Lilly -- my crazy little bluepoint princess -- got to share an experience with human children the world over today: she went and got the crap scared out of her by Santa Claus. (I did have the owner of a small puffy dog ask me if I didn't think bringing my cat to the pet store was stressful and cruel. I did not respond by asking if she didn't think her dog's haircut was cruel. Be proud of me.)

Lilly was amazingly well-behaved, despite howling down the moon while we were in the car, and did not geld the big man. She even let herself be placed on a cushion in his lap, and stayed there calmly while the photographer made much of her. The wreath around her neck, yeah, also not a problem. This is a cat I could dress up like a pumpkin without really doing anything to piss her off.

The proof:



Lilly did get agitated after her picture was taken, when technical difficulties kept us standing around for another fifteen minutes or so. She stuck her claws into my shoulder several times as she scrambled for better footing, and my back looks like hamburger now. But that's okay, because she got to meet Santa.

I just hope she didn't ask for a pony.

* I'm writing my world description outline for the InCryptid books, which is a lot of fun, since it lets me make statements like 'insect-derived exothermic placental mammals with a decentralized circulatory system' in a completely serious, sincere way. (I love my insect-derived exothermic placental mammals. They're so wonderfully creepy. Also, I would not want them in my house, and neither do you.)

* The Brightest Fell -- also known as 'Toby Daye, book five,' also known us 'uh, Seanan, isn't book one due out next year?' -- is now well underway; I finished chapter seventeen last night, with a great deal of giggling and clapping of my hands. This is also why I haven't been posting many word counts recently, since every time I think 'well, I'll just hop projects now,' The Brightest Fell slaps me upside the head and drags me back in. I think this is because the book really, really wants to be finished. And who am I to argue? I like it when books want to be finished. It makes me feel productive.

* I am seriously considering writing a book about zombie virology. Just because it would give me an excuse to go and hang out at the CDC asking weird questions without getting looked at funny. Also, if you haven't read Zombie CSI by Jonathan Maberry, you totally should. The slowly developing zombie non-fiction genre for the win, yo. (It's true facts about fictional things. This makes it, bizarrely enough, non-fiction. I love the world sometimes.)

* Lilly's best silly parlor trick is once again seasonal: yes, my cat will sing 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' as a duet if you simply start the song and pause at the right places. Behold the beauty of the Siamese. Unfortunately, this means she gets pissed off if you try to sing the duet with another person. The point in Elf where Will Farrel and Zooey Deschanel sing it together drives her into a furious rage. Which is actually really adorable, as long as she's not in your lap when it starts.

* Yes, I am intending to clip her claws before we go to see Santa, in the hopes that this will prevent her from clawing Santa's balls off. Be good to Santa. Let him keep his balls.

* I have decided to use Zip-a-tone on the Conflikt program book cover, to give it that little extra 'zing.' I haven't actually used Zip-a-tone in years, since digital coloring has largely eliminated the need for it, but really, who doesn't love an art supply that requires use of an exacto knife? I'm gonna have me a slice-and-shade party, and it's going to be awesome. The awesome doubles if I don't have to go to the emergency room afterwards. I'm hoping for double awesome.

* The second Hack/Slash omnibus comes out this month, along with a reprint of the first omnibus edition. Hack/Slash is the ongoing story of Cassie Hack, a horror movie final girl who fought back and then kept on fighting. Imagine Buffy if she'd been created by James Gunn and Vincent Price instead of Joss Whedon. And if they'd been doing acid at the same time. This is pretty much my favorite currently on-going comic book, and I highly recommend it. A Christmas gift for the ages!

* Evil Dead: the Musical opens in Martinez, California on January 6th, 2009. Tickets are $25 for cabaret seating, $30 for splatter zone seating. The splatter zone is awesome, but make sure you finish eating (it's a dinner theater) before the song 'Look Who's Evil Now,' as the fake blood tastes terrible. It also smells weird, which could totally kill your appetite.

* The growth of my website continues. It's like an evil alien weed, come to destroy all within its path. The latest addition: you can now access the 'review' page from the discography. Yes, there's a lot of text there right now. I'm going to trim it down to about half that, and increase the font size. We're just getting what exists in place before we start messing with content.

And that's my today. What's yours?

Lilly has managed to get out -- accidentally, but out is still out -- twice in the past few months. Being blazingly intelligent and essentially fearless, she really doesn't understand that the world outside the house would be happy to cause her extreme bodily harm. Sadly, I understand this all too well, and basically age five years every time she gets out.

Since I'd like to live long enough to finish all the books I'm writing, I decided it was time to Take Certain Steps towards securing Lilly's safety. Step one was a collar (tragically with bell). She tolerated the collar with astonishingly good grace, and so tonight, while I was out running errands, I instigated step two.

I bought her a tag.

The front of it says 'Lilly'* and gives my phone number; the back says, in large, friendly letters, 'INDOOR CAT.' Hopefully, this means that if she gets out, anyone who finds her will realize that she doesn't belong there, and contact me. My address isn't on the tag, simply because that would require it either be very large (which she wouldn't tolerate), or that the text be very small (which makes it less likely that people will actually read it).

She has her tag and her cursed bell now, and has discovered that the two of them together can be used to make a hideous cacophony as she trots around the house. On the plus side, this means I always know where my cat is. And that's...soothing.

(*Her full name is Lillian Kane Moskowitz Munster Cavanaugh-Sawyer McGuire. That definitely wasn't going to fit on a tag.)

Article the first: New icon! The ever-engaging taraoshea made this for me as a sort of answer to my Commandments of Coyote, because Coyote needs his beer, yo. How I do adore her. Also, she's completely out of her tree. But that's probably why we get along so well, so hey.

There's a permanent account sale coming up, and I looked at it thoughtfully, because I'm a total whore for anything that allows me to have more user icons (yes, I know, I probably need help). The trouble is, the math no longer works out. There was a time when buying a permanent account was cheap enough that it would balance out the cost of paying for your journal, plus extras, in roughly four years -- forever in Internet terms, but still a reasonable investment. The folks who run the site basically know that they've hit the upper limit in terms of what people will pay for bells and whistles on a blogging site, and at $20 a year (if you're doing auto-pay), it just doesn't balance out the $175 for a permanent account. Not even if you're buying extra user icons. Alas, price structure, how you have betrayed us.

Article the second: Lilly has managed to get out of the house twice in the past few months, which has made me paranoid enough to finally do something I'd previously resisted, and buy her a collar already. I picked it up during my cat litter run -- a spiffy little black number with silver moons and stars on it, very goth-girl, which is ideal for my Siamese sweetie. It also has a bell. I already hate the bell.

Now, I brought the collar home anticipating some great, epic battle for my life against an irritated Siamese cat, something to remember throughout the ages. My housemate was anticipating the equivalent of a land war in Asia. I approached the cat with the collar. I pulled the collar over the cat's head. The cat squirmed a little. I stroked the cat. The cat stopped squirming. I tightened the collar. Game over. Where is the drama? Where is the excitement? Where is the pathos? (I know where the cat is. I hate that bell.)

Tune in next week, when Lilly utterly fails to react in any noticeable way to getting microchipped. I swear, my cat is on Valium or something.

Article the third: Plans are in the works to get my little sister down from Sacramento for Thanksgiving, officially making this the closet thing to a family Thanksgiving that we've had in years. The last time we tried this, I wore Melissa's tarantula as a broach just to see if it would freak Mom out (it did). This should, at least, be more entertaining than putting a collar on the cat.

Step one: Wake up. This is the least pleasing step. I was having a very pleasant dream about attending a convention in England with my agent and most of my crew of rotating musicians. Vixy and I got to raid a Tesco's. It was nice. Waking up was so not on the agenda.

Step two: Lilly realizes that I have woken up. On weekends, I tend to stay in bed long enough for Lilly to come over and spend some time on my chest, getting heavy-duty affection directed her way. This is because I foolishly believe that if I adore her enough before I start trying to do things, she might leave me alone to do them.

Step three: Check email. Hello, email. Yes, there certainly is a lot of you, and no, none of you really appears to matter. That's always a pleasant discovery on a Saturday morning, as the last thing I want is an emergency or for an unexpected deadline to pop up and wave to me.

Step four: Stare blankly at The Brightest Fell for about three minutes. After that, decide that I am not yet in the necessary head-space to struggle with navigating those particular waters, and close the file again. (Toby Daye, book five. Because finishing four of them in a year just wasn't enough.)

Step five: Copy-edit two chapters of the manuscript I'm currently copy-editing for a friend of mine. It's on today's to-do, even: 'edit chapters 10 and 11.' I am, at this point, sufficiently engrossed by the story that I wouldn't be surprised if that turned into 'and 12 and 13 and just keep going already,' but since I also have to finish the next Velveteen vs. today, it won't go on forever.

...and now, pants, and the ceremonial Saturday morning stroll to the 7-11, hence to obtain a soda whose volume is slightly more than the volume of my skull. Because that will make me feel better.

How's your Saturday?

Well, I'm finally feeling well enough to return to work, even though it means hauling my little blonde butt out of bed at 5:15 AM. The cats are, to put it bluntly, not amused. Lilly really has issues with the fact that my taking sick time doesn't mean I'm planning on staying home with her forever and always, amen. This is because Lilly is a freak.

I'm better than I was, although not one hundred percent; I was correct in assuming that my failure to develop a proper fever meant that I wasn't dealing with strep, and instead had 'just' a sort throat. There's very little 'just' about losing the capacity to swallow, but I'll take what I can get when it keeps me off the magic antibiotic happy juice. That stuff just knocks me out of the game for as long as it's in my system. NO LOGIC ALLOWED.

I've put my unexpected time away from work to good use, doing a lot of editing, a lot of inking, and a lot of catching up on my stock-piled television. I've now seen the entire first season of ReGenesis, aka 'Canadian television is trying to buy my love, and I think it just might be for sale.' Look, any show that's willing to give me smallbox-Marburg chimera diseases (I love chimera diseases) and have the balls to go for the Spanish flu? That show is basically going to own me for as long as it likes. Sadly, ReGenesis only wants to own me for four seasons. Alas, Babylon.

So now that I'm emerging from my viral hibernation, what have I missed? Assume that the world was just trundling on without me for the past three days.

Lilly caught her first mouse tonight. (This despite being almost four years old. My home-grown mighty huntress really isn't very good at her job.) I went into my room during a commercial break and found her half-under the dresser, chittering gleefully and shifting my portfolio all over the place. I got down on the floor to peer, and hey-presto, field mouse!

The poor thing was terrified, and quite tidily penned in by the collusion of 'closet door' and 'inexplicable old window screen' that lean up against the corner of my dresser. Lilly had herself a field day smacking at it and chittering before I was able to scoop it into a plastic container and dispatch my roommate to put it outdoors.

(I didn't spare the mouse because I have a soft heart. I understand that the whole 'circle of life' gig very much applies to mice stupid enough to enter cat-infested households. That said, Lilly is an indoor-only cat, and I'd really like to restrict her consumption of California's native wildlife to, I don't know, bugs and arachnids. Things that don't have warm blood and are thus less likely to give her interesting diseases. I know, I know, I'm a lousy excuse for a cat owner. I like my cats alive.)

Because Lilly is one of the most good-natured cats I've ever met, she's already completely over the fact that I took her mouse away, and is now devoting the bulk of her attention to loafing atop my open suitcase and giving me suspicious looks. Methinks the young miss has managed to figure out that I've packed a bit more heavily than is entirely essential for an overnight stay at Kate's.

Ah, cats. They remind us of the important things in life. And, when they're cats like Lilly, they remind me why I don't have children.

It's been a while since I provided more of the single best accessory any blog can have: pictures of the blogger's cats. I like my cats. I find them photogenic and adorable. (Most people feel this way about their cats, but mine are Siamese, which makes them double awesome.) All of which combines to mean that it's time, once again, for that best of exercises.

Time for cat pictures.

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The fascinating thing about the speed at which I tend to work is the way that I always feel like I'm not getting anything done. To quote Amy, "Even though Superman can move super-fast, time feels the same for him as it does for everybody else." So while my idea of a 'slow day' may look like some other people's idea of 'so productive I wouldn't be able to move for a week,' the agonies of feeling like I've been goofing off are just as severe for me as they are for everybody else.

I get scolded for this periodically, since I tend to get frustrated and whine. Another friend likened it to that lady who only needs to lose five pounds, yet complains every time she accidentally ingests a calorie. To which I can only note that those five pounds may mark the end of a two hundred pound journey. I'm as fast as I am because I've always ridden myself to move faster, move cleaner, and get more done.

Watching other people at work is truly a fascinating thing for me, because they're chasing the same end through methods which are, quite often, entirely foreign. This is also why I say that there's no 'one true way' to write, beyond the part where all writing eventually needs to involve putting words on paper. (Although even that's questionable, since I know people who've composed and memorized stories and poetry without every writing anything down. If they perform it the same way every time, isn't it still something they wrote? Oral tradition and the rise of podcasting as a method of getting stories out there are changing 'wrote' to mean more than just the act of physically recording words on a page.)

Lilly is ecstatic about the fact that I'm writing again; she feels that my adoration of the strange clicky-box is paid for by the fact that when I'm adoring it, I tend to sit still for long periods of time, thus giving myself ample time to pet the cat. I think she senses that the ailing health of my older feline means something, but hasn't yet put together the connection between 'Nyssa isn't doing well' and 'Mommy keeps looking at pictures of Siamese kittens on the clicky-box screen.'

Won't she be surprised? And, as a secondary question, how does writing work for you?

I'm sitting at my desk processing edits to Late Eclipses of the Sun -- and completely rewriting three early chapters, which is always fun -- when my housemate calls for me to come out to the kitchen for a minute. I go, grousing all the way, since I really want to finish the edits before I have to leave for the day.

There is a can of cat food sitting, perfectly centered, in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Him: "Did you put that there?"
Me: "No."
Him: "I didn't put that there."
Me: "I didn't think so."
Lilly: *suddenly appears next to my right leg, looking innocently towards the can*

Cue uproarious laughter from the humans, while the cat continues to look politely interested in the presence of a cat food can. My, what could that be? Might it be food.

Me: "Right, feed the cat."
Him: "You're rewarding her behavior, you know."
Me: "Yes. I'm rewarding her for not meowing until she gets fed."
Him: "...point."
Lilly: "NOM."

Life with a Siamese. It's never boring.

1) Return home from work basically a walking swamp, due to the summer deciding to have one last party here in California. Collapse into desk chair and download heaping piles of edits rather than doing anything that actually requires coherent thought.

2) Add some pages to the new Toby Wiki, as this requires little more than cutting and pasting, at least for now. Later, this thing is going to require heaping piles of effort and thought, but right now? I cut, I paste, I format, I get bored, I wander away to do something else.

3) Perform major surgery on Late Eclipses of the Sun, slicing the events of chapter three into four equal chunks and stapling them together in a new order before covering the scars with sticky tape and glue. Discover that the chapter is way, way better this way. Grumble.

4) Try to explain the continuity changes to the cat. The cat fails to care.

5) Send the new version of Late Eclipses to my proofing list. Get antsy. Start transitioning Discount Armageddon from third person to first person. Again, discover that the text is way, way better this way. Orders of magnitude better. 'There is no possible way you were wrong about the POV change' better. Grumble more.

6) Process some minor edits to Late Eclipses, including one that points out the fact that there is no such date as April 31st.

7) Decide to go watch Eureka with the cat.

1) Return home from work. Update local backups of various files to reflect edits processed during lunch break, since failure to do this leads to madness and tears. Process slightly complicated by the sudden presence of an attention-starved Siamese cat who insists on licking every inch of my hands. Resistance is futile. You will be exfoliated.

2) Begin downloading edits received during commute. Be both daunted and elated by the sheer scope of said edits. Remember that maybe if I'd stop writing three or more books at a time, I wouldn't wind up opening my inbox to discover fifteen people commenting on my abuse of the common comma. Then again, what would be the fun in that?

3) Get accused of sadism by a proofreader. Cackle maniacally.

4) Compulsively answer all pending LJ comments on this blog, while the little voice in the back of my head scolds me for wasting time that could be spent processing all those edits from step two. Remind the little voice that if I do this every day, it takes fifteen minutes, rather than an entire Sunday. Little voice quiets, grumbling.

5) Process edits. The English language: I am once again doin' it wrong. Also continuity, punctuation, and making sense. Mysteriously, the books in question remain pretty good. I become increasingly more and more convinced that I have sold my soul at the crossroads. I also find it increasingly more difficult to be bothered by this notion.

6) Ask the cat what I should work on. The cat says I should work on feeding the cat.

7) Feed the cat.

Mantis: still in my bathroom. He has relocated his tiny insectivore self to the roll of paper towels, where he has a higher vantage from which to snatch unsuspecting flies out of the air and devour their tiny brainless bodies. He's very yellow, and too small for my camera (which is actually Rey's camera, and not terribly high-tech) to be very happy about trying to focus on him. Which is a pity, 'cause he's pretty.

The mantis will probably be going to live in Kate and GP's garden tonight, where, as Kate puts it, 'he will grow fat and strong in the Bird of Paradise.' As they currently have no mantids, and I have an entire home-grown colony, this is probably fair, but I'm still going to miss him.

Lycanthropy: still finished. I was a little worried when I woke up this morning that I'd discover my belief that the book was done to be some sort of perverse, wicked hallucination, brought about by inhaling too many Sharpie fumes, but no, the book is really done. This draft of the book, anyway. Now I get to start doing the heavy lifting of revision and correction...but since you can't revise or correct until a book is finished, I'm really not finding myself all that concerned.

Although...



...just sayin'.

Lilly would like my attention now, and as I do not believe in thwarting Siamese when avoidable, I'll be back later.

I am assured that the single best thing an author can do for raising awareness of their blog -- no matter how awesome or insightful or filled with chocolate as it may chance to be -- is to, well, post pictures of their cats. I'm somewhat dubious about this theory, but hey, I always have pictures of my cats to share. And that means?

Time for cat pictures.

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I believe that a person's preferred working space and environment says a lot about them. Sometimes it says 'you're crazier than a mad scientist who's just received his electric bill,' but hey, that's still a statement. Because I have access to a camera currently (thank you, Rey) and I like to make sure people know what they're dealing with, I present...

Pictures of my desk.

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So last night, I attended a Kelley Armstrong/Melissa Marr signing at Borderlands Books here in San Francisco. And I'll talk more about that later, I'm sure. But for right now, I have something far more enthralling to talk about (at least, it's more enthralling when I'm not entirely awake):

Evil-looking naked alien suede kitty!

Yes! The store has a resident Sphinx. No, I have no idea why the store has a resident Sphinx, but let's be serious here: I really don't care. They have a NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY. That is, really, justification enough. Her name is 'Ripley,' after the character in Alien ('cause she looks like one) as much as the television show ('cause nobody believes what they're seeing). And she's awesome. She came out and graced the signing with her glorious presence, at which point, the famous people really lost the bulk of my attention, as there was a NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY in my lap. My needs in life are simple but well-defined. They include cuddling with anything that looks like it would like to nest inside my ribcage.

Now, the store is aware that NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY pretty much = awesome, and so they have come up with what may well be the Best Marketing Scheme ever: they've made attractive postcards with Ripley on them. You can buy them. For a dollar. Yes: you can pay a dollar for a picture of their cat. Being me -- have you met me? -- I, of course, bought one. Now I have NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY to look at any time I want to. I'm going to add her to my corkboard. I'm just thinking, why should NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY get all the action? I have a hyper-intelligent tail-free Siamese cat and friends with cameras.

Lilly Kane: camwhore.

Just sayin'.

Being as I am currently in New York, while my cats remain at home in California, I miss them dearly. You know what that means. That's right.

Time for cat pictures.

( Cut because kindness says 'do not force others to look at your cats without actually agreeing to the activity.' Also because there are several graphics here.Collapse )