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.

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!

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.

As of today, it is ninety-nine days to the release of Discount Armageddon. This is the first book in the InCryptid series; it's my first new series since 2010 (and wow, does that feel like a weird thing to say). It's the introduction to my huge, crazy, wonderful family of cryptozoologists and happy eccentrics, who think that taxidermy and talking mice are perfectly normal things to have around the house.

I am excited. I am terrified.

See, when A Local Habitation came out, some people compared it to the latest Dresden files book and said that Toby lacked the emotional resonance of Harry Dresden. This was sort of understandable, given that I had two books to build my character, and Butcher had like eleven, but it also awoke in me a deep existential dread. Which is now back, full-force, since following One Salt Sea with the start of a new series is a really good way to invoke that same critique. I don't borrow trouble. I rent it, and yes, I am an insecure blonde sometimes.

I am also mad happy, because I love this series so much, and I love this family so much, and I'm writing nine books to make you care enough to let me write book ten, Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld and have you really really care and WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT. You know I was an alien pod plant when you picked me up.

While I'm loving on things, I love my cover (and so do some other people, which is mad awesome, much like the cover itself). I love my subject matter experts. I love my Machete Squad. I love my publisher. I love my editor. I love The Agent. And I love everyone who has been involved, no matter how tangentially, in making this series a reality. It's had a long, weird genesis, and I am excited beyond words.

It's gonna be a book.

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.

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!

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 )

Words: 3,255.
Total words: 15,260.
Reason for stopping: chapter one is finished, and chapters two through four have been tweaked accordingly.
Music: mostly dance mixes. Fancy that.
The cats: presumably back in California.

So yeah, I did it again; what I thought was chapter one was actually chapter two, necessitating the composition of a whole new chapter one, and revision of the existing chapters, to make the new chapter one fit with the rest of the book. And, again, the book is infinitely better and more fun, right out the gate, for having had this new chapter one added. I should really give up on first chapters, and just plan to write them when I've finished the rest of the book, I swear.

There is no mouse exaltation of the day, as the mice do not appear in the new chapter one. I apologize, and promise more mousy goodness to come. Probably when it will annoy Verity as much as humanly possible.

I've actually been spending a lot of time in this universe lately, having finished a story set three generations before Discount Armageddon, and done some heavy revision on a few stories set to generations before. This series really is a family affair, and I work industriously to make that obvious. Also, it's fun to do period-piece cryptozoology.

I am, perhaps, easily amused.

Words: 4,229.
Total words: 12,005.
Reason for stopping: I have finished chapter three, and need to get dressed.
Music: lots of dance club music.
The cats: Lilly and Thomas, in the bed, Alice, prowling.

So chapter three is done. True to form, I have realized that the current chapter one is actually chapter two, and my next addition to this book will be the shiny new chapter one (also allowing me to move some of the "As you know, Bob..." into the new chapter one, thus distributing it a little bit better). I'm getting used to this particular quirk of my writing life, and while it still annoys me a bit, it no longer infuriates me. Yay for maturity!

Mouse exaltation of the day: "HAIL THE FAILURE TO IGNITE THE DOMICILE!" Gotta love the Aeslin mice. They are, without a doubt, worth their weight in kittens.

Let's see, other things I've realized...I have a misnamed cryptid race that's going to get corrected before Discount Armageddon is released, so you'll never know for sure what it was, but I need to make a note before I start working up my family field guides. Verity remains refreshing and awesome, even when she's annoyed, because she just can't stay annoyed for very long without outside assistance. And I think I need to find a source for So You Think You Can Dance Australia. It's...research. Yeah, that's the ticket.

What's sad is that in this case, it actually is.

Words: 3,982.
Total words: 7,776.
Reason for stopping: I have finished chapter two, and need to get dressed.
Music: lots of dance club music.
The cats: all three of them are in the bed. It's freaky.

Chapter two is done! Chapter two is done! I really meant to be further along in this book by now, but, well...new kitten, major flu, Alice nearly dying, OryCon, and extensive revisions on One Salt Sea mucked things up a bit. I'm getting back on track, and the first step was getting this chapter locked down. What's that? Is that a finished chapter? Why yes, I do believe that it is. CHEESE AND CAKE!

I love the InCryptid setting. It manages to be incredibly grim and serious, and incredibly light and fluffy, all at the same time. I often say that if we're working with a seriousness scale of one to ten, with Newsflesh being an eight or nine, and Toby being a six or seven, InCryptid is a two or three (except when it's not). And wow, is it refreshing to be able to say "you know what? You don't want to hear me, you just want to dance."

I think I'm going to work up an end-of-book "cryptid handbook" for the published books, including the names of the various cryptid species, and short descriptions of same. This will help a lot, with a lot of things, including my firm desire not to completely re-explain the cuckoos in every single volume.

I'm so excited!

It is with extreme pleasure and with no small degree of squeaky joy that I announce that the first two InCryptid books have been acquired by DAW Books. These urban fantasy adventures focus on the Price family of cryptozoologists as they seek to protect the cryptids of the world from humanity...and humanity from the cryptids of the world. The first two volumes are:

Discount Armageddon
Midnight Blue-Light Special

Cryptids and cuckoos and field guides, oh my! Words really can't express how insanely happy I am right now. I'm going to be working with the same team at DAW, which means I know I will have great editorial, fantastic in-house support, and a whole lot of sheer bonus fun. I'm so excited that you're all going to get the chance to meet these people. They're some of my favorites. And now, in the words of the Aeslin mice...

CHEESE! AND! CAKE!

So first off, because I couldn't say this earlier, and also, HOLY CATS, here go: I was asked, by Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner, to submit a story for one of their totally insanely awesome urban fantasy theme collections. You know, the ones like Wolfsbane and Mistletoe and Death's Excellent Vacation. The ones I have sometimes DREAMED about being asked to write for.

THEY ASKED ME TO WRITE THEM A STORY AND I SAID YES AND OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, LOOK:



The story, titled "Through This House," takes place between Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea. It involves Toby, Quentin, May, Danny, and some giant spiders, and while it was intentionally written to be non-essential—you don't have to get the book to understand what's going on in book five—I really like it.

But mostly, right now, I'm just REALLY EXCITED. Like, super-duper grasshopper pie and a magic unicorn pogo stick excited. My first appearance in an actual hardcover! Ohmygawd!

Happy Saturday!

Words: 3,794.
Total words: 3,794.
Reason for stopping: The Agent called. Hence my posting this the next morning.
Music: lots of dance club music.
Lilly and Alice: cat tree and STALKING, respectively.

What's this? Why, it's the first official word count for Midnight Blue-Light Special, of course. What's that? The second InCryptid book, and the sequel to Discount Armageddon. In short, my reward for finishing the fifth Toby book is the sweet, sweet embrace of ballroom dancers who spend their spare time acting as a guidance counselor for monsters, talking mice, brooding monster-hunters, and mathematicians with anti-freeze where their blood is supposed to be. Because that's just how I roll.

I have the first chapter and prologue done, and Very is starting to respond to my request that she pay attention to the plot outline. For Very, this is very rapid adherence to the rules of the road, and I'm extremely proud of her. And yes, she's a fictional character, but I haven't been working with her for a while, so I have to remember how all this works.

I'm back in the cryptid-filled streets of New York City, and I couldn't be more pleased about it if I tried.

Um. Um. Um. Okay. Look:

The NPR List of 100 Killer Thrillers has been released.

HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS LOOK LOOK AT #74 LOOK AT IT LOOK THAT'S MY BOOK THAT I WROTE THAT'S FEED ON A LIST PUBLISHED BY NPR HOLY CRAP.

...okay, I'm better now. Sorry about that. Except that I'm neither better nor sorry, but I am fairly convinced that I've been asleep for the last two years. If I wake up and this has all been a really detailed linear dream, I'm taking my brain out behind the woodshed. I'm just saying.

I mean, this isn't the first awesome Feed-related thing that's happened. Consider, if you will, io9's top picks for summer reading. Sure, the summer's almost over, but there's still a little warm weather left in which to enjoy a good zombie apoca—WHO AM I KIDDING WITH THE CALM RATIONALITY?! MY BOOK THAT I WROTE IS ON A LIST PUBLISHED BY NPR HOLY CRAP.

I love this book so much, and I love that my weird science fiction dystopian political thriller full of zombies is actually getting out there and infecting the world with its, well, weirdness and its virology and I am so excited I could just about scream right now. Because HOLY CRAP. That's going to be my refrain today, I swear. HOLY CRAP.

I leave you with the meme your meme could smell like, an awesome Old Spice Man-inspired "everybody is awesome" feedback meme, and I go off to gibber and giggle in a corner until I can calm down a little.

HOLY CRAP.

I snagged this from the lovely la_marquise_de_, who is taking the much more sensible "one question a day" approach to things. Being as I am so rarely sensible, I'm just doing it all in one great whack. But I'm doing it behind a cut-tag, which helps at least a little.

( Click here for a lengthy meme about writing, because I can, and because it seemed like a good thing to do at the time. I may need more hobbies.Collapse )

Current stats:

Words: 11,360.
Total words: 101,678.
Reason for stopping: I sort of, well, ran out of book.
Music: the Discount Armageddon play list.
Lilly and Alice: my lap and the orange cat tree, respectively.

First draft stats:

Pages: 353
Chapters: twenty-five, plus a prologue and an epilogue
Started: August 22, 2008
Finished: November 28, 2009

Given how much time this book spent being "lower priority" than things with actual deadlines, fourteen months is a very respectable time to get from beginning to end. Midnight Blue-Light Special should go a lot faster, if only because I completely understand my world now, and what it's supposed to be like. I know the rhythm, I know the beat, and I can dance to it. I am...I'm staggered right now. I've been saying for a few weeks now that I was probably going to finish the book this month, but there's a huge difference between saying and doing. I've done. Draft one is done.

Draft two is going to involve smoothing out the continuity, fixing the pacing, and generally book-doctoring like whoa...but it'll probably be done by the end of January at the very latest, and that's with taking a backseat to Blackout, which gets to take over as my primary book now. Discount Armageddon is done.

I'm amazed and a little off-balance. I am now going to go eat ice cream and watch TV.

Current stats:

Words: 5,017.
Total words: 90,318.
Reason for stopping: in the middle of the big boom in chapter twenty-three. BOOM.
Music: this week's episodes of NCIS and Dexter.
Lilly and Alice: taking up a physically improbable amount of space on my feet.

I...um...yeah. So I have this thing where every day, I put any specific writing goals for the day on my to do list. Because the to do list is my lord and master. Right now, every day, I'm putting "2,000 words, DA" on the list, and every day, I'm checking it off before plowing onward for another few thousand words. Why? Because I have hit the point where I literally can't stop. I eat, sleep, breathe, and dream this book. I inhabit this book even when I'm not working on it. I'm spending half my time (or more) in a fictional reality full of madness and monsters and manic dance numbers breaking out in the middle of nowhere. This is normal for me as I approach the end of a first draft. It really is. But it's been a while since I did this part, and it's making my fingers hurt.

90,000 words means that I'm 15,000 words, give or take, from the end of draft one. I realize I've been hitting that data point a lot, but um, holy crap, end of draft one. This is the book I started on a whim. The book I never lost enthusiasm for, but shelved repeatedly while I worked on things that had actual deadlines. The book that, let's be serious here, kicks off a new series. I needed three of those, right? They're like cats. You're not a crazy cat lady until you have more than four (even if Margaret says that by 2014, mathematics prove that 80% of all books will be written by me).

Also, at my current rate of speed, you won't be getting these updates for all that much longer. So there's that.

Soon, I hope to explain to the people who've only read Toby why, exactly, I felt the need to spend my time in a universe filled with cryptozoologists in skimpy outfits, asbestos blondes, ketchup milkshakes, ballroom dancing, high heeled shoes, and, of course, talking mice. And my answer to them will be, in no uncertain terms...CHEESE AND CAKE!

Current stats:

Words: 7,137.
Total words: 85,301.
Reason for stopping: about midway through chapter twenty-two, totally exhausted.
Music: my evolving Discount Armageddon mix.
Lilly and Alice: asleep in my tank top drawer, being a puddle of blue and white fur.

The speed with which this draft is suddenly materializing is a little scary, and is making me feel faintly hag-ridden. Seriously, there's "my normal writing speed," and then there's "writing to make a deadline," and then there's "holy Great Pumpkin in the sacred patch, where the hell did the day go?" Assuming this book comes out at exactly the estimate, I have fewer than 20,000 words left to go. Second draft will cut ten percent of that. (Actually second draft will cut twenty percent, but half of what I cut will be replaced by clarification, necessary bridgework, and general textual repairs. That's what second draft is for.)

After this draft is done, I have to focus fully on Blackout and The Brightest Fell while my proofreading pool crawls all over the text and rips it into tiny bleeding shreds. (For Christmas this year, I'm getting a bloodbath! Just what I always wanted.) I figure I should have space on the docket to get into Midnight Blue-light Special sometime around May...you know, when I have the Guest of Honor slot and the book coming out. Gosh, it's fun to live inside my head sometimes, in the sense that apparently even I don't think I need to sleep. Sleep is for the weak and sickly, right?

I am so in love with this book right now. I am so in love with this series right now. I am so in love with this world right now, with its reality shows and its cryptid-owned strip clubs and its many, many expeditions into the sewers of Manhattan. I can see where a second draft is going to be absolutely necessary, but right now? Right now, I am just enjoying the hell out of the ride.

I can't wait for you to meet these people.

Current stats:

Words: 5,227.
Total words: 78,264.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter twenty, taking a break before chapter twenty-one.
Music: my Sarah Zellaby mix.
Lilly and Alice: sitting in the bedroom window, raptly watching the kitty cable.

Day by day and word by word, I get closer to the end of the first draft of Discount Armageddon. I'm really excited, and I've hit that point where anything but writing is difficult to maintain for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. I have to take breaks from time to time, but they're just that; breaks between bouts of frantic typing, rather than the things I have to break myself away from. This is awesome. This is especially awesome because I know the way my brain works, and if it's currently this fixated on InCryptid, it's because I'm getting ready for a massive run on another project. Judging by the things that have started creeping around the edges of my mind, I'm going to guess that the "other woman" in this equation is Blackout, the sequel to Feed, which was already on my holiday docket.

This book has been fun and surprising and silly and snappy and a few dozen things I really wasn't expecting when I kicked it off. Better still, it's been the doorway to a brand new series. I need those from time to time. Part of what I love as a writer is the act of creating a world, stepping inside it, and shutting the doors behind me. (This doesn't explain my seeming inability to write completely stand-alone books, but as long as the series keep making sense, I'm not going to whine about it overly much.) I love the things it's forced me to learn in order to write it, and the things I got to just sort of...stumble over. Like some of the freaky things Mother Nature has done in the real world.

25,000 words to go, give or take, and then it's time to make my exit and make my way into other drafts and other disasters. I can barely believe I'm this far along. I can barely believe it's taken me this long.

CHEESE AND CAKE!

Current stats:

Words: 5,183.
Total words: 73,047.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter nineteen (and started chapter twenty).
Music: my Rose Marshall mix.
Lilly and Alice: flopped on the floor, being deeply endearing.

It's weird and a little scary to think about, but I'm about 30,000 words from the end of the first draft of Discount Armageddon. After I finish the first draft, I'll take about six weeks to let my proofreaders argue about commas, another six weeks to finish a second draft, and then...the book is done. The silly, head-smashing, ass-kicking, ballroom dancing, talking mouse extravaganza that kicks off the adventures of the Price family is almost done. I'm speechless. I'm stunned. And I'm deeply delighted, because finishing this book means setting it free for all of you to read.

The thing about living inside my head is that it's very weird in here, and very cluttered. I sometimes liken my writing habits to my television viewing habits; I sometimes change channels and watch something else for a little while, because some days are Masters of Horror days, and others are So You Think You Can Dance days. Both are totally valid, and totally necessary. Working with Verity and the rest of her wacky, wonderful family recharges me when I'm exhausted from other projects, and vice-versa. They all feed into each other.

Soon all the world will understand the glory of the Aeslin mice, the importance of religious ritual, how difficult it is to dance a good tango, and why gorgons hate wigs. But in the meanwhile, I shall continue to be a little stunned at how far I've come from deciding that Verity Alice Price, daughter of Kevin Price and Evelyn Price-Baker, needed a book of her very own.

Current stats:

Words: 7,773.
Total words: 67,864.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter eighteen.
Music: the new mix Merav made for me.
Lilly and Alice: back in California. I miss my kitties.

Discount Armageddon—the first of the InCryptid books, chronicling the adventures of the Price family as they try to study the cryptids of the world without getting eaten by them—is now two hundred and thirty-seven pages long, featuring action, adventure, snarking, and talking pantheistic demon mice with a fondness for religious ritual. It's ballroom dancing as a combat style, it's asbestos blondes and gorgon barmaids, and it's more fun to write than should really be legal. It's also sad, because at this point, I have somewhere between 30,000 and 36,000 words to go, and that doesn't seem like enough.

On the plus side, once I finish this, I get to start digging my teeth into the sequels. And believe me, Midnight Blue-light Special is going to be a hoot and a half, once I get there. And after that...hoo-boy. I really think I like this roller coaster.

What's really interesting is that this is the first series I've started knowing from the starting gate that it was a series, and more, that it was more than just a few books long. Feed was a stand-alone; Rosemary and Rue was an adventure that I didn't quite understand. This time, I know what I'm getting into.

Oddly, I couldn't be happier.

Current stats:

Words: 3,620.
Total words: 60,091.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter sixteen, bedtime.
Music: my soppy love songs and angry punk scramble.
Lilly and Alice: asleep on the bed and begging for attention, respectively.

When last we left our intrepid manuscript, it was four pages shy of two hundred pages (one of my big personal milestones for any book). Well, now it's two hundred and eleven pages in length, complete with the whole of chapter sixteen, which was, um, exciting to work on in so many ways. I love anything that involves Holy Feasts and fried chicken, and this book gives me the opportunity to mix-and-match the two with wild aplomb. Besides which, we are now officially at the high point of that big hill, and it's all bang-bang-boom from here, baby. Bang-bang-boom.

Sadly, while I understand that I'm currently busting pages on this book primarily because my hindbrain is occupied, stegosaurus-like, with the contemplation of the big science questions for Blackout (and this book will hence shortly be tabled again, in favor of things which have current deadlines), I could not be more pleased with how things are going. Oh, there are bits to fix and errors to catch, but on the whole, it's clean, it's quick, and it's just fun, in a way that so very few things are.

CHEESE AND CAKE!