Current stats:

Words: 5,017.
Total words: 90,318.
Reason for stopping: in the middle of the big boom in chapter twenty-three. BOOM.
Music: this week's episodes of NCIS and Dexter.
Lilly and Alice: taking up a physically improbable amount of space on my feet.

I...um...yeah. So I have this thing where every day, I put any specific writing goals for the day on my to do list. Because the to do list is my lord and master. Right now, every day, I'm putting "2,000 words, DA" on the list, and every day, I'm checking it off before plowing onward for another few thousand words. Why? Because I have hit the point where I literally can't stop. I eat, sleep, breathe, and dream this book. I inhabit this book even when I'm not working on it. I'm spending half my time (or more) in a fictional reality full of madness and monsters and manic dance numbers breaking out in the middle of nowhere. This is normal for me as I approach the end of a first draft. It really is. But it's been a while since I did this part, and it's making my fingers hurt.

90,000 words means that I'm 15,000 words, give or take, from the end of draft one. I realize I've been hitting that data point a lot, but um, holy crap, end of draft one. This is the book I started on a whim. The book I never lost enthusiasm for, but shelved repeatedly while I worked on things that had actual deadlines. The book that, let's be serious here, kicks off a new series. I needed three of those, right? They're like cats. You're not a crazy cat lady until you have more than four (even if Margaret says that by 2014, mathematics prove that 80% of all books will be written by me).

Also, at my current rate of speed, you won't be getting these updates for all that much longer. So there's that.

Soon, I hope to explain to the people who've only read Toby why, exactly, I felt the need to spend my time in a universe filled with cryptozoologists in skimpy outfits, asbestos blondes, ketchup milkshakes, ballroom dancing, high heeled shoes, and, of course, talking mice. And my answer to them will be, in no uncertain terms...CHEESE AND CAKE!

Back by popular demand, here is my family's turkey recipe. I share because a) I care, and b) apparently, some people have experienced dryness in their breast meat when cooking their turkeys in another fashion, whereas my mother once set a turkey on fire and still had moist breast meat. Despite the, y'know, flames. Any recipe that can survive flames is good by me.

You will need:

* A turkey. Duh. If you don't understand why you need a turkey, please go away.
* Ginger ale.*
* Olive oil.
* Fresh garlic. I use pre-crushed, because I am lazy. You're welcome to play Alton Brown and crush your own. I won't stop you, but I may laugh at you while I sit back and do my nails.
* Honey or molasses.
* Brown sugar.
* Dry spices according to your specific taste. I use a mixture of sage, thyme, and rosemary. One of my cousins uses curry powder. It's all you.
* Salt and pepper.
* Something vegetable to shove into the turkey. More on this in a second.

* A roasting pan of some sort. The cheap aluminum ones at the grocery store work fine; just make sure they fit your turkey before buying them.
* Foil.
* A way to get the turkey out of the roasting pan, because that sucker will be hot and heavy.

You may want:

* A turkey thermometer. Sexy, sexy little things that they are.
* A turkey baster.
* A meat brush.

(*As far as ginger ale goes, I recommend Canada Dry. If your bird is between zero and sixteen pounds, you will need two liters. If your bird is between sixteen and twenty-five pounds, you will need four liters. If your bird is over twenty-five pounds, I am coming to your place for dinner. Add two liters if you are using one of those fancy-ass roasting pans where your turkey is on a rack and getting sort of steamed by the liquid evaporating beneath it, because those suckers use up your basting liquid like nobody's business. Don't use diet soda unless everyone at your Thanksgiving likes the taste of aspartame.)

( Let's begin with the bird. )

Current stats:

Words: 7,137.
Total words: 85,301.
Reason for stopping: about midway through chapter twenty-two, totally exhausted.
Music: my evolving Discount Armageddon mix.
Lilly and Alice: asleep in my tank top drawer, being a puddle of blue and white fur.

The speed with which this draft is suddenly materializing is a little scary, and is making me feel faintly hag-ridden. Seriously, there's "my normal writing speed," and then there's "writing to make a deadline," and then there's "holy Great Pumpkin in the sacred patch, where the hell did the day go?" Assuming this book comes out at exactly the estimate, I have fewer than 20,000 words left to go. Second draft will cut ten percent of that. (Actually second draft will cut twenty percent, but half of what I cut will be replaced by clarification, necessary bridgework, and general textual repairs. That's what second draft is for.)

After this draft is done, I have to focus fully on Blackout and The Brightest Fell while my proofreading pool crawls all over the text and rips it into tiny bleeding shreds. (For Christmas this year, I'm getting a bloodbath! Just what I always wanted.) I figure I should have space on the docket to get into Midnight Blue-light Special sometime around May...you know, when I have the Guest of Honor slot and the book coming out. Gosh, it's fun to live inside my head sometimes, in the sense that apparently even I don't think I need to sleep. Sleep is for the weak and sickly, right?

I am so in love with this book right now. I am so in love with this series right now. I am so in love with this world right now, with its reality shows and its cryptid-owned strip clubs and its many, many expeditions into the sewers of Manhattan. I can see where a second draft is going to be absolutely necessary, but right now? Right now, I am just enjoying the hell out of the ride.

I can't wait for you to meet these people.

So in case you've managed to miss the news (I sometimes wish I'd managed to miss the news), Harlequin Romance has formed a new self-publishing imprint, Harlequin Horizons, and people are ticked off about it. By "people," I mean "the Romance Writers of America, the Science Fiction Writers of America, and writers here, there, and everywhere." The basic deal is this: you give Harlequin Horizons a substantial chunk of cash, and they will print your book. Oh, and if it's drop-dead awesome enough, they may allow you to sell it to them later (although they won't give you back your money at that point). In the meanwhile, you, too, can be a Harlequin author. Whee!

Watching reactions to this around the Internet has been fascinating, because there are a substantial number of people who don't understand why the community of authors is generally so upset. Unless, of course, we're just trying to keep ordinary people from discovering how easy and fun it is to write novels, and how quick you can get famous once you get past The Man who's been guarding the front gate. What they're overlooking is a set of rather nasty complexities attendant on the idea of this model.

With self-publishing, you must be able to pay to play. Being a first-time author is highly unlikely to make anyone wealthy unless they're already a celebrity. I don't know how much Stephanie Meyer got paid for Twilight, but I'll bet you she wasn't quitting her day job until the royalty statements started coming in. Under the normal model, your publisher pays you. That means that it cost me nothing but time to write Rosemary and Rue. Under the self-publishing model, it would have started off by costing me about six thousand dollars, and that doesn't include any sort of promotion, publicity, or advertising.

Writing is not an unskilled profession. Before you assume I'm saying that if you aren't published, you can't write, please hear me out. Like any creative profession, being a writer takes certain learned tools (a functional grasp of a language, for starters), combined with talent and lots and lots of practice. It's a weird cocktail, and the most intrinsically talented writers in the world still need all three components. How do you get practice? By writing, and by being forced to be critical with your own work. When I first wrote Rosemary and Rue, it was the best thing I'd ever written. By the time I finished rewriting it for publication, it was ten times better, and the first draft had become actively embarrassing. Does using publication as the gold ring work for everyone? No. There are some truly amazing authors who have never been published, either because they're writing things viewed as non-commercial, or because they just don't feel like taking the time. But for most of us, the need to improve in order to achieve publication is a lot of what actually drives our improvement. Taking that away is like saying "okay, you've read a bunch of anatomy books, now take out this woman's spleen."

It takes a village to raise a child. People involved with getting Rosemary and Rue to a bookstore near you: me. My agent. My editor. My publicist. My line-editor. My layout and graphic designers. My cover artist. The entire marketing team at Penguin. The guy who sold all of the above their coffee. People I had to pay for their help: the guy who sold us the coffee. People who knew more about what it takes to make a book successful than I do: everyone but the guy who sold us the coffee (and that's a guess; he may be a former publishing mastermind who just likes the smell of java). It takes an army of people to get a book from manuscript to market, and while you can potentially fill all those roles yourself, if you're not independently wealthy, it's going to be really, really hard. I thought I was pretty savvy about how publishing works; then I published a book. It turns out that what I knew was vague and superficial—now we're at "okay, you've watched a bunch of medical shows, now take out this woman's spleen."

We cannot be our own quality control with absolute accuracy. "But wait," you may cry, "it works in the fanfic mines." "Yes, that's true," I would reply, "but in the fanfic mines, you can edit your work for free." Once you expand to novel-length, the chance for errors expands exponentially, and once you've paid someone to put your book in print, your ability to fix them drops like a rock. Consider the number of errors in the average full-length published novel. Now consider the village that played whack-a-mole with the book before you ever saw it. Being expected to be so perfect that you don't need editing isn't just unfair; it borders on actively mean.

Now, all of these points may seem like they're anti-self-publishing, and the thing is, they both are and aren't. There are totally legitimate reasons to self-publish. Maybe you have six thousand dollars to spare, and you just don't like Disneyworld that much. Maybe you're printing a book of short stories written twenty years ago by your high school writer's group. Maybe you have a huge pre-existing Internet following (Monster Island and John Dies at the End, for example, although these were both small press, not self-published). Maybe you just want a printed edition of your grandmother's cookbook. Whatever makes you happy! Most comic books are self-published, and it works out fine for them (although most self-publishing comic creators also form their own imprints).

At the same time, taking aspiring authors and effectively telling them "you don't need to work to improve and learn, you don't have to deal with rejection and unwanted critique, you don't need to do anything but sign the check" is just...it's mean. It's preying on the vulnerability of young authors who don't want anything but to see their works in print. Sadly, most self-published books will never reach a wide audience; they aren't on the shelves in brick-and-mortar stores, they aren't in print advertising (unless you're really independently wealthy), they won't be sending advance copies out for review. They'll just appear in a catalog somewhere, and on the author's website, where the number of copies sold will depend on just how fast the author can tap-dance for the amusement of the masses. By adding the name of a big house to a self-publishing imprint, and the seductive offer of "maybe we'll buy it after all," Harlequin is effectively monetizing their slush pile, and potentially taking the opportunity to grow away from a great many of the aspiring authors involved.

If I had self-published ten years ago, I would never have improved enough as an author to write Feed, or Late Eclipses, or Discount Armageddon, or Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues. Now, your mileage may vary. But these are my concerns, and these are the reasons that I really think that this sort of "business venture" is just another way of preying on the vulnerable.

Current stats:

Words: 5,227.
Total words: 78,264.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter twenty, taking a break before chapter twenty-one.
Music: my Sarah Zellaby mix.
Lilly and Alice: sitting in the bedroom window, raptly watching the kitty cable.

Day by day and word by word, I get closer to the end of the first draft of Discount Armageddon. I'm really excited, and I've hit that point where anything but writing is difficult to maintain for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. I have to take breaks from time to time, but they're just that; breaks between bouts of frantic typing, rather than the things I have to break myself away from. This is awesome. This is especially awesome because I know the way my brain works, and if it's currently this fixated on InCryptid, it's because I'm getting ready for a massive run on another project. Judging by the things that have started creeping around the edges of my mind, I'm going to guess that the "other woman" in this equation is Blackout, the sequel to Feed, which was already on my holiday docket.

This book has been fun and surprising and silly and snappy and a few dozen things I really wasn't expecting when I kicked it off. Better still, it's been the doorway to a brand new series. I need those from time to time. Part of what I love as a writer is the act of creating a world, stepping inside it, and shutting the doors behind me. (This doesn't explain my seeming inability to write completely stand-alone books, but as long as the series keep making sense, I'm not going to whine about it overly much.) I love the things it's forced me to learn in order to write it, and the things I got to just sort of...stumble over. Like some of the freaky things Mother Nature has done in the real world.

25,000 words to go, give or take, and then it's time to make my exit and make my way into other drafts and other disasters. I can barely believe I'm this far along. I can barely believe it's taken me this long.

CHEESE AND CAKE!

I actually got a Google Alert for Mira Grant that was about, well, me, rather than some random assortment of words that managed to trigger my poor dumb little spider! Damon at BSC posted his thoughts on the 2010 Orbit catalog, including some comments about Feed. Quote, "I think it could make a splash. I normally do not read these types of books, but I am willing to make an exception, I believe, for Mira."

Damon, I am going to do my damnedest not to let you down. And that is a promise from me to you.

Meanwhile, the Warren Public Libraries in Warren, Michigan had some really sweet things to say about Rosemary and Rue, including "It’s a gripping mystery with a lot of urban fantasy thrown in to the mix" and "Fans of any urban fantasy will do well here." There's also a strong recommendation for fans of Jim Butcher's work to give mine a look. From your words to the Great Pumpkin's ears, Warren Public Libraries!

Alice is sopping wet, thanks to my having had a minor bathtub incident, and is now squelching around the house like an animate mop. Attempts to dry her have been met with the cat equivalent of "No, Mom, don't wanna," so I figure I'll let her be wet for a little while longer before I bust out the blow-dryer. It's good when you can satisfy your cats with simple inaction. (Much better than being punched awake at 6:30 AM to provide affection, which was how we started our day. The joy of cats.)

My cheeks have swollen to the point that I really, really look like someone's been beating me, making me super-glad that Chris didn't come to hang out today; I would've been afraid to go out of the house in his company, since I try not to get my friends accused of introducing their fists to my face. If there were a zombie walk today, I would so rule the undead dance floor. As it is, I'm taking lots of painkillers and praying that the swelling goes down before I have to go back to work tomorrow morning. And that's the news from the pumpkin patch. What's new and cool in the world of you?

There was a contest on Twitter earlier this week, wherein those of us who had nothing better to do with our time tried to compose complete, if very short, stories involving serial killers in order to win a book about a serial killer. I don't think I won, but wow did I have a lovely time, and as exercises in brevity go, this one was awesome. I give you...serial killer party!

"Corn mazes are full of shadows and, at Halloween, full of screams. She moves amongst artificial monsters, natural and sharp."

"Some like the personal touch: razors, throats, the copper taste of blood. Others think larger. Don't drink the water."

"They always blame the men with the axes, not the little girls who inexplicably survive. Beware the ones in the red hoods."

"Every time Jean Grey dies, I kill a redhead and set the body on fire. They just killed Emma Frost. Time for the freezer."

"Tapeworm eggs easily survive the blender. My friends love my protein shakes, and they all die thin and oh-so-pretty."

"Horror movie extras often go missing. Everyone thinks they're lazy or drunk. No one notices the blood on the caterer's hands."

"Who stalked who was open to debate. One had a razor; the other a roll of duct tape. It was either love or killing time."

"Murder is like Chinese food. An hour later you're hungry again. Waitresses in Chinese restaurants often walk home alone."

I am sometimes way, way too easily amused, I swear.

1. I am about to head for the dentist, where I will be undergoing full sedation for the sake of massive surgery. After this, you should get a few months free of my discussing teeth, which will be nice for everybody. Because someone asked: I grew up on welfare, I have naturally not-so-good teeth, and for a long time, I didn't have the money to fix what was wrong. This combination leads to massive work, when you can finally manage to get it done. Thankfully, I'm getting.

2. The Rosemary and Rue pendant sale is going like gangbusters over at chimera_fancies, and it's honestly amazing what Mia's been able to do with this batch. I really recommend swinging by and looking for a favorite. All pendants are signed by me, and made from pieces of a recycled ARC.

3. Because of item one on this little list, the Great Pumpkin only knows whether I'm going to be capable of complicated things like "being awake" or "typing" today, so if you don't hear from me until tomorrow, it's not because I've been eaten by a grue. So don't worry.

4. It's pouring buckets. I am the Rain King.

5. Please remember to enter the A Local Habitation ARC giveaway. It doesn't require your own pets. Use the pets of a friend, or neighbor, or take advantage of your brother the zookeeper and throw your book to the tigers. (I will replace your book if you actually bring me photographic evidence of throwing it to the tigers, providing that happens with zookeeper permission.) Have fun!

Current stats:

Words: 5,183.
Total words: 73,047.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter nineteen (and started chapter twenty).
Music: my Rose Marshall mix.
Lilly and Alice: flopped on the floor, being deeply endearing.

It's weird and a little scary to think about, but I'm about 30,000 words from the end of the first draft of Discount Armageddon. After I finish the first draft, I'll take about six weeks to let my proofreaders argue about commas, another six weeks to finish a second draft, and then...the book is done. The silly, head-smashing, ass-kicking, ballroom dancing, talking mouse extravaganza that kicks off the adventures of the Price family is almost done. I'm speechless. I'm stunned. And I'm deeply delighted, because finishing this book means setting it free for all of you to read.

The thing about living inside my head is that it's very weird in here, and very cluttered. I sometimes liken my writing habits to my television viewing habits; I sometimes change channels and watch something else for a little while, because some days are Masters of Horror days, and others are So You Think You Can Dance days. Both are totally valid, and totally necessary. Working with Verity and the rest of her wacky, wonderful family recharges me when I'm exhausted from other projects, and vice-versa. They all feed into each other.

Soon all the world will understand the glory of the Aeslin mice, the importance of religious ritual, how difficult it is to dance a good tango, and why gorgons hate wigs. But in the meanwhile, I shall continue to be a little stunned at how far I've come from deciding that Verity Alice Price, daughter of Kevin Price and Evelyn Price-Baker, needed a book of her very own.

It's time to get ready for the second A Local Habitation ARC giveaway of the season! Yaaaay! Now that we've all flailed around like Muppets on an electrified floor for a few minutes, here's the way this particular giveaway is going to work:

1. Get a camera.
2. Get a copy of Rosemary and Rue.
3. Get a pet.
4. Combine.

This contest, originally suggested by The Agent, is simple: take pictures of your pets (or the pets of someone else you know) hanging out with a copy of Rosemary and Rue, and submit them here. All pets are eligible. Cats, dogs, pythons, spiny African flower mantises, whatever you have and trust with your book, they're all invited to this party.

Be creative. Be dramatic. Have fun. Do not allow your Burmese python to swallow your book (it would be bad for the snake). Post your pictures here; after Thanksgiving, we'll open to voting, and winners will be selected. Winner #1 will get their choice of an ARC of A Local Habitation or a signed cover flat of A Local Habitation. Winner #2 will get whatever winner #1 didn't select, that being the way we roll around here.

Let me know if you have any questions, and game on!

According to my infallible little planner countdown, A Local Habitation will be released in one hundred and thirteen days. One hundred and thirteen is the thirtieth prime number (I love prime numbers), following one hundred and nine and coming right before one hundred and twenty-seven (my personal favorite prime). It's a Sophie Germain prime, which means that p2 + 1 is also a prime number. Two hundred and twenty-seven, totally prime. Is that not awesome?

Okay. Maybe it's just awesome if you're me. One hundred and thirteen is also a Chen prime, a Proth prime, and an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part. There's a lot of other fun stuff you can do with this particular number, including treating it as a permutable prime (with one hundred thirty-one and three hundred and eleven). And? One hundred and thirteen is three and a half months to the release of A Local Habitation.

That's a pretty big shocker, huh?

I'm just getting really started with my pre-release madness. Wallpapers and icons are being prepared. The countdown tool is going to be assembled as soon as the graphics are ready. My website is being relaunched, streamlined and spiffed up for the sake of ease-of-use. ARCs are going out, both to reviewers and through fun giveaways. People are starting to get excited. I'm working on the next promo comic.

One hundred and thirteen days. That's, like, absolutely no time at all. That's, like, tomorrow. And immediately after that, I'll put on my Mira-pants and begin working toward the release of Feed. Last year at the San Diego International Comic Convention, you couldn't buy any of my books in the dealer's hall. This year, you'll be able to buy three.

How's that for a slice and a half of creepy pie? Mmm. Tasty, tasty creepy.

You may remember how last year, I commissioned the amazing, fantabulous, incredible Amy Mebberson to create a design for me to use as a "thank you" card. I loved the results so much that I decided I absolutely needed an updated version for this year, since the cast has changed a bit since then. Sadly, Amy is currently working for Boom! Studios, drawing awesome comic books, and is thus not available for commission work (sad for me, not sad for her).

Luckily for me, Bill Mudron—proprietor of Excelsior Studios—is currently open for commissions, and was receptive to my making pleading noises in his direction. This is because Bill is made of hammered awesome, and deserves all good things (and should absolutely be considered for all your commission needs). Bill did the cover for my third album, Red Roses and Dead Things (click here to see the back cover), in addition to several other awesome pieces for me, including Alice Price-Healy from the InCryptid series.

And now I give you...the gang:



From top to bottom (which corresponds roughly to "back to front"), you have Velma "Velveteen" Martinez hanging from the ceiling, Shaun and Georgia Mason flanking me while I attempt to work, Verity Price being friendly with mice, Rose Marshall wearing somebody else's coat and enjoying a nice beer, and October Daye, flanked by pixies and reasonably annoyed by the entire situation.

Ahem. Squee.

That is all.

chimera_fancies is gearing up for the big Rosemary and Rue pendant sale (details and specifics posted here; suffice to say, it's gonna be awesome). To prepare for the sale, and give everyone a chance to get the shiny, she's started by posting three auctions of pendants she feels best represent the book. Click a pendant to go to the associated auction:

1. .

2. .

3. .

Enjoy, and remember, not my auction, so take your questions to chimera_fancies!

Two awesome shirts enter, but only one can make it to my dresser (because I really don't have that big of a budget for awesome shirts right now). Both come in the girl's-cut extra-large, which is my poison of choice, so without that easy determining factor, it's time to play Barbie and let someone else dress me. I give you...

Poll #1486768 T-SHIRT DEATH MATCH!!!!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 197

Which of these shirts do I truly need?

Vote! I can't promise to abide by the prevailing decision, but hey, I'm amused.

Nominations for the 2009 Nebula Awards have opened. To quote Wikipedia (source of all knowledge, "The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year." Since everybody seems to be putting up lists of their qualifying material, I thought I'd do the same. I'm generous like that.

First, of course, the novel. Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] was published by DAW Books in September 2009, putting it well within this year's window. Urban fantasy, fairy tale noir, and the beginning of my first series. Yay!

Short stories, I have several that appear to qualify quite nicely under the current rules. "Animal Husbandry" is a story of post-apocalypse survival and psychological horror, originally published by Morrigan Books in Grants Pass (August 2009). (Amazon says the book is out of print, and Amazon lies, but if you're a SFWA member and want to see the story, I'll happily send it your way.)

"Lost" is a sad, sentimental fantasy piece, originally published by The Ravens in the Library Project in the anthology Ravens in the Library (February 2009). This book is out of print, but again, if you're a SFWA member and want to see the story, I'll happily send it your way. The story will be reprinted by Wily Writers this coming December. You might also want to look at "A Citizen in Childhood's Country," which is not quite a companion piece, but might be, if you tilt your head and squint. It was published by the Book View Cafe in October 2009.

Finally, although I have other stories that technically qualify, I want to point out "Knives." This is a sort of modern-day revisiting of "The Little Mermaid," and was also originally published through the Book View Cafe, in August of 2009/

I find it almost terrifying that I have this many things that even technically qualify. And next year, I'll have two things to list as potentially qualifying novels.

Sometimes the world is amazing.

1. I have done the mailing! Specifically, I've mailed a paperback to Australia, an ARC of A Local Habitation to our first ALH ARC contest winner, and a comic book to my web designer. (Said comic book has been failing to get mailed since July, which gives you an idea of how behind I am in certain aspects of my daily maintenance.) I probably have more mailing to do—including at least two CD sets—but this is mailing to discover, not mailing to feel guilty about not doing. Victory is mine!

2. Since the first ARC has been mailed out, I'm getting ready to open the second ARC contest. I'll be taking entries for a week or so, and then opening voting for a similar length of time. This is going to be a photography challenge (much like the LOLtest for Rosemary and Rue, but without the captions). Details will be posted later this week.

3. The redesign and relaunch of my website is just about done, which is a huge relief (for my webmaster and web designer, as well as for me, since they get constantly prodded at when I get twitchy). The new look of the site is awesome. We're going from drop-down menus to side menus, the graphics are even slicker and more incredibly cool, and soon, I'll be posting the first batch of icons and wallpapers for A Local Habitation. Also, once my main site is relaunched, we'll be able to focus on getting Mira's site off the ground. Evil twins need websites, too!

4. The Rosemary and Rue pendant sale from chimera_fancies is going to be launching later this week, and these pendants really are Mia's best work yet. I mean, they're just incredible pieces of wearable artwork, and the fact that I was partially responsible for this batch being created is just amazing to me. This is transformative art. From oral tradition folklore to urban fantasy novel to jewelry. Who could ask for a more remarkable series of connections? I'll post some previews of the sale before Mia opens it to the general public, but I'm not administrating it; all questions should go to chimera_fancies.

5. I know my Current Projects posts can seem huge and daunting and a little unreal, but I really have made amazing strides in Blackout, The Brightest Fell, and Discount Armageddon over the past month, and I'm over-the-moon excited with where they're each going. Working on all three at once is like a delicious block of television consisting of Glee, Supernatural, Wonderfalls, and Veronica Mars. So good, so snarky, and so refreshing for the soul. I know I love what I do, because it makes me less tired, rather than exhausting me.

6. My schedule for 2010 is taking shape and becoming visibly more awesome by the day. At least in part because, well, the more coherent it is, the easier it becomes for me to plan around things like conventions, book releases, and fits of hysterical giggling. My planner pages are also filling up, with a combination of major events and minor, "survive the day, week, month, year, and inevitable zombie apocalypse" items. The more regimented my time appears, the more work I'll get done. According to the planner so far, 2010 is the year I conquer the planet.

7. The first promo comic for A Local Habitation is underway, and looks awesome. I'll post it as soon as it's finished.

What's new in the world of you?

First off, I apologize profusely for the lateness of this month's current projects post. While my self-imposed schedule may not matter to most, I know it matters to some, and I know that my current projects update is due on the ides of every given month. I plead jetlag and exhaustion, and will attempt to make up for it by...well, largely by demonstrating, once again, that I am not a huge fan of either free time or sleep. This post and its kin are the reason I start to twitch like a tarantula riding a record player every time someone asks me "What are you working on?" The answer takes too long to actually deliver. Anyway, this is the November list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.

To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that the first four Toby books are off this list, because they have been finished and turned in. You can purchase Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] now. You can pre-order A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] now. An Artificial Night and Late Eclipses are off the list until The Editor tells me otherwise.

The first Newsflesh book, Feed (formerly Newsflesh), is off the list because it has been turned in to The Other Editor. Not only that, but my page proofs have been finished and returned. You'll see this bad boy again when it comes rolling off the presses!

The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out! )

It's once again time to prepare to fly. My bags are packed (mostly); I'm ready to go (mostly); I don't have a taxi waiting down below, but since my ride to the airport is asleep in the room basically directly beneath me, I'm going to call it close enough for government work. (I like cars-of-friends better than I like taxis, anyway. They don't charge me as much when I suddenly demand we stop for soda.)

It's been a good trip. I didn't get to see nearly as many people as I hoped, on a social basis, but I got a lot of work done, and had a lot of business meetings, and it was good. A distressing number of these business meetings involved feeding me. I will now return to California and live on salad, peas, and carrot sticks for two weeks, while I wait for my body to issue a writ of forgiveness. But! I'm not sorry, because I have eaten cake-and-shake, frozen hot chocolate, some of the weirdest salads ever seen, pepper-encrusted Maine scallops, garlic fries (seriously, these were some high-class garlic fries), baked heirloom apples with homemade apple ice cream, and some of the best chicken and pea curry I've ever had. I have walked and I have wandered, I have pillaged and I've pondered, and I'm happy with the results.

New York is a fascinating place. I really do understand why some people view the concept of leaving as a sort of sacrilege, even as I understand that I'd go crazy and become a bridge troll in Central Park if I ever tried to live here. I like my yearly visits, and I enjoy the chance to see my publishers in their natural habitat, but I also like my world to be a bit greener. (Now, the Jersey Pine Barrens are another matter. I could totally live there. And then the Jersey Devil would eat me.)

It's been a good trip.

I am ready to be home.

Current stats:

Words: 7,773.
Total words: 67,864.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter eighteen.
Music: the new mix Merav made for me.
Lilly and Alice: back in California. I miss my kitties.

Discount Armageddon—the first of the InCryptid books, chronicling the adventures of the Price family as they try to study the cryptids of the world without getting eaten by them—is now two hundred and thirty-seven pages long, featuring action, adventure, snarking, and talking pantheistic demon mice with a fondness for religious ritual. It's ballroom dancing as a combat style, it's asbestos blondes and gorgon barmaids, and it's more fun to write than should really be legal. It's also sad, because at this point, I have somewhere between 30,000 and 36,000 words to go, and that doesn't seem like enough.

On the plus side, once I finish this, I get to start digging my teeth into the sequels. And believe me, Midnight Blue-light Special is going to be a hoot and a half, once I get there. And after that...hoo-boy. I really think I like this roller coaster.

What's really interesting is that this is the first series I've started knowing from the starting gate that it was a series, and more, that it was more than just a few books long. Feed was a stand-alone; Rosemary and Rue was an adventure that I didn't quite understand. This time, I know what I'm getting into.

Oddly, I couldn't be happier.

So a while ago—not that long ago, but not yesterday—I made a post about the author/agent relationship, and why I think literary agents are so damn important. I like my agent. I know that state isn't universal, but neither is liking your haircut, and I'm pretty cool with that, too. I try to be mellow when I can.

This morning, I was pointed to a post over on GalleyCat explaining why nobody needs an agent. Apparently, the electronic revolution means that the "middleman" between author and editorial is no longer necessary. Who knew? Or at least, that middleman is on the way to becoming fully outdated. Naturally, at least one literary agency feels differently, and has said as much. I suggest reading both links before continuing, because I, too, feel differently, and will now say as much.

These are the things I do: write books. Make changes according to the requests of my editors. Discuss possible changes with my editors. Review page proofs. Blog. Run blog giveaways of ARCs and published books. Attend conventions. Write outlines and proposals for books I want to write. Play Plants vs. Zombies. Watch TV.

These are the things my agent does: get my books to the editors who are most likely to not only appreciate them, but work with them in a way that is beneficial to both the publishing house and my career. Negotiate advances. Negotiate sub-rights. Protect my interests in areas like audio, comic book, and foreign rights. Make sure that I get paid on time. Follow up with my editors when things are unclear, or when I need more time to finish something. Check in with me to see what space I have on my plate. Understand the industry. Explain things like "co-op" and how marketing budget works. Tell me where my energy needs to be spent, rather than where I necessarily want to spend it.

Beyond the fairly standard notation that many major houses no longer consider submissions from unagented authors, the agent serves a thousand functions that, frankly, I don't have time to deal with. It's possible that I would have time for them, if I wasn't writing four books at once; on the flip side of that, I can also say that if I was dealing with all the functions served by my agent, I wouldn't have time to write four books at once. It all feeds back to a question of resource allocation, and I have chosen to externalize certain resource needs in the form of my agent.

Agents don't just negotiate the size of your advance; they negotiate contracts, which are huge, complex, complicated things. Without an agent to go through the contract and understand it, you need to not only speak the crazy language of literary rights, you need to have strong feelings on all those things. What do you think about comic rights, merchandising rights, foreign rights, audio rights, film rights, the right to construct an amusement park based on your work? What do you think of the time the contract says you'll have to review your page proofs, of the concept of seeing your copyedits, of the way the next work clause is worded? Do you understand half of what I just said? 'Cause honestly, without my agent, I wouldn't, and even now, I'm a little vague on some of the specifics, although I'm learning.

Agents deal with your editors, and can mediate when, say, you miss a deadline because your cat got sick and you just can't cope and what do these people want from you?! Well, they want you to hold to the terms of your contract, and they want you to make a lot of money, because everybody would like to have a lot of money, and if you make a lot of money, so does your publisher. But without that buffer between yourself and the publisher, it's very possible that you could flip out and take somebody's face off, thus ruining the working relationship. Instead, flip out on your agent, and they'll take care of making nice while you hyperventilate in a corner.

A good agent will help your career in a hundred ways...and more, they're very often an excellent gatekeeper, because as soon as you're salable, the agents will be happy to let you know. It's not their job to get you to that point, but once you get yourself there, their job begins, and that job is a hard one. Frankly, it's not a job I'd want to do.

Are literary agents outdated? No. Are literary agents like having the cheat codes to the publishing industry? Yes. You still need to understand what you're doing, but they can make things go a lot more smoothly, and they can keep you from dying too many times before you finish level one. That's more than worth the cost of their commission.

So here I am, in New York. (Technically, as I write this, here I am, in New Jersey. It seems like I always wind up staying in New Jersey while here, and commuting to New York. This is because the East Coast is made entirely of tiny little postage-stamp states. Postage-stamp states. I realize and understand that this is a California thing, but really, I don't feel that I should be able to casually wander over state lines and not really notice.) Since arriving...

...the motor on the fridge has decided to die, filling the apartment with smoke, covering the kitchen floor with water, and triggering an impromptu dinner party, complete with enormous and only semi-expected mob. One member of the mob, upon encountering certain jet-lagged idiosyncrasies of mine, wailed, "But my Seanan List* didn't include what to do about the liver hat!" Sometimes it's nice to be me.

...visited the GINORMOUS Manhattan Apple Store, in which a charming young man at the Genius Bar was kind enough to inform me that my iPod was, in fact, dead beyond all reasonable repair. He offered to zombie it for a short period of time, but made it clear that this manner of resurrection was counter-recommended, and would probably result in an army of undead Apple products shambling around the city. As I have things to accomplish this week, I declined, and will be getting a new iPod.

...visited FAO Schwartz, home of the giant piano, and many, many, many toys. I did not actually buy any toys, largely due to their tragic dearth of dinosaurs. I judged their stock most harshly. I judged their stock most harshly with the powers of my mind. (I did not, however, judge their MUPPET FACTORY with anything beyond delight and glee. Because dude, MUPPET FACTORY.)

...went to Serendipity 3 with The Agent. We consumed frozen hot chocolate, which was amazing, and had lunch, which was less "amazing" and more "faintly horrifying." My chef's salad contained a pond's-worth of watercress, an orange, a cup of fruit salad, steamed asparagus, and avocado. This is what those of here in the real world like to refer to as "overkill." We split a sundae after eating. This, too, was overkill, but in the good way, since we received roughly enough hot fudge to replace all the mucus in the average human body.

...ate an apple cider doughnut. What the hell is wrong with some people?

...went to visit everybody at Orbit (Mira's editor). I'd already met my editor (at World Fantasy) and my contact in the marketing department (far more pleasant than Vel's Marketing Department), but it was a real treat to meet all the other folks involved in making the book a reality, including the art director who did the cover design (which is, I must admit, fucking fantastic). After our meeting, The Editor2 took The Agent and I out for lunch in Grand Central Station. Sadly, this involved cutlery and bread service, rather than hot dogs of questionable origin and things scraped off of crusty bakery trays, which is what I think of when you say "hey, let's go eat in the train station."

...passed out cold from a migraine and lost approximately sixteen hours. Because sometimes, jetlag hates me.

(*She was actually equipped with a Seanan List to assist her in surviving our encounter. Presumably this list came with a box labeled "In Case of Seanan Break Glass." The contents of the box are left to your imagination.)

How's been by all of you?

Back in May, I posted about the damage that a bad cover can do to a good book. You can view the original post (and ensuing discussion) here. The consensus at the time was that having a bad cover sucks, and that if your book's cover is bad, it will probably impact the sales of the book. Not exactly rocket science, but still, it's a good thing to think about, especially since—as authors—very few of us have control over our own book covers, so it's good to be prepared to do damage control.

Recently, I got a look at the cover for an upcoming book in an urban fantasy/paranormal romance series That Shall Not Be Named, because I try to be polite like that. For purposes of discussion, we're going to call it An Armchair to Remember, book three in the Ikeamancer series. Our main character, Casey Carpenter, has inherited the family gift for communicating with furniture. Naturally, she uses this power to fight crime, since she doesn't really have anything else to do with her time.

On the cover of the first book, Cushioning the Blow, Casey was pictured as described in the text: reasonably pretty but not going to be anybody's new super-model, with dark hair that needs styling, a wardrobe that looks like it could handle her daily duties as a general manager at Ikea, and a few iconic items in the background. On the cover of the second book, From Desk 'Til Dawn, she was drawn slightly differently, but still believably the same character. Same basic styling, attitude, etc.

On the cover of An Armchair to Remember, she looks like a seventeen-year-old Goth hooker. Please join me in saying, um, what the hell?

Now, I understand that characters will look slightly different from cover to cover. Toby looks a little bit different on the covers of Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, and An Artificial Night...but these differences are, at least from my perspective, still allowably within the range of "this character is Toby." It's the variance between a picture of Alice drawn by Mimi and a picture of Alice drawn by Bill—they look different, but she's still clearly Alice Price-Healy, getting ready to kick your ass. You can draw the same character within a range and still have it believably stand for the same individual.

The cover for An Armchair to Remember isn't doing that. In fact, if I didn't know the book (the theoretical book), I'd guess that we were looking at the first in a spin-off series starring Casey's ironically trampy-campy younger sister, Carrie, who communicates with clothing and manages a Hot Topic in the mall. It doesn't look a thing like Casey. Casey wouldn't be caught dead in that outfit. It is, essentially, the equivalent of sticking Toby in a mini-skirt and push-up bra for the cover of Late Eclipses, after giving her a bleach job and some serious makeup.

How jarring is this for you? How likely are you to pick up An Armchair to Remember when it looks so different from the other books in the series—when the main character looks so different? Is this going to make you look elsewhere, or do you not care by the time you get to the third book in a series? What about new readers? If this was the first volume you'd seen, would you buy book one after digging it out of the back catalog? Inquiring minds (namely, me) want to know.

I have landed safely in New York. scifantasy was kind enough to collect me from the airport, and explained many interesting things about fair use during the trip. I am in Jersey City, and we are about to leave for the Apple Store, which is why this post is neither lengthy nor terribly informative.

Back later, please do not burn down the Internet. (Quoth scifantasy, "And if you let Missus O'Grady's cow kick over that lantern again...")

Point the first: I have drawn the winner for the first A Local Habitation giveaway! I literally do this by feeding the number of comments into a random number generator, and then counting (this is very laborious, but worth it). So our first winner is...

asthecrowfly!

Please email me—DO NOT use the LJ messenger function—with your mailing address. I will be mailing the ARC out after I get home from New York (so next week).

Point the second: I am about to shut down my computer, get into the car, go to the airport, and fly to New York City. I'll be online in the evenings, and may even be online from the plane, since I'm going to need distractions while in the air. I have a lot of writing planned for the actual transit portion of the trip, and a lot of business meetings planned while in New York. I'm going to be Seanan and Mira this time. Fun for the whole family. Plus, The Agent is taking me to Serendipity 3. Mmmmmm, frozen hot chocolate.

Point the third: Coyote has decided that I depend too much on modern technology, and my iPod has died. Hard. Like, I spent half an hour on the phone with Apple technical support, and finally got told "I think it's your hardware." No shit, Sherlock. Anyway, I'm going to go to an Apple Store in Manhattan, where hopefully they'll say something like "gee, this is still under warranty, have a new one." If not, I'm going to sell one of Brooke's kidneys (again) or something, because my mental health really hinges on having portable music, and I no longer have my faithful old Sony Discman (it died quite some time ago). My housemate has loaned me his iPod for the duration of my trip, largely, I think, because he was afraid I might eat him if he didn't.

And that's the news from California. There will be more contests and ARC giveaways in the months to come, including the first contest proposed by The Agent, and I'll let you know when I reach New York alive.

There has once again been a massive influx of people, due to the fact that Alice is adorable—welcome, massive influx of people; it's nice to meet you, although I realize half of you will leave again as you realize that this isn't the all-kitten-doing-weird-stuff, all-the-time channel, and that's fine—I have decided to once again do the abbreviated "here are ten things you might want to know" version of the periodic welcome post. So here it is. Ta-da! (As a footnote, Alice is aware of your worship, and was puffy all over my face at 2AM last night.)

***

1. My name is Seanan McGuire; I'm an author, musician, poet, cartoonist, and amiable nutcase, presently living in Northern California, planning to relocate to Washington at some point in the next few years. I am a very chatty person, whether you're talking literally "we're in the same place" chattiness, or more abstract "someone has left Seanan alone with a keyboard, run for the hills" chattiness. This does not, paradoxically, make me terribly good about keeping up with email or answering comments in anything that resembles a reasonable fashion. We all have our flaws. Luckily for my agent's sanity, I am very good about making my deadlines.

2. My name is pronounced "SHAWN-in", although a great many people elect to pronounce it "SHAWN-anne" instead. Either is fine with me. I went to an event where we all got name tags once, and the person making the name tags was a "SHAWN-anne" person, who proceeded to label me as "Shawn Anne McGuire". I choose to believe that Shawn Anne is my alter-ego from a universe where, instead of becoming an author, I chose to become a country superstar. She wears a great many rhinestones, because they're sparkly, and she can get away with it. Just don't call me "See-an-an" and we'll be fine.

3. I write: urban fantasy, horror, young adult, supernatural romance, and straight chick-lit romance. I occasionally threaten to write medical thrillers, but everyone knows that's just so I'd have an excuse to take more epidemiology courses. I love me a good plague. I believe that editing is a full-contact sport, complete with penalty boxes, illegal checking, and team pennants. My editing team is the Fighting Pumpkins. We're going all the way to the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS this year, bay-bee!

4. I find it useful to keep a record of the status of my various projects, both because it warms the little Type-A cockles of my heart, and because it helps people who need to know what's going on know, well, what's going on. So you'll see word counts and editing updates go rolling by if you stick around, as well as more generalized complaining about the behavior of fictional people. I am told this is entertaining. I am also told that this is possibly a sign of madness. I don't know.

5. I currently publish both as myself, and as my own evil twin, Mira Grant. My first book under my own name, Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], came out from DAW in September 2009. The sequel, A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], is coming out in March 2010, also from DAW. Mira's first book, Feed [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], will be out from Orbit in May 2010. I don't get very much sleep.

6. I am a musician! More specifically, I'm a filk musician. If you know filk, this statement makes total sense. If you don't know filk, think "the folk music of the science fiction and fantasy community"—or you can check out the music FAQ on my website. I have three CDs available: Pretty Little Dead Girl, Stars Fall Home, and Red Roses and Dead Things. I'm currently recording a fourth CD, Wicked Girls, which will be out sometime in 2010. I write mostly original material, and don't spend much time in ParodyLand. It just doesn't work out for me.

7. Things I find absolutely enthralling: giant squid. Plush dinosaurs. Siamese and Maine Coon cats. Zombies. The plague. Pandemic flu. Horror movies of all quality levels. Horror television. Science Fictional Channel Original Movies. Shopping for used books. Halloween. Marvel comics. Candy corn. Carnivorous plants. Pumpkin cake. Stephen King. The Black Death. Pandemic disease of all types. Learning how to say horrifying things in American Sign Language. Diet Dr Pepper.

8. Things I find absolutely horrifying: slugs. Big spiders dropping down from the ceiling and landing on me because ew. Bell peppers. Rice. Movies that consist largely of car chases and do not contain a satisfying amount of carnage. Animal cruelty. People who go hiking on mountain trails in Northern California and freak out over a little rattlesnake. Most sitcoms. A large percentage of modern advertising. Diet Chocolate Cherry Dr Pepper.

9. I am owned by two cats: a classic bluepoint Siamese named Lillian Kane Moskowitz Munster McGuire, and a blue classic tabby and white Maine Coon named Alice Price-Healy Little Liddel Abernathy McGuire. Yes, I call them that, usually when they've been naughty. The rest of the time, they're respectively "Lilly" or "Lil," and either "Alice" or "Ally." I'm planning to get a Sphynx, eventually, when the time comes to expand to having a third cat.

10. I frequently claim to be either a Disney Halloweentown princess or Marilyn Munster. These claims are more accurate than most people realize. Although I wasn't animated in Pasadena.

***

Welcome!

Remember, folks, I'm going to be doing a random drawing on Saturday to win an advance reader's copy (ARC) of A Local Habitation. You could get your hands on the second Toby book months before release day! And all you have to do is...

...click this link and leave a comment.

Seriously, that's all. Just don't leave your comment on this post, since no comments made on this post will be fed into the random number generator. Leave your comment on this post over here. Not this post. This other post.

Good luck!

I am a professional. I am aware of what is and is not appropriate conversation for polite company (although I sometimes forget when the topics of "pandemic disease" or "zombies" come up; sadly, I can be goaded into gleeful explanations of latency and droplet-based transmission just about anywhere, including the dinner table). I wear real grown-up shoes when I have to take business meetings, and I have a calm, measured telephone voice.

All this being said, there's a reason I don't usually take phone calls in my house.

The Agent called to discuss my upcoming trip to New York, during which we're going to be doing several dinner-type things, some meeting-type things, and a lot of hanging out. During our forty-minute or so discussion, she was treated to...

"Ow! Ow ow OW! Goddammit, Alice, get your claws out of my fucking leg!"
"No. No, you can't have that. No, that isn't yours. No."
"Get off of there! Jesus, cat, I swear, I will skin you."
"I can get new cats, you know. Better cats. Smaller cats. Cats that don't do that."
"Alice, give back my bra."
"I'm serious, Alice. Give me back my damn bra."
"THAT'S MY FUCKING BRA, CAT!"
"Okay, I give up. Just do whatever the fuck you want."

...all while we were having a serious business discussion. I swear, the fact that she hasn't drowned me and put me out of her misery is something of a miracle.

So the fabulous Mia, of chimera_fancies, is one of the most talented fairy tale jewelry makers I know. Her pieces are unique works of art, made from recycled books and magically transformed into something far greater than the sum of its parts. I own more than a few of her pendants. I'm going to wind up owning more than a few more. You've heard all this before. So why am I saying it again?

Because she has a pendant sale coming up, probably starting on or around November 18th (I'll post the exact date as soon as I have it, and so will she). Not just any pendant sale, incredible as her work is. An extra-special, extra-collectible pendant sale. Because, you see, she got her hands on an ARC of Rosemary and Rue. ARCs are not intended for resale; they're transitory things, unable to stand up to the stress of multiple re-readings. So Mia, mindful of the ARC's tragically short lifespan, took and transformed it into more than fifty gorgeous pieces of wearable art. I'm very serious. These pendants are some of the best work I've ever seen from her. She's growing as an artist with every piece she does, and for this set, she really busted out all the stops.

All pendants have been signed by me, in either black or silver Sharpie, depending on the base color. The exact method of pendant sale will be determined by Mia; it may be the random pick method she used for the Halloween sale, it may be something else, but either way, it'll be posted on her journal before the actual sale begins. All pendants will be $22, which includes postage.

These really are incredible. I couldn't be happier, or feel more honored, to be working with someone who does such amazing things.

Recently, I picked up a book that looked interesting. It hit many of my "sweet spots" for plot, description, and cover blurbs from people I trust. The cover didn't do it any favors, featuring, as it did, a generic Urban Fantasy Hot Girl standing in a Playboy circa-1984 pose, but I've enjoyed books with way worse covers. I entered the text in good faith.

By page two, I was ready to fling the book across the room. Why? Because the author had chosen to scramble the spelling of a common-to-the-genre word in a way that made it look not only pretentious, but difficult to read. This is a personal bug-a-boo of mine, since I really do feel that spelling was standardized for a reason, and while I managed to soldier through, it colored my ability to sink into the text for several chapters.

(As an aside, seriously: not all words become more interesting and mysterious when spelled with a vestigial "y." The worst example I've ever seen was in a YA series full of "mermyds," and the fact that I made it through all three volumes is a testament to the power of raw stubborn.)

One reader of Rosemary and Rue posted a lengthy, positive review, more than half of which was taken up by complaints about the pronunciation guide. Specifically, I didn't write down the correct pronunciation of "Kitsune." It's a fair cop—if you pronounce the word as written in the pronunciation guide, you'll be saying it wrong—and it's been corrected for A Local Habitation, but it was, for this person, as bad as if I'd spelled Toby's name "Aughtcober" and then claimed it was pronounced just like the month. Bug-a-boos for all!

Kate recently delivered a long and eloquent diatribe on "back cover buzz-word bingo," which I really wish I'd had a video camera running for, because it was awesome. The summation is that she watches the back covers of books for certain "buzz-words," and, if the book works up to a magical bingo score, she doesn't read it. I do something similar with bad horror movies, since there are specific buzz-words that mean "soft core porn" and "gratuitous torture," and those really aren't what I'm watching the movie to see.

So what are your bug-a-boos? Terribly twisted spelling? Pronunciations that you don't agree with? Buzz-words oozing off the back cover and getting all over your shoes? How about heroines with ruby hair and emerald eyes who aren't appearing in an Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld fanfic epic? Inquiring blondes want to know!

I was intending to make this post yesterday, on the actual two-month anniversary of Rosemary and Rue being released into the wild. Tragically, intentions only count in horseshoes and hand grenades, and my post-World Fantasy exhaustion resulted in my spending the evening watching Supernatural and playing "Plants vs. Zombies." I'm actually not all that sorry. I really needed the rest. All that being said...

Rosemary and Rue has now been available for two full months. People I don't know and never will have bought and read my book. (Sometimes I can tell who doesn't know me, because they call me "Mr. McGuire" in their reviews. I find this adorable.) People have loved it, people have hated it, people have called it original and amazing, people have called it the usual urban fantasy fare. I have stopped having chest pains when suddenly confronted with large book displays. I have stopped having stomach pains when stores had other books in my genre, but didn't have mine. I have, in short, calmed down a lot. Much like a woman who spends a year planning her wedding, then finally realizes she can do other things, I am basically recovered.

Which is good, because now it's time to get ready for A Local Habitation. Which is, I think, a better book than Rosemary and Rue (and I do believe Rosemary and Rue to be a good book; I wouldn't have bothered trying to publish it if I didn't). Rosemary and Rue was the book that established my world, and that means that large chunks of textual real estate did have to go toward making the rules coherent and clear; without the rules, the whole towering palace comes tumbling down. It was also the book that made the largest number of introductions—much like inviting all your friends who've never met to the same cocktail party. A Local Habitation gets to skip all that, and go straight to the "smashing stuff" part of our program. I like smashing stuff.

I have learned a lot about self-promotion, event organization, not taking everything personally, keeping myself pointed in the correct direction, organization of the world in general, and not exhausting myself too much. I have learned that no matter how much I feel like I've thrown my book at everyone in the known universe, there will always be people going "Who are you again?" I have learned that a bad review is not the end of the world, and that a good review is exactly as awesome as I always hoped it would be. I have learned to take the time to breathe.

And now, in a hundred and thirty days, I get to learn all these lessons all over again.

Whee!

Well, it's November. Rosemary and Rue has been available for two months, and has been performing pretty well, thus making me feel slightly less like I need to spend all my time flailing. And I have the ARCs for A Local Habitation, which means it's time for...

An ARC giveaway!

To enter to win a copy of A Local Habitation, please comment on this entry. That's all; just comment. I'll be selecting a winner via random drawing on Saturday, so as to give people plenty of time to chime in with their burning desire to have the second Toby book in their hot little hands. (Please remember that I really really really need you to buy the book even if you receive an ARC.) I'll sign it and everything.

Well, then: GAME ON!

It makes me a little sniffly to realize that soon, we'll have the last Rosemary and Rue review roundup, because we'll be moving fully into A Local Habitation. I think I learned a lot between the two books; I think I definitely improved as a writer; I believe that people who liked the first one will be happy with the commonalities and even happier with the differences. All that being said, here are today's reviews:

Spoiled For Books has written a lovely and nicely detailed review, and says "Rosemary and Rue is fast paced and full of action, just what I like best. There is a hint of romance, but not much of it, and I suspect it will be many more books before the romance flowers into something tangible." Yay!

Suzanne, over at Responses to My Reading, has also written a nice, detailed review, which includes speculation about where the series might be going (there are no actual spoilers here for any of the future books, and some of the spec made me giggle quite a bit). The review is structured so as to be somewhat difficult to quote, but is thoughtful and thorough, and I'm happy.

Our final review for today comes from Faith Adeline, of Faith Adeline Reviews. Naturally. Well, she definitely does review, so the advertising is accurate. She says "Rosemary and Rue is a strong debut novel, and I hope the rest of the series lives up to it." (Trust me, so do I.) She also says "I'm definitely looking forward to reading the sequels, I'm sad the next novel doesn't come out until March!"

That's all for today. When I get back from World Fantasy, we'll start with the ARC giveaways and the gear-up toward A Local Habitation!

Hey, guys. Sorry to have been so incredibly scarce recently. Between the Ohio Valley Filk Festival, going through the page proofs for Feed (which killed no fewer than four pads of Post-It notes), getting ready for World Fantasy, and trying to finish a variety of projects before deadline, it's been hectic squared around my place, resulting in a lot of things slipping. (Ironically, my viewing of America's Next Top Model and conquest of "Plants vs. Zombies" are not among the things which have slipped. This is because skinny crazy girls and plant-eating undead don't require all that much thought, while composing a coherent blog entry does.)

So what's been going on? Well, for starters, I have my Advance Review Copies of A Local Habitation, and they're flat-out gorgeous. I'd take a picture of Alice with the books, so you could get an idea of how big she's gotten, but unfortunately, she killed the camera a while ago, and it has yet to be replaced. Seriously, I love these books. I also blush a lot when I look at them, because the back cover and inside page are covered with quotes about Rosemary and Rue being awesome. I always sort of envied authors who got that much good press, and now I am that author. It's weirdly quantum. The Great Pumpkin loves me so.

(Before y'all ask, yes, we will be having a few ARC giveaways. Watch this space for further developments.)

The cats have greatly enjoyed my week off from work. This will not make them any more forgiving when I disappear for the entire weekend, but at least I don't feel quite so neglectful. Alice has been thoroughly brushed, and Lilly "helped" me kill zombies for about an hour last night, by sitting on my lap and occasionally attacking the mouse.

Hope y'all are having a fabulous Halloween season, and that all your bonfires are smoky, your jack-o-lanterns spooky, and your black cats sleek and strange.

I've gotten lax about my review round-ups since we reached October, partially because the reviews tend to taper off after a book has been out for a little while, and partially because I've been deeply busy. Still, these round-ups are as much for my reference as to share the news, so it's definitely time.

First up, Rosemary and Rue is a Virginia Beach Public Library staff pick. Penelope (our reviewer) says "Author Seanan McGuire has a sure hand with her first venture into urban fantasy—it is gritty, dark, full of despair and unwanted but necessary decisions. October Daye is worth remembering, as she struggles through Faerie politics and intrigue, reluctantly gathering allies at all levels as well as coming to grips with her own personal anguish." I call that a win!

Rixo has posted a long and lovely review. She says "Rosemary and Rue is an urban fantasy that I'm actually comfortable calling that. It isn't a paranormal romance in disguise, which is a nice change of pace." She also says "The changelings' world is gritty and unforgiving; this is not a warm, fuzzy sort of book. And I like it that way."

Rhianna has posted her review over at RhiReading; she says "October's series is off to a good start with Rosemary and Rue. These are the fae most faeriephiles are familiar with but with some twists. McGuire gives readers just enough detail and hints to keep them reading but leaves a lot open for disclosure in future installments." Also, "I recommend this one for urban fantasy fans looking for something fresh and original."

It's not a review round-up without an LJ review, this time provided by quettalinde. It's an excellent review, if difficult to pull quotes from, and I'm very pleased, especially by the picture of the book propped on a bundle of rosemary. Hee!

You may remember that I did an interview with Alex from Book Banter. Well, he's also posted his review. He says "For those looking for a fresh dosage of new reading after getting the latest fix of Dresden Files, look no further than the fresh voice of debut author Seanan McGuire and the first in her October Daye mystery series, Rosemary and Rue. Think Harry Dresden, but make him female, set her in San Francisco, and accept that the world of Faerie not only exists but has portals linking to our own world and the characters of fable are very real and terrifying."

Hey, another newspaper review! This time it's in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel. "This is a great start to a new series that does a good job blending the paranormal aspect with the crime noir." That's a line I'm more than happy to start things with.

In our last entry for this round-up, Nancy Holzner provides a short and sweet review. She says "McGuire conveys the complexity of Faerie—and the difficulties that face a changeling living in the human world—without slowing down the story to dump information on the reader. The result is a richly imagined world that feels real." Also "Rosemary and Rue is the first novel in an urban fantasy series by debut author Seanan McGuire, and I’m looking forward to the next book, A Local Habitation, which comes out in March 2010."

That's our review round-up for October in October. I'm pretty pleased so far.

Well, I'm off to board a giant metal sky-bird and wing my way across the country to Columbus, Ohio, with a stop in the middle to switch planes in Chicago. I'll be in Ohio (and hence on limited Internet access) until Monday, when I come back to California. If you're in the Columbus area, feel free to swing by OVFF to say hello, hear some awesome music, and maybe get a book or two signed.

See you when I get back!

To begin with, here is today's exciting press release of awesome exciting awesomeness:

The cover graphic for Feed has been officially released by my publisher (Orbit).

Click for the artist's commentary, and then come back to join me in squealing, flailing excitement. Feed is the first of three volumes in the Newsflesh trilogy, all of them being released under my pseudonym, Mira Grant. Feed will be on shelves in May 2010 (yes, the same month as my appearance at MarCon in Columbus, Ohio—when they invited me, they got two guests for the price of one). Which brings us to...

...my page proofs for Feed arrived today, and they are intense. Thank the Great Pumpkin that I have some long stints on airplanes coming up, because otherwise I'd worry about my capacity to finish reviewing a manuscript of this length in the time allotted. As it stands, the folks at OVFF may see a lot less of my smiling face than they were expecting, because I have got a lot of work to do. But it will all be worth it, and it will all be completely awesome when it's done.

The end of the world was just the beginning.

When will you rise?

[Nine nervous aspiring authors stand on a pair of low bleacher-style steps, arranged to make it very obvious that there used to be more of them. It's equally obvious that they would really rather be clustered together like chickens in a hurricane. They're dressed in their Make A Good Impression best, which means that only a few stains and patches are visible, and most of their clothes actually fit. At the front of the room stands a familiar face, sleek and well-groomed, with professionally-styled hair and makeup that wasn't purchased from Target: Gloriana Goodthrob, the best-selling romance author whose books have dominated the national charts for the last ten years. Behind her is a panel of expert judges. No, really, we swear, they're experts. Gloriana says so.]

GLORIANA: Welcome, authors. You're looking very professional today. [Nervous laughter from the authors.] You're all familiar with our prizes. The winner will be signed with one of the best agencies in the world, Elite Author Management, be featured in a six-column interview in Publisher's Weekly, and receive a book contract with a guaranteed print run of fifty thousand copies. You all know our judges. The first is the noted book cover artist, Peter Penciler.

PETER: Hello, authors.

GLORIANA: Critique artist and ghost-writer, Mister Thomas Hack.

HACK: Authors.

GLORIANA: And our guest judge for the evening, the lovely and talented Miss Ivana Cut, agent extraordinaire.

IVANA: Hello, authors.

GLORIANA: Now this week, you were asked to write a science fiction epic, featuring thrilling exploits, original characters, zippy dialog, and most of all, a heavily marketable theme. You've received your critiques, both individually and as a group. There are nine of you in front of me, but I only hold eight manuscripts in my hands. These manuscripts represent the eight who are still in the running to become America's Next Top Author. The author whose name I do not call must immediately return to the house, pack your belongings, and go home. The author whose name I call first will have their manuscript made available for free download on the Kindle (tm) for the next week, thus increasing your visibility and potential readership.

[Pause for dramatic tension.]

GLORIANA: The first name I'm going to call is...Dave.

[DAVE walks forward to take his manuscript with visible relief.]

GLORIANA: Dave, you wowed us this week with your use of adjectives, your fire, and your willingness to completely mimic the last big thing, burying your own standards to succeed. You're still in the running to become America's Next Top Author.

DAVE: Thank you. [He moves to his place against the wall.]

[GLORIANA calls the next six authors, leaving only two standing on the bleachers, both looking terrified.]

GLORIANA: Will Suzi and Damon please step forward?

[Two trembling authors approach the front of the room. DAMON needs a better haircut. SUZI needs new shoes.]

GLORIANA: Two authors stand before me, but I only have one manuscript in my hands. This manuscript represents the writer who is still in the running to become America's Next Top Author. Suzi, you've wowed us week after week with your sizzling, inappropriate sex scenes and your creativity with props. But this week, when you were given the whole galaxy as your prop, you became timid, cautious...predictable. Your titillation wasn't so titillating. And Damon, when the judges look at you, they see an author who has the whole package—looks, verve, literacy—but when we read your work, we find ourselves wondering if you'll sell to the public. Your idea of "out of this world" is just a little too "out there." So who stays? The talented seductress who may limit herself when she's nervous, or the intellectual abstract artist who leaves us feeling cold?

[Close up on DAMON and SUZI, looking terrified. GLORIANA holds out a manuscript.]

GLORIANA: Suzi. You're still in the running to become America's Next Top Author. But next week, that manuscript had better be smokin'.

[SUZI bursts into tears, takes her manuscript, and runs for the safety of the others. DAMON looks at GLORIANA, expression stoic and unwavering.]

GLORIANA: Damon, you have so much potential! There's a bestselling author inside you, just aching to break free! Learn to stop taking too many chances. Reel it in a little. Add some hot, steamy sex, and the world could be yours.

[DAMON nods, eyes filled with unshed tears as he turns, waves, and exits the room. Fade to shots of him packing his things in the cramped house shared by the contestants.]

DAMON, voiceover: Well, yeah, I did expect to go a lot further, but I'm not ashamed of myself. I'm not sorry I wrote what I wanted to write. If it doesn't have an audience, who cares? I'll keep writing. I'll always keep on writing...

...but the bad news is they're dead.

We all have those movies that we saw as kids and were horribly scarred-slash-influenced by. They aren't always good movies. In fact, I'd say a lot of them are bad movies, which we love because hey, when you're a kid, men in rubber suits chasing girls in bikinis after inexplicable beachfront musical numbers are pure gold. These are the movies that make us the people we become as adults. For me, these movies were split just about fifty-fifty between "really bad horror movies" and "candy-colored cartoon wonderlands." This explains a great many things, if you stop and think about it for a moment. Or don't. It might be better for you.

One of my most formative films was a creepy little horror-comedy called The Night of the Creeps [Amazon]. It, along with The Monster Squad, Night of the Comet, and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, informed me on a very deep and meaningful level. And it has been totally unavailable for years now, due to rights issues and the fact that, let's face it, they needed to wait for those of us who remembered loving this movie were old enough to have disposable income.

Guess what came out on DVD today?

There is so much love.

Behold! The totally awesome chimera_fancies is doing a Halloween pendant sale! Thirty-two amazing, unique bits of fairy tale art are available now for your delight and enjoyment.

I would buy them all if I could. Check out the link to see for yourself why.

SHINY!

Title: Velveteen vs. The Old Flame.
Summary: The life of a retired superhero is definitely refusing to get easier. Especially when you're just trying to get to Oregon already, and now people from your past that you've done your best to put behind you seem bent on tracking you down...

( Velma Martinez -- occasional reluctant superheroine, former child star, bitterest of all bitter twenty-somethings, and prime candidate for therapy -- stepped out of the Chevron Extra Mile, arms loaded down with road snacks and half a Twinkie still sticking out of her mouth as she tried to figure out how to chew, swallow, and find her car keys all at the same time... )

Saturday, I participated in LitCrawl at Borderlands Books in San Francisco. When I mentioned this on Twitter, someone said this made them think of ArtCrawl from The Middleman, and asked if I was going to perform "Hey, Mr. God," supposedly the world's worst spoken-word piece (also from The Middleman, naturally). Being a deeply silly blonde, I replied that if Rosemary and Rue was Borderlands' top-selling paperback again for October 2009, I would not only perform "Hey, Mr. God," I would record it as an MP3 and put it up for free download.

Sadly, I made this reply in public. So here, because I am a shameless creature, is the official challenge:

If enough people buy Rosemary and Rue from Borderlands to make it their top-selling mass-market paperback for October 2009, I will go into Kristoph's studio and record an MP3 of the "Hey, Mr. God" monologue from The Middleman episode "The Boy-Band Superfan Interrogation." I will then post this MP3 for free download. I will have no shame during the recording, which means I will sound like a complete idiot. You can probably use this MP3 to blackmail me in fifteen years, which I am less young and stupid.

(Yes, they take Internet and telephone orders; yes, they ship; yes, they have signed books.)

My plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity.

So here's the basic thing: I grew up below the United States poverty line. Way, way below the poverty line. "I really thought yellow boxes meant it was food" and "let's have government cheese sandwiches" levels of below the poverty line. One thing you don't get when you're below the poverty line in America? Dental care. Combine this with a dental phobia (brought on by the rare occasions when I actually saw a dentist, as the dentists assigned the charity cases were often shouty) and an adulthood spent largely temping, and, well. Nothing good can come of this.

Because I am a working author with a day job and good dental insurance for the first time in my adult life, I thought "hey, I'm finally in the position to actually pay to have all the necessary work done." Not "the cosmetic work." The "chewing is fun and awesome and I enjoy being able to do it" work. I found a dentist, I organized my finances as responsibly as I could so that I would be able to pay for everything...

...I got slapped upside the head with self-employment taxes, which, as anyone who's ever looked at the forms can tell you, is obscene. They don't adjust for your situation, either. There's no box to check for "I need lots of medical work, I am employed by a non-profit, and I live in one of the highest cost-of-living regions of the country, so please, don't assume I can afford what you're asking me for." If you make ten dollars income that can be hit with the self-employment taxes, the government wants between three and five dollars of that, even if you're not going to get any more money that year.

Why am I bitching about this now? Because I finally got my full estimate for the rest of my dental work. And that, combined with my final quarterly tax payment for the 2009 tax year, will basically kill my savings account, which I have worked so very hard to build. A lot of my expenses for the year have been deductible—including a lot of my medical, given the level of extensive that it's achieved—but the bills still have to be paid now. If it weren't for the sheer scope of the taxes I've had to pay this year, I'd be fine. Instead? I'm crazy irritated.

Screw you, too, Uncle Sam.

So I recently agreed to autograph and mail back a book that was mailed to me, because hey, it seemed like a cool thing to do, and nobody had ever asked me to do that before (and since the book was being mailed with the cost of postage enclosed, it's not like I was giving up a day's Diet Dr Pepper for the sake of randomly mailing things). I was rewarded by the book's owner—also a Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab fan, albeit one who does not share my adoration of their pumpkin perfumes—enclosing surprise BPAL. Specifically, surprise Pumpkin Patch 2006. SURPRISE!

The 2006 Pumpkin Patch was my Very First BPAL. It was a gift from Kate, who thought I would like it. She was right, as my shelf o' bottles of weird perfume can now attest. I bought the 2007 Pumpkin Patch for myself. And the 2008 Pumpkin Patch. And recently, thanks to a "please help me buy more perfume"-based art sale, the 2009 Pumpkin Patch. Oh, and I have a bottle of Jack, and a bottle of Pumpkin Queen. So, counting my new bottles, and the extra bottle of Pumpkin-with-Pomegranate that I got Just In Case (tm), I have...

...twenty-nine bottles of pumpkin-based perfume. Not counting my assorted imps and decants and suchlike.

I think this is sufficient pumpkin perfume to make my declaration of being Pumpkin Queen of California entirely believable, and actually a bit of an unnecessary statement. Because I am so the Pumpkin Queen. I have the spooky perfume to prove it.

Current stats:

Words: 3,620.
Total words: 60,091.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter sixteen, bedtime.
Music: my soppy love songs and angry punk scramble.
Lilly and Alice: asleep on the bed and begging for attention, respectively.

When last we left our intrepid manuscript, it was four pages shy of two hundred pages (one of my big personal milestones for any book). Well, now it's two hundred and eleven pages in length, complete with the whole of chapter sixteen, which was, um, exciting to work on in so many ways. I love anything that involves Holy Feasts and fried chicken, and this book gives me the opportunity to mix-and-match the two with wild aplomb. Besides which, we are now officially at the high point of that big hill, and it's all bang-bang-boom from here, baby. Bang-bang-boom.

Sadly, while I understand that I'm currently busting pages on this book primarily because my hindbrain is occupied, stegosaurus-like, with the contemplation of the big science questions for Blackout (and this book will hence shortly be tabled again, in favor of things which have current deadlines), I could not be more pleased with how things are going. Oh, there are bits to fix and errors to catch, but on the whole, it's clean, it's quick, and it's just fun, in a way that so very few things are.

CHEESE AND CAKE!

Tomorrow night, I will be participating in the fifth annual LitQuake LitCrawl, as one of the featured authors on the second stage of the Crawl. For the full schedule, and details on who else you can catch reading tomorrow, check out the website here:

http://www.litquake.org/category/schedule/

My stage of the crawl will run from 7:15 to 8:15 PM; I'll be showing up at my assigned venue, the lovely and ever-popular Borderlands Books, at around 6:00 PM (6:30 at the latest), so feel free to wander by, get things signed, and get yourself well-positioned for the readings to come. There are three authors reading during our assigned one-hour time frame: myself, John Levitt, and Loren Rhoads. I'm the second author up, but can't tell you exactly when I'm going to start, and I'll be reading a story you have Probably Never Encountered Before (dun-dun-DUUUUUUUUN).

This is a great opportunity to support local authors, support local literature events, and best of all, support your local bookstore. And, on a personal note, not only would I love it if you could come out, but Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] was the best-selling mass-market paperback at Borderlands for the month of September, and it would be awesome if we could finish out October at least in the top five. So if you've been considering nabbing another copy (they make great trick-or-treat prizes!), this would be an excellent time to swing by and snag it. I'll even sign it for you. Or for anybody else you want me to sign it to.

Hope to see you there!

1. Practically all of my books have acronyms, because that makes it a little easier for me to put book-related tasks in my planner. Most of them are easy to decode, like "R&R" for Rosemary and Rue, or "DA" for Discount Armageddon. The only book I've written so far that has no acronym is Feed (although it had one during the writing process, before the title change—the acronym for Newsflesh was, naturally, "NF.") The only book whose acronym makes no sense at all is Blackout, which I still refer to as "TME" (for The Mourning Edition) when writing notes to myself. This is because I refuse to have tasks related to "BO."

2. I tend to work out tricky bits of dialog by talking to myself. Maybe this wouldn't be so silly if I only did it at the privacy of my own keyboard, but I also like to take very long walks. The whole "hold your cellphone up to your ear and pretend that you're on a call" doesn't really work when you're actively keeping up both sides of a violent argument. I'm reasonably sure all my neighbors think I'm dangerously insane. That's actually just dandy by me, since it keeps them out of my yard.

3. Sometimes, what looks like me goofing off is actually the hardest part of the writing process. If I get really, really stuck on something, I'll generally respond by either a) stomping into the back room of my house and putting on the dumbest horror flick I can find, or b) leaving the house entirely and going to the movies. This allows me to disconnect approximately half of my brain—the half that gets in the way of seeing the story clearly—and really focus on what needs to happen next. At the end of Hellboy II, I literally responded to "What did you think of the movie?" by bursting into tears and wailing about a character's hair being the wrong color. I work very hard when I don't seem to be working at all.

4. Part of why I tend to be working on several projects at once is my tendency to get really depressed when I finish something. It's like I was on a wonderful adventure, and now it's over, and all I can do is look at the pictures I took while I was there, and maybe plan to take another trip someday (but you know it'll never be the same, because it never is). Editing and revisions are exciting in their own way, but they're really the equivalent of scrapbooking that first amazing trip. The best way to avoid the depression is to make sure I'm never left with the time to just sit on my hands and mope.

5. I draw lots and lots and lots of little scribbly maps on Post-It notes and stick them up around my computer, so as to make sure I don't lose track of where things are. In the case of large combat or action scenes, I'll frequently sweep everything off my bed and start blocking out the scene, using My Little Ponies to represent normal-sized people, and scaling up (or down) from there. Being represented by a sparkly purple unicorn does nothing to improve Toby's overall mood. Just in case you were wondering.

6. I inevitably wind up re-typing the entire book between drafts one and two. I guess it's a holdover from the days when I worked entirely via typewriter and didn't have a choice. I just find that I get a better feel for the sentences and the way they all sort of slot together on the page if I'm remaining as tightly engaged with the text as possible. Fortunately, I also type at a hundred and twenty words a minute when I'm really focused, so the continual re-typing doesn't slow me down as much as you might expect.

7. I have an irritating tendency to hide big plot twists from everyone, including myself, to prevent accidental spoilers. Seriously! I'll spend two hundred pages setting something up, and then consciously realize it's about to happen roughly two sentences before it actually does. Reviewing the text makes it clear that whatever it was, it was totally inevitable and the gun's been on the wall since page six. I still won't see it coming until it gets there, even though my notes will read like I was totally playing with everybody's heads on purpose. This is sort of awesome, since it means the stories stay surprising even to me. This is sort of crazy-making, for the same reason.

8. Years ago, I named my muse. My muse's name is Jane. Jane is a flaky alcoholic who doesn't believe in deadlines. I'm a Type-A neurotic who doesn't believe in being late. We're like the Odd Couple, only she doesn't exist and I'm always the one cleaning up after her. Sometimes I think that if I got three wishes, one of them would be the delicious opportunity to punch my own muse in the face.

9. When books start to lag or I start to lose interest in them, I often motivate myself to keep going by starting to get excited about the next book in the series. In fact, that's usually the sign that I'm really ready to engage with the text and just power on through. When I start wanting to talk about the awesome thing that happens in the third chapter of the sixth Toby book, that's when you know I'm about to find that final burst of creative wind and slam through the remainder of book five.

10. I really do write constantly. Even when I don't have a piece of paper in front of me, the odds are good that I'm thinking about what I'm going to write the next time that paper is available. Weekends, holidays, sick days, birthdays, trips to Disneyworld, it doesn't matter; I'm thinking about writing. This used to get me into trouble with a few of my boyfriends, who had a nasty habit of asking me what I was thinking about, and then getting annoyed when I gave them honest answers.

Come and get it while it's hot! The Edge of Propinquity is one of my favorite online magazines, featuring a monthly mix of ongoing, or "universe" stories—sort of like the classic old movie serials of the 1940s and 1950s, only without quite as many Rocketman cameos—and one-off guest stories, showing you the freaky side of the fictional world. I was a guest author for TEoP in 2008, with a gory little story called "Let's Pretend." Feeling the sting of my long absence, I went crawling back to their door, and was rewarded with the chance to be a guest in their home once more.

Ladies and gentlemen, my story for the November 2009 issue of The Edge of Propinquity:

Inspirations.

This is me enjoying the glories of being a horror girl, pure and simple. It's dark, it's squishy, and it makes me very happy to be able to get it out there and share it with the world. Blood stains and all.

Enjoy.

As it is now the fifteenth of October, it is once again time for me to make my monthly current projects post. Some people measure out their lives with coffee spoons; I seem to have taken a slightly more masochistic approach. This post and its kin, by the by, are the reason that I burst into tears and flail around like a squid on an electrified floor every time someone asks me "What are you working on?" The answer just takes too long to actually deliver. Anyway, this is the October list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.

To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that the first four Toby books are off this list, because they have been finished and turned in. You can purchase Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] now. You can pre-order A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] now. An Artificial Night and Late Eclipses are off the list until The Editor tells me otherwise.

The first Newsflesh book, Feed (formerly Newsflesh), is off the list because it has been turned in to The Other Editor, and I won't see it again until the page proofs. Ah, progress. It smells like fear and uncontrollable twitching.

The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out! )

Current stats:

Words: 5,811.
Total words: 56,471.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter fifteen, bedtime.
Music: show tunes and the cats being crazy.
Lilly and Alice: finally exhausted, now that they can't bother me anymore.

I literally stopped just shy of two hundred pages—just shy! I could taste that milestone, dammit—because the chapter was over, and I couldn't bring myself to mess around with my word count just for the sake of a little extra length. Besides, with the book now more than halfway to 60,000 words, we're going to be ringing that particular bell any day now...and yes, I am now past the halfway mark, which is supported by the plot arc, the behavior of the characters, and the place where the chapter breaks. I am giddy.

The best thing about this universe is that it's completely silly in some ways, yet takes itself completely seriously, much like the horror movies of the early 1980s. This is life or death, people, even when the "or death" part of the equation is being represented by hopping, screaming yams (the yams hunger for the taste of human blood). And whenever things get slow, Verity just kicks somebody else in the head, thus speeding them right back up again. I have a fight scene coming up that's going to make me giggle for days. Days.

Life is good.

I get this question a lot lately. "Why aren't you rich yet?" It sometimes travels in a pack with its two kissing cousins, "Haven't you quit your day job?" and "What do you mean, you can't afford to ________?" I don't punch people who ask these questions, because let's face it, the authors most people think of when they hear the words "professional writer" are Stephen King and Tom Clancy and the like, and they are rich. They live in the country of rich people's problems.

I, as yet, do not. I live in a different zip code altogether. While I'd love to move to their country someday, the odds are very low; they don't issue many passports, and they're very particular about their citizenship applications. For now, I live where I've lived for most of my adult life, in the country of the lower middle class, where shopping runs to Target are a reality, you thank the Great Pumpkin for five-dollar generic prescriptions (and recognize how lucky you are to have medical insurance at all), fifty-percent-off "eat it before the flies come" meat is sometimes the best excuse for a barbecue, and used book stores are a fiscal necessity, rather than a fun form of antique shopping. I'm not dirt-poor. I've been dirt-poor, I didn't like it, I hope to never do that again...but that means I don't quit my day job, and I don't take day-trips to Peru, or whatever other crazy rich person thing people are proposing today.

Publishing is a business. Almost every author, myself included, works on the royalties system, which goes like this:

Person A writes a book. Person B agrees to give Person A five dollars for the right to publish that book, with the understanding that Person A will not need to return the five dollars unless they violate the terms of their contract. This is called an advance. A certain percentage of the cover price of every book sold will be applied against this advance. Let's say six percent, which comes to just shy of fifty cents on your average mass-market paperback. Now, until the cumulative percentages from books sold come to more than five dollars, Person A will not be getting any additional payment. This is called "earning out." If the cumulative percentages never come to more than five dollars, Person A is basically done.

Once the cumulative percentages exceed five dollars, royalties become an option. Awesome! But remember, Person A's agent will still get a percentage of that royalty payment, and Person A will also be taxed on that income. (Self-employment tax is a nasty beast. Seriously, it's the monster under my bed these days, because the taxation on book payments is terrifying.)

Selling a book doesn't automatically make you rich, and I highly recommend that the first thing any new author does after selling a book is contact an accountant who works with authors, because otherwise, the self-employment tax is going to eat their lunch. Selling a book doesn't mean you can automatically quit your day job, and doesn't magically create medical insurance out of the air. John Scalzi once said that a smart author would marry someone with a stable job. I continue to support this as a sensible, if mercenary, approach.

This post brought on by a) the questions above being asked, yet again, and b) a lengthy discussion with my dentist about the incredible amount of work we're about to have done in my mouth, none of which would be possible without my medical and dental insurance. Finances are fun. Self-employment tax is not.