Last Minute Panic

My picture book When It's Six O'clock in San Francisco is in proofs and about to be printed. It's a book that shows what other kids are doing all over the world when it's six o'clock in SF. Like when it's six o'clock in San Francisco, it's 2 o'clock in London and kids are playing soccer at school I have only seen a couple of pages of the art, but I got the galleys with the words to check way back in May of last year. Crossed that to-do off the list, and now all I had to do was wait and see the final printed product. Or was it?

My fab editor over at Clarion sent me a bone-chilling email yesterday - there was an error in the book. All of a sudden, the time for one of the countries was off by an hour. How can that be? I doubletriplequadruple checked it, along with the copy editor. We were about to go to print, so any major changes now were going to be mucho expensive and not appreciated by the publisher. After doing some research, I found out that the government of Argentina, in all its wisdom, decided to adopt daylight savings time starting last December. And they didn't even ask me.

After a few panicky emails (on my part) and a few comforting emails (on her part), we figured out a good solution that worked well for everyone and was also cost effective. A couple of days of uncertainty, but maybe it will make a good anecdote at the book launch.

I may even be able to post a cover in the not-too-distant future.

On this date: In 1982, Cats debuted.