It's time for another ARC giveaway here in my weird little corner of the world. This time, it's going to be a two-fer. Specifically, we're having both a contest and a random drawing. If you comment at all, you'll be entered in the random drawing for an ARC of An Artificial Night. If you comment and participate in the contest, you'll be entered both in the random drawing, and in the judged portion of the giveaway. Ready? Awesome.

Suggested by talkstowolves, our contest for today is:

"Design signature cocktails or desserts for major characters/places in the Tobyverse."

What does the Luidaeg drink on a Friday night? What's Toby's favorite way to get wasted? How many virgin cocktails can Quentin down before he reaches legal age? Whip up something intoxicating and put it in the comments for the world to see.

The random drawing will be held Monday, July 12th. Voting on the cocktail/dessert competition* will begin the same day, and continue through July 15th. As no actual drinking is involved, you don't have to be twenty-one to enter, and there are lots of websites happy to help you out.

(*If we receive fewer than five entries, I won't do open judging, and the prize will be awarded based on how much I want to drink your cocktail or eat your pie.)

Game on!

As I write this, it's a little after nine o'clock at night. For me, on a weeknight/work night, that's very late indeed. The cats are sitting next to the chair, watching me with annoyed expressions that rather clearly telegraph "C'mon, Mom, get in the bed already." They're going to have to wait a few minutes more, while the air conditioning gets things down to a tolerable temperature in here. I mean, really. If I tried to sleep right now, all I'd do is liquefy myself.

I'm starting to put together my set list for Gafilk in January. It's going to require my usual motley crew of awesome backing musicians to learn some new pieces, as well as requiring me to extensively bribe the less-usual motley crew, so I want to solidify my desires, sit down with Paul, do some chording, and present a unified concept to the team. I think it's going to be really amazing, when it's all done.

Speaking of really amazing things, I went to Kristoph's this afternoon, and did the very very last little bits of my vocal part for Wicked Girls. Specifically, I recorded a counting rhyme for "Mother of the Crows," recorded the end spoken bits for "Tanglewood Tree," and recorded some giggles for "Jack's Place." And then I re-recorded the intro to "Counting Crows," because we had some click track bleed-through, and really, who needs to put up with that shit? I was there, we were already working, we did it, and now we are done. There are some instrumental bits yet to go, and a few vocals from other people, but on the whole, it's finished. Pre-orders are literally only waiting on finished cover art, and we may go ahead and open them without it.

I've been working on the edits and revisions to the final version of Late Eclipses (Toby four). The book is literally improving by the page. It's still a long way from done, but I'm chugging through at a more than respectable rate—which is good, since while I'm working on it, I'm not working on The Brightest Fell or Blackout. Balancing things is hard. I'm pretty good at it, but still. It's hard.

I have had a lovely glass of port (I am out of port again), and done my word count for tonight. Now is the time when I go to bed, and think sweet thoughts of finishing Late Eclipses and my short fiction assignments, thus freeing that slot for working on Midnight Blue-Light Special. I miss you, Verity!

Goodnight, world.