I am home from Spokane, Washington, where I had a fabulous time as Spocon 2010's Music Guest of Honor. I'll actually post about it later, when I'm fully awake and capable of thoughts beyond "shower good, port pretty." For right now, have a roundup of the review links that came in while I was offline.

quippe has posted a review of Rosemary and Rue on Livejournal's own Urban Fantasy Fan community, and says "Seanan McGuire's novel, the first in a series, is an entertaining introduction to a carefully constructed urban fantasy world where Fae and humans live an awkward side-by-side existence." Also, "An interesting urban fantasy whose central character is very different to the type usually found in this type of fiction and a carefully constructed world with a huge amount of potential, this is an entertaining novel and I will be reading more of this series."

quippe has also posted a review of Feed, and says "Mira Grant has created a world where zombies and technology exist simultaneously and her carefully thought through society was a joy to read. Although the mystery element was a little too perfunctory and played second string to the world-building, the book ends with a set-up for the mystery to be developed in the sequel and I shall definitely be reading it."

Over at Book Addicts, a review of Feed has been posted, and says "The night I finished Feed, slept with my living room lights on because I couldn't handle sleeping in a completely dark apartment. I knew the dangers going into this when I picked up a book about Zombies, but I plunged in anyways. Yes, the size of the book is a little intimidating, but...just read it. The hooks go in and you’re dragged through this book like being dragged behind a boat on nothing more substantial than a piece of cardboard. It's terrifying and thrilling and we won't talk about the boat-and-cardboard-incident."

Yay! There's also a fun new interview with me-as-Mira, where some totally new questions were asked. It's well-worth checking out. Plus, it comes with an awesome contest. Take a look!

...okay, back to Toby. There's a new review of Rosemary and Rue up at All Things Urban Fantasy, which says "Rosemary and Rue, which gets its title from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale, is a gritty and glorious true urban fantasy. I defy you to put this book down after the first chapter." Wow! Also, "Overall, Rosemary and Rue shocked me with how good it was." Double-wow!

Finally (for right now), Miss Geeky has reviewed Feed, and she says, "I really enjoyed Feed and I'm now really curious to what else Mira Grant has written (this is her first book as Grant, but she also writes as Seanan McGuire). Feed has a great story, which sucks you completely in. And it's got a fascinating world to discover along the way."

Well, folks, that's the weekend. I will now stagger off to bed. Tomorrow, I'll pretend to be coherent.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

So before we get too far from the convention, a few high (and low) points of San Diego 2010. Because otherwise, y'all will beat me with bricks in a dark alley somewhere, and I just don't have time for that.

This year, I was able to import Tara and Amy (webmistress and fiddler, respectively), and the three of us shared a room with Sunil (media madman) at the Gaslamp Marriott. Not only were we less than a five minute walk from the convention center, allowing us to easily drop things off in our room, but the hotel gave us free candy. Right there at the front desk, free candy. Amy and I decided that we were having the convention experience we would have designed for ourselves at age seven. Except for the drinking, this was probably true for the entire weekend.

Rebecca and Ryan were kind enough to pick me up from the airport; after they dropped me off, Amy and I went to get our badges while the car went back for Tara and Sunil (landing two hours later than I did). Hilarity and admission followed. Tara went off to hang with her friends, while Sunil, Amy, and I went to see an improv performance by Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. They were decent, and the show was fun (especially since Amy got me a Long Island Iced Tea). The only real downside was Sunil accidentally ditching us while we were in the bathroom, but we went and met Rebecca and Ryan for Wendy's, so there was really no bad there.

Thursday was my first panel, The Power of Myth, which was a lot of fun, as was the signing which followed. I gave Amber Benson a copy of An Artificial Night, which she thanked me for, as now she would not be required to steal it. Tara, Amy, and I had lunch with Tanya Huff at the Cafe Diem, because the Cafe Diem is awesome. I also shopped. A lot. I enjoy shopping. I got a White Phoenix Jean Gray doll for my cover designer at Orbit, because I believe in bribery, yo. It was fun!

Thursday evening, Tanya, Tara, and I attended the Brilliance Audio author dinner, which I spent drinking Mai Tais, eating interesting things, and chatting with Phil and Kaja Foglio. My life, so hard.

Friday was my booth signing at Orbit, during which I signed a hundred copies of Feed. In the process, I drew ninety-nine tiny chainsaws, and one tiny Godzilla destroying a city. Again, my life, so hard. I had to miss the X-Men panel to do the signing (wah!), but I was able to attend the panel on James Gunn's Super (he needs to call me), which looks totally awesome. I had a second signing at the SFX booth later in the afternoon, and we gave away another fifty copies of Feed, one to the creator of Being Human. Totally awesome.

Friday evening, Tanya, Amy, and I attended the Penguin FangFest, which I spent drinking pineapple mojitos, eating cupcakes, and chatting with awesome authors. I finally met Charlaine Harris in the flesh, and it was hysterical. Exchange as follows:

Me: "Hi, it's great to finally meet you. I'm Seanan."
Charlaine: *politely blank look*
Me: *displays name tag*
Charlaine: "SHAWN-ANNE!"

*hugging*

I love having a weird name. After that, we went to the Boom! party, where I met Paul Cornell and his lovely wife, Caroline. Paul is one of my favorite humans, as he shares my love of the Black Death and giant flesh-eating lizards. I'm just saying.

Saturday was my second panel, The Rise of Zombie Fiction, which was a) mad fun, and b) reinforced my desire to write up a handbook for people doing panels at this sort of thing. Priscille from Books for Boobs came to the signing in a perfect Delirium costume, and I tried to eat her plush bear. Amy and I managed to catch the Warehouse 13 panel (Allison Scagliotti for Georgia Mason, anybody?), and then went off to dinner with John Grace at a very nice steak house. They served me port. MY LIFE, SO HARD.

Sunday, it was goodbyes and final shopping runs, and Tara and I had breakfast with Paul and Caroline before Amanda and Michael came to carry me away.

It was a good con. This writeup does not include hiding behind Anton, getting awesome swag and buttons from Rae, lots of hugging, accidental soda-based encounters, the dissolution of the Sacred Order of the Deli, ice cream, Gini Koch, late-night sammiches with Tanya, awesome dealer's room finds, free books, cheap books, expensive books, cookies, the art show, or repeat encounters with Felicia Day. But it does include a lot of awesome.

Also, if anyone came away from the con with a spare Sanctuary T-shirt, I am open to trades. Just saying.

The combination Westercon/Conchord was wonderful, and I had an amazing time, full of joy and delight and wonder. I am so very grateful to have been their Music Guest of Honor. As is the standing tradition around here, I now present my concert set list, including annotation and lyric links, because that's what makes it useful.

The Westercon/Conchord list, with arrangement notes, was as follows:

1. "Counting Crows." (Seanan, vocals; Paul Kwinn, guitar; Maya Bohnhoff, backing vocals.)
2. "Mama Said." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar; Maya, backing vocals; Beckett Gladney, harmonica.)
3. "This Is My Town." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar; Maya, Paul, backing vocals.)
4. "The Snow Queen Dreams." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar.)
5. "Jack's Place." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar; Maya, backing vocals.)
6. "Fox Hunt." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar; Maya, backing vocals; Beckett, harmonica.)
7. "Death Danced at My Party." (Lyrics and music, Talis Kimberley; Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar; Maya, backing vocals.)
8. "Maybe It's Crazy." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar.)
9. "Vampire Slayer Blues." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar, bastard Watcher.)
10. "What a Woman's For." (Seanan, Maya, vocals; Paul, guitar, innocent scientist.)
11. "Dear Gina." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar; Maya, backing vocals.)
12. "My Story Is Not Done." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar; Maya, backing vocals.)
13. "Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves." (Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar; Maya, backing vocals.)

ENCORE: "When I Go." (Lyrics and music, Dave Carter; Seanan, vocals; Paul, guitar, vocals; Beckett, harmonica.)

The bridge for "Wicked Girls" was...

"Now Beckett's an artist, and Vixy's run off with the fairies,
And Kathleen keeps careful account of the treasure she buries,
Sue poses riddles, and Kristine plays tricks,
While Maya sings songs, see which one that she picks,
And the rules that we live by are simple and clear..."

It was a very good set, and I enjoyed it immensely. Thanks again to the sound crew, for keeping everything running silky-smooth, and to my stunt musicians, who went above and beyond the call of duty.

As always: "This Is My Town" is on Pretty Little Dead Girl and Stars Fall Home. "Maybe It's Crazy," "What A Woman's For," and "Dear Gina" are on Red Roses and Dead Things ("Maybe It's Crazy" is also on Pretty Little Dead Girl). "Vampire Slayer Blues" is on Pretty Little Dead Girl. "Counting Crows," "Mama Said," "The Snow Queen Dreams," "Jack's Place," "Fox Hunt," "My Story Is Not Done," and "Wicked Girls" will be on Wicked Girls.

"When I Go" is on When I Go, by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammar. "Death Danced at My Party" is not currently available.

Thanks again to everyone who was there, to Westercon/Conchord for having me, and to Nick, for excellence in cat-herding as he wrangled Kwinns, McGuires, and many, many more.

See you next con!

I am returned from the wilds of Pasadena, where a fantastic time was had by all! I bought shinies from Springtime Creations and books from Book Universe; I ate tasty food and drank a lot of Diet Dr Pepper; I survived an entire convention with my mother firmly in tow, which may well qualify as one of the tasks of Hercules. Things I have learned: If I want to be two hours early for anything, I need to start saying we're late three and a half hours ahead of time. Also, most people consider my idea of "reasonable walking distance" to be entirely insane. But I sort of knew that part already.

My concert was fantastic, thanks entirely to the sound crew, Paul Kwinn, my handsome (and talented) stunt guitarist, and Maya Bohnhoff, my lovely (and talented) stunt...um, well, stunt Vixy. Gosh, I miss Vixy when I have to do a concert without her, but Maya really helped to make that loss a little less sorely felt. My great, great thanks go out to everyone involved with making it an awesome event. I am so honored to have had the chance to perform for you. Also, big thanks to Rebecca, who picked me and Mom up from the airport, drove us back to the airport, and really spent a distressing amount of the weekend in my company.

I'll post the full set list soon, but I just want to note that I covered Talis Kimberley's "Death Danced at My Party," at Paul's request, and it was awesome. Maya found a totally creepy harmony, and I just sang the shit out of that song. I am so happy to know such talented and amazing people.

I met Tim Powers, Todd McCaffrey, Stephen Blackmoore (newest member of the DAW family!), his lovely blue-haired wife Kari, and Ryan's new kitten, Mouse. I ate way too much challah. I came home to blue cats who hated me for about four minutes before snuggling and reassurances became way, way more important.

It was a good weekend.

I have finally managed to stagger home from Marcon, where I had a wonderful time as their Music Guest of Honor, only to get stranded overnight in Chicago (more on this later). As is the standing tradition around here, I now present my concert set list, including annotation and lyric links, because that's what makes it useful.

The Marcon list, with arrangement notes, was as follows:

1. "Counting Crows." (Seanan, vocals; Tom Smith, guitar; Amy McNally, fiddle.)
2. "The Ghost of Lilly Kane." (Seanan, vocals; Dr. Mary Crowell, piano.)
3. "Another Mad Science Love Song." (Seanan, Tom, vocals; Tom, guitar; Mary, Amy, minions.)
4. "What A Woman's For." (Seanan, Mary, Amy, vocals; Mary, piano.)
5. "Missing Part." (Seanan, vocals; Tom, guitar; Amy, fiddle.)
6. "The Black Death." (Seanan, vocals; Tom, guitar; Amy, Mary, eager students.)
7. "Silent Hill." (Seanan, vocals; Mary, piano.)
8. "Dear Gina." (Seanan, Mary, vocals; Mary, piano.)
9. "In the Foam." (Seanan, vocals.)
10. "Mother of the Crows." (Seanan, vocals; Mary, piano; Amy, fiddle.)
11. "Still Catch the Tide." (Seanan, Judi Miller, vocals; Mary, piano; Amy, fiddle.) Talis Kimberley cover.
12. "My Story Is Not Done." (Seanan, vocals; Mary, piano; Amy, fiddle; everybody, last chorus vocals.)
13. "Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves." (Seanan, vocals; Mary, piano; Amy, fiddle.)

The bridge for "Wicked Girls" was...

"Now Debbie's a pirate, and Vixy's run off with the fairies.
Diana keeps careful account of the treasure she buries,
Kate poses riddles, and Mary plays tricks,
While Amy calls music from wires and sticks,
And the rules that we live by are simple and clear..."

This was the first time I was able to perform with Tom Smith on stage, and I was honored and delighted by Mary's willingness to pitch in and do rather more piano than she had originally agreed to. This was also the first time I got to sing with Judi, and have an entire concert set signed by her. The way she signs "Wicked Girls" is...magic. It's just magic.

As always: "Still Catch the Tide" is on Stars Fall Home. "The Black Death," "What A Woman's For," "Another Mad Science Love Song," "Dear Gina," and "Silent Hill" are on Red Roses and Dead Things. "Counting Crows," "The Ghost of Lilly Kane," "Mother of the Crows," "My Story Is Not Done," and "Wicked Girls" will be on Wicked Girls.

This was a great set; thanks to everyone who was there, to Marcon for having me, and to Kate, for running the merchandise table with grace and aplomb.

See you next con!

My flight from Montreal (technically from Boston, since it was a two-stage trip home) touched down in San Francisco last night at approximately nine-thirty, safely reuniting me with the state of my birth. Hooray! My mother collected me from the baggage claim area, shortly before we collected my suitcase from the baggage carousel, and we took off for the East Bay.

The trip itself was somewhat more...exciting...than I tend to prefer, involving as it did a twenty-minute connection that required me to sprint most of the way across Boston Airport. I was crying and hyperventilating by the time I hit the security gate for United Airlines, which, thankfully, caused security to be very nice to me, and got me to my plane on time. (Also, it exhausted me enough to spend most of the six-hour trip to California totally unaware of the world around me.)

Mom and I stopped for dinner at Denny's, since the particular structure of my trip home had denied me the option to eat. I miss the days of bad airplane meals that at least contained calories...

WorldCon was fabulous, and I'll post about it later, when I leave the "fire bad, tree pretty" stage of cognition. Big thanks to my fabulous roommates, Merav, Jon, and Susan; to John, for picking me up from the airport; to Deanne, for giving me a place to crash for a few hours before the fun really got started; and to the entire DAW Mafia, without which I would have been entirely lost.

Next year...AUSTRALIA.

Naturally, one of the topics discussed at the SDCC was "how are we going to market and position the Mira Grant books?" Toby is, in some ways, a much easier property to position; she's urban fantasy, straight up, with a noir shaker and a twist of lime. (The lime is cursed, but that's beside the point.) Do I think that Toby is new and different and exciting, and deserves a place on your bookshelf? Of course I do. I'm the author. But the urban fantasy community is huge and healthy enough that it's reasonably non-traumatic to find reviewers and readers, say "look, shiny," and actually get their attention.

The Newsflesh trilogy, on the other hand, is weird distopian zombie horror science fiction. I was describing it to people as "what happens when you cross Transmetropolitan, The West Wing, and The Night of the Living Dead." I consider Feed to be one of the best things I've ever written, but that doesn't mean I think it's the world's easiest thing to market effectively, since "please watch seven seasons of a television drama and the works of George Romero, and read this really cool but pretty long comic book series, and then you'll totally want to read my book" doesn't actually work as a strategy. Although it would be awesome.

So we talked marketing and positioning and various other fun things ending with "ing," and I started looking at the various marketing strategies playing out around the convention with a bit more of a critical eye. It helped that this year's con played host to the single most brilliant piece of unusual marketing I've seen in a long time:

Syfy created the Cafe Diem.

The Cafe Diem is a major location on Eureka, showing up in almost every episode. Syfy took over a local diner, completely rebranding it to match their fictional restaurant. The menus, the logos, the waitstaff, everything was transformed into a little slice of Eureka, the smartest small town on Earth. They had monitors throughout the restaurant showing Syfy bumpers and sizzle reels for the various shows, and it was sheer brilliance in marketing. I probably couldn't tell you any real details of the "big media" booths inside the convention...but I'm going to remember the Cafe Diem for years.

The folks responsible for the promo for 9—the new Tim Burton-produced "stitchpunk" movie—also deserve a round of applause: they had clearly-labeled runners scattered through the convention, handing out con-exclusive cards. If you got all eight of the character cards, you could start looking for The Machine. If you found The Machine, and got his card, you could win a prize. The prize had a time limit, and Jeanne and I didn't much care about it anyway; what we wanted was The Machine's card. We seriously spent hours upon hours searching for The Machine, and when we found him, triumph and victory were ours. This, too, made more of an impression on me than all the bored-looking half-naked women in the world.

Being innovative with promotion is hard, especially at a place like the San Diego Comic-Con, where the signal to noise ration is just insane. Thinking about it is interesting, though, and I have some fun ideas. Sadly, none of them involve taking over a diner.

Yet.

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.

As has become the tradition around here, I present the set list for my latest concert. Complete with annotation and lyric links. Because I'm kind like that.

The DucKon set list, with arrangement notes, was as follows:

1. "I Am." (Seanan, lead vocals; Tony Fabris, guitar.)
2. "Counting Crows." (Seanan, lead vocals; Michelle 'Vixy' Dockrey, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy McNally, electric fiddle.)
3. "Fox Hunt." (Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy, acoustic fiddle.)
4. "Mama Said." (Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy, acoustic fiddle.)
5. "Take Advantage (of Me)." (Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony, guitar.)
6. "In This Sea." (Seanan, Vixy, lead vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy, fiddle.)
7. "Oh, Michelle." (Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy, fiddle; Brooke Lunderville, BANJO!)
8. "What A Woman's For." (Seanan, Vixy, Amy, lead vocals; Tony, guitar.)
9. "The Black Death." (Seanan, epidemiology; Vixy, Amy, lab assistants; Tony, guitar.)
10. "Dear Gina." (Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony, guitar.)
11. "Carnival Glass." (Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy, fiddle.)
12. "Evil Laugh." (Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, Amy, primordial ooohs; Tony, guitar; Brooke, banjo.)
13. "Tanglewood Tree." (Seanan, Vixy, lead vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy, fiddle.)
14. "Sycamore Tree." (Seanan, Vixy, Tony, lead vocals; Tony, guitar.)
15. "Wicked Girls." (Seanan, Vixy, lead vocals; SJ Tucker, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy, acoustic fiddle; SJ Tucker, djembe.)

Fortunately, we'd prepared an encore. So I also give you...

16. "Still Catch the Tide." (Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Amy, acoustic fiddle; SJ Tucker, djembe.)

Almost all arrangements were done in that bizarre, organic, 'how does this sound?' sort of way, but it's important to note that the chords for "I Am," "Counting Crows," "Fox Hunt," "Mama Said," "Take Advantage," "Oh, Michelle," "The Black Death" and "Dear Gina" were originally worked out by Paul Kwinn, before being tinkered with by Tony Fabris and Jeff Bohnhoff (depending on the song). "In This Sea" and "Wicked Girls" were chorded by Kristoph Klover. "Evil Laugh" was chorded by Tony Fabris.

"Tanglewood Tree" was written by Dave Carter. "Still Catch the Tide" was written by Talis Kimberley.

As always: "I Am" is on Pretty Little Dead Girl. "Take Advantage (of Me)," "In This Sea," "Evil Laugh," and "Still Catch the Tide" are on Stars Fall Home. "Sycamore Tree" is on Stars Fall Home (studio) and Pretty Little Dead Girl (live). "Oh, Michelle," "What A Woman's For," "The Black Death," and "Dear Gina" are on Red Roses and Dead Things.

"Tanglewood Tree" appears on Tanglewood Tree, by Dave and Tracy, and on Abesailing for Beginners, by Playing Rapunzel.

It was a good show.

So I have managed to come home from DucKon (which was an absolute blast, and more about it later) with twelve chapbooks remaining in my possession. I am thus putting them up for sale here, because that's what I do. The details:

1. Each chapbook is hand-sewn, with a color cover by Beckett Gladney.
2. Each chapbook contains an assortment of my poetry and an introduction by Michelle "Vixy" Dockrey.
3. Each chapbook is $20, plus another $5 for shipping within the US (outside the US, we have to talk).

To request a chapbook (or hell, to request more than one), comment here; I'll confirm and we can work out payment details. Chapbooks are first-come, first-served; I just want to get them to good homes before Lilly hides them under the bed or something.

Whee.

ETA: All gone for now!

The announcement:

After three days of wandering Wondercon, I actually still have art cards -- partially because there were three instances where I totally forgot that the deal was 'you say the magic phrase, I give you an art card of your very own.' I remembered later, and in all three cases, I was able to find the people later to give them an art card anyway...but my guilt motivated me to do three totally new cards to hand out, thus leaving me with several of the originals still in my possession.

Since I'd already mentally filed this particular cards as 'gone,' given that whole 'taking them to a convention to give away' thing, I've decided to make the cards go away through a different mechanism. So I'm going to sell them. I also don't feel like scanning what I have left, because I am an essentially lazy creature who doesn't have that sort of technical skill left in me. So here's how that's going to work:

1. You think 'I want ____ art card.'
2. You send me an email (this account is paid, and you can email it) -- not an LJ comment, please -- and say 'is ____ available?'
3. I say either yes or no. If yes, I follow that with 'you can have it for ten dollars.'
4. If you still want it, we arrange for you to give me ten dollars.
5. I mail you an art card of your very own.

For the most part, I won't be selling things through this journal, because I'm selling, y'know, books through this journal. If this works, however, I'll probably put post-convention art cards up whenever I have them, just because it's a good way to make them leave.

The moment of geekitude:

Frank Beddor was totally thrilled to hear that I'd sold Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies], and we geeked books for a while, and it was awesome. Frank is the author of The Looking Glass Wars [Amazon]. He's also a really sweet guy, and it was great that he got so excited for me.

The request:

So I'm doing a truly epic number of tweaks and updates to my website as we get everything launched and up to speed. Some sub-pages are still missing, some sub-pages are a mess, but on the whole, it's coming together fast. The page for the Toby books in general and Rosemary and Rue are sort of comic in their sparseness. It's going to improve, I promise.

One of the existing pages most in need of a major revamp is the album reviews page, which is just a mess right now. So please, if you have one of my albums and you have a moment, can you either link me to your existing review, write a full review, or toss me a comment mini-review? That way I can get some new options and fresh text as I clean everything else up.

Whee!

I appreciate my privileges, really I do, but right about now, the idea of expressing myself in an entirely coherent and cohesive manner is pretty much entirely beyond me. Conflikt was wonderful, magical, and completely exhausting, in the way that a good working convention essentially always is. There was music, there was laughter, there was passing out in the con suite and complicating the judging of the songwriting contest...the usual things.

(Having now been a Guest of Honor, as well as a Toastmistress -- which is a much more common gig for me -- I have to say that I was right all along; Toastmistress is a far more tiring position. Although all those laps around the hotel probably contributed a lot to my end condition.)

Last night was a post-convention gathering for fire-spinning, fondue, cuddling with kittens, and generally existing as happy people in a happy people world. I was prompted to tell the story of my crazy uncle and his ravens, since Batya and Merav went and wrote them into a parody; Sooj and Betsy did their version of 'Tam Lin' for a deeply appreciative audience; we broke out 'Wicked Girls' and rocked the house. The usual assortment of wonders. And then I spent essentially the entire day in transit, resulting in me hauling my broken, battered carcass over the threshold to be mugged by Siamese cats.

All but one of the pre-orders designated for at-con delivery actually got delivered (I'm going to mail the last one). Only about half the chapbooks were complete by the con, due to unexpected issues with chickenpox, and they sold out with astonishing speed; the rest will be made available when they're finished (thus actually allowing people who got the first chapbook, but weren't there this weekend, to have a shot). I have bunches of new art cards in need of coloring; right now, I doubt I could stay inside the lines if you paid me.

Bed now. Coherence later.