First off, remember that I'm still taking entries in the A Local Habitation ARC contest! To answer two questions I've been asked a time or two, no, the pets don't need to be yours, just photographed with owner consent, and yes, this contest is open to everyone, not just US residents. (To answer a third question, yes, you're welcome to cover your book with snails or give it to an octopus, but in those cases, I won't replace it. "Book eaten by tiger" is an accident, "book given to marine resident" is a very odd choice and an excuse to go to the bookstore.)

I'll take entries until the end of the weekend, and open voting Monday or Tuesday. Pet photography is fun!

( Now, what is the power of kittens compelling you to do this time? Click to find out. Alice says hello.Collapse )

I actually got a Google Alert for Mira Grant that was about, well, me, rather than some random assortment of words that managed to trigger my poor dumb little spider! Damon at BSC posted his thoughts on the 2010 Orbit catalog, including some comments about Feed. Quote, "I think it could make a splash. I normally do not read these types of books, but I am willing to make an exception, I believe, for Mira."

Damon, I am going to do my damnedest not to let you down. And that is a promise from me to you.

Meanwhile, the Warren Public Libraries in Warren, Michigan had some really sweet things to say about Rosemary and Rue, including "It’s a gripping mystery with a lot of urban fantasy thrown in to the mix" and "Fans of any urban fantasy will do well here." There's also a strong recommendation for fans of Jim Butcher's work to give mine a look. From your words to the Great Pumpkin's ears, Warren Public Libraries!

Alice is sopping wet, thanks to my having had a minor bathtub incident, and is now squelching around the house like an animate mop. Attempts to dry her have been met with the cat equivalent of "No, Mom, don't wanna," so I figure I'll let her be wet for a little while longer before I bust out the blow-dryer. It's good when you can satisfy your cats with simple inaction. (Much better than being punched awake at 6:30 AM to provide affection, which was how we started our day. The joy of cats.)

My cheeks have swollen to the point that I really, really look like someone's been beating me, making me super-glad that Chris didn't come to hang out today; I would've been afraid to go out of the house in his company, since I try not to get my friends accused of introducing their fists to my face. If there were a zombie walk today, I would so rule the undead dance floor. As it is, I'm taking lots of painkillers and praying that the swelling goes down before I have to go back to work tomorrow morning. And that's the news from the pumpkin patch. What's new and cool in the world of you?

There has once again been a massive influx of people, due to the fact that Alice is adorable—welcome, massive influx of people; it's nice to meet you, although I realize half of you will leave again as you realize that this isn't the all-kitten-doing-weird-stuff, all-the-time channel, and that's fine—I have decided to once again do the abbreviated "here are ten things you might want to know" version of the periodic welcome post. So here it is. Ta-da! (As a footnote, Alice is aware of your worship, and was puffy all over my face at 2AM last night.)

***

1. My name is Seanan McGuire; I'm an author, musician, poet, cartoonist, and amiable nutcase, presently living in Northern California, planning to relocate to Washington at some point in the next few years. I am a very chatty person, whether you're talking literally "we're in the same place" chattiness, or more abstract "someone has left Seanan alone with a keyboard, run for the hills" chattiness. This does not, paradoxically, make me terribly good about keeping up with email or answering comments in anything that resembles a reasonable fashion. We all have our flaws. Luckily for my agent's sanity, I am very good about making my deadlines.

2. My name is pronounced "SHAWN-in", although a great many people elect to pronounce it "SHAWN-anne" instead. Either is fine with me. I went to an event where we all got name tags once, and the person making the name tags was a "SHAWN-anne" person, who proceeded to label me as "Shawn Anne McGuire". I choose to believe that Shawn Anne is my alter-ego from a universe where, instead of becoming an author, I chose to become a country superstar. She wears a great many rhinestones, because they're sparkly, and she can get away with it. Just don't call me "See-an-an" and we'll be fine.

3. I write: urban fantasy, horror, young adult, supernatural romance, and straight chick-lit romance. I occasionally threaten to write medical thrillers, but everyone knows that's just so I'd have an excuse to take more epidemiology courses. I love me a good plague. I believe that editing is a full-contact sport, complete with penalty boxes, illegal checking, and team pennants. My editing team is the Fighting Pumpkins. We're going all the way to the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS this year, bay-bee!

4. I find it useful to keep a record of the status of my various projects, both because it warms the little Type-A cockles of my heart, and because it helps people who need to know what's going on know, well, what's going on. So you'll see word counts and editing updates go rolling by if you stick around, as well as more generalized complaining about the behavior of fictional people. I am told this is entertaining. I am also told that this is possibly a sign of madness. I don't know.

5. I currently publish both as myself, and as my own evil twin, Mira Grant. My first book under my own name, Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], came out from DAW in September 2009. The sequel, A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], is coming out in March 2010, also from DAW. Mira's first book, Feed [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], will be out from Orbit in May 2010. I don't get very much sleep.

6. I am a musician! More specifically, I'm a filk musician. If you know filk, this statement makes total sense. If you don't know filk, think "the folk music of the science fiction and fantasy community"—or you can check out the music FAQ on my website. I have three CDs available: Pretty Little Dead Girl, Stars Fall Home, and Red Roses and Dead Things. I'm currently recording a fourth CD, Wicked Girls, which will be out sometime in 2010. I write mostly original material, and don't spend much time in ParodyLand. It just doesn't work out for me.

7. Things I find absolutely enthralling: giant squid. Plush dinosaurs. Siamese and Maine Coon cats. Zombies. The plague. Pandemic flu. Horror movies of all quality levels. Horror television. Science Fictional Channel Original Movies. Shopping for used books. Halloween. Marvel comics. Candy corn. Carnivorous plants. Pumpkin cake. Stephen King. The Black Death. Pandemic disease of all types. Learning how to say horrifying things in American Sign Language. Diet Dr Pepper.

8. Things I find absolutely horrifying: slugs. Big spiders dropping down from the ceiling and landing on me because ew. Bell peppers. Rice. Movies that consist largely of car chases and do not contain a satisfying amount of carnage. Animal cruelty. People who go hiking on mountain trails in Northern California and freak out over a little rattlesnake. Most sitcoms. A large percentage of modern advertising. Diet Chocolate Cherry Dr Pepper.

9. I am owned by two cats: a classic bluepoint Siamese named Lillian Kane Moskowitz Munster McGuire, and a blue classic tabby and white Maine Coon named Alice Price-Healy Little Liddel Abernathy McGuire. Yes, I call them that, usually when they've been naughty. The rest of the time, they're respectively "Lilly" or "Lil," and either "Alice" or "Ally." I'm planning to get a Sphynx, eventually, when the time comes to expand to having a third cat.

10. I frequently claim to be either a Disney Halloweentown princess or Marilyn Munster. These claims are more accurate than most people realize. Although I wasn't animated in Pasadena.

***

Welcome!

I am a professional. I am aware of what is and is not appropriate conversation for polite company (although I sometimes forget when the topics of "pandemic disease" or "zombies" come up; sadly, I can be goaded into gleeful explanations of latency and droplet-based transmission just about anywhere, including the dinner table). I wear real grown-up shoes when I have to take business meetings, and I have a calm, measured telephone voice.

All this being said, there's a reason I don't usually take phone calls in my house.

The Agent called to discuss my upcoming trip to New York, during which we're going to be doing several dinner-type things, some meeting-type things, and a lot of hanging out. During our forty-minute or so discussion, she was treated to...

"Ow! Ow ow OW! Goddammit, Alice, get your claws out of my fucking leg!"
"No. No, you can't have that. No, that isn't yours. No."
"Get off of there! Jesus, cat, I swear, I will skin you."
"I can get new cats, you know. Better cats. Smaller cats. Cats that don't do that."
"Alice, give back my bra."
"I'm serious, Alice. Give me back my damn bra."
"THAT'S MY FUCKING BRA, CAT!"
"Okay, I give up. Just do whatever the fuck you want."

...all while we were having a serious business discussion. I swear, the fact that she hasn't drowned me and put me out of her misery is something of a miracle.

Hey, guys. Sorry to have been so incredibly scarce recently. Between the Ohio Valley Filk Festival, going through the page proofs for Feed (which killed no fewer than four pads of Post-It notes), getting ready for World Fantasy, and trying to finish a variety of projects before deadline, it's been hectic squared around my place, resulting in a lot of things slipping. (Ironically, my viewing of America's Next Top Model and conquest of "Plants vs. Zombies" are not among the things which have slipped. This is because skinny crazy girls and plant-eating undead don't require all that much thought, while composing a coherent blog entry does.)

So what's been going on? Well, for starters, I have my Advance Review Copies of A Local Habitation, and they're flat-out gorgeous. I'd take a picture of Alice with the books, so you could get an idea of how big she's gotten, but unfortunately, she killed the camera a while ago, and it has yet to be replaced. Seriously, I love these books. I also blush a lot when I look at them, because the back cover and inside page are covered with quotes about Rosemary and Rue being awesome. I always sort of envied authors who got that much good press, and now I am that author. It's weirdly quantum. The Great Pumpkin loves me so.

(Before y'all ask, yes, we will be having a few ARC giveaways. Watch this space for further developments.)

The cats have greatly enjoyed my week off from work. This will not make them any more forgiving when I disappear for the entire weekend, but at least I don't feel quite so neglectful. Alice has been thoroughly brushed, and Lilly "helped" me kill zombies for about an hour last night, by sitting on my lap and occasionally attacking the mouse.

Hope y'all are having a fabulous Halloween season, and that all your bonfires are smoky, your jack-o-lanterns spooky, and your black cats sleek and strange.

1. We're over a month out from the publication of Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], and the book still seems to be going over generally well. It's selling briskly, it's received a lot of positive press, and people look excited about book two. This makes me happy, as I, like all authors, am highly neurotic. (Remember, urban fantasy novels set in San Francisco make the perfect gift for any occasion! Buy two, they're small!)

2. The cover for A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is now up on Amazon, displaying my awesome new front cover blurb from the lovely Ms. Charlaine Harris herself. Yes! She likes my book! I am basically on top of the world right now.

3. Since it gets asked with fair regularity these days: no, "Wicked Girls Saving Themselves" has not been recorded on any of my three currently available albums. It's the title song on Wicked Girls, which is going to be released in late 2010. I don't have a full finalized track list for the album yet, but it's definitely going to include "The Ghost of Lilly Kane," "Writing Again" (by Brian Gunderson of We're About 9), "The True Story Here," and "Counting Crows," among others. The theme for this album is, essentially, the strength to rise above your story.

4. All three of my currently extant albums remain available through CDBaby.com, but I can't promise how long that's going to be the case. My stock assessments are always a bit questionable, given my tendency to discover CDs under the bed, but I'm going to say that there are between 150 and 180 copies of Stars Fall Home remaining, and I'm not currently intending to reprint the album. Pretty Little Dead Girl is in slightly better shape, being the live album and hence a slower seller, but I still wouldn't malinger forever on placing an order, or that order may not be place-able.

5. The cats are reacting to my current illness by behaving like this is Kitty Christmas, and basically running the Blue Cat 500 all around the house. They know I can't do anything to stop them. Remind me again that I actually like my cats? Because I am so not getting that right now.

6. Paging silvertwi. I do not yet have a mailing address for you. You have forty-eight hours to supply me with same, or your prize will go to somebody else.

And now we must rinse.

1. I am about to head off for some fairly major full-anesthesia dental surgery. Why does this matter to you? This matters to you because my computer and my bed are in the same room, and it's entirely possible that I'll roll out from under the covers and decide to be...interactive. Please ignore any...interaction...for the next twenty-four hours, as I will be recovering from sedation, and know not what I say.

2. Alice woke me up by hopping onto my chest and trilling in my ear, only to run like the wind as soon as I showed signs of movement. Behold the sensibility and calm of the teenage Maine Coon.

3. The fall TV season is getting blessedly underway. I, for one, welcome the return of our Winchester overlords. Mmm, Sam and Dean. Actually, just mmm, Dean. How I've missed you. Never leave me like this again.

Mom just showed up to get me to the dentist, so these quick notes are even quicker than originally intended. In the meanwhile, drop by jimhines's place to see the LEGO HORROR CASTLE ZOMG.

That is all.

Well, I survived the weekend, with the assistance of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show that descended upon my house and made my book release parties extra awesome. I'll be posting detailed recaps of the parties later, after I've finished catching up on all the sleep I didn't get over the course of the weekend. (Seriously, right now, my idea of a recap is something like "and then I ate candy corn, and then I signed some books, and look, a bunny," which leaves out rather a lot of important details.)

My cats also survived the weekend, which was rather more in question, since Lilly doesn't like having large crowds between her and me, and Alice is still young enough to get impressively over-stimulated. Lilly spent the first night of the invasion (when we had Betsy in my room, Mia and Ryan in the spare room, and Amy, Brooke, and I in the back room) sleeping on my chest and growling in the back of her throat, Just In Case someone decided to try slitting my throat in the night. When no one attacked me, she moved on to pissy Siamese stage two, Shunning The Human, and provided a great deal of amusement, since she shuns about as well as I drive (and I don't drive). Alice did me the immense favor of being well-behaved and fluffy in front of Betsy, who bred her, and who needed to see her being happy, healthy, and fluffy.

Today has been pretty cool so far. Everybody seems to be getting home safely (always a concern, if you happen to be me), and my house is gradually returning to normal. Since it's Tuesday, I'll be going to Kate's tonight, to eat tasty Indian food, sleep in the basement, and resume my normal existence. I'm very excited by this fact. I like things that are normal (normal to me, anyway). I'm also going to be swinging through the Other Change of Hobbit to see whether they need any additional stock signed, and to confirm the dates for the rescheduled book release party. More information as it becomes available.

Chicks Dig Time Lords is now available for pre-order! Here's a link to the Amazon page. The brain-child of the lovely taraoshea, Chicks Dig Time Lords is a book of essays about being female in Doctor Who fandom, and what the show has meant to more than a few generations of Gallifrey Girls. It was co-edited by rarelylynne. I really loved being a part of this project, and I'm super-excited about it. Doctor Who has been one of my favorite shows since I was three years old. You can get your own copy of Chicks Dig Time Lords on March 15th, 2010—two weeks after you can get your own copy of A Local Habitation!

I'm exhausted, but I seem to be over the horrible plague that hit me just before book release, which is a wonderful thing (as yes, I did fear a relapse). This weekend, I get to hang out with a huge, merry crew over at the Bohnhoff place, and then head into Berkeley to do the Solano Stroll. And oh, right, it's time to get to work on finishing Blackout.

Welcome to fall. Now the work begins.

Dear Great Pumpkin;

With Halloween fast approaching, I felt it important to write and let you know that I have continued to be a very good girl. I have offered advice to people who asked for it, and not offered advice to people who didn't want it. I have allowed others to sample my candy corn without removing their fingers. I have hugged my friends and told my loved ones that I love them. I have not invoked any ancient evils to rise from their graves in the great corn maze and destroy an unsuspecting populace. I have made all my deadlines, even the ones I wanted to miss. And the swine flu still isn't my fault. So you see, I have been a very good girl, especially by my standards.

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

* Wonderful, easy, successful book release parties during which no one sets anybody else on fire. Please, Great Pumpkin, grant me two glorious nights, filled with wonder and joy and lots and lots and lots of book sales, because it turns out that I'm very nervous about this whole thing. Please let me be a Halloweentown Cinderella at the October Ball, only without the glass slippers, and let it all be wonderful. Also, please let there be lots of cookies. I'm a big fan of cookies.

* An easy, or at least not insanely painful, editing process on The Brightest Fell, which is definitely going to need a lot of editing before I hand it over to The Agent, much less The Editor. My first drafts are always excitingly messy, so I'm not particularly worried—the fact that it's book five, and book one just came out, means I have some breathing room—but I really would like breeze through the rewrites, just this once, so that I can get on to Ashes of Honor, preferably before A Local Habitation hits shelves. I will find it much easier to sleep once books four through six are put safely down, and when I sleep, I'm not destroying the world. You like the world, don't you, Great Pumpkin?

* Once again, I must request continued health for my cats, without whom the entire universe would be at risk from my unstoppable wrath. Alice is growing up gloriously beautiful, Great Pumpkin, although I continue to suspect that you may be her actual father (it's either you or an otter, and I oddly find you substantially more plausible). Lilly is continuing to do well with her new "sibling," and seeing the two of them rampaging through my house, destroying things at random, fills my heart with joy.

* Clean, timely page proofs for A Local Habitation and Feed, since right now, I am a blonde without deadlines. I do remember that I promised you three short stories with the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad, as well as the origin stories for Hailey and Scaredy, in exchange for the trilogy sale. I keep my promises. Watch this space for further developments, Great Pumpkin, and thank you again.

* A beautiful fall season. You like the autumn as much as I do, Great Pumpkin, because it is in the autumn that the world truly honors and appreciates your glory. So please, talk to the weather, and make sure that this autumn is one that we'll remember for years to come. And not because the entire state falls into the ocean, or catches fire, or is invaded by flesh-eating locusts from beyond the veil of time. Make this a beautiful, wonderful season, Great Pumpkin, and make it a treat without any tricks. Please.

* Please help me to finish Discount Armageddon in a satisfying, respectful, ass-kicking way, hopefully involving lots of explosions and snappy one-liners. I really want Verity and her family to find a home (and not just so Alice can finally find Thomas), and that means I need to get past the first chapter of their story. What I have so far is actually pretty solid. Please make it amazing.

I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.

PS: You really did amazingly with the house for the Newsflesh trilogy. Thank you so much. You da squash.

1) A lot of new folks have been wandering in over the past few days, probably because of this wacky thing I did called "releasing a book." Hi, new people! If you're wondering just what the hell you've gone and gotten yourself into, I recommend either hitting the "welcome post" tag, which leads to my semi-regular welcome posts, or wait until next Wednesday, when I'll be putting up the September welcome post. Yes, I really am that organized. The alternative is hysterical flailing, and that thread is useless without pictures.

2) Tangentially related, I have my 2010 Franklin-Covey planner pages! There was very nearly hysteria in the Franklin-Covey store, as the clerk who was helping me responded to my request for the Simplicity 2010 daily pages with "Oh, that's been discontinued." When I started to hyperventilate, he mysteriously located my pages in the stockroom. Perhaps he should consider that when you take a job in the OCD porn store, it's not nice to taunt the people who shop there. We're likely to flip out and beat someone to death with a hole punch.

3) The invasion has begun! Amy has been at my house since last week. Over the next few days, Brooke, Vixy and Tony, Betsy, Sooj and K, Rebecca, and Mia and Ryan will all be arriving. (No, they're not all staying with me. I have insufficient house for that sort of invasion.) Alice and Lilly have handled things well so far, what with the pre-invasion cleaning and the imported fiddler. Alice is especially fond of the imported fiddler, and has abandoned me heartlessly to hang out with Amy.

4) When looking for details on upcoming appearances, please remember that all confirmed appearances are listed in great detail on my website Appearances Page. I don't mind answering questions, but especially right now, there can be a pretty lengthy delay between you saying "hey, are you going to be...?" and my actually getting a chance to answer you. Since appearance questions are innately time-sensitive, please, please check the website first. It may save you missing a really awesome party.

5) Again tangentially related, since it's been asked several times: the raffle is Saturday night, at Borderlands. There isn't a raffle scheduled for Friday night, because it wasn't arranged ahead of time (we weren't aware of how many raffle prizes we'd actually have available to us until very recently). So if you want to participate in the raffle, you need to come to the Saturday book party.

6) If you're planning to come to the Saturday book party, remember that you can get an extra raffle ticket by bringing delicious baked goods to share with the rest of the class! Mmmmm, delicious baked goods.

7) Yes, I'll be at OVFF and World Fantasy. No, I won't be at ConChord or Orycon. I have no conventions in 2009 after World Fantasy, and that's a wonderful thing, because I'm intending to take a nap. I miss sleep. My cats miss me sleeping, since they don't have an electric blanket, and without a warm human, they're forced to rely on sunbeams and each other for warmth. Think of the kitties. (Even if Alice is the feline equivalent of a down comforter, she still likes snuggles.)

8) Here's some fun news for you short story and Velveteen fans. First off, I'll have new pieces appearing at the Book View Cafe soon (I had to take a week off, due to book release crazy), including more horror, and maybe even a look at the little town of Rush's Bend, Minnesota. Secondly, "Velveteen vs. the Blind Date" is finally almost finished, and your regularly scheduled dose of superhero strangeness will be rolling into town any day now. I just need to work the last of the bugs (and bears) out before I release it.

9) The turtle couldn't help us.

10) September is only three days old, and already it's been awesome and exhausting and exhilarating and generally terrifying in ways that I've been dreaming of for my entire life. Thank you all for being here, and for not shooting me for all the flailing I've been doing lately. I promise we'll return to normal levels of flail soon.

Now we must rinse.

Alice* is eight months old today. The world has been fortunate enough to experience eight months of Alice.

Alice takes after her big brother, Alligator—the cat who made me realize that I could fall in love with the Maine Coon—in that she is constantly in the water. Her favorite toy is a big metal baking bowl, filled with water. Her second favorite toy is the front hall closet. I come in a mere third...but she loves me, and that's enough.

Alice is a "with" kitty, rather than an "on" kitty. Siamese are almost universally "on" kitties, and I never thought I'd want a "with" kitty, but it's actually strangely soothing to know that whatever room I'm in, Alice is probably going to be in there, too. She sprawls behind my desk chair while I write, putting herself in grave danger, and doesn't seem to care. She just wants to hang out with her human, and be where I am.

Alice hates to have her claws clipped, but is very good about velveting her paws, and has been since the one time she accidentally scratched me hard enough to make me yell. Alice loves to be brushed. We had...issues...this morning, since last night, her brushing was delayed by the arrival of my author's copies, and she hid my glasses by way of revenge. The cats don't see any problem with me being several hours late to work. My day job does not actually agree with them.

Alice is wonderful. I can't imagine going back to living without her.

(*For those of you joining this program already in progress, Alice is my blue classic tabby and white Maine Coon. She joined the household on April 5th, and promptly made herself a fixture. Her full name is Alice Price-Healy Little Liddel Abernathy McGuire. Yes, I really call her that. Yes, she answers.)

Lilly and Alice have figured out that I'm leaving.

This always happens. I try and try to change the obvious signs of impending departure, packing in different rooms, hiding the suitcases, but let's face it: I went and got myself cats from two of the most intelligent breeds of domestic feline, and they know what it means when the cosmetic bags disappear from the bathroom and Mom starts coming around a lot. They put two and two together, come up with five, and devote themselves to making my life a living hell, because if I'm going to leave them, they're going to make me pay. Last night's method of making me pay involved waking me up every twenty minutes. Lilly does this by licking my eyelids. Alice does this by punching me in the face.

I love my cats.

At midnight, I was too tired to cope with any more feline interference, and got up, locking them out of the room. I went back to bed. At one, I was too tired to cope with any more feline interference, and got up, locking them out of the room. I went back to bed. At one-thirty, I was too tired to cope with any more feline interference, and got up, locking them out of the room. I went back to bed. At two...

...I realized that Alice is now long enough to turn the handle on my bedroom door, and that Lilly has understood handles for at least three years. They are conspiring against me to punish me for leaving them.

I am doomed.

I staggered into my house at about half-past eight last night, where I was promptly accosted by angry blue cats who wished me to understand that I Had Sinned, and Must Be Punished. (My punishment consisted primarily of petting the cats, petting the cats some more, and giving Alice a good brushing. Mom had been brushing her in my absence, but Alice wasn't entirely willing to let Mom near her nethers, and as a consequence, there was need for some serious Maine Coon repair before she could really be said to be at her best.) I even managed to partially empty both my suitcases before toppling into the bed like a felled dragon toppling on a poorly-placed knight errant.

The trip home from the convention was reasonably painless. Amanda and Michael delivered Jeanne and I to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and we meandered our way through security and onto the airplane (after a considerable delay, since we were two hours early). I spent most of the flight either dozing fitfully or watching Hannah Montana on the in-flight entertainment system. I should probably have been working on my copy-edits for Feed, but let's face it: there is an event horizon past which all work becomes crap, and I had passed that horizon quite some time previously. Shaun and Georgia should never have a crossover with the cast of Babylon Archer and the Caverns of Ice. I'm just saying.

My mother met me at the airport, and despite horrific traffic on the roads between San Francisco and home, we did not die in a horrible fiery crash. We had dinner at the Wendy's, because we were frankly both too far gone to deal with anything else. (Proof that I was tired: for about half the drive, I was convinced I'd managed to lose my phone. After finding my phone, I lost my credit card. I still can't find my keys.)

Tonight's plan involves taking Toby promo bookmarks to Borderlands Books, along with a stack of the DAW summer samplers, and then going home and getting to work on the heaps and heaps and heaps of stuff that's managed to pile up over the last week. Oh, and another twenty pages of copy-edits for Feed.

My next scheduled nap is in November.

I don't take many baths. Oh, I take a lot of showers, but let's get real, here: baths take a lot of time, and I don't usually have a lot of time to spend on just sitting around in hot water, waiting to become clean. I strip, I scrub, I dry, I get on with it.

Tonight, for various reasons (most of them having to do with my inability to get an appointment at the place where I get my legs waxed, and aren't you glad you asked?), I needed to take a bath. So I did what I always do when it's time for a bath: I dumped a crapload of pumpkin pie bubble bath into the water, got out my pumpkin pie sugar scrub, found my pumpkin-scented loofah, and prepared to become a pretty pretty Halloween princess of the bathroom. I am a simple soul. I enjoy simple things.

Enter Alice.

Alice is a Maine Coon, which really means that she's a magical cross between a cat, an otter, and the Great Pumpkin. The sound of Mommy splashing around in the big white water bowl was too much for her to resist, and she very quickly came to see what I was doing. And then she started batting at the bubbles. And then she started attacking the spray when I splashed at her.

And then she got into the bathtub.

I probably should have seen that coming, all things considered.

Now, I've had cats join me in the bathtub before. This is normally followed by the cat in question learning to levitate as it realizes that HOLY CRAP THAT'S WATER YOU'RE SITTING IN WATER. Not Alice. Nope. Once waterlogged, Princess Puffy-Pants decided it was just as well if she hang out a bit. Help me with whatever it was I was doing. You know. Be a good cat. Help the human.

Things that do not help me shave my legs: blue Maine Coon cats with coats containing approximately a gallon and a half of bathwater. Just in case you were wondering about that. I do, however, now have a pleasantly pumpkin-scented cat, which goes quite well with her overall autumnal glory. Lilly is still looking at her like she's lost her tiny puffy mind, for which I really can't blame her.

Cats. They're awesome. And insane.

Today is Alice's six-month birthday. (She was born on December 19th, 2008.) Today is the day where she officially makes the switch from "my kitten is N weeks old" to "my kitten is N months old," which is always monumental, and a little bit sad. Her baby days are coming to an end. Bring on the slightly psychopathic teenage years!

...only probably not, because Alice remains incredibly mellow, for all that she's the feline equivalent of a college basketball player. She's long, lean, and equipped with miles and miles and miles of tail. Also, puffy. Very, very puffy. Her adult coat is coming in nicely, and while she requires a lot more brushing than she did when she was a tinycat, she's absolutely gorgeous. I'm thrilled.

Alice is my first non-Siamese since Sarah Jane died in 2002, and Sarah Jane was a primarily outside cat. Learning the body language and cues of a new breed has been interesting for the both of us. It helps that Alice and Lilly are both such sweet cats, which means they just sort of sit back and wait for the translation difficulties to be resolved whenever they arise. (They mostly have to do with Who Gets Mommy Right Now. The answer has turned out to be "both of us." It's a good thing I have a lot of lap, or I'd be in some pretty serious trouble.)

In honor of Alice's half-birthday, I'm going to be doing a fuzzy-kitty photo post this weekend, and spent about half an hour last night calmly cropping and re-sizing pictures. I feel faintly guilty; since I didn't have a digital camera when Lilly was a kitten, I already have more pictures of Alice than I have of Lil. Not that Lilly cares particularly. If I want to point the flashy thing at the kitten, she's all for it.

Also in honor of Alice's half-birthday, I did not take my plush octopus away from her when she valiantly killed it and pranced off, trilling, with one tentacle clasped proudly in her mouth. The plush octopus is still almost as big as she is. This won't last.

My cats are weird, but I love them. Happy half-birthday, puffy girl!

* Busier than God.

* Remember, this is a paid LJ, and emailing me is way more likely to get a response than sending something to my LJ inbox. Also, if you send something to my LJ inbox, you'll eventually get a response that includes a cranky request that you not do that anymore. Don't make me cranky. You wouldn't like me when I'm cranky.

* Maine Coons + fun with physics = hysterical win. Lilly observes Alice in her attempts to conquer gravity with an expression of amused disdain, like "I was never that young, that puffy, or that stupid." She's right on one out of three counts.

* DucKon is coming up faster than a runaway freight train bearing down on an innocent young heroine tied to the tracks by a dastardly villain with a curly mustache. I am not ready. I am never ready until my plane leaves the ground, so I'll land in Illinois totally prepared, but right now? Right now, I'm not ready.

* As soon as I get past not being ready for DucKon, I have to start not being ready for the San Diego International Comic Convention. Where I am going to be a professional this year. Me. A pro. At Comicon. Did I mention that I think I may have sold my soul at the crossroads?

* I am here, I am responsive, I am doing my best to stay on top of the mountain. Please forgive delays.

The pumpkin-fucker orange* cat tree in my bedroom comes equipped with a little loop from which dangly toys can be suspended, allowing the cats to amuse themselves once in a while. I treasure the dangly toy loop, as without it, I would have serious difficulty ever being allowed to do anything that didn't involve feather toys and claws. Since the cat tree's installation, the dangly toy on the tree has been Mr. Happy Dangle Fish, Esq. Pictures of Mr. Happy Dangle Fish have been posted here, generally showing him locked in mortal combat with Alice, who seemed endlessly game to battle her piscean rival. Until last night.

Last night, she killed Mr. Happy Dangle Fish.

(*This is a technical term.)

I wasn't home to witness the actual murder. I returned to the house to find Mr. Happy Dangle Fish lying in the hallway, his string cruelly sundered (in a way which made repair impractical), the plush flesh of his belly rent along one of the seams from what I can only imagine was a cataclysmic collision with the floor. Weep for Mr. Happy Dangle Fish, who will never more dangle his happy way among us.

Alice was initially confused by Mr. Happy Dangle Fish's sudden failure to dangle, and then, as she realized he wasn't coming back, became more and more distraught. We're talking "full-out mourning for the plush fish on a string." She worked herself into a lather worthy of a contestant on America's Next Top Model. After climbing to the top of the cat tree, she would wail mournfully, bat at the inch-and-a-half of string that remained, wail again, bat again, look to make sure I was watching, flop over on her side, moan like she was dying, and then—surprise, surprise—start over from the beginning. It was my very own personal soap opera. Complete with fluff.

Eventually, I got tired of listening to Alice's Shakespearean monologue mourning the death of her dangle, and went searching for the backup dangle (the tree came with two, because the manufacturers are smart). I eventually found it cunningly hidden on the stuffed animal shelf, and began trying to install it. Issue: installing the new dangle meant touching the sacred string. I was profaning the memory of Mr. Happy Dangle Fish! I was a heathen! Alice promptly attacked my fingers. Vigorously.

It took roughly five minutes to remove the broken string and get Ms. Happy Dangle Mouse tied to the cat tree...at which point Alice immediately forgot her grief in the ecstasy of having a new enemy to attack. She and Ms. Happy Dangle Mouse were still engaged in the dance of death when I put in my earplugs and went to bed.

Ah, cats. Because apparently, our lives contained too much sane before.

Item the first: at least four—yes, four, which is a number higher than two, so yay—reviewers/bookstores have received their ARCs of Rosemary and Rue, along with the snazzy watercolor cards that Alice so helpfully "helped" me finish. Thank you, Alice. Thank you so very, very much. (As an Alice-related sub-item, my puffy Halloween ball of trouble turned twenty weeks old yesterday, and celebrated her failure to get sucked into the vacuum cleaner by falling off the cat tree. Again. Maine Coons, unlike boa constrictors, have gravity.)

Item the second: Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon will not be attending BayCon this year, due to being really, really sick. Nobody's dying, I don't have all the details, and also, I didn't do it. If I were going to start the pandemic, there are other people I'd target first, and I'd have published my cackling manifesto by now. "Yay, swine flu!" does not count as a cackling manifesto, it counts as a really weird idea of what constitutes entertainment.

Item the third: speaking of entertainment, Kate and I watched the season finales for two of our season-pass shows last night—America's Next Top Model and Fringe. (Never let it be said that I am ashamed of my taste in anything.) One of the girls on this season of ANTM was totally a Toby-universe Daoine Sidhe, I swear. Real people aren't supposed to have ElfQuest eyes, but she somehow managed to pull it off. I will miss you, freaky alien-elf-eyed girl! Although I won't miss the nightmares you gave me about Toby tracking me down with a pair of pliers and a smile!

Item the fourth: So You Think You Can Dance returns to television tomorrow night. In supposedly unrelated news, I'm getting ready to get back to work on Discount Armageddon. Hmmmm...

Item the fifth: Dawn Metcalf to the white courtesy phone, dawn_metcalf to the white courtesy phone. It has now been forty-eight hours, and I still don't have a mailing address for you. If I don't hear from you within the next twenty-four hours, I will be choosing a new winner for the signed cover flat of Rosemary and Rue. In actually related news, the poetry contest to win an ARC of Rosemary and Rue is still going. Please drop by and vote, if you haven't already.

Item the sixth: I am still the Rain King.

Having been asked to provide personal notes to go with my personal list of places I knew needed to receive ARCs of Rosemary and Rue, and being the balanced, reasonable, under-achieving person that I am, I decided to slack off, and just fill in some pre-printed mad libs...and if you actually think that's true, you should really go take a look at my website. "Balanced, reasonable, and under-achieving" is about as accurate a description as "made of enchanted pumpkin pie, stapled together by magical weasels from the moon." (Actually, the latter description may be more accurate. I like pumpkin pie...) Viewing this as an excuse to acquire new art supplies (always an aspiration of mine), I promptly went to the art supply store, where I acquired...

* Two packs of watercolor greeting card blanks
* A new set of gorgeous watercolors in a cunning stack
* Two new watercolor brushes

...yes, I probably ought to seek help, but I really don't care. I am a content and comfortable addict, whose habits mostly just inconvenience my capacity to put anything away. I've spent a comfortable week composing, sketching, and painting watercolor "thank you for reading" notes to be sent off to my publisher. Since I really wanted to get them into the mail today, I spent about two hours last night doing a watercolor marathon as I finished off the detailing on the various cards.

Enter Alice.

Alice loves water. Watercolors are, surprisingly enough, largely based on what? On water. So Alice thinks that me doing watercolors is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that she really wants to help. Guess what doesn't actually help me do fine detail watercolors? Wow. Good guess.

Step one, set up watercolor station. Take brushes away from Alice.
Step two, start working. Discover that Alice is drinking the water I use to clean my brushes. Take water away from Alice.
Step three, clean brushes. Discover that Alice is now drinking the purple paint. Take paint away from Alice.
Step four, reassure self that yes, this is non-toxic paint.
Step five, discover that Alice is now licking the paint off one of the envelopes. Take envelope away from Alice.
Step six, put Alice off the couch.
Step seven, put Alice off the couch.
Step eight, give up and let her drink the damn paint water if she really wants to. At least she's not drinking the actual paint.
Step nine, discover that Alice is now a blue classic tabby and purple and orange and green.
Step ten, put everything away on a very high shelf, resolve never to work in oil paints.

My cards are done, and you can barely tell how much "help" I got. And since the paint is non-toxic and Lilly loves bathing Alice (whether she needs it or not), everything is basically back to normal. Except, perhaps, my nerves.

Alice is four months old today (she was born on December 19th). I say my kitten is four months old, and people immediately form certain assumptions about her size. I'm sorry to say it, but these assumptions are, almost invariably, incorrect.

The following picture was taken earlier today.

( We cut because we care. Also because large graphics are never a good surprise, not even when they're pictures of beautiful kitties.Collapse )

For those of us in the continental United States, today is Tax Day: the day when it becomes more physically unsafe to be in the immediate vicinity of a post office than it is to be in the middle of the mall on Christmas Eve. Because I am a merciful human being who understands that angry mobs, like other natural disasters, sometimes just happen, I have elected to celebrate Tax Day in the most sensible way possible.

To whit: cat pictures. Today we're focusing on Alice, because you aren't as tired of looking at her yet.

( 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 )

Over the past week, my house has developed two new bathroom-based rules. First off, even if you just dropped a tissue into the water, you need to flush. I don't care if it wastes water. If you're that worried about wasting water, throw your tissues in the trash, not the toilet. Second off, close the lid. Not the seat; the lid. Why?

Because Alice, like so many Maine Coons, likes to play with water. And the toilet? Is full of water. Once your nasty tissue has been in my toilet, I don't particularly want the cat to fish it out and bring it to me, thanks.

Last night, when I got home from work, I performed the standard checks—are both cats present? Are both cats breathing? Have they managed to break anything large and/or visible? After confirming yes, yes, and no, I went about my business. At some point during the "business" part of the program, Alice wandered off to do kitten things. This didn't concern me much; kittens are mysterious creatures, and spend a lot of time off doing kitten things, which usually end with a loud crash and a startled-looking puffball racing back into the bedroom. No big deal.

After I'd finished unpacking my bags, scanning some art cards, and eating dinner, I proceeded to the bathroom. The toilet lid was down. Repeat: the toilet lid was down, indicating safety. I began to sit.

The toilet said, inquisitively, "Mrph?"

Having seen approximately eight hundred hours-worth of horror cinema in my lifetime, I was once more fully dressed in less than five seconds. Furthermore, I was standing in the bathtub, that being the furthest I could reasonably get from the toilet without having the presence of mind to flee the bathroom entirely. I looked into the toilet bowl. Alice, balled calmly in the bottom of it, looked back. Meet my kitten, the TOILET SHARK.

I got her to leave the toilet by putting a few inches of water in the tub and encouraging her to play with that instead. She happily submerged several of her feather toys and went off to coax Lilly into the bath. Lilly, being, I don't know, an actual cat, was having none of it. (Alice got her comeuppance later, when her aquatic adventures required her to have a good brushing. Somehow, I doubt this is going to make her learn.) At least I know why she's damp all the damn time...

You know, the horror movies of the 1980s taught me to check toilets before I sat down, because they might contain monsters. It took me years to break this habit, thinking it was a foolish fear. Shows what I know. In conclusion, when you come over to my place...

...look down before you pee. You might be sorry if you don't.

So as most people probably noticed, I spent the last several days in Seattle, Washington. Why did I go to Seattle? Well, it let me spend time with my beloved Vixy and Tony, meet Cat Valente for the first time -- an important introduction, given that she's going to be staying with me later in the month -- hang out with SJ Tucker and the fabulous K, do an author photo shoot with Ryan, and talk venison with Dimitri. I even got to join Kitten Sundae for two numbers during their Saturday night concert (Vixy and Tony's "Thirteen," and my own "Evil Laugh"). But none of these things were the point of my trip.

No, the point of my trip was seeing Betsy and Dave Tinney, the owners of Pinecoon Maine Coons. Dave is the Master of the Salad of Doom; Betsy is, in addition to being one of my favorite wicked girls, and a subject-matter expert for the ballroom sequences in Discount Armageddon, the cello player for Tricky Pixie and Kitten Sundae. They're wonderful, enjoyable, delightfully multi-talented people...

...and they had my kitten. Alice -- short for Alice Price-Healy Little Liddel Abernathy McGuire (points if you can source all the names). A blue classic tabby with white, Alice is my first Maine Coon. We flew home this morning, and while she wasn't an angel on the plane, she wasn't a devil, either. She only cried during takeoff and landing, and is now merrily exploring the room, having had a snack, a drink, a nap, and an exciting adventure with the pumpkin-fucker orange cat tree.

I have two cats again.

Because Lilly and Alice are "unusual breeds" for many people, despite being gorgeous representatives of two of the most popular breeds of cat in the country (the most recent rankings put the Maine Coon at number two, and the Siamese at number three), they now have their own page on my website, giving a breed overview as well as a quick overview of the cats themselves.

They've met briefly, and while they weren't immediate soulmates or anything, they also didn't attack each other. So I'm calling it a win for now. We're home, we're safe, and the world is good.

Yay.

Well, I'm in Seattle, I have my new kitten, and I have my camera. This means that I have a moral obligation to provide a cat photo post, as failure to do so may get me smacked by a variety of people. Since most of you have never "met" Alice before, I'm starting with my earliest photos of her, and moving on from there. Also, as a special treat for all you dog fans (and Jim Hines fans, and fans of my mother), I'm including the first-ever posted pictures of Smudge.

Onward to the adorable!

( 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 )

After a completely uneventful flight -- my in-flight entertainment deck was busted, so I put on my iPod, cued up my "all 'Rain King,' all the time" playlist, which is ninety-plus minutes of versions of the same song, put my head down, and passed out -- I landed safely in Seattle at a little past eleven o'clock last night. I was promptly met by Satyr and Sandi, the editors of Ravens in the Library, as well as good friends of mine, who bore me boldly off to Chez Tinney, hence to be united with my new giant feline companion.

(Alice is, in fact, giant. She's more than doubled in size since the last time I saw her, and may actually be bigger than my mother's new puppy, Smudge. She's also fluffy as hell, and possessed of the world's plumiest tail. I'm afraid there may be truth to my mother's accusation of my desire for a Maine Coon being born partially out of tail withdrawal.)

Today, my plans include "finishing the new Vel story" and "dealing with kitten contracts," as well as a healthy, happy dose of "work on art cards." Life is pretty good. I'll be here in the Pacific Northwest through Sunday, when I'll fly home to begin the laborious process of introducing Lilly and Alice to one another. Since they're both pretty mellow cats with vast amounts of fur, I'm not anticipating much trouble, although you should be anticipating kitten pictures sometime early in the next week.

Oh, and since I seem to have forgotten to announce it -- my mother got a puppy! Her name is Smudge, after jim_hines's fabulous fire spider, and she's gorgeous. She's half Malamute, half Rottweiler, and has those amazing crystal blue Malamute eyes. She was taken from her mother too young, but I've hand-raised kittens, and was able to bully my mother into going to the pet store for puppy formula. (I try not to bully my mother. But when the puppy's too young, we buy it the formula. This is how the game works.) Smudge is doing fabulously, and she's getting bigger by the day. We're introducing her to Lilly a little at a time, since she's likely to accompany my mother when Mom comes over to clean at my place.

So I'm safe, alive, and doing just fine, thanks to the wonderful people at Virgin America and their wonderful flying machines. How's everybody else, out there in the world? I lack deep thoughts today. Give me yours.

10. Betsy -- aka "the breeder from whom I am purchasing my new Maine Coon" -- emailed me last night to get the last of the information she needs to fill out Alice's health certificate. (The airlines require you to have a health certificate for any animal you wish to carry onto a plane; something about not really wanting to deal with a rabies outbreak at thirty thousand feet. This just shows that they don't want me to have any fun.) So it's officially official, and I'll be bringing home my new baby girl this weekend. Perhaps then Lilly will allow me to sleep through the night. Unlikely, but a girl can dream, right?

9. The word counts have been missing lately because I've been continuing to hammer on the reboot to Late Eclipses, trying to yank the book into alignment with the awesome I know it truly has the potential to be. I'm about a quarter of the way through the text at this point, and things really are becoming visibly more and more awesome. We haven't reached the point in the revisions process where I can no longer make fair and measured assessments of quality, and that's good.

8. People everywhere are getting their copies of Ravens In the Library, and while I haven't seen any full-length critical reviews, I'm generally seeing positive reactions to the book itself. (I am, of course, primarily interested in seeing the book do well, because it's for an excellent cause, and in being my usual neurotic little blonde self about reactions to my story. But at least I'm up-front about it, which makes it a little less crazy-making.) Remember, the book will only be available until Sooj's medical bills are fully covered.

7. I have registered for World Fantasy, booked my hotel room for San Diego, applied for professional membership to San Diego, and arranged for hotel space in Montreal. I am, in short, basically done with my convention arrangements between now and August. (BayCon is local enough to require little pre-planning on my part, while Duckon is taking care of all the arrangements for me, on account of I'm one of their guests. It's nice.) I'm always happier when I know that things have been set up as far in advance as humanly possible.

6. Zombies are still love.

5. In the last several weeks, my website has gone from "idle" to "awesome," with almost all our functionality now up and online. The only things still pending are the forums and the mailing list, and both these are being held up by issues on the server side, which we're working to resolve. (Getting the forums up and functional now gives my mods time to try to break them before I'm banned from that part of the site nigh-completely. Planning ahead. It's what's for dinner.)

4. While I'm still not sleeping nearly enough, thank you Lilly, I feel somewhat less like a corpse today than I did yesterday, probably at least in part because I forced myself to go to bed immediately after Big Bang Theory last night. Nothing says "a good night's sleep" like adorable physics geeks and inking before turning in. Although losing my pencil for half the episode really didn't help.

3. I have seriously not read a book that was anything short of awesome in the past week. They were YA and adult, mainstream, fantasy, horror, and science fiction, and all made of pure, unadulterated awesome. If all books were as good as the ones I've been reading, the bar would be set so high we'd need a telescope to see it. I couldn't be happier with my recent reading choices. I really couldn't.

2. In two days, I go to Seattle. In three days, I see my Vixy. In four days, I see Kitten Sundae live and in concert. And in five days, I get to take Alice home with me, thus ruining everything, in the nicest way. (Obligatory Jonathan Coulton reference for the quarter!)

...and the number one good thing about today...

1. My life is so wonderful right now. I'm tired, I'm grumpy, and I'm inclined to smack anyone who pokes me with a stick, but at the end of the day, even I can't pretend that my life isn't amazing. Rosemary and Rue is well on its way to publication, and according to Amazon, 90% of the people who visit the page are buying the book. Lilly and Alice are both healthy. My back is behaving itself remarkably well, and spring is springing up all around me, making my normal walking habits much less crazy. I have the best friends in the world -- everyone should have the best friends in the world, because it makes everything better -- and I own more bad horror movies than I could watch in a lifetime. The world is wonderful.

I think we're gonna be all right. So what's new and awesome in the world of you?