A letter to the Great Pumpkin.: seanan

A letter to the Great Pumpkin.

Dear Great Pumpkin;

It has been some time since I last wrote to you, but you have never been far from my thoughts. I just figured you could use a break. Since our last correspondence, I have refrained from starting any riots or overthrowing any governments. I have been kind to my friends, and relatively merciful to my enemies. I have offered friendship and support to those around me. I have given people cupcakes. I have not brought forth the end of days, nor capered gleefully by the bloody light of an apocalypse moon. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not talked about parasites at the dinner table. Much. So obviously, I have been quite well-behaved, especially considering my nature.

Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:

* A smooth and successful release for An Artificial Night, with books shipping when they're meant to ship, stores putting them out when they're supposed to put them out, and reviews that are accurate, insightful, and capable of steering people who will enjoy my book to read it. Please, Great Pumpkin, show mercy on your loving Pumpkin Princess of the West, and let it all be wonderful. I'm not asking you to make it easy, Great Pumpkin, but I'm asking you to make it good.

* Please help me finish the revisions to Late Eclipses in a smooth, satisfying, timely way, hopefully including a minimum number of typographical and factual errors, plus a maximum level of awesome and win. I'm about halfway through, which is wonderful—I'm almost done!—and terrifying—soon I won't be able to make changes anymore!—at the same time. I want to bring this book to a close, so I can get back to work on the fifth Toby book and the third Newsflesh book. What I have is good. Please let the rest be amazing.

* Since I'm being a Greedy Greta today, please let me swing back into The Brightest Fell with speed and elan, overcoming all challenges in my pursuit of the perfect ending. Thanks to changes in the book's overall plot, I no longer know for sure whether book six will be Ashes of Honor or One Salt Sea, and I'd really like to figure that one out. Please let the book be good, and please let the book be easy on my sanity. The more time I have to spend stressing out over this book, the less time I spend preaching your gospel to the unenlightened, or lurking in corn mazes scaring the living crap out of tourists. You like it when I scare the crap out of tourists, don't you, Great Pumpkin?

* I thank you once again for my cats, Great Pumpkin, who are wonderful and beautiful and a comfort beyond all measure. Alice is huge, puffy, and utterly without dignity. Lilly is sleek, smug, and satisfied with herself. Both are glorious representatives of their breed, and now, as I look to adding a third member to the family, I turn to you. Please make sure I find the right kitten, Great Pumpkin, the one which will enrich and benefit my feline family in ways that I haven't even thought of yet. Keep them healthy, keep them happy, and keep them exactly as they are.

* Please help me write a successful, smooth, and most of all, correct conclusion for the "Sparrow Hill Road" series of stories. It's been exciting and educational, and I've enjoyed the process of delving into Rose's world, but as I start moving toward the end of this particular journey, I start worrying about my ability to stick the landing. Please help me stick the landing, Great Pumpkin. Rose has waited a long time for her story to be told in a truthful, respectful manner, and she deserves a narrative that gets her all the way to the last exit on the ghostroads.

* I haven't said anything up to now about what I really want this year, Great Pumpkin, but...you know I've been nominated for the Campbell Award. You know that if I win, I'll be given a tiara, in Australia. You know that this is essentially what I've wanted my whole life. Some little girls want to be Prom Queen; I wanted to be Princess of the Kingdom of Poison and Flame. Please shine your holy candle upon the Campbell, Great Pumpkin, and, if you see fit, I will thank you in any speeches I have to give (which might be worth it right there).

I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.

PS: While you're at it, can you please turn your graces on InCryptid? I really love these books. I want to be able to write more of them.

apocalypticbob

July 14 2010, 18:56:19 UTC 7 years ago

New comment

So may it be!

seanan_mcguire

July 14 2010, 19:31:53 UTC 7 years ago

Yea.

filceolaire

7 years ago

liamstliam

July 14 2010, 19:01:52 UTC 7 years ago

My older daughter works in the Seattle's Best Cafe at a Barnes & Noble while seeking bigger and better things.

So like her step-mother and her sister, she devours (heh) "Feed," and asks the bookstore manager if it can be a "Staff Pick."

The manager tells her yesterday, it's sold out.

A friend has a 10-year-old daughter who loved "Feed." (I warned her, but the kid's precocious.)

Kid likes Toby too. Went to work with Mom and suggest the company needed a faerie in the computers.

July 14 2010, 19:32:09 UTC 7 years ago

AWESOME!

vixyish

amazon_syren

July 14 2010, 19:05:53 UTC 7 years ago

So... Who's the Pumpkin Princess of the East?

Also: New kitten?? :-D

July 14 2010, 19:38:35 UTC 7 years ago

Cat.

Yup.

ladymondegreen

theironchocho

July 14 2010, 19:13:41 UTC 7 years ago

I hope the Great Pumpkin grants you all of these things. Just this morning I was thinking that it is almost back to school time, which means it is almost Halloween gear in stores time! :D

July 14 2010, 19:38:49 UTC 7 years ago

Yay Halloween in the stores!

keristor

KITTY!

snowcoma

July 14 2010, 19:21:59 UTC 7 years ago

I will add the obligatory consider-adopting-a-rescue-cat spiel here so no one else does it in a less-kind way. All of my babies are rescue babies, and as of this writing, all are wonderfully healthy, fluffy, and happy.

I know you're pro-adoption, and if you get a cat from a breeder, your reasons will be sound and caring. I vote for a sphinx, because I think you need a little more nekkid alien in your life (who doesn't?).

And for what it's worth, I am one Grace already turned on InCryptid! (I love my name. So very many puns.)

Re: KITTY!

July 14 2010, 19:42:43 UTC 7 years ago

Anyone who did it in a less-kind way would be risking deleting. I understand why rescues are essential; I donate, and support them as best I can. But I have to meet my cat's grandparents to be even remotely comfortable with taking them home with me. I'm always going to be a reputable breeder cat owner, rather than a shelter cat owner.

phoenixsansfyr

bigherman

lysystratae

July 14 2010, 19:25:15 UTC 7 years ago

ok, if you make that speech, i want someone to tape it so i can hear it :)

July 14 2010, 19:42:51 UTC 7 years ago

Hee.

kyburg

July 14 2010, 19:26:23 UTC 7 years ago

The thought of a third kitty for you makes me incredibly happy. As for the rest? Damn straight, all of it! You don't ask, you don't get. (You don't even quibble about the work, you just ask that it be productive. Awesome.)

May every wish come true.

July 14 2010, 19:43:06 UTC 7 years ago

Dude, work is vital.

July 14 2010, 19:30:13 UTC 7 years ago

GET A SOMALI GET A SOMALI GET A SOMALI. THEY COME IN BLUE TOO. VERY PRETTY.

I can't say get another Siamese, much as I love my girly and you love your Lilly, because well, you've already got one!

July 14 2010, 19:43:30 UTC 7 years ago

No Somali for me. Betsy is baking me a new Maine Coon.

More Expand

a3starmom

July 14 2010, 19:35:24 UTC 7 years ago

Of all the princesses in the world, I can not think of anyone more deserving than you. I'll be waiting for the phone call. May the great pumpkin smile on you.

July 14 2010, 19:44:55 UTC 7 years ago

Mom, it'll be like three o'clock in the morning when the Hugos start. I'll let you know when you're awake.

starmalachite

July 14 2010, 20:05:58 UTC 7 years ago

I heartily second all your petitions to the Great Pumpkin, especially those pertaining to Rose Marshall & the Campbell Award.

I look to adding a third member to the family

Wow -- you too?

stevemb & I were recently asked to take in a cat from a friend of a friend who's lost her job *and* her health in the last year & change. The reason she asked us to take this particular cat is that he's our Vir's identical twin brother. Seriously, we think they really came from the same zygote.

Kimba will arrive around the 1st of the month. We've been telling Vir we like him so much we're getting him cloned. Whether they will become best buds & leave poor Heidi in peace or gang up on her remains to be seen.

July 14 2010, 21:39:18 UTC 7 years ago

"We've been telling Vir we like him so much we're getting him cloned."

I heartily approve. It's best to keep them guessing so they don't get the advantage over you.

Deleted comment

ladyfox7oaks

July 14 2010, 21:25:12 UTC 7 years ago

That DOES sound like loads of fun, doesn't it??? >:D

July 14 2010, 21:25:20 UTC 7 years ago

Your life has so much potential for awesome that I think you're using part of my share. (Which would explain my life right now.)

Good luck with EVERYTHING, including the new kitty, who I may have to occasionally steal away in the interest of my happiness. I'm sure you understand ;)

July 15 2010, 14:44:56 UTC 7 years ago

You can fully come over and play with my kitten to your heart's content.

xjenavivex

July 14 2010, 21:30:04 UTC 7 years ago

so shall it be written
so shall it be done

July 15 2010, 14:45:04 UTC 7 years ago

Yay!

aliciaaudrey

July 14 2010, 22:51:42 UTC 7 years ago

WOOHOO KITTEN!!!!

I miss my kitty. :( I have an apartment! That my landlord doesn't care if I have a cat or two in! And won't even charge me pet rent! ... And I don't have my kitty because my in-laws--upon whose aid I am sadly reliant as we try to get our careers off the ground--threw a fit over the idea because they thing cats are as expensive and labor intensive as dogs. :(

I want you to sell InCrypted too. There is a great void in my life. It is labeled "Awesome stories about cryptozoologiests." You must fill this void.

July 14 2010, 23:00:34 UTC 7 years ago

On the Hugo: Much to my startlement I've actually read several of the nominees for Best New Writer this year (I usually hit most of the best overall books and see most of the dramatic presentation long forms because such is the nature of my geekery, but I rarely hit the new writers, because I rarely read new writers--I usually wait until several people whose opinion I trust have told me something is awesome). I liked several of their works (I really liked Soulless and Changeless in particular), but I liked yours the best. SO GO WIN DARN IT. I would vote for you, except I, um, am not eligible and forging a form might endanger my ability to get admitted as a member in good standing of the bar.

I would suggest if you do that you go up and while you receive the honor, wave a shotgun around and rant about zombies (because doing this while wearing a tiara would be HILARIOUSLY AWESOME) but they're a little stricter about gun control there and I think that might make the crowd a tad nervous. :)

dornbeast

tereshkova2001

July 15 2010, 00:02:38 UTC 7 years ago

So say we all.

Rose has waited a long time for her story to be told in a truthful, respectful manner, and she deserves a narrative that gets her all the way to the last exit on the ghostroads.

*wibble* I'll miss her, and not just because I get to dress up as her sometimes. Rose's stories pretty consistently make me tear up, for the utter perfection of their emotional tenor. You're really good at this writing stuff.

July 15 2010, 14:46:28 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you. :)

Not really related, except KITTIES :)

exapno

July 15 2010, 02:22:34 UTC 7 years ago

I was cleaning out emails in one of my sub-accounts, and found a Tor.com newsletter i'd saved. Have emailed a copy to you (you'll see why, if you don't already have it), but wanted to comment too so you'd know it was legit :)

And it has cute kittens :)

Re: Not really related, except KITTIES :)

July 15 2010, 14:46:40 UTC 7 years ago

Yay, kittens!

Thank you!

filkferengi

July 19 2010, 15:33:43 UTC 7 years ago

Do you know when you're getting the new kitty?

The catch is, come tax-time, I think they'll only let you file a homestead exemption on one of the Maine coons.

August 18 2010, 15:12:22 UTC 6 years ago

November, probably.

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A letter to the Great Pumpkin.

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