It's time for another ARC giveaway! Because you were starting to think I didn't love you anymore. I really enjoyed this contest the first time it came around, and so I give you...

The LOLtest. Yes, if you hate LOLcats, you probably want to shoot me right about now, but that's okay, because I love the freaky little guys, and I'm not asking people to invade your blog with countless graphics of the things. So what do you have to do to enter? Simple. You have to make a LOL___ and post it here. What do I mean by LOL___?

LOLcats. LOLold fairy tale illustrations. LOLmy cover art. LOLhome photography—if you want to take a tip from A Softer World and take your own pictures, be my guest. (Toby is brunette, fairly pale, and tends to wear sensible clothing. You want to slap a leather jacket on your girlfriend/best friend/self and take pictures solely for captioning purposes, I'm down with that.) For examples of the inimitable LOLcat in its natural habitat, see I Can Has Cheezburger, along with countless other sites in the same vein...and then knock yourself out.

Post your contest submissions on this entry. I'll take entries until Sunday, February 21, and then opening the floor for voting. I'll definitely be giving away one ARC through this contest; depending on the number and variety of entries received, I may well increase that to two, as well as putting together a few runner-up prizes (who wants a CD?). This contest is open to everyone, including my mother, my agent, God, and people who have already won ARCs. Bring out your LOLcats, and rock the world.

Game on!

(To be clear, all LOL___ must be Toby-related to be considered actual entries. Although all LOL___ are cute and make me smile.)

Last night when I got home from a trip to Borderlands Books (where I was roundly snuggled and nose-licked by Ripley the Sphynx), I found a box on my front porch. The box, when opened, proved to contain twenty copies of A Local Habitation. Not ARCs—actual, finished books, suitable for fondling, screaming over, and putting on bookshelves. Alice promptly started trying to eat them. Not to be outdone, Lilly promptly started trying to eat the box that they came in. I have emailed my publisher to thank them for the cat toys.

I called my mother, whose usual response to "Mom, I just got _______" is to show up at my house and refuse to leave until she's managed to acquire a copy for herself. "Mom, I got my author's copies of A Local Habitation," I said.

"Wow!"

"So are you coming over?"

"Not tonight."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. (There are plenty of feathers to be had in my house because, again, cats.) "What? Why not?"

"Idol starts in half an hour."

So now we know where I rank in my mother's eyes. Not second, as I always feared, but third, behind Jim Hines and American Idol. As I cannot swear eternal vengeance against American Idol, I'm going to have to swear it against Jim Hines. He has a lot less in the way of professionally-trained security guards and hungry lawyers. I mean, sure, he's got goblins and all, and to this I say, again, cats.

It's a little freaky to be able to look at A Local Habitation and see it all book-shaped and real, with a bar code and a price tag and an ISBN and everything. I don't think it's ever going to get less freaky. Sometimes I still wake up and wonder "did I really sell the books? If I turn on the light, will they really be sitting on the shelf?" Thus far, they always have been, but my dreams have fooled me before. Although I'd like to think that if I'd dreamt the last few years, there would have been more candy corn and semi-appropriate nudity.

Thirteen days. That's all that remains before A Local Habitation is available on store shelves, waiting to be taken down, read, and enjoyed. Hopefully, lots of people will find and adore it, and hopefully, some of them won't have read Rosemary and Rue, creating a beautiful synergy through which many, many copies of both books will be sold. (Crass commercialism? Well, yeah. But I'd like this series to last for a long, long time, so I think this desire makes perfect sense. Anyone who looks noble and says "I don't care if my book sells well, I just care if it's loved" is either independently wealthy, insane, or messing with you.)

Thirteen days. That's all that remains before the second of Toby's stories is out there for anyone to read. That may be the weirdest part of all this. I mean, I'm used to my friends reading drafts and telling me what they did or didn't like, and I'm used to my publishers (all of whom I know) reading things and telling me what to fix, but there's no possible way for me to know every single person who reads my books personally. It just isn't going to happen. So there are all these strangers out there choosing me to tell them stories, and it's just...it's amazing. There was even a four-star review in the new issue of Romantic Times, a glossy, awesome, nationally-published magazine:

"McGuire's second October Daye novel is a gripping, well-paced read. Toby continues to be an enjoyable, if complex and strong-willed protagonist who recognizes no authority but her own. The plot is solid and moves along at a not-quite-breakneck pace. McGuire has more than a few surprises up her sleeve for the reader."

This is all very real, and very wonderful, and Great Pumpkin, I just hope it goes spectacularly, and that I don't catch fire.

Thirteen days. Wow.

I hereby officially declare it time for a DINO DANCE PARTY. And why is it DINO DANCE PARTY time, that rarest and most glorious of all events?

I'm getting a bookstore display. Look!



Going from left to right, we have Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros, Anton Strout's Simon Canderous, and my own beloved October Daye. They're hot. They're here. And they're heavily-armed, so I recommend against ticking them off.

Dude, I'm getting a bookstore display.

This is awesome beyond words.