...so yeah. This is going to be one of those moments where Seanan Is Not Cool, Yo. So:

I'M GOING TO IRELAND YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!

Ahem.

I am pleased to announce that Dublin has won their bid for the 2014 Eurocon, to be called "ShamroKon." It will be held the week after the London WorldCon, thus allowing anyone with extra vacation time to do two awesome conventions for the price of one. And guess who one of their Guests of Honor is?

Oh, you're all good guessers.

So I'm going to Ireland! For only the second time ever, and for the first time in well over ten years. I am like, super-excited, and totally honored, and this is going to be the best! Convention! EVER!!!!!!!

More information to come, but mark your calendars now!

1. To clarify a point from all the shirt posts: please don't email now asking if your shirt has been mailed. Your shirt has been mailed. I don't know where it is anymore. The post office does what it will do, but as we have not, thus far, had anything vanish while in transit, I am relatively confident that your package will get to you. It can take up to a week within the US, and up to three weeks outside the US. If you are in the US and don't have a shirt by April 15th, or outside the US and don't have a shirt by May 1st, that's when we should become concerned. (That's a lot of time on purpose. I want to give the post office the chance to find things.)

2. Texas was gorgeous, and College Station was amazing. I realize the state's unusual weather meant that it was basically all dressed up for my West Coast eyes—it rained for several weeks before my arrival, so everything was green and covered in wildflowers—but first impressions matter, and my first impression was "This place is gorgeous." Definitely an E-ticket of a state.

3. Midnight Blue-Light Special has been turned in to The Editor, which means I can focus on all the other things that I'm supposed to be writing right now. No, it never ends. Which is also kind of awesome, even if right now, all I want to be working on is InCryptid. Stupid muse and her stupid laser focus. Oh, well.

4. Thanks to trusting the travel gods to see me safely home on Sunday, I managed to upgrade my two flights in coach to a single through flight in first class. Let me tell you, first class is a nice way to fly home. Also, there was free digital cable on the flight, so I watched Jennifer's Body, Zombieland, and Pandorum. Awesome, even more awesome, what the fuck were these people thinking.

5. Also on the topic of first impressions, thanks to this lingering cold, College Station's first impression of me was "scratchy-voiced, foul-mouthed, evil pixie." I can definitely settle for that.

6. Tonight, I do laundry; tomorrow, I pack for Emerald City Comic Con. Because it never really ends once it begins around here. I'm super-excited to see my Seattle family, go to my first ECCC, and hug Amy Mebberson lots and lots. My life is empty if I don't hug an Amy once a month. True fact. And my beloved Amy McNally went home after Consonance.

7. The cats are filled with hate, because the suitcases will not go away. I begin to fear retribution. On the plus side, their "retribution" usually takes the form of sleeping endlessly atop the objects of their annoyance.

8. The new Monster High characters are starting to ship, and my local Toys R Us is once again seeing me two and three times a week as I check in, looking for Rochelle Goyle and the basic Jackson Jekyll (he previously appeared in the beachwear line, Gloom Beach, which means this is the first time he's been available with all his accessories). Luckily, I have a tolerant mother, and tolerant friends.

9. For those of you in the UK, I have a column in this month's issue of SFX Magazine! Or, well, Mira does. I wrote an article about why The Stand is a classic and you should read it. US folks, you'll be able to pick up the issue next month. I'm really pleased with it.

10. Jean Grey is still dead, zombies are love, and the Great Pumpkin watches over us all.

Psst. Guess where I'm going to be this weekend. If you guessed Consonance, Northern California's very own filk convention, you're right! Here is the website:

http://www.consonance.org/

I am their Ghostmistress! Or maybe their Toastmistress. Hmm. I'm not quite sure, but I guess I'll find out when I get there, since they'll either hand me a proton pack or a microphone (vote ghosts, ghosts are awesome). Regardless, I have a concert Friday night at 9:00 PM! I'm going to be performing with some of my favorite people: Vixy and Tony, Amy McNally, Dr. Mary Crowell, Jeff Bohnhoff, Brenda Sutton...it's going to be amazing. And you will not believe this set list. I barely believe it. It's like whoa.

It's a weekend packed with awesome. Brooke has a concert! And Amy! And the Three Weird Sisters, all four of them (it's a thing)! And I have a signing Saturday morning! You should totally try to be there. It's going to be amazing.

Yay, Consonance!

How I want to be right now:

"OH YEAH I AM GOING TO SEATTLE I AM GOING TO ROCK SOME HOUSES AND MELT SOME FACES AND MAYBE IGNITE THE BIOSPHERE WOO!"

How I am right now:

"I need a nap. Or maybe some more caffeine...yeah. Caffeine would probably help. You know. If there are no naps to be had. Can I have that nap instead? Wait, I have to get on a plane? What? Is this optional? Can't I teleport? How about the Jaunt? Is that up and running yet? I promise to let you sedate me..."

So yeah. I am bound for Conflikt, where a) I will have a wonderful time, even as b) I will work my little blonde butt off, toting my laptop from room to room like the Ghost of Deadlines Past. There may be a certain amount of grumbling darkly and threatening to ignite the biosphere. Good times.

The cats did not approve of the reappearance of The Dread Suitcase; Thomas even tried to barricade me in my room this morning. He failed, on account of he may be a bonsai yeti, but I am a human, and hence much larger than he is. But hey, good show him for trying. Lilly just looked despondent, like she had been waiting for this day ever since I returned from Disney World. Sometimes I think Lilly is the smartest of the cats.

I don't know how much internet, if any, I'll have over the weekend; please don't burn down the internet while I'm gone, I'm still using it.

See you in Seattle!

10. Well, that's that: I am officially out of "skip days" until after March. My friend Debbie rather unexpectedly pinged me Tuesday to say that she would be in San Francisco starting Wednesday and would I have dinner with her? So we had dinner (and I dragged her along on the usual round of Wednesday errands, because there's "taking a skip day" and then there's "committing professional suicide"), and now I have to make word count every day from now to March 15th. Yes, that includes the days when I'm at conventions. I have no regrets.

9. ...okay, I have one regret: I am so far behind on everything I watch that it's not even funny. The only shows I've managed to keep up with are Fringe and Glee, and that's because I prioritize them in bitey, bitey fashion. Because I have to preserve my questionable sanity somehow.

8. I'm pondering a post on the financial realities of the Hugo Awards and the electronic voting packet, but for the moment, if you are eligible to nominate for the 2012 Hugos, and you haven't, why not nominate now? WorldCon isn't getting any further away.

7. Tax time is approaching. This means I need to clean my entire house, so that I can get my receipts into something vaguely approximating order. Oh, goodie. It also means it's time to make my annual pledge to set up a better filing system than "the bottom of my purse is full of receipts and Luna Bar wrappers, look in there." Although my faintly peanut butter-scented receipts are always nice.

6. Ryan is coming to visit! Which is wonderful, and will lead to much hugging and adoration (and also to the dry cleaning of the guest room duvet). Also much doll photography, since Ryan has promised to take some pictures of my unnervingly glossy-eyed collection for the edification of all those who think it can't possibly be that bad trying to sleep in my room.

5. I fly to Seattle tomorrow for Conflikt, where I am doing absolutely nothing official. It's going to be great. I get to spend the weekend hugging my friends, working on the books I have coming due, and going to Barnes and Noble to sign books. Plus the hotel is walking distance from the airport, so no one has to get up at four a.m. to drive me. That'll be nice for everybody. Well, except me. I still have to get up at four a.m.

4. I want to go back to Disney World. I find myself grumbling slightly at my taxes because I know that self-employment income (i.e., "writing") means that I'll be paying more than the cost of a really nice Disney World vacation. I actually like paying taxes, except for the "finding my receipts" part, but sometimes the sheer amount of tax that I have to pay makes me weep for Babylon.

3. Mailing is ongoing! At this point, there are only a few shirts I can't find, and I'm hoping they're buried under the more popular styles/colors. I got a list of inquiries on status from Deborah this morning, and I'll be answering her tonight, but really, patience is king. I'm doing this alone. Any future batches of shirts will be super-limited, because even aside from the part where some people are annoyed (and I'm sorry about that), I just can't process 300+ shirts in 30+ size/color/style combinations in anything resembling a timely manner. Like, it is physically impossible to do that and go to my day job and not miss my deadlines. And sadly, "pays the mortgage" and "makes my publishers happy" beat everything else.

2. I have been playing a little tappy game called "Pocket Frogs" during my admittedly limited free time. I don't think the game's designers intended it to be played quite like this, since I have a very "gotta catch 'em all" approach, but it makes me happy. As does slowly watching the breed counters go to 100% as I breed all 368 possible individuals.

1. Zombies are love.

I am still sick, which means that my attendance at this weekend's OVFF may be in question. I'm still planning as if I'll be better in time, and so I have a very important question to put to the floor:

Which of my two otherwise identical dresses should I pack for the Pegasus Banquet? The orange, or the green?

1. I am sick, yes, even unto death. It's this stupid cold. I've been fighting it off since I got home from Conclave, and then yesterday, it just walked up behind me, hit me over the back of the head with a plank, rifled through my pockets, and took all my stuff. I spent all of Sunday on the couch, sniffling, drinking orange juice, and watching Criminal Minds. Oh, and sleeping. I slept a lot. I feel better today, but that's like saying I'm happier now that the lizard has been removed from my ear. Still miserable, just less lizard-y.

2. Yes, I am watching Criminal Minds. But as I have now seen the first three episodes of the first season, please don't ask me if I was crushed when character A died in season three. I haven't been able to be crushed yet, and I'd like the opportunity to mourn when I get there.

3. Assuming this cold backs the hell off, I am still going to be at OVFF this coming weekend. If you're waiting for a shirt from me, and are going to be at the convention, please let me know so that I can package your order for hand-delivery. If you don't tell me, clearly, that you'll be there, your shirt will not be coming with me. I don't have the suitcase space for guesses.

4. I am about 4,000 words from the end of Ashes of Honor, which is good, since I expect to receive my Blackout page proofs any day, and need to be able to focus on going through and writing STET a lot. ("STET" is editorial for "no, do not make this change." I use it to argue against people who don't believe in the Oxford comma, and people who try to standardize my use of "Miss" to "Ms.")

5. I am too sick for a list of ten. Now is when I fall on my face and die.

Catch you when I wake up.

...for the last few days I've been afraid I might drift away.

My bags are, once again, packed to go; my 3:30am alarm has successfully pulled me from warm bed to cold reality. The cats circle like dismayed, fuzzy sharks, demanding to know what I think I'm doing. Surely I can't be thinking of leaving. Why, they would be horribly offended if I were to do something as senseless as that. And they have lots of claws, both individually and as a cumulative entity. LOTS OF CLAWS.

But I am going, because going is part of my job. Going is what enables coming back.

For the next four days, I will be at Conclave, located in scenic Romulus, Michigan. I will enjoy panels. I will sing songs. I will have a wonderful time, and yes, I will hope to see you there. All that stands between me and Michigan is a plane ride. All that stands between me and home (and the ocean of claws) is Michigan.

Here I go again.

Too busy to brain. Here, have some bits and pieces.

Wicked Girls T-shirts.
My mother is on her way to Carmichael, California to pick these up right now. So assuming that there hasn't been some horrifying and unforeseen printing error (which seems unlikely, as we had very clear graphics, and a very clear work order), I will be starting to mail these out this week. I'll post again once I'm absolutely certain that everything is good. I will also announce when and where hand-delivery will be available, for those of you who don't want to wait for the mail, but will be in the same place as me in the weeks to come.

CD statuses.
When CD Baby runs out of Pretty Little Dead Girl, that's it, it's gone. I have twelve copies left; five are going into my vault, and the other seven will be going to the book release party and my October conventions. I will definitely be reprinting Wicked Girls, but it may need to wait until early 2012, since there's a whole process involved in doing something like this. I am also considering reprinting Stars Fall Home, with certain changes/enhancements (new cover, to match better with Wicked Girls, maybe a new track). I'll keep you posted.

Conclave, October 9th to 11th.
I'll be posting about this at more length once I make it through the weekend alive, but next week, I am the Literary Guest at Conclave, in Romulus, Michigan. It's going to be a big party, with me teaming up with Wild Mercy (including Amy McNally) to set the stage on fire, as well as bunches and bunches of exciting panels, fabulous events, and general good times. If you're in the Michigan area, this should definitely be on your radar.

Mailing things.
If you're expecting me to mail you something, and I haven't mailed you something, and you're wondering if the post office may have eaten your something, it didn't. Everything has been insane, and I am way, way behind on my mailing of things. I am sincerely hoping that the shirts will fix this, since it's going to mean taking van-loads of crap to the post office, and that usually inspires more stuff to go into the mail.

Why aren't you watching this?
Man, the new season of Fringe is so good that I want to take it home to meet my parents. If you're not caught up, or if you dropped the show in season one before it got good (which many people did, I know), you should totally give it a go. I could not love this show more if it was dipped in chocolate and rolled in candy corn.

...okay, maybe that's going a little far. Om nom nom.

Candy corn.
In my belly.

The Pirates of Emerson!
If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, you should be aware that the Pirates of Emerson haunted house park is re-opening tomorrow night for its annual Halloween bash. There are six haunted houses included in general admission, and there's a corn maze, and ghost pirates and and and. It's like someone made a sweet, refreshing oasis for my soul, and then kindly dropped it within easy driving distance. Best of all, general admission is only $20. Not suitable for easily scared children, adults, or house pets. Hugely recommended for everybody else.

Anything else?
Be...excellent to one another.

And PARTY ON, DUDES!

Having just returned home from Reno, Land of Cigarette Smoke and Strobe Lighting, I am now preparing to board a big metal skybird and soar away on wings of science to scenic Columbus, Ohio, where I will be appearing at Context as their Horror Guest of Honor. Well. Mira will, anyway, and since she doesn't have a legal photo ID, she has to let me come. Ha ha, evil twin. Ha ha.

I am, perhaps, a little less excited about the idea of taking another road trip than I could be; last night, my dreams centered almost entirely on my having forgotten to buy a plane ticket to England, and being forced to run hither and yon in an attempt to make it to the airport before I missed my flight. Parts of the dream actually took place in England, with a strong undercurrent of "if you miss your flight, you won't have been here, and the ensuing paradox will destroy the world." Because I'm not overly inclined to take responsibility for things or anything...

The cats are not entirely happy about seeing the suitcases come out again. And by "not entirely happy," I mean "they have transformed into an unstoppable feline murder squad." If I stop posting and no one knows what happened to me, the cats will have removed all the bits I use to do things other than catering to cats. I will probably deserve it. I will, after all, have left them again. (Thankfully, after this, I have no more long trips away from home until December. A few weekends, but nothing longer than that. This may be what saves my life.)

If you're in the Ohio area, Context is going to be amazing and fun, and I would really love to see you there. I fully intend to be so amped-up on sugar that I can't see my toes for at least twenty-four hours, which is always a good time, for everyone involved. And I can sleep on the plane. Which is a wonderful thing, to be sure.

Here I come, Ohio. And I am demanding frozen treats.

What will I be doing at WorldCon in Reno? Apart from hyperventilating? Well...

Thursday, 11:00-12:00. Music for Creative People.
"What music inspires you? What gets your creative juices flowing? Do artists listen to different types of music than writers do?" Join me, the ever lovely Maya Bohnhoff, and two awesome people I don't know as we talk about listening to music. Points if you can accurately guess the number of times I'm going to bring up the Counting Crows!

Thursday, 3:00-4:00. What's Up with Zombies?
"Why are zombies so popular anyway and what is it about all these mash-ups? Is this the future of the field?" Since I don't do mash-ups, cheese and crackers, I sure hope not! But we get to talk about dead stuff, and that always makes me happy.

Thursday, 5:00-6:00. Literary Beer.
Me. Paul Cornell. Alcohol. The opportunity to hang out with me, or Paul Cornell, and alcohol. Or no alcohol, and then you can laugh at the people who declared themselves pro-alcohol. It's up to you!

Friday, 12:00-1:00. Concert.
Am I doing a concert? Yes I am. Will it feature some of my very favorite people, like Vixy and Amy and Mary and Betsy and Tony, oh, my? Yes it will. Will it be awesome? I surely do hope so.

Friday, 1:00-2:00. Tricky Pixie Interview.
I get to sit down with the members of Tricky Pixie and grill them at glorious length about their habits, hopes, dreams, and where they were on the evening of August 16th. Come and watch the glorious chaos!

Friday, 11:00-1:00. Whose Line is it Anyway?
Since I tend to be an early riser, I feel the need to make it clear that this game show begins at eleven o'clock at night, ending at one o'clock in the morning. And this is why I'm sleeping in on Saturday. But it's worth it for a night of glorious improv with some wonderful madmen (and madwomen). Definitely not to be missed.

Saturday, 11:00-12:00. The Role of the Companion: The Impact of the Companions on the Doctor.
This panel starts at a more Seanan-friendly eleven o'clock in the morning, praise be to the Great Pumpkin, and is going to involve me, Tara, and a lot of other lovely people talking about Doctor Who for the better part of an hour. My life, so hard.

Saturday, 12:00-1:00. Meet the Campbell Award Nominees.
Alas, one can only keep the tiara for a year, and one of these lovely souls will be inheriting it at Saturday night's Hugo ceremony. Watch me moderate Saladin Ahmed, Dan Wells, Larry Correia, Lev Grossman, and Lauren Beukes in a low-stakes battle of wits. We'll all be too strung-out worrying about the awards to be more than moderately dangerous.

Saturday, 3:00-4:00. Bill Willingham Guest Dialog.
Who gets to grill Bill Willingham about fairy tales, folklore, and what he had for breakfast? Is it me? Yes. Yes, I do believe it is. Come see the carnage!

...after this, my Saturday dissolves in a haze of getting ready for the Hugos, attending the pre-Hugo reception, flailing a great deal, attending the Hugos, and then crying, either with relief or because I haven't slept in four days. Roll on Sunday, shall we?

Sunday, 12:00-12:30. Reading.
Imma read things. Things that take roughly twenty minutes to read. It'll be fun. Promise.

Sunday, 1:00-2:00. Autographing.
I am in the same autographing session as George R.R. Martin. Please show up, or I'll spend the whole hour inking, and feel vaguely vexed.

And that's my WorldCon! Hope to see you there. Reno's no Australia, but I bet I can rustle up a venomous buddy...or two...

Ah, July. When a fan girl's thoughts turn to sweet San Diego, city of a thousand delights, fairy tale wonderland of geeky goodness...at least for a week. We roll into town like the biggest circus ever, make a huge mess, drink all the rum in the county, and then disappear, leaving city coffers fuller and city children more confused. It's a good life. And now, now...now I tell you where to find me.

No Damsels in Distress Here. Thursday, 4-5 PM.
Chicks kick ass! According to the panel description, "danger just might be these girls' middle name." (Toby's middle name is actually "Christine.") Come see me trade barbs and witty banter with Marie Lu, Kathy Reichs, Chloe Neill, Jeanne Stein, Merrie deStefano, Carrie Vaughn, and Sherrilyn Kenyon. Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy. Room 25ABC.

Note: The panel will be immediately followed by an autographing session in the autograph area.

Orbit booth signing. Friday, 11-12PM.
Hey, look, it's Mira Grant! I'll be at the Orbit booth on Friday morning, eleven to noon, signing books. Perhaps your books. Perhaps someone else's books. Don't you want to find out?

Writing the Apocalypse. Friday, 4-5 PM.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine, yo. Also, my name is listed first on this panel description, which is a San Diego first for me. Yay! Come see me argue the end times with Thomas Mullen, Anna North, Walter Greatshell, Richard Kadrey, Daniel Wilson, Isaac Marion, and Steven Schlozman. Maryelizabeth Hart is moderating. Fear for her soul. Room 7AB.

Note: The panel will be immediately followed by an autographing session in the autograph area.

Penguin booth signing. Saturday, 12-1PM.
How many things can I sign in a weekend? I'll be at the Penguin booth Saturday from noon to one, signing things as my actual self. You should totally show.

SFX booth signing. Sunday, 11-12PM.
SFX Magazine makes me happy, so I'm going to make them happy by being their trained booth monkey for an hour. I will sign things! I will smile! Maybe I will sign your things! This is your last chance to catch me in an official capacity this year, so you should take it. I'm just saying.

And that's San Diego! Hope to see you there.

This one just came in from mimisgrotto, and I wanted to make sure it wouldn't get missed in the grand hullabaloo surrounding the ramp-up to San Diego:

"One from the other side of the tables:

"Please remember that the artists exhibiting are people too, not machines.

"Some artists will fill up their commission lists quickly, others will ebb and flow in waves. We are all trying to be fair and serve people in order they come to us. So if an artist says they're full, don't think that you are any special exception for 'just this one little thing'.

"There are only so many hours in the con day, we need food and bathroom breaks too and some of us actually like to relax and rest after hours instead of be bent over commission art until 3am. If we could accommodate every person who asks for a sketch or a commission, we would. Please understand if we just can't.

"Also, don't use your adorable children to try and get free art. It's awesome that so many parents share the con experience with their kids, but there is the odd entitled parent and we CAN spot you. The denizens of Artist Alley aren't just there to be seen, we've spent lots of money like you to come to Comicon and we're here to earn our living in a very crowded, tough industry.

"So if something free is only an autograph or a quick doodle rather than an hour-long marker sketch, don't get huffy. You get what you pay for.

"Be courteous and pleasant and GET THE HINT that if an artist is REALLY focused on their work rather than enraptured by your verbatim recount of your Favorite Episodes of Dr Who, it's time to move on and leave them to it."

One of my favorite things about attending conventions in person is having the ability to commission artwork from artists I adore. My walls can attest to this habit. But seriously, it's like a win-win party scenario. I get amazing art that no one else has; the artists I love get to keep their lights on; and best of all, by putting dollars in their pockets, I keep them coming to the conventions. I love it! That being said...

Artists are working. You may be at the convention to play, but they? Are at work. Do you want me to come up to Amy's table and distract her while she's trying to draw your awesome Muppet Rose Tyler? No? Then why would I want you to come up and distract her while she's trying to draw my Emma Frost?

Things that are not distractions for most artists:

* Looking through folders.
* Looking at prints.
* Having a brief, friendly conversation.
* Giving them money.
* Asking if the commission lists are open.

Things that are distractions, all of which I have witnessed at one time or another:

* "Can I get a free one? I'll tell all my friends about you."
* "Oh, hey, let me see what you're working on."
* "You're really hot. Do you have a boyfriend?"
* "Oops, sorry, I/my small child didn't mean to rip that." (Not followed by payment in this instance.)
* "Have you seen Firefly? There's this one episode where..."

Visit Artist's Alley! Take this amazing opportunity to see and purchase artwork, some of which can be created just for you. But remember that the artists are there to make a living, and that trying to bargain that $50 sketch down to $20 because you think it's fun is potentially going to get you stabbed with a colored pencil. (Also, I highly recommend visiting Amy Mebberson and James Silvani, who will have EPIC mashups of EPIC EPICNESS.)

See you in San Diego!

Every year around this time, someone says to me "Gosh, I've never been to the San Diego International Comic Convention before. I don't see what the big deal is. I really don't believe it's as big as everybody tries to make me think it is." And every year, I smack myself in the head and update this guide and pray for their survival.

Since I've been posting these obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon on a yearly basis for some time now, I strongly suspect that these people are being aimed at me. But since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by amiably indifferent toward those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience you can possibly have, I have once again updated my Handy-Dandy Survival Guide to the San Diego International Comic Convention. See? It's both handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide includes tips on:

* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Things to do at the con.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.
* Not getting killed by your friends.
* Budgeting.
* Bathing.

It is also heavily biased toward my own opinions on all these things, because hello, so totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2011.Collapse )

Ladies and gentlemen of the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention membership...have you remembered to cast your vote for this year's Hugo Awards? Because if you haven't, you're sort of running out of time; July 31st is your last day to vote.

I am reasonably sure that each and every person on that ballot wants to win. I am no different. But almost as much as I want to win, I want to know that if I lose, it will be because every possible voter looked at the works up for consideration, looked at their ballot, and made their choice fairly and well. I want you all to vote. I want to lose because I lost, not because there was a sale at Ben and Jerry's and we all got rightfully distracted because dude, ice cream.

Please. If you are eligible to vote, it has never been easier to get a clear view of the entire ballot. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Hugo committee, we have an electronic voting package that is a bibliophile's dream; you can read and consider absolutely everything that's asking for your vote. And if you're not a member yet, but were thinking about it, you can still register with full voting rights if you do it soon.

Make this year's Hugo winners the ones you think deserve those shiny rocket ships.

Vote.

In case you missed the memo, I'm one of the Guests of Honor at Convergence 2011 in scenic Bloomington, Minnesota. How soon is this? Well, my plane leaves tonight at six, so...

I'm super-excited about this convention, where I get to room with one of my favorite people (Tara, my web graphic designer), hug Cat Valente a whole lot (Thomas still wants to know why I let her leave), and generally enjoy the hell out of one of my favorite states. Also, Soundingsea (the lady I named Buffy's blog after) is taking me to Izzy's for ice cream. Om nom nom. Best convention ever! And here, for the curious, is my schedule:

Friday.

Reading, 2:00 PM. What am I reading? I do not know! Suggest something, I'm flexible.

Ask a Writer, 3:30 PM. G'head. Ask me about writing. I dare you.

Signing, 5:00 PM. Specifically, we will be signing Chicks Dig Time Lords and Whedonistas, although let's face it. I'll sign anything you put in front of me that isn't a small child or a legally binding contract.

An Evening With Seanan McGuire and Catherynne Valente, 7:00 PM. Look. We're not kidding when we call this event "An Evening With Kevin Smith, Plus Tits." We are profane. We are bizarre. We will talk about damn near anything that comes into our heads. We are eventually going to become the darlings of the fannish lecture circuit, so you should see us early, while you can still get good seats. Although we'll have to end mostly on time, because...

Whedonistas, 8:30 PM. Ra ra Joss. Ra ra ah-ah-ah, we all got his bad romance, yo.

Saturday.

Happy Writers, Fast Writers, 12:30 PM. Gimme a Diet Dr Pepper and I'm both!

Chicks Dig Live Doctor Who Commentary, 2:00 PM. I did not realize until I was making this list that we're commenting on "The Parting of the Ways." Oh, I am going to need so much boozimohol not to get inappropriate...

Signing, 3:30 PM. Since many of you will doubtless have attended the group signing, this event may be me, my comic book paper, and a lot of inking. And I am okay with that, although I'd love to see you again.

Sunday.

Chicks Dig Comics, 12:30 PM. Yes. Yes, we do.

The SF Squeecast, 3:30 PM. This is going to be our first live recording of our awesome new group podcast, which is getting ready to go live. It will also be the first recording I have done while fully clothed, since again, live. I have now used the word "live" too many times in this panel description.

Closing Ceremonies, 5:00 PM. This is where I get to kill and eat the con.

I hope to see as many of you there as possible, and I plan on having a fantastic time. Hooray for Minnesota!

...also, mixing my metaphors a bit, but still, I think the statement is valid. I am running as fast as I can just to stay where I am, and while it's fascinating, it's also a bit terrifying. I am trying to do ALL THE THINGS! All the things AT THE SAME TIME! Eventually, I will spontaneously combust, and that will be funny. (Also, how is it my spellcheck knows the word "necrosis," but not the word "combust"? Oh. Wait. It's my spellcheck.)

And now, for the periodic administrative stuff.

Wicked Girls T-shirts.
Deborah is continuing to contact people, collect mailing information, and provide payment information. This is because Deborah is wonderful. If you haven't heard from her, you may be in the part of the spreadsheet she hasn't processed yet, or you may need to check your spam filter, as there are people who have been contacted who have not yet replied. Once we finish going through the spreadsheet and shaking it as hard as we can for stragglers, we will need to go to print, and any unpaid orders will be canceled. We're only printing as many shirts as have been paid for. So check your spam filter today!

Events.
I have, like, ALL THE EVENTS coming up in June and July. Seriously. Next Saturday is the big Deadline release party at Borderlands. The Saturday after, I'll be at Borderlands again, this time as Seanan instead of Mira, to do a joint event with my darling Chaz in his guise as Daniel Fox. Then it's off to Minnesota for Convergence (and Izzy's ice cream), followed by appearing at SF in SF as Mira, and finally, San Diego! My annual pilgrimage to Geek Prom is upon us, and this year I get my Amy AND my Vixy AND a convention-exclusive Monster High doll. Truly, the world is my mollusk.

Anyway, check my website for event details, and remember that even if you can't make any of these events in person, Borderlands takes internet and phone orders for signed and personalized books. They're pretty awesome that way.

Deadline.
Holy cheese, it's a book. Like, on shelves. And people are buying it, and people are reading it, and people are liking it so far. Please, if you've bought it and read it and want to talk about it, stick to the Deadline open thread? I don't want people to be afraid to read comments on other posts because there might be lurking spoilers. Thank you so much, to everyone, for everything. You've been totally amazing.

Cats.
Blue. Fluffy. Pissed off over my recent absence, and demanding I make it up to them with snuggles and scritches. I am surprisingly unbothered by their demands, and have given in wholeheartedly.

X-Men: First Class.
Opens this weekend, and anyone standing between me and the ticket booth come Saturday had better be ready for some Xavier's alumni whup-ass to be aimed their way. I need my mutants. They're an important part of a balanced breakfast. Also, the reviews have been amazing so far, which means that maybe this will be a new franchise, instead of a prequel. Look, a girl can dream, okay?

Monster High.
I WANT THE NEW DOLLS ALREADY.

...and that's it for me, for the moment. What've you got?

I am preparing for the grand summer road trip. Home to San Francisco; San Francisco to Manhattan; Manhattan to Milwaukee; Milwaukee to La Crosse; La Cross to Madison; Madison to Chicago; and then home again, home again, jiggety jig. I am very ready to be gone. I am absolutely not ready to be gone. Before I see my home and bed and cats again, I will visit both my publishers, attend my first BEA, visit a high school that's very excited to see me, and attend my first Wiscon. I will see and hug and adore my Merav and my Diana and my Cat—so many hugs. I will do great things and struggle to keep up with my word count, and whether I succeed or not, I will need a nap before I'm done.

I'm nervous. I admit that. And this is all part of the deal, this is part of the promise you make at the crossroads when you sell your fantasies for your dreams. This is part of what it takes to have what I have always said I wanted...and I was right, and I am not sorry. But sometimes I get tired, and I want to stay home with my cats and my books and my dolls.

I want to write full time. I want to live in a little house in Seattle full of cat trees and more books and too many toys, and I want to paint the walls orange without worrying about my housemates not wanting to live inside a pumpkin. And wanting these things means packing my bags and hitting the road again, because life feeds art feeds life.

But sometimes I get tired.

I hope I will see you if you're in New York, or Wisconsin, and if not, I hope I will see you some other time, when I come to wherever you are. I'm always glad to see people, and you can smell my dirt-based perfume and get shown pictures of my cats (conveniently stored in my phone). And this will be a wonderful adventure, because they always are.

I can't wait to get started. I can't wait to come home.

I love the crossroads prayer that is my life.

Aigh! How is it already mid-May? How is it already past mid-May? Seriously, this isn't cool, people. But since life marches on, here are some random updates about things you may want to know.

Wicked Girls T-shirts.
The spreadsheet has been finished and handed off to my lovely assistant, aka, "Deborah," who is now using our peachy-keen new merchandise email address to send out the order confirmations. So if you requested a shirt, you're going to hear from Deborah! She'll be asking you to verify that we have the right information, requesting shipping information, and setting up things so you can pay. Please, please, remember that we must receive payment to place this order. That's why the original post said "cash in the cookie jar." If you can't pay for your shirts, we may have to remove you from the spreadsheet, depending on how long it takes for everyone else to pay.

Welcome to Bordertown about to hit shelves.
The new Bordertown anthology is just about out, and it's amazing. Mia (chimera_fancies) will be doing pendant sales of special Bordertown pendants soon, and there are contests and giveaways and blog tours, oh my! It's an incredible book. If you love urban fantasy, you should absolutely buy this book. This is the city whose foundations informed us all, and it's finally opening its doors again.

Oh, right. Also, Deadline.
I, too, have a new book coming out. Deadline will be released on May 31st, which makes it technically a June book (ah, the wonders of reporting). So you'll be able to buy it from a bookstore near you, and you totally should, especially if you enjoy my cats being full of catfood, and not full of my delicious flesh. They eat a lot! I'll be in New York for the next week, which sadly limits the number of pre-release blog giveaways I can do (having no books as yet, the current number is "zero"), but I'll be doing fun things up until then. Primarily the ongoing, and increasingly grim, countdown to the Rising. You're welcome.

Book Expo America!
Why am I going to New York? For Book Expo America! This is going to be my first BEA, and I'm mad excited. I'll also be seeing friends, eating artisan frozen treats, and visiting both my publishers for an entire day, thus guaranteeing that they'll be sick of me and give me things in order to make me go away and leave them alone. I'm basically an animate mixed blessing. I'm planning to have a fabulous time, because I always do, and when I leave, I'm heading for...

Wiscon!
It's my first time. Be gentle. I'll be mixing drinks at the Whedonistas party, which is good, since I don't like trying to mingle at these things, but I loooooooooooove making mai tais and mojitos. Donations of strawberries gratefully accepted, because I always need more than I think I will. If you're over twenty-one and planning to be at the convention, you should come see the gleeful mania that is me with a cocktail shaker.

Cats.
Blue. Also, fluffy.

Monster High.
New dolls should be hitting the shelves ANY DAY NOW, and the search is driving me batty. The universe needs to stop taunting the happy fun blonde and gimme already, before my already strained patience decides that the time has come to snap.

...and that's my status for the day. How's by everybody else?

So this has been a week. Yes. That is definitely what it's been. Rarely has a week been so very week-shaped, and so equipped with lots of little pointy days to stick things to. I have thoughts, honest I do, and many of them even make sense, but it's been such a week that I really am essentially reduced to sitting here going "well, yeah, that was a week." So here, have some bullet-points instead.

Writing.
I'm making awesome progress on Blackout, which is up to 115,000 words, which technically puts me a day ahead of target. If I can make my overly-ambitious goals for the weekend, I may be able to get far enough ahead of target that I can actually enjoy LepreCon next weekend without needing to get up in the morning and worry about word count. (I'll get up in the morning and worry about word count anyway. I just won't have to.)

"Rat-Catcher" is also coming along nicely, and I'm about halfway through the story. I'm shooting to finish the first draft by Monday or Tuesday of next week, and then hand it over to the Machete Squad for glorious abuse. It's being written for a specific anthology, but I can't say which one until the story is finished and the editor decides that it's worth printing. Assuming that happens, I'll make sure to share the ordering info, because who wouldn't want a story about Tybalt in London before he was King? Questions are asked, questions are answered, you get to meet the elusive September Torquill, and as a bonus, Tybalt's family is involved.

Watching.
So the season premiere of Doctor Who was amazing, and I can't wait for tomorrow night's episode. I love Matt Smith's Doctor so very much, and I really hope we get to keep him at least as long as we kept Tennant. (Young actor, more likely to want to avoid getting typecast. Young actor, more likely to go "This is AWESOME!" and keep doing the show just so he can play with more aliens. So it's a wash, and we'll need to wait and see.) I love Amy, I love Rory, I love that Rory's in the opening credits now, and yes, I even love River Song. Although there is now officially an embargo on characters named "River."

Two episodes remain in this season of Fringe, which is absolutely one of my favorite things on television, bar none. I'm even kind of jealous, since "alternate versions of the main character or characters" is one of my narrative kinks, and it's really, really hard to do when you're working purely in text. I've got some alternates coming up in the Vel stories, but that's about it. The storytelling on Fringe just keeps getting better, and I am so excited and terrified to see where this season ends.

Wandering.
May sort of kicks off my convention season in a big, big way, and next weekend is LepreCon, in scenic Tempe, Arizona. I'm their Music Guest of Honor! Which will be fun, since I'm working with an unfamiliar guitarist and we won't have much time to practice. That means our performance will be, if nothing else, sincere. I'm planning to have a great time, even if it kills me.

Later in the month, I'll have Cat Valente crashing at my place before her event at Borderlands to promote The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which you should totally attend, and then heading to New York for Book Expo America, followed by Wiscon, with a stop in the middle at a high school in Wisconsin. And all of this should explain why I am quite so passionate about making my word counts every day, even if it kills me. There is no room left for slippage.

Wanting.
The new Monster High dolls have been announced, and to absolutely no one's surprise, I want them all. ALL OF THEM. I am going to need to get a new shelf. "All of them" includes the San Diego International Comic-Convention Exclusive Ghoulia Yelps cosplaying as her favorite superhero. Yes. A ZOMBIE SUPERHERO. I control all things.

What's up with you guys?

April is the cruelest month. It is also, apparently, the month where I spend half my time dealing with the pieces and paperwork that I spend the other half of my time ignoring. Yippee for me!

In a weird way, I really do mean that. I am a creature of essential chaos, bounded and defined by an equally essential degree of order. I can't have an artfully disorganized shelf of stuffed toys unless I know where they are to artfully disorganize them in the first place. I can't make room for more Monster High toys (and I am about to make room for a lot more Monster High toys*) unless I have the ones I already own put where I want them. My intellectual life is very similar. I can't tell the stories I want to tell unless the ones I've already told are where they're supposed to be.

So last night I processed edits and approved page proofs and made my word count (which I've been pushing hard lately, to try to buy myself a day off on Sunday for Jeanne's wedding), and then I set up the spreadsheet for the Wicked Girls shirts and started confirming people's requests. Remind me next time I say "I don't know if twelve people will want this..." that the answer is almost certainly "yes, they will" and "hire an assistant for the duration." I may have to cut orders off after two weeks, rather than waiting a whole month, just so I'm not still mailing them come time to head for San Diego. (Yes, I have lots of other trips between here and there. That's just sort of the big 'un for this summer.)

I also managed to place my order for convention ribbons for the next year (or two, or three). Wow, did I order a lot of ribbons. Like, even the person who handles the ribbon orders was all "that's a lot of ribbons." But it means I will have AWESOME RIBBONS, so that's okay, then. Not all of them will be handed out with joyous abandon, since some are specific to events or panels or states of mind, but there should be plenty to share with all. Yay, ribbons!

Today, I will go to the passport office and apply for my new passport, go by the DMV and get an actual state ID for the first time in ten years, and then go home, write 2,000 words, and update my T-shirt spreadsheet a whole bunch. This is going to be the way my week goes.

How about you?

(*See, this is how you know I don't have any advance copies of upcoming books. Because if I did, I would so be trying to BRIBE THE WORLD FOR TOYS. I'd be like, "Who wants to swap me a zombie novel for a zombie in her prom dress?", and I'd have the Dawn of the Dance Ghoulia Yelps to love and hug and shamble for me.)

Hello, world! It's the Thursday before Wondercon, and I'm trying to take care of all the little rags and tags of reality that build up over the course of a week like cat hair on velvet pants. So anyway...

1. The fight is still raging in the BSC Review tournament! This round closes Sunday morning, at which point, eight books will be reduced to four, and those four will duke it out for the right to do to the bracket semi-finals. Cat and I both still have horses in this race, so please, help keep Toby swinging!

2. Speaking of Cat, her new book, Deathless, came out this week. Hooray for book release! There's a lot of neat free stuff to have and enjoy and be amazed by; my darling talkstowolves has made a big post collecting it all into one place. I even drew a Pretty Little Dead Ghoul for the occasion. Feel the love!

3. My new phone is lovely, and allows me to do exciting things like "take pictures of my cats" and "access Twitter from the train." It also allows me to answer email when I'm not at home, which is going to be a huge, huge relief as time goes on. It's already taken some of the weight off, since I've been able to respond to things while in transit.

4. Thomas and Alice have started working against me. Thomas jumped onto the back of my knees at four o'clock this morning, jarring me INSTANTLY AWAKE, at which point Alice began pushing their ceramic food dishes back and forth in the feeding tray. Scrape. Scrape. Scraaaaaape. So yes, I got up, and I fed the cats. I am so doomed.

5. The full-length trailer for the new season of Doctor Who has been released, and is so intensely awesome as to cause me to sit, weak-kneed and gaping at my monitor, for several minutes before hitting "play" again. I remain overjoyed and giggly over the fact that this show, my show, is back.

6. Also, there's a new My Little Pony cartoon that doesn't suck. I clearly control the universe. You can place your requests with Kate, who will only allow me to fulfill the ones that don't involve diseases or amphibians.

7. I'm getting ready to do a massive post office run, so I am once again taking orders for "Wicked Girls" posters. According to my files, if it's been paid for, it's been sent out; please email me if you don't have yours. Comment either here or on the original post if you'd like to request a poster, and we'll coordinate.

8. I will be mostly offline this weekend, as I will be attending Wondercon. I'll have my awesome new phone with me, but let's face it, when given a choice between answering email and staring raptly at James Gunn, James Gunn wins without a contest. I'll definitely Tweet my location at various points throughout the weekend, and if you find me, you could win a prize. Or not. I may be out of prizes.

9. Zombies are still love.

10. I get to see Amy this weekend (Mebberson, not McNally)! And Kaja! And Phil! And there will be cupcakes, and hugging, and artwork, and Mom will probably wear her chicken hat, and I'm so excited!!!!!

What's new and awesome in the world of you?

Dear Great Pumpkin;

Another harvest season has come and gone, rich with tricks, treats, and unexplained disappearances in the haunted cornfield. I hope you have been well. Since my last letter to you, I have not wiped out mankind with a genetically engineered pandemic, or challenged any major religious figures to duels to the death in the public square. I have loved my friends and refrained from destroying my enemies. I have given out hugs, cupcakes, and cuddles with kittens freely and without hesitation. I have offered support when I could, and comfort when it was needed. I have not unleashed my scarecrow army to devastate North America. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not "accidentally" put tapeworm eggs in anyone's food. So as you can see, I've pretty much been a saint, by our somewhat lax local standards.

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

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

* Please let me make the revisions to One Salt Sea and Discount Armageddon smoothly, satisfyingly, and in a timely fashion, hopefully including a minimum of typographical and factual errors, plus a maximum level of awesome and win. If this request seems familiar, Great Pumpkin, it's because I make it just about every time I have a new book on the table, and this time is doubly important. One Salt Sea concludes a major arc in Toby's story, and Discount Armageddon kicks off a whole new series. I want them both to be amazing. Pretty please with candy corn on top?

* While I'm at it, please let the next books in their respective series be up to my admittedly nearly-impossible standards for myself. Let Ashes of Honor be exciting and worth the commitment, let Midnight Blue-Light Special be peppy and perfect in its insanity, and let Blackout seal the deal on the Newsflesh universe. It's wonderful to be working on three totally new books. It's also terrifying. There's a period at the start of a novel, where I'm trying to chip the shape of the story out of nothing, that's just scary as hell, and I'm there times three right now. Please show mercy, and let this work.

* I thank you for Alice's return to health, Great Pumpkin, and ask for your blessings as she continues her recovery. I thought I was going to lose her. I'm still shaky when I think about it. Please let her keep getting better, and please let her be exactly the same goofy, graceless cat that she's always been. While you're at it, please make sure Lilly and Thomas stay healthy, and that Thomas continues his incredible, faintly frightening growth. I think he doubles in size once a week. It's awesome. Look out for my cats, Great Pumpkin. They mean the world to me.

* As I approach the 2011 convention season, I ask for your blessings. Let things be smooth when they can, and let me take that which is not smooth with good humor, good grace, and a good sense of restraint. Let me be clever when I need to be, calm when I need to be, and a good guest for everyone who has been kind enough to invite me to their convention. Let me be the kind of guest that is remembered with joy, not the kind who is remembered with glum "and then there was the year of the great tragedy" stories.

* Thank you, thank you, thank you again for shining your holy candle upon the Campbell Award, Great Pumpkin. I hope only that I did you proud with my acceptance speech, and that you are pleased with my endeavors. It may be a little forward of me to point this out, but Feed is eligible for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards this year, and, well...any assistance you wanted to throw my way would be very much appreciated. I think my mother would catch fire if I came home with either award, and that would be fun to watch.

I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.

PS: While you're at it, can you please make Oasis get back to me? I'd really like to be done with Wicked Girls before I'm done with 2010.

As you may or may not remember, I'm going to be a special guest at Arisia 2011 this coming January, in Boston, Massachusetts. This comes with many exciting duties and opportunities, including—drumroll please—BREAKFAST!

So here's the deal: There's going to be a special Breakfast Buffet on Sunday, January 16th. It starts at 11AM, which means we should all be awake. Hooray! But wait, there's more. See, there are twelve tables, and twelve "table hosts," who will be hanging out, chatting, and generally being awesome for the duration. The hosts include Shaenon Garrity, Kelley
Armstrong, Josh Simpson, Rene Walling, Bob Eggleton, Frank Wu, Cecilia Tan, Catherynne Valente, Eric from Eric in the Elevator, Hildy Silverman, Michael Anderson, and, well, me.

If I weren't a table host, I would be having serious emotional conflicts over the question of whose table I wanted to join. Shaenon, for mad science glory? Cat, for, well, The Cat and Seanan Show, Take Twenty? Kelley, for Canadian urban fantasy awesome? But this choice is not mine to make: it is yours.

$35 will reserve your spot at the table of your choice. Each table will seat the host plus seven others, so sign up soon to be sure of getting your preferred placement on the floor. To quote the convention for a change, "Go to http://2011.arisia.org/buffet for more information, ticket purchasing, and bios on all twelve of our hosts. Avoid the crowds in the hotel restaurant, have scintillating conversation with fascinating people, and enjoy a variety of breakfast foods, including meat and vegetarian options. Hurry, tickets are selling rapidly!"

Personally, anything that includes food is cool by me. I even promise to use silverware, and not talk about flesh-eating bacteria at the table. Hope to see you there!

I am getting ready to hop on a plane bound for Portland, Oregon, where I will be the Filk Guest of Honor at Orycon 32, Portland's very own science fiction and fantasy convention. It's going to be a hoppin' weekend, filled with thrills, chills, and me trying not to walk into walls due to lack of sleep. Fun for the whole family!

My schedule for the weekend is as follows:

Friday, November 12th.
Opening Ceremonies, 7:00 PM. There is going to be an opening! It will be ceremonial! It will involve stuff! Also probably nonsense, flailing, and, you know, me. You should come.

Saturday, November 13th.
Reading, 10:30 AM. My reading conflicts with the second half of the SFWA business meeting, so I fully intend to show up out-of-breath and strung-out on caffeine, which is really the best way to begin a reading, if you ask me. Come! Hear me read something weird!

Signing, 12:00 PM. I'm part of the noon signing group, along with my beloved Jay Lake (and lots of other people). I will be signing pretty much anything that's put in front of me, except for binding contracts and checks.

Vixy and Tony concert, 4:00 PM. Come hear Vixy and Tony be AWESOME. Probably with help from Sunnie and me. AWESOME.

Seanan McGuire concert, 5:00 PM. For some reason, they expect me to show up for this. Huh. Can't imagine why...

Zombies!, 7:00 PM. It's time to get down with the living dead, and spend our Saturday evening talking about stuff too dead to live, and too dumb to care. I plan to wear my Mira pants, and bring the pandemic pain.

Sunday, November 14th.
The Match Game 2010, 11:00 AM. Wacky contestants will try to match answers with six panelists for real prizes! I'm a wacky contestant. Be afraid.

The Old Songs, 1:00 PM. I am the youngest person on the History of Filk panel. This should be fascinating.

Mixing Genres, 3:00 PM. To quote the panel description, "Combining genres—what readers want from blended genre stories, and why some editors and agents have trouble with them." Let's rock and roll.

So that's my schedule for the weekend. I'll be around the con at odd hours, naturally, and there will be copies of all three of my CDs available at the Friends of Filk table in the Dealer's Hall. Yes, all three: I found my leftover CD box from Montreal last year, and am bringing these precious, precious copies of Stars Fall Home to Portland. Where they will hopefully not come home with me. I miss my house.

Orycon!

Well, here we go: I am now officially 90% of the way packed for my trip to Australia. My suitcases zip with relative ease. I still need to load up my thumb drive, since The Big Laptop isn't making the journey with me, and I have a few CDs scheduled to be delivered later this week that I'm really hoping to get onto my iPod before I fly, but that's about it. It's all dumping out my purse and finding my spare laptop battery from here.

It's weird to sit here and realize that in forty-eight short hours, I will be on a plane, about to land in Los Angeles, where I'll get on a second plane and begin the long journey to Melbourne. Because it's a night flight, I'll probably sleep for the first five or so hours, then wake up, blink groggily, and start working. That's just what I do on planes. (You think I'm kidding. I point to Exhibit A, Chasing St. Margaret. It's a romantic comedy. About jetlag. I wrote it, primarily, on my flight from San Francisco to London, and finished it on the flight from London to San Francisco. Because I am bitchin' productive when I'm several thousand feet up in the air.)

I have wanted to visit Australia since I knew there was an Australia to visit. To be quite honest, for a long time, I wanted to move there, until I realized a) my friends would miss me, b) quarantine would be hell on the cats, and c) Australia's immigration laws mean I couldn't move anyway. So visiting will have to be enough. I'm a little scared and a little excited and a little totally ready to be on my way, because seriously, I have no attention span and no brain left. It's sad, except for the part where it's funny for people who aren't me.

I will come back with wonderful stories and probably a sunburn, souvenirs, memories, and the strong desire to sleep for a week. Hey, who knows—maybe I'll even come back with a tiara. That'd sure make my mother happy.

Two days to Australia. That's too soon; that's nowhere near soon enough.

catvalente and I will be appearing "in conversation" at the upcoming WorldCon. While we have a few topics of our own to cover, we thought it might be nice to see what other people want us to talk about. We're going to try to get this videotaped, thus giving y'all a much greater stake in the discussion than you might otherwise have. So...

Have a topic you'd like to see discussed by me and Cat, probably while under the influence of a lot of sugar? Drop it here! We'll copy out our favorites and put them into a hat (or hat-shaped object), to be drawn during our conversation whenever we need a subject change.

It'll be fun!

I leave for Australia in a week, and WorldCon is two weeks away. You know what that means? SCHEDULE TIME! Here are my programmed events, allowing for easier stalking through the city of Melbourne. (I'm not worried about actual stalkers. By the time we reach the convention, I intend to have assembled my army of spiders.)

Thursday, September 2nd, 3:00 PM: Breaking the Fourth Wall: Supernatural and Its Audience. Given my thoughts on how things went down with Jo and Ellen, this should be a super-fun panel, in the "bring plastic sheeting and pray" sense.

Thursday, 5:00 PM: Kaffeeklatsche. For those of you who have never encountered this strange creature before, basically, I will sit in a room at five on Thursday, and talk to anyone who shows up. Also, there will be coffee. If no one shows up, I will do lots of lovely inking. It's a win-win scenario for me.

Friday, September 3rd, 4:00 PM: Seanan McGuire and Catherynne M Valente In Conversation. Who is driving? Bear is driving! HOW CAN THIS BE?! Cat and I will spend the better part of an hour talking writing, editing, and whatever else comes into our heads. It's the Snow White/Lily Fair Variety Show, and you should totally be there.

Saturday, September 4th, 11:00 AM: Capes and Skirts: The Plight of Female Superheroes. Lo, we are going to sit and talk about female superheroes, why they are awesome, and why they don't get as much love as their male counterparts. This is the best convention schedule ever.

Saturday, 1:00 PM: Fringe: Paranormal Investigations in SF Television. Man, we are gonna tear. This. Up. It's going to be a super-awesome panel full of super-awesomeness, and you should totally come, and I will do my best to avoid discussions of Peter Bishop's fabulous ass.

Saturday, 3:00 PM: What is Filk? This is a fairly standard panel, but a very good one to attend if you want to learn more about filk, what it is, and why we're doing it in your hotel lobby. Not that we do that anymore. Much.

Saturday, 4:00 PM: Signing. I will sign stuff. Super-exciting.

Sunday, September 5th, 3:00 PM: YA Urban Fantasy. Why YA urban fantasy? What's the attraction? What makes it awesome? Let's discuss.

Sunday, 5:00 PM: Post-Apocalyptic YA. Boom, baby. Boom.

Following this panel, I will be going insane for the rest of the night while I deal with getting ready for and attending the Hugos. Please do not blame me for anything I say during this time, although really, I'm expecting the majority of my dialog to consist of "The Turtle couldn't help us" and quotes from Penny Arcade.

Monday, September 6th, 2:00 PM: Reading. What will I be reading? Only the Great Pumpkin knows. I'll figure it out based on who shows up...and if no one shows up, again, inking. It's good to have a backup plan.

Having barely returned home (the cats are still in a state of high dudgeon; Lilly evicted the contents of my daily carry-bag last night and inserted herself in their place, assuming I wouldn't notice that a Siamese is not a dayplanner), it is now time for me to depart again, this time for the wilds of Washington. Will I be visiting my Vixy? I will not. Will I be visiting the Tinneys? I will not. Will I be picking blackberries? Great Pumpkin willing, yes, I will.

But what I'll mainly be doing is attending Spocon as their Music Guest of Honor! Along with Author Guest of Honor Tanya Huff and Artist Guest of Honor Michael Whelan, I am coming to rock your socks off through the powers of song, story, and, um...interpretive dance. I am assured that my Muppet-like flailing is very much like interpretive dance of the Cthulhu mythos, so that works.

But seriously, I fly out later this afternoon. I still need to pack, since laundry didn't happen until last night, and I need to figure out whether I'm checking a bag or not, since I need to bring The Big Computer to handle editorial revisions. But these are small things compared to "I am getting on another plane." Whee!

Brooke is going to be rooming with me at the convention, and she and Char MacKay have been drafted to provide stunt musical accompaniment (yay). Brooke is incubating a parasite right now, which is relevant to my interests, as it means that she now goes to bed as early as I do. Also, to quote Brooke's blog:

"Seanan AND Tanya will be guests there, which I've heard means they will combine in to some kind of 12-foot tall DAW super-robot with lasers! Publishing is a dangerous business. For innocent bystanders."

Come see the super-robot! We are less likely to crush you or incinerate your home if you say hello and buy our books.

I'm just saying.

Just a friendly reminder that voting for the Hugo Awards (and the Campbell Award, aka, "ways to crash Seanan's mental operating system like whoa") closes on July 30th. Details are here:

http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/index.php?page=66

This includes a full list of the nominees in their various categories. Remember that you must be either a supporting or attending member of AussieCon 4 to vote; supporting memberships are still available. Details are at the convention's website.

Holy crap it's almost time for Australia.

I am, like, seven years of not yet ready.

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

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

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

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

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

Goodnight, world.

Now is the time on Sprockets where I take my suitcase, my passport, my train tickets, and my mother, and head to the San Francisco International Airport. From there, we will fly to Los Angeles, and I will spend the weekend as ConChord's Guest of Honor/Westercon's Music Guest of Honor. Yay!

Since I'm about to leave you to your own devices for the entire weekend, I thought I should bribe you to play nicely with, well, the world. Here's Lilly, being...dignified:



The Siamese, ladies and gentlemen. Nature's most dignified feline.

Yeah. Right. Have fun!

Every year, as July approaches, someone says to me "Gosh, I've never been to the San Diego International Comic Convention before. I really don't believe it's as big as everybody tries to make me think it is." So every year, I smack myself in the head and update this guide and pray for their survival. Since I've been known to post obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon on a yearly basis for some time now, I strongly suspect that these people are being aimed at me. But since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by mildly indifferent towards those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience that you possibly can, I've prepared an update to my Handy-Dandy Comicon Survival Guide. See? It's both handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide includes tips on:

* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Things to do at the con.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.
* Not getting killed by your friends.
* Budgeting.
* Bathing.

It is also heavily biased toward my own opinions on all these things, because hello, so totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2010.Collapse )

Hey, folks—the summer convention season is kicking off, and that means it's time to return to our fannish roots and celebrate with geeky bling. I mean, of course, BADGE RIBBONS. Because nothing says "love" like pieces of fabric that you can stick to yourself. (Some people say that badge ribbons are totally over. I say that these are people who never played Halloweentown fairy princess when they were kids. We shall love our accessories until we die.)

So what do you think I should put on ribbons for this year? Suggest anything you like, from the silly to the sublime, and we'll see where things wind up going. Suggest a ribbon that I actually make, and I'll send you one, even if you're not attending the convention (first person to suggest the ribbon only, please). Keep in mind that we're trying to drum up interest and attract attention, but should still make a vague amount of sense while we're doing it.

Game on!

1. I am almost ready for Marcon! If by "almost" you mean "a packing list has been made, although no actual packing has been done, and hey, look, I have a set list." I'll pack tonight when I get home; tomorrow, I'll decamp to Kate's, since we need to get up at four o'clock Thursday morning if we want to catch our flight. Oh, the things I do for the love of conventions.

2. Last night was one of those "sleep so hard you wake up feeling hung-over" nights. I appreciate this. I don't get many of those nights anymore, and after I get over hating the universe, I tend to be refreshed and peppy. This sometimes creeps people out, as they aren't accustomed to seeing me peppy. Full of pep! There is nothing more dangerous than a truly cheerful blonde.

3. I'm currently cleaning and indexing my room, as part of an ongoing attempt to get my possessions under something resembling control. In the process of so doing, I found three copies of my 2009 chapbook. Now, I was under the impression that I had sold all the copies of my 2009 chapbook, which means either a) I can't count, or b) three people didn't get their chapbooks. If you requested a chapbook and never got it, please let me know, so that we can sort out what happened (and you can finally get your poetry).

4. I've finally updated my Upcoming Appearances page to include appearances through June, as well as the two stops on the Murder and Mayhem Tour that I'm doing with jennifer_brozek. I'll be adding more information to the June/July appearances, but at least now people will basically know where I'm going to be.

5. An Artificial Night is now on Amazon! What's more, it's on Amazon with a release date (September 7th), and actually relevant-to-the-book information (rather than the carry-over description of A Local Habitation that appeared there initially). The cover isn't up yet, but I'll totally scream when it appears, because every time one of my books is actually fully on Amazon, an angel gets its wings. I want my own CELESTIAL HOST, dammit.

6. I've rewritten the first six chapters of The Brightest Fell, and suddenly, without warning, this book has started to actually WORK. It's not uncommon for me to spend a hundred pages or so wandering lost in the wilderness, but The Brightest Fell is a particularly hard book. It's the last of the Toby books that was started pre-publication, which means it's been shelved several times while I worked on more urgent projects. To make matters worse, it's complicated, and changes a lot of things about Toby's world. So it's been kicking my ass, and I have finally started kicking back.

7. Who found a copy of Kelley Armstrong's out-of-print Eve novella, Angelic, while she was at Dark Carnival in Berkeley? Would that be me? Why, yes, I do believe it would be. I'll be doing more book gloating later, but I needed to offer this little snippet now. Because dude.

8. The cats come running when they hear the opening theme from The West Wing, because they know it means I'll be sitting still for at least forty-five minutes. Possibly longer, if the power of their purring is enough to make me start a second episode. Yes, I have managed to train my cats into taking an interest in the democratic process. When Lilly takes the state to court for the right to vote, you have permission to blame me.

9. It's cherry season. You do not want to know how many pounds of cherries I've consumed in the last week and a half...but as a hint, I could probably reforest Utah with my cherry pips, and I am now capable of telling fortunes for the whole of Oregon.

10. Zombies are love.

It's official; convention season is starting. I'm in the process of getting ready for Marcon. Kate and I are on a Thursday morning flight so early that it's effectively a Wednesday night flight, which is always fun, and will either result in my having my usual weird mid-air dreams or in my getting a lot of work done. The jury is still out on which that's going to be. We're coming back to California on Monday.

The following Saturday (June 5th), I'll be appearing at the Borders Books and Music in Pleasant Hill, California. This is my first-ever Borders event. The Saturday after that (June 12th), I'll be at SF in SF with Deborah Grabien. This is my first-ever SF in SF. Sensing a trend yet?

Somewhere in June, I have to cram in a few rehearsals with Paul Kwinn, my partner in crime, because 4th of July weekend is the combined Westercon/Conchord. I'm Westercon's Music Guest of Honor, and Conchord's Guest of Honor (Paul is the Conchord Toastmaster), and I guess that means we shouldn't suck. July 10th, I'm with Jennifer Brozek at Third Place Books in Seattle; July 17th, I'm with Jennifer Brozek at Borderlands Books in San Francisco. The weekend after that is the San Diego International Comic Convention, which is going to be huge and exhausting, as always, and the weekend after that is Spocon, in Spokane, Washington, where I'm going to be their Music Guest of Honor. (Tanya Huff is their Writer GoH. Urban Fantasy Mafia in the house!)

August is Australia. And the Campbell Awards. And the twitching.

Somewhere in there, I need to finish The Brightest Fell and make some serious headway on Blackout, since they have, y'know, due dates. I only have five more Sparrow Hill Road stories to write, which is a good thing, but they're some of the most important in the series, which is less good. So if I seem a little hyper in the weeks to come, it's just because I have replaced my blood with embalming fluid and espresso.

Whee! Convention season is fun!

First up, I'm going to be speaking at CoyoteCon this coming Saturday night; schedule details are here. I'm appearing as part of an author conversation, alongside Lucy Snyder, and I'm very excited. Best of all, since this is a virtual conference, I can do it while wearing my jack-o-lantern sleep pants and snuggling my kitties. It's much easier to be professional and authorial when I get to wear pumpkin pants and get kitty snuggles. I'm just saying.

Next weekend, I'm going a bit further afield, and while I could probably do it in my pajamas if I really wanted to, kitty snuggles are not an option. I'm Filk Guest of Honor at Marcon in scenic Columbus, Ohio. I'll be performing in concert with Tom Smith, Dr. Mary Crowell, and the ever-fabulous Amy McNally, and Judi Miller will be signing (so if you've ever wanted to see her do "Wicked Girls," you should really show up). The convention is Friday, May 28th through Sunday, May 30th, and I'm super excited.

I'll post my schedule for the con sometime next week. And oh! I'm bringing Kate as my official handler, so if you've been dying to meet her, again, you should really show up. I have no scheduled bookstore events while in Ohio, but I've met me, and I'm likely to sign any stock that presents itself; I'll try to put up a list of which stores I visit, just in case you can't make the convention, but can make the drive.

This is my first Marcon, and I'd really like to make it amazing. Yes, it does mean I'll be missing BayCon; I'm planning to miss BayCon next year, too, as I'm probably attending Wiscon. The times, they are a'changing.

Marcon!

It's time to lock down my set list for MarCon, so as to get chords to Tom Smith and lyrics to Judi Miller. So...

Any requests?

Bit #1: Toby has actually made it to the final four in the GIRL FIGHT TONIGHT, and she and Professor McGonagall are running literally neck-in-neck. Consider that a moment. Toby is a viable contender for defeating Professor McGonagall. The world has gone insane, and your vote could help her get to the finals, where she can have the pleasure of having her ass handed to her by Granny Weatherwax. Which is a victory unto itself, really.

Bit #2: Alcestis [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is a retelling of the classical Greek myth of Alcestis in the Underworld, and is just breathtakingly gorgeous. I am glad to own this in hardcover, because despite it taking up additional space, it is now sturdy enough to survive the many, many re-reads that it will be receiving as the years slip by. It's a beautiful book. Pair it with Malinda Lo's Ash and you have the perfect late Valentine (or early).

Bit #3: Castle has been picked up for a third season, guaranteeing me another night of brilliant television as time goes by. I really feel like I'm in something of a golden age, television-wise. I have my caper show (Leverage), my wacky science fiction (Eureka, Warehouse 13), my serious science fiction (Fringe), my comedy (Big Bang Theory), my mystery (Castle), and my good-n-gory (NCIS, Bones). Really, the networks don't need to do anything new with the upcoming season. I'm good.

Bit #4: Toby is still a contender in the Fourth Annual BSC Review Tournament, but her current round—in which she's going up against Juliet Marillier's Heart's Blood—remains very nearly too close to call. We're moving toward the end of the tournament, and it would be bad-ass to progress at least one more round, so please, if you have the chance, bop over and drop a vote.

Bit #5: I am apparently writing at least one short story (and maybe more than one, knowing me and my scary over-achieving ways) set before A Local Habitation, focusing on and narrated by January O'Leary. You can meet her girlfriend! Who is awesome, and puts up with an immense amount of crap from her scary technophile significant other.

Bit #6: Wondercon is this weekend! I am super-excited, and plan to spend the entire weekend wandering the floor, seeing awesome stuff, and learning new and exciting things about the X-Men. Because there is always something new and exciting to learn about the X-Men. (Hopefully not "Jean Grey is coming back," but things can't be wonderful forever.) I have also purchased my tickets for San Diego, which becomes a little more real every day. GEEK PROM IS GO!

Bit #7: Starfish loves you.

Some days, you think about politics, philosophy, and art. Some days, Pliny and Socrates are the defining stars of your existence. Some days, the question of which came first—the chicken or the egg—is all-consuming, worthy of endless contemplation and consideration. Some days, just the movement of the heavens is enough to take your breath away, leaving you locked in endless awe of the cosmos and all its wonders.

Some days, you're just not that deep.

Guess what kind of day I'm having?

I spend a lot of time locked in intellectual pursuits. Maybe "figuring out strategic survival tactics and social innovations following the zombie apocalypse" and "building a better pandemic" aren't your standard thought experiments, but they're time-consuming and they take a lot of mental processing power. I guess it's only natural that I'd occasionally get exhausted and want to spend a few hours gazing off into space, counting air molecules while Food Network amuses the cats. (Seriously, they love Iron Chef, although Alice has been known to attack the screen when Bobby Flay comes on.) This also accounts for my love of movies like Dinoshark*, one more gem from the SyFy mines.

Tonight, everything will change. Tonight, I have edits to process on two short stories, a battle plan to write for tomorrow's official opening of the San Diego International Comic Convention hotel block, and at least eight pages of The Brightest Fell to get through. Tonight, I need to sit down and seriously outline two potential urban fantasy shorts, one Toby-based, one InCryptid-based. Tonight, I must brush the cat. But all of that is tonight, and right now, it's daylight, and I'm just not that deep.

Thinking is hard. Let's have strawberry ice cream.

(*Over the course of a two-hour movie, Dinoshark eats a kayak, several swimmers, an expedition boat, a crocodile, and a helicopter. Dinoshark is totally metal, yo.)

Today is the last day of November, which means we're one month away from running out of 2009 entirely. I'm really not sure how I feel about this. I mean, on the one hand, it's nice to be past some of the more chaotic and horrible parts of the year. On the other hand, it feels a lot like I blinked and the year was over, which is never a particularly pleasant experience.

December is already slated to be a busy, busy month, with two events (one in San Francisco, one in Seattle), one trip out of state (again, Seattle), Alice's birthday, and a fairly hefty word count goal on Blackout. Just to add more hoot to my nanny, I'm also going to have a go at restarting my aerobic workouts, since I really miss Richard Simmons (he's the freaky little glittery monkey man of my heart, yo). On the plus side, endorphins make you happy, and happy authors just don't kill their editors.

I'll put up the voting for the best pics-with-pets entries into the A Local Habitation ARC contest later today. There were some really amazing entries, and I'm crazy-glad not to be choosing the winner by myself. I think my head might actually explode if I tried. (Not a pretty sight.) Voting will remain open through Sunday, December 6th, at which point I'll announce the winners and solicit mailing addresses. The usual "if I don't get an address in twenty-four hours, I will move on to the next possible winner" applies, so if you're an entrant, please be sure to either check back here or have someone check for you on Monday, December 7th.

2010 is starting to fill up fast—because there's a real surprise—and I think I may be approaching the official "no more conventions this year, so sorry" point. I now have three during the month of July (the most wonderful time of the year), and that strikes me as a sign that it may be time to take a nap instead. I'll post my full schedule here and on the website shortly.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend, and that your cats were less clingy and shedtastic than mine.

Well, I'm off to board a giant metal sky-bird and wing my way across the country to Columbus, Ohio, with a stop in the middle to switch planes in Chicago. I'll be in Ohio (and hence on limited Internet access) until Monday, when I come back to California. If you're in the Columbus area, feel free to swing by OVFF to say hello, hear some awesome music, and maybe get a book or two signed.

See you when I get back!

Thanks to the wonderful people who are wonderful, I have a) a ride from the airport, and b) a place to take a nap.

Thank you thank you thank you, and I will now return to frantically getting ready to go.

See you in Canada!

I love travel.

Oh, I stress and I flail and I wave my hands around and I wail about how much time it's going to kill, but at the end of the day, I love travel. I love that moment of weightlessness when the plane leaves the ground, when you realizes you're no longer strictly under gravity's command. I love knowing that when I land, I'll be breathing different air, in a different city, where the rules are different. Plus, it doesn't hurt that I tend to be crazy-productive on planes.

(I am, however, seriously considering bringing CASH-MONEY BRIBES on my flight to Montreal. "Hi. I'm a working author, and I have deadlines. I will give you twenty dollars to not recline your seat on my laptop for the first three hours of this trip.")

My bags are packed for San Diego. I'm not sure whether I'll have Internet, but if I do, I'll keep you posted as to what's going on. If you're going to be there, you need to come to Saturday night's panel. Trust me on this one. You'll be sorry if you don't. If you're not going to be there, I'll miss you, I'll see you when I'm back, and I'll be awesome.

Because I can. Because that's what it means to be a Disney Halloweentown Princess.

Watch me.

10. I will be on a plane for San Diego in a little over twenty-four hours, on my way to the San Diego International Comic Convention. The SDCC is one of my favorite conventions, because it is, for all the chaos, really remarkably relaxing. I go, I smile, I speak, I shop. And shop, and shop, and oh, yes, shop. I love flea markets, and the SDCC dealer's hall is like the world's best combination of "the comic book store" and "the indoor flea market." Only this flea market has an artist's alley. Life is good.

9. As part of my preparation for San Diego, I took my mother for a pedicure last night. (There's logic here, I swear. The logic is largely "I didn't want to walk home after getting my nails done.") Neither of us is much of a pedicure girl, but sometimes it's nice to just let somebody attack your heels with a pumice stone. Besides, I have super-cute shoes for the parties in San Diego—kitten-heeled green Italian leather—and they require having super-cute toenails to go with them.

8. Alice woke me up five minutes before my alarm by kneading the hell out of my hip, and then throwing herself down across me like a fuzzy blue blanket possessed of most imposing puffiness. This was far, far more pleasant than being woken by the actual alarm could possibly have been, and made hauling my carcass out of bed much easier. After the Blue Team decided to let me get up, that is. Between the two of them, I really don't get to do much that my cats don't approve of.

7. Next up in my reread of the collected works of Stephen King: The Stand. This is one of my five favorite books of all time. Just having it in my purse makes me happy. (Not as happy as IT, which is why IT is slated for rereading at the end of August/beginning of September, but surprisingly close.)

6. According to this week's new releases list, the next volume of the collected hardcover Creepy comes out tomorrow. (Ironically, I won't be able to pick it up until next week, since, well, San Diego, but just knowing that it's on the trucks makes me happy.) These books are basically my childhood in handy, easy-to-shelve form, and their very existence enhances the universe incredibly. I am a happy girl.

5. Rosemary and Rue comes out in forty-one days. Forty-one is the thirteenth smallest prime number. (The next is forty-three, with which it comprises a twin prime.) It is also the sum of the first six prime numbers (2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 11 + 13), and the sum of three primes (11 + 13 + 17). I love forty-one for being prime, and I love Wikipedia for knowing all this crap.

4. I have a hula hoop! And when I get home tonight, I get to use my hula hoop! I get to stand in the front yard and hula like I've never hula'd before. Well, actually, just like I hula'd last night, only maybe a little bit better, because I've had more practice. I can't take my hula hoop to San Diego, so I have to get my hula in now, while I still can.

3. Rebecca has BPAL waiting for me in San Diego. Specifically, Rebecca has a fresh bottle of Bad Luck Woman Blues (basically my signature aromatherapy calm down Seanan, you can't unleash the pandemic perfume) and a bottle of the new Zombie Apocalypse scent. I am a lucky girl.

2. I have season one of Leverage on DVD. Tonight, I will sit on my couch, ink art cards, and watch con men, thieves, and grifters as they do their con man, thief, and grifter things, and my cats will purr, and the DDP will be cold, and the tomato sandwiches will be incredibly drippy and get all over the damn place, probably causing at least one incident with my art supplies, and life will be good.

...and finally...

1. I am healthy, I have a cute haircut, I have orange toenails, I have a book coming out in less than a month and a half, I have wonderful friends, I have beautiful cats, and I'm about to take off for the world's biggest comic book convention. Life doesn't suck.

How's by you?

I've been asked "Gosh, Seanan, where are you going to be during the Montreal WorldCon?" Since "Canada" isn't actually a helpful reply, here is my initial schedule. It's still subject to change, and I'll post again closer to the convention.

THURSDAY.

2:00 PM: Improv Workshop. Step one, land in Canada. Step two, get off the plane. Step three, conduct an improv workshop. Oh, this should be fascinating. I may fall asleep while pretending to pretend to be a tree.
4:00 PM: Did You Know...? Filk trivia with me and Mark Bernstein. And my jetlag. My jetlag will be an active participant. It'll be interesting, even if it isn't terribly coherent.

SATURDAY.

7:00 PM: Panel in the Pool. The description reads "What would dolphins do? What side of the road would cephalopods prefer? Do they make screwdrivers for right-handed octopuses? The panel, in the deep end with lead boots, discusses aquatic intelligences." I'm hoping they don't actually intend to drown me, as I believe murder is illegal in Canada, but I'm happy to talk about squid for an hour. I'm a cheap date like that.

SUNDAY.

10:00 AM: Author Signing. Behold! If you bring me things, I'll sign them!
12:30 PM: Author Reading. I'll be participating in a ninety-minute group reading with Laura Anne Gilman, Margaret Ronald, and Stephanie Bedwell-Grime. I've never met two of the three before. This should be fun.
2:30 PM: Concert: Stone Dragons and Seanan McGuire. We each get a forty-five minute set. I think the Stone Dragons are going first, which puts me on at 3:15 PM. Dave Weingart is my stunt guitarist.
8:00 PM: The Future of Horror Movies. Heh. Heh. Heh...

MONDAY.

12:00 PM: Songwriting Workshop. We're going to be talking about songwriting, different approaches to songwriting, and other musical things. And then I'm going to be running to the airport.

So I'm presently rather lightly scheduled, and that suits me juuuuuust fine. I may wind up added to additional items; if that happens, I'll sing out and let you know.

...needs a roommate for OVFF. Preference is for female, non-smoking, non-snoring, and capable of not hitting me with a brick when on the way to bed. I tend to be an early-to-bed, early-to-rise sort of a filker, but I'm very quiet when creeping out in the morning, and I wear earplugs.

I know the room block is selling out. Oops!

We're now solidly into convention season—hooray!—and it has come to my attention that there are quite a few people reading this journal and planning to attend the San Diego International Comic Convention for the first time this year. There are also quite a few people who don't regularly read this journal, but have been pointed in my direction, since I have been known to post obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon in the past. Hello, and welcome, one and all. Since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by mildly indifferent towards those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience that you possibly can, I've prepared this handy-dandy Comicon survival guide. See? It's both handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide will include tips on:

• Reaching the convention alive.


• Getting a hotel room.


• Enjoying/surviving the con.


• Things to do at the con.


• Eating food.


• Staying healthy and sane.


• Not getting killed by your friends.


• Budgeting.


• Bathing.

It will also be heavily biased towards my own opinions on all these things, because hello, so totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2009.Collapse )

I'm almost finished packing for DucKon; sometime in the next hour, my mother will be showing up to whisk me away to the San Francisco International Airport, where I will board a shiny silver skybird and soar across the country to Illinois, hence to have exciting adventures. The cats know something is up, but aren't entirely clear as to what it is. I expect them to get seriously pissed in a few hours, when I go away and don't come back. And that's okay.

My schedule is posted both here and on my website. I will have ARCs of Rosemary and Rue with me all weekend, so you can see them in all their glory. I'll also have copies of all three albums, and the complete remaining run of the new chapbook. So, y'know, you can take a little piece of me home with you, if you really want to.

I'll be back and back to normal on Tuesday. I may or may not be around much this weekend, depending on Internet availability and how much sleep I manage to get. Amy is bringing pumpkin vodka to the convention; The Agent is already in the air; I'm really having a pretty damn fabulous day, all things considered. And Jean Grey is still dead.


Sometimes I love my life.

So you may be wondering what my schedule is this weekend at DucKon. Or you may not be. Whatever. I'm going to tell you anyway.

FRIDAY.

7:00 PM: Opening Ceremonies. Rumor is now indicating that I may a) wear a corset, b) sing, and c) do the Time Warp. Rumor is seriously leading an interesting life.
8:00 PM: Whose Line Is It Anyway? The classic improv game goes convention crazy! With Tom Smith, Gretchen Roper, and others. Music provided by Toybox.
10:00 PM: Sing A Song of Dead Things. Themed filk with corpses in. I will be your lovely, loony moderator. I will also be half-asleep. Bring a poking stick.

SATURDAY.

10:00 AM: Plagues Past, Present, and Future. LET'S GET READY TO RABIES!
12:00 PM: The Business of Writing. With Diana Fox and Shannon Butcher.
3:00 PM: Vixy & Tony Concert.
5:00 PM: Seanan McGuire, Undead in Concert! Featuring Vixy and Tony, Amy McNally, and probably others. It's going to be awesome.
8:00 PM: Urban Fantasy. With Jim Butcher and Jody Lyn Nye. Because I'm always at my most-coherent post-concert. I should have time to change, at least.

SUNDAY.

11:00 AM: Reading. Reading what? Who knows! Please, please, let me know if I have something you're just dying to hear, or it's likely to be another random assortment of my short fiction.
12:00 PM: The Award-Winners Concert. If you want to hear some real, live Pegasus Award winners and nominees, this is where you should be.
1:00 PM: X-Men Comics. For those of you who aren't aware, Jean Grey is still dead, and I totally approve.
3:00 PM: Closing Ceremonies.

I will have copies of all three of my albums at the convention, available for sale and signing, as well as the complete remaining run of my second limited-edition poetry chapbook. Which will not be re-issued, because dude, Beckett had to hand-sew the entire run of books, and I know when not to press my luck.

See you there!