculous
phrase for a thirty-four-year-old to write, but I can’t think of a better way
to put it. It’s my goddamned special day, and I love that.

Right now, for example, I’m sitting in a Starbucks writing
this, and nobody knows it’s my
birthday. But I know. I’m having a rare one in three-hundred-sixty-five
experience, and nobody around me has any idea. Not this older dude in a cool
plaid jacket who’s placed his “You Won’t Be Disappointed If You Will Let Jesus
Christ Become the Lord of Your Life” flyers right next to my computer. Not the
slightly-less-older dude watching something on his iphone across from me. They don’t know they
are sitting at a table with The Motherfuckin’ Birthday Boy. Part of me thinks it’s
a tiny taste of what it might be like to be a superhero: Something special is happening to me right now and none of you have any
idea. You fools.

But okay, here’s why I really
love birthdays: we all have them. Nobody doesn’t have a birthday. It’s perhaps the
most equal-opportunity experience we humans share at different times. Everybody
was born. Thus, everyone has a birthday. So, unlike the experience of, say,
getting a piece of good news, you don’t have to feel like your secret is going
to make people feel jealous or bad about themselves. Because again, we all have birthdays! It’s beautiful!

I mean, maybe someone with a winter birthday might be
jealous of someone with a summer birthday. But other than that.  

And look, I know some people might get Ringwalded on their
birthday and not heralded as much as they deserve to. But, hopefully, in spite
of that, they still have a bit of the
feeling. Because it’s their goddamned special day.  

So now you know. I love birthdays. And with that, I’m going
to take my really-adult-looking-thirty-four-year-old man-with-a-sometimes-beard-self
and walk the street, emitting that birthday glow that only I can see.

Fall YA Scavenger Hunt!

All right, guys, so this is exciting and different: this post is actually a leg of the YA Scavenger Hunt. BA-BOOM.

This is a bi-annual event first organized by author Colleen Houck
as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus
material from their favorite authors…and also a chance to win some awesome
prizes. Sweeeeeet.

For those that don’t know me, I’m Lance Rubin!  I love Back to the Future, Harry Potter, Pixar, and the New York Knicks, and I wrote a dark comedic novel called Denton Little’s Deathdate that came out in April. In this hunt, you can find a DELETED SCENE from the very first draft of my book. But you’ll have to keep hunting to find that. Here, I’m honored to be hosting the exclusive content of another superawesome author. We’ll get to that in a bit.

There are 8 teams in this YA Scavenger Hunt, so it’s VERY IMPORTANT that you know I am on Team Teal. DOUBLE BA-BOOM.

Yeah, that’s me. Third from the left. Holding up part of the A.

Right now YOU are hunting on Team Teal, and if you enter the contest for our team, you could win a signed copy of my book along with signed copies of the books of the other nineteen Teal authors. (Keep in mind, you can enter the contest for ALL EIGHT TEAMS in the hunt, meaning you could potentially win 160 signed books. Yowsa! That’s a lotta books! And a lotta signatures, too.)

How do you enter this contest? Good question! This is my first time being a part of this, so I’m probably gonna mess something up as I try to explain. Go check out all the rules and see all the authors and prizes involved here.

But the basic gist is, you need to collect the secret number (not actually so secret; you can find mine below, big and obvious) from each author on Team Teal and add up those numbers to get the code. And THEN you can enter the contest here to qualify for the grand prize (BOOKS)!

But keep in mind: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours, through Sunday, October 4th at noon PST.

Here’s the Official Rules (BORING!): Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should
have a parent or guardian’s permission to enter. (I’M STICKING MY SECRET NUMBER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RULES TO JAZZ ‘EM UP A BIT: 57 MY SECRET NUMBER IS 57)  To be eligible for the
grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by Sunday, October 4th, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.

Okay, glad that’s all explained. Now onto the real bounty of this hunt: Today I have the great privilege of hosting GWENDA BOND!

Gwenda Bond is the author of the young adult novels Lois Lane: Fallout and Girl on a Wire, among others. Next up are Lois Lane: Double Down and Girl in the Shadows, a new novel of the Cirque American, in 2016. She has also written for Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications. She has an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and their menagerie. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or @gwenda on twitter.

During this hunt, Gwenda is showcasing her novel Lois Lane: Fallout. (Meaning you can win the below book in the contest. NICE.)

Lois Lane is starting a new life in Metropolis. An Army brat, Lois has
lived all over—and seen all kinds of things. (Some of them defy
explanation, like the near-disaster she witnessed in Kansas in the
middle of one night.) But now her family is putting down roots in the
big city, and Lois is determined to fit in. Stay quiet. Fly straight.

A cool, new take on Lois Lane. Awesome. You can buy Lois Lane: Fallout here. 

But just as exciting is the UPCOMING SEQUEL, Lois Lane: Double Down, out May 2016. Here’s what it’s gonna look like:

Love this cover. And now some words from Gwenda:

I know it’s a long wait until May 1, 2016,
so I thought I’d give you guys a sneak peek from the very early
advanced reader copies of the sequel to Fallout. This will be the second
book in the Lois Lane series and it’s called Double Down. I couldn’t
decide what to pick, but then I figured when in doubt go with a Lois and
SmallvilleGuy scene. This is a snippet from their first meeting in the
Worlds War Three real-sim game in Double Down, and was a fun moment to
write for reasons you will see. It’ll also give you a major hint of some
of the trouble these two will be encountering, apart from the mystery
Lois and her Scoop colleagues will be attempting to solve this time
around.

Hope you enjoy it! *twirls fingers evilly* 

Flying! Mercenaries! Laser-bats! Ah, so cool.

You can go ahead and order THAT BOOK right here. And buy the rest of Gwenda’s books while you’re at it.

And don’t forget to enter the contest to win books by me, Gwenda Bond, and eighteen other fantastic authors. Add up all the SECRET NUMBERS from Team Teal and use that secret code to enter.

ALSO: During this Scavenger Hunt, I’m using my first ever Rafflecopter to run a separate give-away. Someone will win a signed hardcover of Denton Little’s Deathdate, and someone will win a signed audiobook and someone will win a personalized cartoon drawing by me just for them.  Three winners! Woo! Open internationally! Enter by using the Rafflecopter link below and answer the question in my comments section. 

Now head onto the next #YASH stop: JENNIFER JENKINS. Thanks, guys!

Here’s the Rafflecopter giveaway!

Ray and I talk with the delightful Arthur Meyer, writer for The...

Ray and I talk with the delightful Arthur Meyer, writer for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and co-writer of the hilarious book FUDS. Also, Arthur does a moving bit about Smash Mouth.

thoughts on novel-writing and the emotional breakdown i had last week

I did a fun interview with the terrific Kurt Dinan, where we talked about–among other things–three novel-writing lessons I’ve learned and the emotional breakdown I had last week.