So I belong to SFWA (The Science Fiction Writers of America), a truly massive organization filled with writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Having grown up in fandom, the fact that I now qualify to be a part of SFWA -- to belong to an organization with all these people -- still sometimes seems like proof that I'm going to wake up any second now. Seriously. There has to be a catch.

SFWA publishes a bi-monthly magazine, The SFWA Bulletin, to make sure that all its members have at least a vague notion of what's going on. Each issue includes a spotlight on a brand-new member, someone who's just recently joined and needs a cheery introduction to the rest of the clubhouse. Guess who the spotlight's on in the October/November issue?

You're a good guesser.

So there's a little interview with me, and a picture from my website, and it's all very posh. It's also all very real. I mean, the potential that somebody's going to yank this football away from me goes down daily, because there's just too much concrete evidence piling up out there. I'm in the magazine that SFWA sends to all its members.

How awesome is that?

Dear Great Pumpkin;

I have been a very good girl since last Halloween. I have given cookies and candy and cake to people who needed them. I have been kind to spiders. I have revered the pumpkin in all its forms. I have not drowned anyone in a well. I have not unleashed an army of the living dead, obedient to my every whim, and commanded them to destroy all that which might oppose me. Also, I have not called down the pandemic. So clearly, I have spent the entire year on my very best behavior.

This year, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:

* Awesome cover art. Please, Great Pumpkin, make sure that the cover art for Rosemary and Rue is made entirely of wonderful, and save me from the terrible specter of the bimbo on the cover of my book. (To quote the Bohnhoffs: “She is sultry, she is sexy, she is nowhere in the text, she is the bimbo on the cover of my book.”) I have great faith in my cover artist and my publisher, but it never hurts to plead for supernatural aid from the most superior of all squash.

* A fantastic convention season. I’m going to be the Music Guest of Honor at Duckon, Great Pumpkin, and Jim Butcher is going to be the Author Guest of Honor. Please help me to be the very best Disney Halloween Princess that I can possibly be, and smite those things which might attempt to oppose me. Please assist me in winning the hearts of all those who meet me, and all me to position myself well for a best-selling novel. Also, please make sure there’s edible food within walking distance of the convention hotel.

* The perfect kittens. My oldest cat is very old, Great Pumpkin, and in the interests of keeping my younger cat from going insane, I am in the market for Siamese kittens. I am looking for a chocolate and a lilac, both Classic, both with the sweet temper and massive size that I associate with the breed. They need to be sturdy, or Lilly will devour them while I sleep, and that will both make me sad and force me to go looking for new kittens. I don’t have time to go through this twice, so please help me get it right the first time.

* Quick, successful sale of the InCryptid series, wherein the various members of the Price family alternately protect and pummel cryptid ass for the sake of the ecological balance of the planet. If you give me this, Great Pumpkin, I promise to find a way to work you into the narrative, either as a benevolent protector of the pumpkin patch, or as a destroyer of the weak. The choice is entirely yours. Also, if you can, could you make sure the contract is for the first four? Because I really want an excuse to write them all.

* Happiness for my entire family, including my recently-married baby sister and her wife. I am very tired of people trying to say that my baby sister’s marriage is in some way dangerous, Great Pumpkin. She’s happy for the first time, and it’s wonderful to watch, and if anything, her joy is a testament to why people get married at all, not a sign of the marital apocalypse. Please make the stupid go away, Great Pumpkin, so we can all stay happy.

* An army of velociraptors, genetically-engineered to obey only my commands, and equipped with lasers on their forearms. I promise I will only use them to bring glory to your name, Great Pumpkin, and that I will leave enough of the world’s population alive to properly honor you on the next Halloween.

I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.

...I learned from Marilyn Munster.

There is nothing wrong with being a little bit unusual. * It doesn't matter what other people think about what you love; it's what you think that really matters. * It's okay to be the blonde one sometimes. * Monsters are people, too. * Being black and white doesn't mean you can't be pink inside. * Loyalty counts. * The people who really care about you will continue to care, no matter how much of a freak you are. * Start every day with a smile. * There is magic in the petulant head-tilt. * Always run towards the explosions. * If everyone is screaming, things are probably about to get interesting. * You can hide lots of knives in a ruffled gown. * No one gets to define what's normal for you. * Stereotypes are funny. * Life is good, so enjoy it while you can. * Other people's prejudices are not actually your problem. * Some people only see appearances. It's best to feel sorry for them. * When someone leads an angry mob to your doorstep, it's okay to scold them for carrying lit torches in a residential area. * Be comfortable with your surroundings. * It is perfectly possible to be a horror movie girl while wearing pastels. * White pancake makeup is totally optional. * Blood is actually good for hair; it strengthens the follicles. * Never underestimate the power of big blue eyes. * Or having a seven foot tall uncle who looks like he was raised from the dead. That doesn't hurt either. * Family counts for everything. * Running in high heels is a life skill. * Hydrogen peroxide gets blood out of almost anything but taffeta and white cotton. * A good wardrobe is key. * Be yourself. In the end, that's what actually matters.

What important lessons did you learn from your personal media icons?

So I mentioned that I wore an absolutely fantastic green and gold necklace made of bugs when I went to visit my publisher, and that said necklace was a gift from the equally fantastic (although somewhat less wearable) copperwise. I don't actually have pictures of my 'Seanan wears the human pants' outfit. But I do have pictures of the necklace, taken by its creator, who was definitely better with a camera than I am. Here go:

* The necklace at an angle.
* The necklace, front and center.
* The necklace, bein' long.

In all shots, it is brilliantly covered in bugs, and the world rejoices. I adore my friends for knowing my tastes -- in both color and creatures -- and I adore my necklace for being long and shiny and covered in bugs.

Life is good.

Makeup: subtle, tasteful, not electric orange, good.

Shoes: sensible, cute, slight heel, do not hurt my feel, good.

Suit: still super-cute.

Manicure: exceedingly sparkly and orange, which has no possible negatives to it whatsoever.

Purse: capable of holding my usual day supplies, plus six CDs.

Pockets: ...yeah, I don't have any. Nor am I carrying any of my various sack or backpack-esque options. Which means I have no functional manner of transporting cans of DDP with me as I leave the house. My caffeine needs will have to be met entirely on the road.

Weep for New York. Weep for New York, and pray that they survive.

Everyone needs a biggest fan; hopefully, your biggest fan will not be Annie Wilkes, as hobbling is absolutely no fun for anyone but the person doing the hobbling, but still, everyone needs one. This goes for you whether you're an author, an artist, an accountant, or the guy who counts sea urchins for the Australian government. Your biggest fan will pretty much decide that everything you ever do is wonderful, even when they lack the critical capacity to really understand what the hell you're talking about. Your biggest fan will applaud your failures, because they're yours. And your biggest fan will cheerfully agree when you announce that you have the ugliest toes in North America.

Your biggest fan is also going to be the first one waiting to puncture your ego if it starts getting too big, the one who says 'I don't understand this' without saying 'so it sucks,' and the one who tells you to wipe your nose, zip your pants, and go deal with your own messes, because your biggest fan understands that sometimes, you just need smacked upside the head and told to get over yourself. Everyone needs a biggest fan. But I don't.

The position has been filled.

Last night, I spent about two hours shopping with my mother. We shopped for shoes (which I hate doing) and came away with two pairs that manage to be super-cute without a) being super-high, b) revealing my tan line (I walk so much, in such similar shoes, that I have two-tone feet), or c) showcasing my terrifying 'I am a marathon walker who used to take dance classes, has broken each toe at least twice, and has never had a pedicure' toes. We shopped for supplies for my trip. We shopped for picture frames, because she needed to frame one of my comic strips and wanted to be ready to start framing my book covers. We shopped for Tootsie Pops (and were nearly defeated by the candy aisle). We shopped, in general, like an enormously tightly-wound neurotic blonde girl and her deeply placid mother. (Raising me pretty much killed her capacity for panic. 'Look, Mommy, this snake makes a noise!' had ceased to be a distressing statement by the time I was nine. This was largely a matter of self-defense.)

My biggest fan: my mother. And I'm pretty much okay with that.

Now, as I am Going To New York to do Very Important Business, for which I have purchased a suit and shoes and everything, it seemed best that I do something to make my hands look less like the hands of someone who regularly goes rooting through mud puddles after frogs, IE, 'less like my hands.' So I went to get my first manicure.

It turns out that manicures are pretty awesome. First, dangerous, pointy objects are used to clip and shape the nails until they are all essentially the same length. This means that I now have no fingernails to speak of, but dammit, they match. Then, caustic chemicals are used to soften and dissolve the cuticles. SOFTEN AND DISSOLVE, PEOPLE! So very awesome.

Once the cuticles have been softened and dissolved, more sharp objects are used to start trimming off all the dead and excess skin. We wound up with a heap of the crap, thus confirming that yes, this was my first manicure. Seriously, we could grow, like, eight clones from the stuff the manicurist trimmed off my fingers. Note that we still have no polishing going on. Nail polish is like, the smallest part of the manicure.

Everything is now smoothed and shaped, and it's time for hand-massage and exfoliation. Dude, I now understand why people get manicures, because I learned some awesome new massage techniques just by watching. So much of my stress, gone like the wind. Also, this is where your horribly abused cuticles get doused in cuticle oil, which is sort of like magical regenerative slime. Magic slime feels goooooooooooooooood.

At last, nail polish. I was allowed to select my own color, thus proving that the customer is always right, however tasteless they may choose to be. My nails are now a shade of orange called 'Don't Be Koi With Me.' As this is the Toby trip, this seems entirely appropriate. I'll save the Embalming Fluid for the Newsflesh trip. I have no clue what I'll do about Lycanthropy; anybody got a polish color called Oops I Ate The Cat?

And that is the story of the manicure. A tale of sharp objects, acidic fluids, noxious chemicals, and exotic massage.

Manicures are awesome.

A is for...AMMO. Make sure you've got plenty, or you'll have plenty of problems.
B is for...BLAST RADIUS. Know it, love it, try not to stand inside it.
C is for...CHAINSAW. Screw diamonds. This is a girl's best friend.
D is for...DISTRACTION. Let the chirpy little twirp who keeps screaming provide one, and run.
E is for...ESCAPE. Better hope you can make one.
F is for...FIRE. Most of the things that want you dead dislike it.
G is for...GRENADE. Come to momma, little pineapple of death.
H is for...HOUSE. It wants you dead. Live with it.
I is for...ICHOR. It's gonna get in your hair. That's how this works.
J is for...JUMPER CABLES. Learn how to use them or you're probably toast.
K is for...KNIFE. It won't run out of ammo, and it's fun to stick in things. Size does matter.
L is for...LASER. If you have it, use it; if someone else has it, avoid it at all costs.
M is for...MONSTER. Do I even need to explain?
N is for...NIGHT. That's when they're likely to attack.
O is for...OCTOBER. Just stay in bed for this entire month. Seriously.
P is for...PISTOL. I recommend learning to shoot one as soon as possible.
Q is for...QUICK. People come in two flavors: the quick and the dead. Pick one.
R is for...RABIES. That's probably not what you're dealing with, here.
S is for...SNAKE. They come in 'giant' and 'poisonous,' and neither is very good for you.
T is for...TANK. If you have one, keep it. If you don't, get one. Mmmmmmm, tank.
U is for...UNSPEAKABLE. Half the things you'll deal with will be unspeakable. Therapy is your friend.
V is for...VICTIM. If you can't cope, this is what goes on your name tag.
W is for...WEREWOLF. Once the moon comes up, that's not Johnny anymore.
X is for...XENOMORPH. Because apparently our Earth monsters just weren't dangerous enough. Space assholes.
Y is for...YESTERDAY. Remember when reanimated rats weren't gnawing your ankles? Good times, man.
Z is for...ZOMBIE. Oh, you knew that was coming.

It was surprisingly easy to do this, and I had to reject a lot of good alphabet entries because their letters were already filled. (T is for Terror: give in and you get a second 'T' for 'Toast.'; G is for Gun: for the love of God, get one..., etc.) As it has made me giggle without cease for about an hour, I proclaim it a rousing success.

Got any suggestions?

Well, as I noted last week, my upcoming trip to New York and its business requirements have resulted in the realization that I Need Some Grownup Clothes. (Now, just to clear up a small misconception here: I do actually wear clothes on a fairly regular basis. I am not a big fan of wandering around unclothed. It's just that mostly, I'm a fan of T-shirts, tank tops, jeans, cut-offs, and corsetry. None of these are really what we'd call 'business-appropriate clothing.' Not unless I decided to get a job as the new receptionist for the Suicide Girls, and there, I lack sufficient piercings.) Not only do I Need Some Grownup Clothes, but I Need Some Grownup Clothes That Can Be Worn In New York In The Summer. New York summer is a very different sort of beastie than California summer, both in terms of fashion rules and, y'know, the part where it is ELEVENTY BILLION DEGREES AND HUMID. And yet we're the coast where you can practically get away with the formal bikini. Something is very wrong here, folks.

Luckily for me -- and by extension, for everybody else, since my madness tends to be contagious -- I have a Kate. Kate is originally from the East Coast. Kate understands the laws of fashion. And Kate understands that I am, in fact, an anthropologist from some slightly skewed parallel dimension, here to research your strange Earth customs, and thus really don't comprehend at all why I can't wear an orange and green patchwork pinstriped jacket in a business setting. Or why it's bad to go to a business meeting looking like a Batman villain. After watching me stumble through two stores with the shell-shocked expression of a Disney Princess thrust into a real-girl world, she took mercy and agreed to take me to the mall.

Most horrifying thing I have ever heard Kate say, just before we made the approach to the Sun Valley Mall: "Oh, doing the mall properly takes about eight hours."

(I am not a shopper. I am, in fact, a seek-and-destroyer. I can browse in book stores and comic book shops and the like, but just about everything else, I want to go in, grab what's needed, and get the hell out of dodge. The idea of spending eight hours in a mall is incomprehensible to me.)

We started in Sears, largely because that was where the door was, and quickly determined that there was no point trying more things on until we'd bought me a new bra. Kate's mission in life is to get all women into bras that actually fit. She has a rant. It's a really good rant, but I'm not as good at giving it as she is, so I'll just say 'we left Sears and went to Victoria's Secret.' All hail the Vicky's semi-annual sale. Further, all hail the way the really nifty colored bras always seem to wind up in the discount bin. Who has a neon-pumpkin-orange bra? Well, now, that would be me. Who is absolutely overjoyed about this fact? Again, me. Sometimes it's really good to be the sort of person who takes pleasure in the little things. Like orange lingerie.

Kate required food, so we relocated to another level of the mall, which turned out to be awesome, because the very first store we went into after feeding her was also the last one we visited on an actual mission. YES. We found me THE PERFECT OUTFIT. To be specific, we found me...

* A black pinstripe short-sleeved fitted suit jacket.
* Matching knee-length formal shorts.
* Also, the matching knee-length pencil skirt.
* Two different variations on the lace-embellished orange tank top.

Yes. We found a suit that is so formal and so classic and so cute at the same time that I can actually get away with accessorizing in orange. Also, the whole thing is super-cute; I put it on and I've instantly lost thirty pounds. It's amazing. I now fully understand the value of the fitted suit. Having shorts and a skirt means that I can decide day-of what I want to deal with wearing, and having two tank tops gives a second range of options, since they're embellished differently.

I still need to find shoes and appropriate jewelry; this is why I am now searching for something in an orange patent kitten heel. Which is a sentence I never thought I'd write. For jewelry, I'm on the market for something enthrallingly green, and have a few places to go looking. (I'm hoping I can wear my 'witch of ripe apple' pendant, but it's going to need earrings to balance it, as it's large.) I was actually looking at shoes on eBay. At last, Kate has triumphed. At last, I embrace the native costume of my adopted world.

Also, I am mad hot in this suit. So there.

Kate is attempting to get me ready for New York City. This involves, tragically enough, Dressing Like A Human. Now, my wardrobe consists of three basic modes: 'I own more T-shirts than any single woman ever needs,' 'the zombie apocalypse is coming, and I plan to have front row seating,' and 'Marilyn Munster asks me for fashion tips.' I have been assured that none of these is actually suitable for a New York business setting, even when your business is publishing and the people you're dealing with are used to the fact that they work with authors.

Yesterday's trip was an exercise in the word 'no.' From Kate, I got 'no, you can't wear that, it's synthetic'; 'no, you can't wear that, it has no sleeves'; 'no, you can't wear that, it makes you look like a barge.' From me, we got 'no, I won't wear that'; 'no, I will not wear that either'; 'no, I don't want to wear a jacket'; 'no, I refuse to wear heels when I don't know how much walking I'm going to do.'

It is honestly a miracle that both of us walked away from yesterday alive.

(This makes it sound much more unpleasant than it was. Kate is very patient with my ignorance of many aspects of living like a grownup, and I'm generally willing to take correction, as long as the rules make sense. The issue here is that the rules of the fashion world don't make sense, and there are a whole lot of them. I swear, I'm just going to wind up wearing my Marilyn Munster-meets-Elle Woods pink dress, curling my hair, and singing 'I Am So Much Better Than Before' on a street corner somewhere until somebody makes me stop.)

We're planning to hit the mall on Sunday, which will hopefully end with something other than Kate dragging me off to food because I look like I'm about to gnaw my own leg off. At the hip. New York draws closer, and they don't let you fly naked!