U is for THE UNDERWORLD.

Guess where Alice is?

Good guess.

T is for THOMAS.

Thomas Price was a loyal member of the Covenant of St. George less because he really believed in what they were doing, and more because he couldn't think of anything better to do.

He found something better to do. Sadly, this resulted in his being pulled into an unidentified parallel world, where he may or may not still be waiting for rescue. But hey. At least he got laid before the hole opened up in the fabric of reality and engulfed him, right? Right?

...okay. So maybe it's not the best compensation. But for Thomas Price, that's all he's going to get. For the moment, at least.

We are now, Amazon's reindeer games notwithstanding, nine days from the release of Discount Armageddon. I am surprisingly calm, I think because I got all my hysteria out of the way early last week, when I got dogpiled by trolls. It's kind of amazing how that will burn the fretting right out of a girl. Book's out in nine days? Anyone calling me things I can't bring myself to repeat in front of my mother? No? Then we're totally cool.

It's interesting to contrast right now with nine days to Rosemary and Rue, when I was, well...let's just say that food and I were not long-term acquaintances during the few weeks right before that book came out. I was a screaming puddle of neurosis. I still am, to a certain degree; I'm not going to pretend that I'm not worried. Will people like this book? Will they like the world? Will they understand why I needed to start this series now, rather than waiting another x years to finish Toby?

(I got so annoyed at Joss Whedon when he left Buffy to work on Firefly, and I still think both shows would have been better served if he had stuck out the end of Buffy Summers and her story before moving on. So I get that particular "hey!" reaction. But books and TV are different, and this is only slowing Toby down a little bit, not leaving her entirely without supervision.)

I want this book to do well, partially because, well, no one writes a book they're hoping to see fail, but also because I want to spend so much time in this world. I want to write the full stories of four different generations, and that's going to take time. That's going to take commitment, and not just from me.

But oh, I love this world. And in nine days, reindeer games aside, you get the chance to maybe hopefully love them, too.

Nine days.

S is for SARAH.

Sarah Zellaby loves math, comic books, bad procedural dramas, and drinking hot ketchup mixed with orange juice and honey. And that's about where her dating profile goes off the rails (not that she dates, really; who wants to go out with a cryptid telepath who just looks like a cute geek girl?).

Sarah is a cuckoo.

She's never met her biological parents. They left her on the front porch of the Zellaby family of Cincinnati, Ohio when she was less than a week old, and the Zellabys took her in, believing that she was theirs. That's how cuckoos work. They leave their young in other nests, letting other people handle all the difficult, awkward parts of raising a child, and only come back when their precious babies inevitably turn on their human parents. There are very rarely survivors. Sadly for the Zellabys, they didn't survive; they were killed in a car crash when Sarah was still a little girl, leaving her to fend for herself.

She could have found a new human family. She could have found the cuckoos. Instead, she found Angela Baker, maybe the only non-homicidal cuckoo in the world, and her salvation.

Sarah grew up knowing that murder was wrong, which puts her well ahead of most of the cuckoos in her generation. She grew up with a family that loved her, no matter what she was, and with a strong sense of purpose.

Let's see how long that survives contact with the real world...and how long it takes for the cuckoos to come looking for their own.

I have two short stories in the works, one Velveteen-universe, one InCryptid (set after "One Hell of a Ride"). So which one should I finish first?



Both will eventually be made available for free. I just need to get one of them wrapped up.

R is for REALITY.

Reality is a lot more flexible than most people want to believe. No one wants monsters under their bed or lurking in their closet; they want to say "it's all safe here," close the doors, and know that they've seen the end of the nightmares, the last of the danger. No one wants the things in the shadows to be real. It's a pity that the things in the shadows don't agree.

Part of the challenge of protecting a world that isn't quite ready to admit than monsters might be real is keeping those monsters from forcing the issue. After all, there's no magic to keep people from noticing, no special set of rules that keeps the fight on a different plane of existence. There's just the fight, over and over, until somebody wins. And that may never happen.

Reality is a shifting target. When you make your throw, it's hard to know just what you're going to hit.

Pre-ordering books.

I've seen some people going "Oh, no, I pre-ordered! I'm sorry!" and variants on this theme. I want to state, for the record, that pre-orders are awesome. Pre-orders are the rainbow sprinkles on the delicious sundae of a new book: not always necessary, but always an improvement. Pre-orders tell bookstores that there is a demand for something, and can increase initial on-shelf orders. They also tell publishers how many copies of a physical book are likely to be needed. Pre-orders rule.

The issue here is not pre-orders: it's that some retailers started releasing books early. Normally, your pre-orders do count against week one sales, because normally, that's when the pre-orders are charged and delivered. In this case, due to no fault of my publisher or anyone who ordered a copy ahead of release, those pre-orders will be counted two weeks ahead of week one. My sales for week -2 are going to be awesome!

Calculating bestseller lists.

I want to say this plainly: all sales count. Period. If you buy a book, your sale is counted. That said, not all sales count for purposes of making bestseller lists, because those lists are snapshots of certain measures of time. In the case of the NYT list, it's calculated on a weekly basis, and a new book's best shot (not only, but best) of making the list is week one, when all the pre-orders are delivered and all the bookstores have the book on their "new releases" shelf.

Not making this list doesn't mean your book is a failure. I'm pretty sure Feed is my best, steadiest selling book, but it didn't make the NYT. It's simply continued to sell, week after week, and that demonstrates good long-term health for both book and author. But that's long-term. In the short-term, making the list is a good way for publishers to know that they have something worth holding onto. That's why authors hope to make it; because they want that position of "see? People like me" to support them when they try to sell the sequel.

Early sales are still counted against your overall "my book sold this many copies." They just don't count against snapshots of release week.

My publisher is awesome.

My publisher rules. They did not release my book early; some online retailers did that. They are not dropping me if I don't make any bestseller lists; they've already bought the second InCryptid book, and the next two Toby books. I worry about my sales partially because I want my publisher to be happy with me, and partially because I want to be able to sell them the next three books in both my series, but also because I love them and want them to benefit from everything they've done for me.

To recap: DAW rules, DAW did nothing wrong, DAW is standing with me, DAW is very annoyed about people calling me names.

You are awesome.

All the support and kind words have been just amazing. Thank you so, so much. I really appreciate it.

I feel a little better because you're here.

Q is for QUESTING BEAST.

Paleantologists call them "Gorgonopsids" and believe that they've been extinct for millions of years. Isn't it fun when science is wrong?

There are two known species of Questing Beast. They may both be extinct; we really don't know, and given the tendency of Questing Beasts to eat anyone who comes remotely near them, we're really not in any hurry to find out. The North American variety at least rattles when it's getting ready to launch itself at your head, which is much more polite than its European counterpart.

African and Indian Questing Beasts have been theorized from the fossil record. We'd really rather not think about that right now.

P is for PRICE.

Families are shaped by the worlds that they live in; nothing happens in a vaccum.

The Price family as we know it today began when Thomas Price, late of the Covenant of St. George, married Alice Healy, last survivor of the branch of the Healy family which began with Alexander and Enid Healy's departure from the Covenant. There's a reason the modern Covenant considers them "a lineage of traitors."

Alice and Thomas were happy. Not happy ever after, but happy long enough to have two children, even if Thomas never saw his daughter born. Their son, Kevin, went on to meet and marry a girl named Evelyn, who had been raised by unlikely adoptive parents: a cuckoo and a Revenant. Every family has its secrets, I suppose. Their daughter, Jane, tried three times to quit the family business, before marrying a nice man named Theodore Harrington. Pity he turned out to be an incubus...

Kevin and Evelyn had three children: Alexander, who specializes in reptile and psuedomammalian cryptids; Verity, who specializes in sapient city-dwelling cryptids; and Antimony, who specializes in explosives, pit traps, and driving everyone around her to distraction. The family has never been larger, and one focused air strike could still take them all out.

It's dangerous to be a Price...and there's a Price for everything.

O is for OREAD.

What do you call a silica-based life form that looks exactly like a human being? No, seriously. This isn't a joke; what do you call it? Well, if you're Verity Price, you call it "Marcy," and you let it take the difficult tables during the lunch shift.

The evolution of oreads is heavily debated among cryptozoological circles, as they really do seem to be silica-based, rather than carbon-based, although dissections are somewhat hampered by the need to use a rock hammer. Modern laser technology may help clear up some of the many, many linger questions, as soon as someone with the desire to dissect an oread learns how to use a laser, and gets hold of a dead oread (not easy).

Oreads appear all over the world, but are commonly named from the Greek, simply because those were the first ones most Western cryptozoologists encountered. They have human-level intelligence, and will generally self-identify as the common name for their race.

Some people regard oreads as a bit slow. They're not. They just don't see any reason to hurry things for you.

One thing I've tried to make very clear about InCryptid is that it's not the story of Verity Price and how she did lots of neat stuff and maybe saved the world a few times. It's the story of the Price family, and the Healy family, and how they did lots of neat stuff and maybe saved the world a few times. There are lots of stories, many of which happened before the books begin.

Never let it be said that I missed the chance to tell a story.

The InCryptid short fiction page is now live, and features the brand new Jonathan and Frances adventure, "One Hell of a Ride." The story is available for free download in three formats. I'll add information on "The Flower of Arizona" as soon as we have a finalized cover (and will include purchase data for that one, since it's in an anthology).

Welcome to the family tree, and I hope this helps to keep you excited for the upcoming release of Discount Armageddon!

Hey! Want to read Discount Armageddon a little early and help a good cause at the same time? Well, DAW has kindly donated an ARC of Discount Armageddon to con_or_bust, and you can bid on it right now.

What is Con or Bust? Well, in the words of its administrator, "Con or Bust is a fund that
helps fans of color/non-white fans attend SFF cons and that is administered by the Carl Brandon Society, a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction. Con or Bust isn't a scholarship and isn't limited by geography, type of con-goer, or con (it was established to send people to WisCon, but has since broadened its efforts); its goal is simply to help fans of color go to SFF cons and be their own awesome selves."

Increasing diversity is awesome, and it's something we should encourage as much as possible. All the better if you can get some fun reading material at the same time, right? You can find the listing for Discount Armageddon right over here, and bidding is open through February 25th.

Help a cool charity, and get a book for yourself at the same time. Everybody wins!

N is for NECESSITY.

No one chooses this sort of life because they're bored, or because they have nothing better to do. They do it because this is the sort of thing that needs doing, and sometimes, necessity is what gets to drive the boat. They do it because it's not right for the weak to be dominated by the strong, or for wrongs to go unavenged...or for unicorns to die for nothing. They do it because there's not really a choice, not when you get down to the bottom of things.

They do it because sometimes you do what's right, no matter what it takes...no matter what it costs you. And in this business, sometimes what it costs you is going to be everything.

M is for MICE.

Oh, the mice.

Aeslin mice are highly religious. They want to believe. They need to believe. Their mental health depends on it. So they find something they can believe in, and they believe in it with all their might, for as long as that thing endures. Sometimes it's an object, or a place. Other times, as with the colony that currently lives with the Price family, it's a bloodline. To the Aeslin mice, the women of the Price family are priestesses, and the men? The men are Gods.

The Catechism of the Mice begins with Caroline, the Compassionate Priestess, and continues through the generations to the present day. They have celebrated every birth and mourned every death. They have given their lives in the name of the family. They have given their hearts in the honor of the family. They have given everything they are, and in return, the family has cared for and protected them, and has sworn to continue doing so for as long as family, and colony, endure.

Aeslin mice never forget anything. If they have heard it, or seen it, they recall it. There are divisions within the central family colony, each dedicated to preserving the teachings of their specific Priestesses to future generations. While the colony that lives today will learn the present en masse, in the future, Evelyn, Verity, and Antimony will be remembered by their own branches of the Aeslin priesthood. Nothing is ever forgotten. Nothing is ever left behind.

All Prices are remembered forever, in the rituals of the mice. No one ever leaves for good. As long as there is a family, the colony will endure.

L is for LOVE.

Sometimes love is the only thing that motivates a person to do things they really ought to know better than doing, like, oh. Making a bargain with an unknown and potentially demonic force to keep someone's flesh from sloughing entirely off their bodies. As an example. Or following their suddenly missing husbands through holes hewn in the very fabric of reality while eight months pregnant, trying to get them back. As a slightly worse example.

Still. Love can be a good thing. It was love of the mice that allowed Enid Healy to listen to her husband when he told her what he had found. It was love of his daughter that caused Jonathan Healy to follow Alice into the woods on the night when she went looking for whatever it was that had been killing local children. And it was love that caused Angela Baker to adopt three children, one of whom she knew might well grow up to be a murderer. Love makes the world go 'round.

Love is the thing that can hurt you the most. Beware of love.

There's nothing darker in these hills.

K is for KNIVES.

Don't leave home without them.

Guns can jam; ammunition runs out. Poison doesn't care who it kills. Bombs explode. Flash paper gets wet and

won't work. Flesh is weak. Bones break. Everything gives out. But knives...knives stick with you. Knives

stay true.

Stay alive. Stay alert. Stay armed.

J is for JOHRLAC.

Mostly people call them "cuckoos"...wait, no. That's not right. Mostly, people don't call them anything at all, because mostly, no one realizes that they exist. The Johrlac are sneaky, telepathic ambush predator nest parasites who slip into your life like a knife slips into a wound. You never see them coming. By the time the walls start crumbling around you, it's already far too late.

They bleed clear, biological antifreeze that possesses antibiotic properties. Some people say this is proof that the cuckoos came from another dimension, that they didn't evolve in this world, under this set of evolutionary rules. Others say this is proof that the cuckoos are so mean, so dangerous, that they even kill bacteria. Medicinal properties fueled by spite. (The question of how the Johrlac can maintain sufficient intestinal flora to digest things has never been answered, and no one is entirely sure they want to know.)

They hate you. Don't take it personally; the cuckoos hate everyone, including each other. Baby cuckoos are conceived in hormonally-fueled hate, and dropped summarily on the doorsteps of the unwitting, because mother cuckoos even hate their children. Love is an alien weakness, and should never be tolerated. When cuckoos work together, it's because they've decided there's something more important than their hate. Be afraid.

They love math. No one knows why, except for maybe the cuckoos themselves, but it seems to be a biological compulsion for them. The Sudoku craze owes its success partially to the manipulations of the Johrlac. Look for them in math classes and in science museums, or even volunteering to help tutor children. The one time that cuckoos interact peacefully with humans is when math is involved. Don't trust it. Their attention span is short, and eventually, they'll forget that you were just helping them with their homework in favor of destroying your world.

They can read your mind. Johrlac are natural telepaths, and they're not above breaking past all your defenses to get what they want out of the recesses of your brain. They have no ethics. They have no qualms. They have no mercy.

Be afraid of the cuckoos. It might help you live a little longer.

I is for INCUBUS.

Technically, there's no such thing, since technically, they're just the males of the Lilu, not a species unto themselves. Succubi don't technically exist, either; they're female Lilu. But since the two genders are different enough to be treated as members of different species, it seems best to go ahead and act like that's true.

Incubi look human, for the most part. They also look really, really good, like the hottest men ever to walk the planet. The trouble is, most people can't agree on what they looked like after they leave the room. That's because when you combine hormones, pheromones, and supernatural sexuality, looks cease to matter quite as much. This can be awfully hard on the nerves of the poor incubi, who either become incurable shut-ins, or spend their time seducing people for fun. The first variety are rarely an issue. The second, on the other hand...

Well. There's a reason the Covenant used to prioritize incubus hunts over anything short of dragon-slaying.

Aunt Jane married an incubus. They have two children, Elsinore and Arthur, who are remarkably well-adjusted, all things considered. Neither of them dates much.

Words: 35,287.
Total words: 92,654.
Reason for stopping: I need to eat a food.
Music: lots of dance music and modern country.
The cats: Alice, bed; Thomas, who knows; Lilly, guest bed.

So, uh. Yeah, I did not do all that in one night, but apparently I missed a few word count posts, so this is sort of getting me back into alignment. I actually wrote about 6,000 words tonight, after finishing my word count for "San Diego 2014" and realizing that I finally knew how to make the ending fall together the way that it's supposed to. Tomorrow night, I'll do the same thing (work on the project with a closer due date first, and then slide back into Verity's shoes for a little tango), and then this weekend, I'll probably type "THE END" on the draft as a whole.

It feels weird. Like, really weird. It's weird that I haven't finished it yet, and it's weird that it's so close to ending, because right now, this is it. I do not have a contract for book three, and whether I get one will be determined partially by how Discount Armageddon does. So this could be the end for me in this universe, and I'm not ready yet. I don't want to go. But the ending is here, and I have to let it be honest. I don't cheat. Not with things like this.

But it feels so weird. So, so weird.

I hope this isn't the end.

It's the 15th of the month, and that means it's time for the February 2012 current projects post, in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. 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 all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout). 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!Collapse )

H is for HEALY.

Originally from Great Britain, the Healys served the Covenant of St. George for over five hundred years without question or complaint. Some members of the family still do; Alexander and Enid did not, after all, represent the entire family line. In their time, the Healys were great monster hunters, and their name struck fear into cryptid hearts all across the Continent.

In Buckley, Michigan, the name "Healy" means the brief legacy of librarians who ran the local library with gentle hands and friendly smiles. Alexander Healy, the first man to encourage female library aides to apply. Jonathan Healy, stiffer and a little more awkward than his father, but friendly and brilliant. Alice Healy, who came home after the death of her grandfather and ran the children's library for years.

On the ghostroads, the name "Healy" means a smiling blonde woman with six-shooters at her hips and an Arizona drawl, showing a newly-died ghost girl how to make the best of what she had become. Frances Healy knew how to make an impression.

In certain drinking halls and secret libraries, the name "Healy" still means a Welshwoman with ink-stained fingers and clever eyes, asking questions no one had thought to ask before. Enid Healy expanded the family's understanding of the cryptid world by centuries.

The Healy legacy lives on in their descendants, the Price family, and in a certain strain of angry monster hunters, still working for the Covenant, furious about what their family has become. Blood is thicker than water, after all.

G is for GORGONS.

There are three types of gorgon. The lesser gorgon, best known for apologizing profusely when their hair bites someone; the Pliny's gorgon, larger in size and stronger in venom; and the greater gorgon, on whose back are many legends built. Most of them end with half the parties dead, and the other half turned to stone. Sometimes becoming a legend isn't exactly the best outcome you can hope for.

Carol is a lesser gorgon living in Manhattan. She likes sappy romances, exotic ice creams, and long walks in the reptile house at the local zoo. Her hobbies include bartending (she's working toward getting her license), antiquing, and collecting humorous salt and pepper shakers. She's been registered with several online dating sites for the last five years, trying to filter through the unspoken cues and secret codes to find a lesser gorgon male who might be interested in a romantic dinner next to the zoo's Burmese python enclosure. So far, she's found several snake enthusiasts, a few individuals with unexpected fetishes, and one Pliny's gorgon, whose hair didn't get along with hers. It's hard to be a mythological creature and have a healthy dating life in the modern age.

Gorgon hair insists on live feeding, which can get quite expensive, especially for the greater gorgons. Their hair can get big enough to eat rabbits.

No gorgon has ever taken human complaints about "bad hair days" even a little bit seriously.

F is for FRAN (and FRICKENS).

Frances Brown was the Flower of Arizona, the Star of New Mexico, and the darling of the Campbell Family Circus, a small traveling show that stayed alive by hook, crook, and whatever means necessary until it ended in a hail of bullets and blame. Frannie grew up with the circus; she was found outside the main tent when she was barely a week old, tucked into a cardboard box filled with cotton batting. They named her after the snake handler's favorite python, and set her to work. By the time she was six, Fran could ride bareback, fling a knife knowing she'd catch her target, and charm the wallet right out of a townie's hand.

Fran left Arizona with Jonathan Healy after the circus closed, and the pair traveled to Buckley. Neither had marriage in mind when they arrived, and at first, all Fran wanted was to head back to the desert, where things made sense and the sky was a proper size. Then Enid led her into the woods and introduced her to the anuraves—little feathered frogs who flocked in the trees near the swamp. Fran was charmed, and dubbed them "frickens," a name which promptly stuck. She decided that maybe there was virtue in staying after all.

Frances Brown married Jonathan Healy, to the surprise of no one save for perhaps Jonathan. They had two children, Alice and Daniel, and buried one, long before he should have died. She did her best to do right by her family, and by herself, and by the world that she'd chosen to belong to.

No one ever made a choice for Frances Healy. She made all her choices for herself, and on the February evening when she walked into the woods and never walked back out, well. She made that choice, too.

They say she was the best.

They're not wrong.

E is for ENID.

Enid Healy was a loyal member of the Covenant of St. George. She fought the things they told her to fight, she thought the things they told her to think, and when the time came, she married the man they told her to marry. But Enid had a secret. She was harboring a colony of cryptid mice, passed down to her from her grandmother, and viewed their protection as more important than the Covenant's edicts. When the time came, she revealed them to her husband, and together, they decided that their association with the Covenant was no longer in their best interests. They left for America...leaving their eldest son, who was loyal to the Covenant, behind. Not everything in life can go the way we plan.

Enid spent the rest of her life in Buckley Township, Michigan. She raised her younger son, Jonathan, and taught him everything she could to keep him alive. She saw the mice through several generations. She stood proud at her son's marriage to Frances Brown, late of Arizona, and she assisted in the birthing of both her grandchildren. She wept like any grandmother would when they buried her grandson, the first member of the Healy family to be lain to rest in Michigan's soil.

He wouldn't be the last.

While she lived, Enid was the best shot in Buckley. She tended her garden, tended her family, and saw her granddaughter grow into a woman. She died with regrets, because she was only human, but she died glad of the life she'd lived, and secure in the knowledge that she'd done the best she could. The mice remember her as the Patient Priestess, and like all Healy women, Enid rests easy in the immortality of the mice.

D is for DRAGON PRINCESSES.

They're gorgeous. Curvy pin-up girls with big blue eyes and long golden hair, soft and round and smiling like they have a secret. And they do have a secret. They're not human. A symbiotic cryptid race, the dragon princesses were once the caretakers and companions of the great dragons, before the Covenant of St. George wiped them all out. The dragon princesses have endured the loss of their masters, and now live amongst the humans, concealed by their similarities, forever separated by their differences.

If that cute blonde barrista at the Starbucks downtown puts gold dust in her mocha or sets herself on fire during her break, there's a good chance that she's a dragon princess. Be nice to her. She's been through a lot.

C is for COVENANT OF ST. GEORGE.

Before the Covenant of St. George, there was a good chance that you or your siblings would be eaten by a dragon or calcified by a basilisk on your way home from church. The Covenant leveled the playing field by taking out some of the world's most dangerous monsters, clearing the way for humanity to become the dominant species. Without them, the world would be a very different, very dangerous place.

Before the Covenant of St. George, young cryptids slept content in the knowledge that Mommy and Daddy would be coming home with food for their bellies and fuel for their fires. The Covenant slaughtered innocent cryptids in the guise of "protecting the weak," and left their children to starve, uncomprehending, in a world that was suddenly hard and hostile.

Every story changes, depending on where you're standing when you look at it. Nothing has only one side. And whatever side you're not on, well...that side is probably the wrong one.

B is for BOGEYMEN.

Bogeymen like dark places, like attics and basements and the back of your closet. Bogeymen are closely related to humans, but they branched off right around the time that Homo erectus was figuring out how to use rocks as weapons, and they've never looked back. Bogeymen have a great fondness for secrets. If there's something going on, odds are good that your local bogeyman knows about it, and would be happy to share what he knows...for a price. No bogeyman ever worked cheap, or failed to look for the most profitable angle.

"Bogeyman" is gender-neutral. Female bogeymen are just as dangerous as male bogeymen, and just as likely to be hiding underneath your bed.

Sleep well.

The random number generator has spoken, and the winners of an ARC of Discount Armageddon are...

From the US, druidspell and fae_of_the_rose!

Internationally, hiyokonojinsei!

Congratulations! And now...THE RULES.

1. You must contact me within 24 hours of this announcement to claim your prize. Otherwise, a new winner will be chosen, and while I will be sorry, I will not recant.

2. You must contact me through my website contact page. LJ messages will not be acknowledged.

3. You must include a valid shipping address for me to send your prize to.

If you do all these things, joy and wonder will be yours! Thanks to everyone for playing, and there should be a few more giveaways before release day.

A is for ALICE.

Alice Enid Price-Healy is the daughter of Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown, also known as the Flower of Arizona and the star of the Campbell Family Circus. Alice was born in Buckley Township, Michigan, and grew up in the house her grandparents bought when they first came to America. She went to college in Ann Arbor and got her degree in Library Science before returning to Buckley and marrying Thomas Price, late of the Covenant of St. George. Together, they had two children, Kevin and Jane, who went on to have five children of their own.

Alice shot her first swamp hag when she was twelve years old. She hasn't stopped shooting since.

Alice always knew she wouldn't have a normal life. It was never something she aspired to. But she'd hoped for something more than what she got, the complications, the confusion, the endless barriers between her and the man she loved...and finally, the loss of the family she had longed for because she knew she had to save him. It's been more than thirty years since the night that Thomas disappeared, sucked into a tear in the walls between the worlds. She's still out there, trying to find him, trying to bring him home. Her kids and grandkids think she's crazy, and maybe they're right, but Alice doesn't care.

Alice is down the rabbit hole, and she's not coming back until she finds her husband.

Today marks the publication of Westward Weird, a new DAW anthology of, yes, Weird Wild West stories. Here's the book's official landing page on the Penguin* site. The table of contents:

1. "The Temptation of Eustace Prudence McAllen" by Jay Lake
2. "The Last Master of Aeronautical Winters" by Larry D. Sweazy
3. "Lowstone" by Anton Strout
4. "The Flower of Arizona" by Seanan McGuire
5. "The Ghost in the Doctor" by Brenda Cooper
6. "Surveyor of Mars" by Christopher McKitterick
7. "Coyote, Spider, Bat" by Steven Saus
8. "Maybe Another Time" by Dean Wesley Smith
9. "Renn and the Little Men" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
10. "Shadowdown at High Moon" by Jennifer Brozek
11. "The Clockwork Cowboy" by J. Steven York
12. "Black Train" by Jeff Mariotte
13. "Lone Wolf" by Jody Lynn Nye

Let's take a moment to focus on story #4, "The Flower of Arizona," shall we?

Discount Armageddon is the story of Verity Price, latest in a long line of cryptozoologists and monster hunters. Her father, Kevin Price, was the son of Alice Price-Healy and Thomas Price (late of the Covenant of St. George). And Alice was the daughter of Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown (late of the Campbell Family Circus, darling of the Arizona rodeo circuit).

"The Flower of Arizona" is the story of how Jonathan and Frances first met, a long time before their daughter met and fell in love with a man from the Covenant, and an even longer time before their great-granddaughter went and got a book of her very own. This is literally the chronologically earliest Price family story I have ever written. See Jonathan when he had a sense of humor! Learn how much Verity takes after her ancestors! Listen to the mice hail things inappropriately!

In all seriousness, this is a great introduction to the InCryptid universe...and, as a bonus, I'm going to be putting up another story featuring Jonathan and Fran for free download later this month. "One Hell of a Ride" takes place immediately after "The Flower of Arizona," and will make more sense if you've read them both. Plus, it's a fabulous anthology, so you get lots of bang for your buck.

Mama rode the rodeo; they say she was the best...

(*DAW is distributed by Penguin, although they are a distinct publishing entity. Supply chains are weird.)

Okay, I want to lead off here by saying thank you. Thank you for caring about where book sales will be best for me, thank you for wanting to buy my books, and thank you for asking. I am so excited about Discount Armageddon, and I really want it to do well. I also want to note that I am making this post because I was asked, not because I'm trying to tell you "buy it like I want you to or it's butts to you, sir." Honestly, as long as you buy the book, I'm happy.

That said, here are the best ways to get a copy of Discount Armageddon while also helping my week one sales:

1. Do not buy the book until March 6th. If you see a copy on a shelf somewhere early, don't pick it up. Wait until the actual release date, because that's when sales will start to count against my first week. Anything before then will count toward my overall sales, but will vanish into the ether when it comes to calculating best seller lists. I know, it's weird.

2. Buy brick and mortar. If you possibly can, walk into a bookstore and take a copy off the shelf. Not sure your local store is going to carry it? Now would be the time to contact them and remind them that you'll be wanting to buy, since this way, they have time to place an order (they won't if you come in the day before release). There are a lot of reasons for this, but the two big ones are a) if they sell, they re-order, and that's good for me, and b) most brick and mortar stores report to the NYT list. And I'd love to get onto the list again.

3. If you need to order on the internet, consider Borderlands Books (physical only). Borderlands is my local store; they take international orders, as well as orders within the United States; I will be dropping by on release day to sign books for them, so you can not only get a copy of your very own, you can get it signed. That doubles the awesome factor, and makes up for needing to wait for the postal mail to reach you, right? Plus, well. My book events are big and chaotic, so I like driving business their way. Again, sooner is better than later, as they're going to be hosting my book release party, and need to know how many copies to get.

4. All eBooks are created equal. Sadly, right now, electronic and internet sales don't count against the NYT list, which is why this comes in so far down that list. That said, a sale is a sale, and my royalty rate is the same for all electronic editions, everywhere. So buy from whatever retailer best suits you, in whatever format best suits you.

5. Buy the book. This is the most important thing. My sales, especially in the first week, will tell my publisher what kind of a market they're looking at for the adventures of Verity and company. So please, if you can, buy the book. I want to stay in this world for a long, long time to come.

Thank you.

One month from today (give or take a few days, given shipping times and shelving patterns), Discount Armageddon will be officially released into the wild. People will be able to buy it, not just pre-order it. Reviews will hopefully become more common, without becoming dramatically meaner. My teetering pile of ARCs will be replaced by a teetering pile of author copies. The beat, as they say, will go on.

This is the first new series I've launched under my own name since 2009, when Rosemary and Rue came out. Feed was released in 2010, and I was a nervous wreck about it, but at the end of the day, Mira Grant was another person; if she failed, I would cry a lot, because Feed was a book I really, really loved, but it wouldn't crush me. But this...

I've had some people email me to sadly ask whether I'm tired of Toby. I'm not, and the sixth book comes out this fall (Ashes of Honor). She's just emotionally exhausting, and it's hard for new readers to get into the series without feeling daunted. Whereas InCryptid is something I've really wanted to write for a long time, with characters and situations that I really love, and it's a series and world I've put together with more experience under my belt, allowing me to avoid some of the flaws in Toby's world. Yes, flaws: Toby's world, for all that I adore it, is innately Eurocentric, and can be confusing sometimes, even though the only type of supernatural creatures to exist are the fae. There's a lot of history, and I sort of assumed everyone understood feudalism. It's my world, I made it, and I love it, but there's something amazing about starting from scratch.

A month before Rosemary and Rue came out, I was vomiting with terror. I'm calmer this time, although I'm still anxious as all hell. Will people like my baby? Will it do okay? Will the other new releases beat it up and call it names? Will sales be strong enough that I'm allowed to continue past the second book? It would make a tidy duology, but you've met me: two is never enough. I want to go much, much further in this world, and whether I get to do that will depend partially on book one. I am a bundle of anxiety and neurosis.

But it's almost here. No matter what else happens, no matter what comes next, Discount Armageddon is almost here.

That's pretty much amazing.

It's time to give away more ARCs of Discount Armageddon. Do you want a Discount Armageddon ARC? Well, here's what you need to do:

To enter, simply leave a comment on this entry. The comment must be ON THE ENTRY, and not on another comment; threaded comments cannot win. I will draw the winners on Wednesday morning, February 8th.

I will be choosing three winners this time, two for US addresses (not necessarily residents, just mailing addresses), one for an international address. Please identify your country when commenting. I will post the day I draw the winners, telling you who won; winners will have twenty-four hours to contact me before I draw again. And them's the rules.

Comment, be blessed by the random number gods, profit! Game on!

ETA: Comments which do not identify the poster's shipping status (USA/non-USA) cannot win. This is because I will be selecting winners based on both the RNG and their stated location. So if you comment without telling me where you are, you cannot win unless you update that comment to include a country.

I still need addresses for the following:

jhyanmar
thebluerose

If you're one of these two people, I need to hear from you ASAP. I would normally have drawn new winners by now, but have been too busy...which could work in your favor if you contact me, via my website's contact link, within the next twenty-four hours! After that, I will need to put your ARCs back into the pile to be given away.

Come on, help me give you things!

First up, sorry for the delay: I decided that I hadn't spent enough quality time with the exciting stomach bug that's touring around the country and became vilely ill to make up for it. Details are not forthcoming. You're welcome. Technically, I'm still ill, but I can at least sit up and type now, which is more than I could manage yesterday.

Because so many people had great "why I should win a copy of Discount Armageddon" answers, and because I am still sick, I gave up on being arbitrary and leaned on the random number generator instead. Our winners are...

jhyanmar
kalenodonnell

But because I did say I was going to be arbitrary, and because I found a few extra ARCs in my mailbox yesterday, I am also going to send a copy to...

thebluerose

Because New Zealand needs cryptids.

If you're one of our winners, please send me your mailing address via my website contact form within the next twenty-four hours. If I don't have your contact info by then, I'll choose a new winner. (thebluerose, you and I will also need to work out shipping; we can do that after you contact me.)

For everybody else: what kind of giveaway should we do next? LOLcryptids? Poetry? Art? Cookies? The sky's the limit, and I want to know what you think.

And now I'm gonna go lie down.

Who wants an ARC of Discount Armageddon? No, really: who really wants it?

For this giveaway, we're going to mix and match effort with laziness. Comment on this entry with why you—yes, you—should receive an ARC of the first InCryptid adventure. Be creative. Be insane. Whatever makes you happy. On Friday, at noon PST, I will use our friend the Random Number Generator to select a winner. I will then read through the entries and select my favorite as a second winner. Yes, it's totally arbitrary. But it's also stated right up front, so I don't feel bad.

This contest is open to all North American residents without any restrictions, and to non-North American residents who either a) have a North American mailing address or b) are willing to pay me postage. I do apologize for that, it's just that I can't afford to ship a lot of stuff overseas right now. And now...

Game on!

So yeah, I currently live in a cloud of existential doubt, waiting for Discount Armageddon to hit the shelves and all hell to break loose. This is pretty normal for me. And then lo and behold, Publishers Weekly decided to soothe my nerves with an awesome review. I quote:

"McGuire (the October Daye series) launches a new series with a fast, funny adventure involving cryptids (semimythical entities like Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster) and the researchers who love them. Cryptozoologist Verity Price belongs to a legendary clan of monster hunters who turned their back on the genocidal Covenant generations ago and now work to maintain a safe ecosystem for both cryptids and humans. Verity moves to New York to follow her other passion, ballroom dancing, but the arrival of a sexy Covenant agent—just as cryptids go missing across the city—disrupts her carefully balanced routine. Verity must join forces with her ancestral enemy to prevent Manhattan from being destroyed by the ancient power sleeping beneath it. Verity is a winning protagonist, and her snarky but loving observations on her world of bogeyman strip club owners, Japanese demon badger bartenders, and dragon princess waitresses make for a delightful read. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary. (Mar.)"

Verity's a winning protagonist? Yeah, I'll take that. Also, I am crazy-excited to see this book on shelves, you have no idea.

It's almost real.

Welcome to the final current projects post of 2011. Wow. These posts are made because I am the gift that keeps on giving, and time is the gift that keeps on taking. 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 all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout, Ashes of Honor). 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!Collapse )

And the winner of the random number generator drawing is...

bookgirlr!

Please contact me with your mailing address via my website contact form by 8am PST on Wednesday, December 14th. If I have not received your contact information by this time, I will be forced to select another winner.

And speaking of other winners...

it_aint_easy also wins an ARC, for making me laugh so hard with his entry comment that Diet Dr Pepper came out of my nose. This isn't something I've done before, and it's not likely to be something I do again, but seriously. You make me laugh until I can't breathe, you deserve a little recognition.

Again, please contact me with your mailing address via my website contact form by 8am PST on Wednesday, December 14th. If I have not received your contact information by this time, I will not be sending your ARC. (I also won't be choosing another winner, as this was Crazy Bonus Prize.)

More giveaways and excitement to come!

1. I'm currently running an ARC giveaway for Discount Armageddon, and will be choosing a winner via random number generator tomorrow morning. US addresses only for this particular giveaway. I'm leaving the state very shortly, and I don't have any customs forms, so I have to limit the entries if I want to be sure of mailing out the book.

2. Speaking of mailing things...I sent a massive batch of shirts this weekend, and will be preparing another batch to go out at the end of this week. The "I do not have any customs forms, and neither does my local post office" issue means I'm only sending US orders right now, but hopefully they'll have more customs forms soon. The shirt shop finally sent me the last of the shirts, so if your order was skipped before due to me not having your actual shirt, I should now be able to package it. (Yes, this is taking a long time. I can only send what I can hand-deliver, and that sort of complicates things.)

3. Why am I leaving the state? Because I am going to DISNEY WORLD!!!! More specifically, I'm going with my mother, my youngest sister, and vixyish, who has been drafted into the role of "person who keeps Seanan from killing her family." We're meeting up with hsifyppah and sweetmusic_27 in Florida, along with Amy's friend Patty, and then we're going to spend NINE DAYS enjoying the glories of Orlando. I'm the only person in my group of four that's ever been before, and I can't wait.

4. This does mean, however, that I won't be online for over a week. No email, no LJ, nothing but Twitter from my phone. So please don't email me and then get upset if I don't answer. (I mean really, don't do that anyway, I beg of you. I am unable to promise a swift reply for anything sent in my email. I'm even retooling my website in a vain attempt to reduce the amount of email coming my way. Have mercy.)

5. Which brings us to release dates. All books and stories with confirmed release dates that I can say "yes, it comes out on that day" about are listed on my bibliography page. Please check there before you ask me when something is coming out. It's unfair, I know, but I get asked that question so often that it makes me cranky, and I hate being cranky at people who don't deserve it.

6. I am currently trying to either write or revise ALL THE THINGS, and will be doing another inchworm post shortly, because that has turned out to be a distressingly good way of staying on top of things. Thanks, Bear.

7. So The Agent returned her editorial notes on Ashes of Honor, and as always, has proven to be incredibly good at identifying the major structural flaws that all the rest of us mysteriously missed. I'm currently fourteen chapters in on the editorial rewrite, after which the book can go off to The Editor, and I can forget about it for a little while. And by "forget about it," I really mean "start The Chimes at Midnight." I think there's something wrong with the way my brain works.

8. I am now on season four of Criminal Minds. I'm sorry I started watching so late, because damn. I'm also glad I started watching so late, because it means I've had lots to enjoy. Also, Penelope Garcia for the win.

9. Jean Grey is still dead.

10. Happy holidays! Try not to freak out and bludgeon anyone to death with a fruitcake, okay? Because that would be a horrible way to go.

I have the Discount Armageddon ARCs, and they are GORGEOUS OMG GORGEOUS. Beyond gorgeous. They are perfect in every conceivable way, and all other books weep with the knowledge that they are not my Discount Armageddon ARCs.

Do you want a Discount Armageddon ARC?

Welcome to giveaway number one! To enter, simply leave a comment on this entry. The comment must be ON THE ENTRY, and not on another comment; threaded comments cannot win. I will draw a winner on Tuesday morning, December 13th.

This giveaway is open only to occupants of the United States, because the post office near me has been out of customs forms for a week, and I can't promise to mail anything internationally before I leave for Disney World. I will do a more widely-open giveaway in a few weeks.

Comment, be blessed by the random number gods, profit! Game on!

ETA: A winner has been chosen! All hail to the RNG.

Words: 12,732.
Total words: 57,367.
Reason for stopping: chapter fourteen is finished.
Music: lots of dance music and modern country.
The cats: Alice, bed; Thomas, floor; Lilly, cat tree.

I'm pretty sure I was actually supposed to work on something else today. In fact, I'm practically certain of it. But I kept going "oh, just another hundred words," and "oh, I'm almost to the end of this chapter," and the story kept rolling on, and then it was the end of chapter fourteen, and the day was basically over. This is what we call "writing what needs written," rather than "writing what the schedule says." It doesn't happen to me often, but oh, when it does...

When it does, it's magical.

Anyway, not much with the mice in this segment, so I don't have a new exultation, but I do have a lot more words (more than half a book now!), and I do feel pretty darn good about the whole situation. Soon, the second adventure of Verity Price and her insane friends will be in the bag. And that's awesome.

Hello, internet world!

I have a short story that I'm intending to offer as a free download early next year, to celebrate the release of Discount Armageddon. This means I need the story to be in e-pub format. Anybody got the technical skills to make this for to go? I'll be your best friend, or something (or send you a book, whatever).

It's a pretty short story, about 7,000 words, and will have a cover and an internal dingbat for dividing sections.

ETA: While I appreciate the suggestions, if I had the time to do this myself right now, I would. I do not have time, so I am asking for help. Please stop suggesting ways for me to do it for myself.

Words: 19,428.
Total words: 44,635.
Reason for stopping: through chapter eleven, it is a WORLD of bedtime.
Music: mostly folk and Glee soundtracks.
The cats: all three unknown, which is worrisome.

So, I, uh, forgot my word counts for a little while, which is why today looks like a SUPER PRODUCTIVE OMG day, when it's really just a majorly productive day. My apologies for the chicanery. I shall try to not let it happen again. But regardless, I am now almost halfway through with the book, which is amazing and awesome, and I am so very excited. Especially since I'm working on eight other things at the same time. How Seanan Got Her Groove Back, yo.

The mouse exaltation of the day is worthless without context: "HAIL ISTAS!" Sadly, you cannot have context. Context, you cannot have. But soon! Soon, all these people will begin making sense to you, and you can rejoice with me (and the mice)!

Alice has just appeared, and is demanding I go to bed and pet the cat until the cat is done being petted, which should be next week. Oh, and I did manage to buy myself the free space to write the next Jonathan and Frances Healy adventure, "Hell of a Ride." It's going to be a free download on my website, between the release of Westward Weird (January) and Discount Armageddon (March). Whee!

Cheese! And! Cake!

Words: 9,947.
Total words: 25,207.
Reason for stopping: through with chapter seven, time to send off to the Machete Squad for review.
Music: an astonishing amount of modern country.
The cats: Lilly, drawer; Thomas, floor; Alice, top of the front room cat tree.

I'm finally working on Midnight Blue-Light Special again! Hooray! Not only that, but I'm making good progress; given that the first book was roughly 100k, I'm about a quarter of the way through the book, and most of the really important pieces have been put into position, ready for me to start knocking them over. I'm totally excited, and also deeply relieved, since I want to be mostly, if not entirely, finished by the time Discount Armageddon actually hits shelves. I am a simple soul.

The mouse exaltation of the day is a pretty straightforward one: "CHEESE AND CAKE!" It's not as common in the actual text as you might think, despite it being a major part of their religion, because they don't need to say it all the time. This chunk also featured Istas, which always makes me happy. She's a fun girl.

I really, really want to buy myself a few "free days" (days where I have already written so far ahead of target word count that I can do other things), so that I can write the next two Jonathan and Franny stories, "Hell of a Ride" and "Loch and Key." The first John and Fran story will be appearing in the anthology Westward Weird, coming out in January.

Cheese! And! Cake!

Welcome to the October 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving, and time is the gift that keeps on taking. 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 all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout). 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. There has been very little change between this month's list and last month's list, as I've been trying to hammer through Ashes of Honor.

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

So we survived another iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show (always a risky proposition, what with all those snakes), and now it's time to get back to normal, everyday life. Naturally, for me, this means "now it's time to start packing for Michigan." Because nothing says "restful" like jetting straight off to another convention, right? Right?!

Ahem. A few snapshot statuses, for the interested and alert:

"Wicked Girls" shirts.
Yes! They have arrived! Well...mostly. It turns out the shirt shop was out of certain size/style combinations, so my order was short about fifty shirts, which will be coming along later. How are we finding out which size/style combinations are missing? By trying to pack orders and being unable to find the associated shirts. Naturally. So shipping is being a little bit odd at the moment, and I'm filling as many complete orders as I possibly can. Feel free to email the merchandise address (the Gmail.com account that contacted you for shipping and payment) if you have questions about your specific order, or need to update your address in any way.

Ashes of Honor progress.
I now have approximately 86,000 words written on Ashes of Honor, which means I'm on target to finish my first, deeply flawed draft of the book by the end of October. At which point, the flensing will begin. The flensing has already begun, on a localized level, but the deep flense requires a wider audience. I'm actually pretty happy with the shape of this book. I finally got to bring back a lot of the cast from A Local Habitation, some questions are getting answered, and Toby eats Pop-Tarts. Life is good.

Discount Armageddon approaches.
According to my planner countdown, Discount Armageddon will be released in one hundred and fifty-five days. But, you know. No pressure or anything. I am deeply excited and deeply terrified, and getting ready to rearrange things on my website to make the InCryptid section easier to find and navigate. This means the Field Guide will also be going totally live. You, too, can live in fear of the Apraxis Wasps.

Zombies.
Are love.

Albino banana slug.
ALBINO BANANA SLUG!!!!!! He's like vanilla soft serve with eyes, and I want to love him forever, even though this picture was taken a year ago and so he's probably been eaten by an owl by now. (I know slugs are hermaphrodites. I don't care. I want to name this particular slug "Geoff," and have grand adventures with him. He is my beloved squishy friend.)

HAIL FROGLORD!
This Questionable Content strip speaks to the depths of my soul.

And that's me. What's new with you?

I am so crazy excited about my new book, and my new series. I mean, of course, Discount Armageddon, the book that kicks off the InCryptid series. Well. Excited and scared. But things like this help with the fear a little bit. You wanna see something really pretty?

Go ahead. Take a peek.

( Cut-tagged for the protection of your friends' list, which really doesn't need something this huge suddenly showing up without warning. But trust me, you should totally click.Collapse )

Wow, it's been a while since we've had one of these, hasn't it? The proofer spotlight is my way of publicly of thanking the tireless workers in the Machete Squad, who go through endless reams of bad prose and bizarre typos so that you won't have to. Seriously. I would have a lot more problems on the publisher end if I didn't travel with a trained squad of comma-killing, modifier-munching bad-asses. Hail to the Machete Squad!

It used to be a lot easier to get new proofreaders, because I didn't need to find people with the time, appropriate skill set, interest, and proven ability to keep their mouths shut until publication. I could literally just throw thirty people at a project, let them winnow themselves out, and keep whoever survived. Now I need to practice care and...gulp...discretion. But once in a while, someone new comes along.*

Enter Lauren and Priscilla.

Lauren has an amazing eye for time. She actually catches flow and logical progression in a way that none of the other currently active Machete Squad members tends to manage, which makes her invaluable to our cause. She also does line edits and presents herself with a dry, entertaining wit (I like funny in my critique). She's worked on Blackout, One Salt Sea, and Ashes of Honor, and she's amazing.

Priscilla is great with dialogue, flow, and detail work. She's one of my Manhattan-area subject matter experts, which is good; she's also a keen eye applied to general editorial matters, which is great. She's fun, she's funny, she's accessible, and she's enthusiastic, which is not something to be overlooked in measuring the value of a proofreader. She's worked on Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-Light Special.

And those are my newest proofers. Look upon their works, oh ye mighty, and rejoice!

(*Please do not comment here volunteering to read for me. I just wind up feeling awkward when I have to turn you down. I don't solicit readers in public, and I don't currently have any openings in need of filling. Thanks for understanding.)

I am leaving for the WorldCon in Reno tomorrow, and a little bit horrified by how quickly this year has gone by. Maybe if I started sleeping, time would slow down. Do you think? Yeah, probably not. Oh, well. A girl can dream. Anyway:

Welcome to the August 2011 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 all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (One Salt Sea, Blackout). 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!Collapse )