So I received an email recently, from someone* who wanted me to know that, while they enjoyed the October Daye books, they didn't like the fact that the plot for Ashes of Honor involved a missing child case, since this had come up before. Furthermore, if there was any hint of a missing child in the back cover text of Chimes at Midnight, they would be dropping the series.

This? Is totally, absolutely, 100% fair. You should never have to read anything you don't want to, unless it's for a class (and even then, only if you want to actually pass said class). Life is too short! Don't read bad books unless reading bad books brings you joy, and don't read books that don't interest you unless you have a damn good reason.

At the same time, while I can totally appreciate the sentiment, I'm not sure it's a sentiment that I, as a reader, would ever feel comfortable expressing to a writer. Especially not now that I'm a writer myself, which means I know that a) the story will go where the story will go, and b) by the time you get your hands on book one in a series, book two is finished and turned in, making it impossible for the writer to avoid the plot elements you've said that you dislike. "Don't do this or else" is a wasted statement. It is already too late to avoid doing whatever it is you want to have avoided.

But still, for every person who speaks, there are ten more who don't, so I thought this might be a good time to say something about what's coming up for Toby. Specifically: yes, there will be more missing people, because after defeating Blind Michael and preventing a war, finding people is what she has a reputation for being good at. Ironically, Toby herself prefers murder cases; they're less time-sensitive, and she's less terrified of getting it wrong. But if she gets a call from out-Kingdom, there's a very good chance that it's going to be about somebody's missing son, daughter, or heir.

The plot of Chimes at Midnight doesn't center around missing children, but it does involve someone who has been lost. The Winter Long is still in progress, and is more about people being found than people being lost; there's also a murder, which is good for Toby's admittedly frayed nerves. This doesn't mean that there won't be missing children somewhere down the road, because those are the cases that make people sit up and say "I want my baby back alive, get that October woman."

Losing and finding people are huge themes in the Toby series, and that's a very intentional thing; that's never going to change. If that isn't the sort of thing you want to read, I'm really sorry. InCryptid has different themes, and changes narrators periodically, which should help to keep things more varied. But much like Newsflesh was about truth, Toby is about loss. At least until we find the ending.

So that's what's going on for Toby, and why things are the way that they are. I hope it makes sense; I hope you'll all stick around. And if not, I hope you'll at least understand why I write it this way.

This is how the story goes.

(*Names are withheld, as always, because that's how we roll around here. Playing nicely is the new black.)

So in the November post I mentioned that it was weird to be coming on Christmas and not planning for Disney World. Then I realized I could fix that, and so we're going to Disneyland for my birthday in January. (January 5th. I like birthdays.) PROBLEM SOLVED!

Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. If you can't remember whether I've announced something, check the relevant tag. Please don't ask why project X is no longer on the list.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

We're halfway through November, and I have to say, it's weird reaching this point in the year and not being in the process of getting ready to head for Disney World. Like, every morning I wake up going "is it Disney o'clock yet?", and then every morning I have to realize that Disney o'clock isn't coming back until May. Boo.

Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. If you can't remember whether I've announced something, check the relevant tag. Please don't ask why project X is no longer on the list.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Welcome to October, season of mists, mellow fruitfulness, and occasional accounting. I'm prepping for the winter, and that means paperwork. So here, then, is the October 2012 current projects post. The snows are coming, and we're almost ready to put a freeze on the year.

Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

So hello! Good morning, and welcome to the many people who have shown up over the weekend. Here are a few things you might want to know, as you're deciding whether or not to stick around.

1. This is not a social issues blog. Mostly, it's about writing, my cats, and me doing stupid things in the interest of not being bored out of my skull. Because I have very strong feelings about a lot of social issues, they do crop up from time to time, but they're not my focus. Rage is exhausting. I try to focus on happier things, like that new rabies/Ebola virus that's started melting people while being inexplicable and impossible to cure. It's the little things in life.

2. I write urban fantasy under my own name, and science fiction medical thrillers under the name Mira Grant. The first books in my urban fantasy series are Rosemary and Rue (for the October Daye series), and Discount Armageddon (for my InCryptid series). There's also a lot of free fiction on my website, mostly in the Velveteen vs. superhero universe and the InCryptid universe, so you can try things if you want to see whether you like them.

3. I have OCD, in the literal, medically diagnosed sense, not in the joking "that was a little OCD of me" sense. This translates to a love of lists, both to do and to generate (hence this entry). I will occasionally do things that don't make much sense, like my insistence on answering every top-level comment I receive. Don't worry about it. I do my best not to make my problems anyone else's concern, and will let you know if there's a problem.

4. I do not ban people, but I do ask them to play nicely. Because I have a full-time day job, sometimes I can't clean up the comments as quickly as I want to. Please don't take a comment appearing as a sign of authorial approval. If it's inappropriate, rude, or over the line, I'll speak up as soon as I get the chance.

5. Cumulatively, my three cats weigh as much as a small golden retriever, and none of them are overweight. Jim Hines once said that I took my cats very seriously. This is because they can eat me. This is also why I tend to respond to "I just bought your book" with "thank you for feeding my cats." I do not wish to be eaten.

Again, welcome. You are all welcome to stay, and while I hope you will, I will not be hurt if you choose to go. It's a big internet, and we'd all explode if we tried to pay attention to absolutely everything.

Happy Monday!

I...appear to have missed a month. Which is a little terrifying, given how careful I have reliably been about making these posts. There you go: that is how fried I was over the Hugos. Here, then, is the September 2012 current projects post. Most of the year is gone. Like, we are in the final color block of my planner, and it's terrible.

Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Welcome to the forty-seventh essay in my fifty-essay series on the art, craft, business, and occasional insanity that is writing. All fifty of the essays in this series are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which means I only have three essays to go. Hooray! Our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #47: Different Strokes.

And now, because context is king, our expanded thought:

It's okay to be silly. It's okay to be serious, too. If a serious writer sniffs at you for writing comedy, or a comic writer tries to call you a stick in the mud, laugh. You're the one who's doing the writing.

There's this amazing tendency among humans to go "what I'm doing is awesome, what you're doing is not." We apply it to everything, from flavors of ice cream to professional callings. The thing is, it's very rarely fair. We're almost never comparing two roller coasters, one of which has a triple inversion and a great storyline, the other of which has gone three days without killing a park guest. Instead, we're comparing kittens and puppies, apples and oranges, and sometimes, kittens and oranges. So how do we handle things with grace?

Today we're going to be talking about apples and oranges, why both are awesome, and why no one gets to tell you which one to put in your lunch box.

Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on doing the hard stuff.Collapse )

I'm a couple of days late, due to that whole "I was in San Diego on the 15th, trying not to be engulfed by the crowd and cast into the sea," but this is the July 2012 current projects post, because we are using this year up like cheap single-ply toilet paper. It's distressing. Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Ashes of Honor, Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

I think everyone is familiar with the Disney princess by now: a collection of boiled sugar girls in sparkly dresses and high heels who happen to resemble the spirited, interesting heroines of the movies we love, all of them posed to perfection in big groups of rainbow loveliness. They stare soullessly from bookstore walls and supermarket shelves, hawking everything from dress-up shoes to fruit snacks. The stories they come from may be exciting, or interesting, or educational, but the Disney princess shows none of those traits when she's on-duty. She's there to be a display, and that's all she's going to be.

(As a total aside, if you want to see these girls when they're off-duty, and hence more fun, check out Amy Mebberson's Tumblr for her Pocket Princesses. They're awesome, and they have the spunk, spirit, and personality that the official Princesses sadly often lack.)

It wasn't until I read the book Cinderella Ate My Daughter that I noticed the creepiest thing about the Disney princesses: they never look at each other. Get six of them in a group, and they will all strike independent poses, they will all gaze at independent points off in the distance. They never make eye contact. They never acknowledge each other in any way. Why?

Because if you're going to be the fairest in the land, you can't ever admit that anyone of comparable fairness even exists. To be the prettiest princess, you must also be the only princess. So all you other princesses can just step off; this is my spotlight.

Creepy.

As most of you probably know, I read a lot of urban fantasy, geared both at adults and the YA market. I enjoy it. It makes me happy. It features, as a genre, a lot of strong female characters doing strong female things. Yes, it has its flaws, because all genres have flaws, but on the whole, it's probably my favorite genre right now.

Only. I noticed a thing. This is a thing that I am not immune to. Nor is it a universal thing (so making long lists of exceptions to this thing is not necessarily helpful, although discussion of specific examples is, as always, awesome). But it's a thing I think we should be thinking about, both as creators and consumers. And it's this:

Urban fantasy heroines have a lot in common with Disney princesses.

The standards for "fairest of them all" are different when your kingdom is a city and your ballgown is a pair of leather pants. You need to be the best ass-kicker, the best snarker, the best crime-solver or magic-user, or whatever. But they're still high standards to live up to, and it's easier to do when there's no one else in your sandbox. If no one else is kicking ass in leather pants, you don't have to try as hard to be the best. Consequentially, we keep seeing urban fantasy heroines with no peers. No other women who kick ass. They might have sidekicks, or even other strong female characters in supporting roles, but it feels like a lot of them...well. Like a lot of them just don't have any friends.

In my daily life, I have a lot of friends who are, well, fairer than me in some ways. Vixy is an amazing lead vocalist. Pretty sure if we were auditioning against each other, she'd get the part. Also, cartoon birdies braid her hair. Cat and Bear and I write very different books, but we're all award-winners and best-sellers and Cat raises chickens and Bear climbs mountains, neither of which I do. Kate is witty and snarky and often faster on her feet than I am, as well as being a thousand times more organized. Meg is a natural redhead who makes her own clothes and bounces back after flying over the handlebars of her bike...and these are only a few of the amazing, incredible, bad-ass women who share my life.

It can be easy, as an author, to smooth and sand the story until all the unnecessary characters are gone, and I can see where that might mean you have to lose a few of the members of the Breakfast Club. At the same time, if that process leaves six male characters and one female, and only one of those male characters is Prince Charming, why are the other five all dudes? Can't we balance things a little? For me, female characters are more believable when they have friends. When there are other women around to talk to, trade tips on wearing leather pants without chafing with, and generally enjoy.

And if someone says that a story containing more than three characters "only needed" one woman, I sort of have issues with that. (In my perfect world, no one would say that about two or three character stories, either. But I'm willing to grant that some stories need two males and one female, if you'll grant that the opposite is also true.) Even Magic Mike, a movie about male strippers, managed to have two female characters with distinct and interesting, if brief, speaking roles.

I don't like that the Disney princesses have been frozen in place, never making eye contact with the only people who could really be their peers and understand the trials of the tiara. I'd hate it for that to happen to our urban fantasy girls, too.

So yesterday I was floored by one of those migraines that turns the whole world blurry with pain. Normal people might interpret this as the body wanting a break. I interpreted it as "take a nap before you make word count," and then made word count anyway, because what else am I supposed to do?

Here is the current shape of my 2012/2013, with travel dates and everything. Beautiful travel dates. Hope to see you sometime in the months to come.

Publications

2012:
"Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage," reprint, June 2012.
"San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats," July 2012.
Ashes of Honor, September 2012.
When Will You Rise?, October 2012.

2013:
"Laughter at the Academy: A Study in the Development of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)," February 2013.
Midnight Blue-Light Special, March 2013.
Parasite, June 2013.
Chimes at Midnight, September 2013.

"Rat-Catcher," unknown.
"A Dry Death," unknown.

Conventions/Appearances

2012:
San Diego International Comic Convention, July 11-14, San Diego CA.
Confluence, July 27-29, Pittsburgh PA.
Spocon, August 10-12, Spokane WA.
Chicon (WorldCon 2012), August 30-September 3, Chicago IL.
Windycon, November 8-11, Chicago IL.

2013:
JordanCon, April 19-21, Roswell GA.
SFContario, November 29-December 1, Toronto Canada.

No fixed deadline/being written/unsold:

"Fiber"
"Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea"
"These Antique Fables"
"Pixie Season"
Sparrow Hill Road
"Velveteen vs. The Fright Night Sorority House Massacre Sleepover Camp, Part III."
"Stingers and Strangers"
"Married in Green"
"Loch and Key"
"In Sea Salt Tears"
Chimes at Midnight
Parasite
Echo
"How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea"
"Train Yard Blues"
"Carry Me Home"

It is now time for the June 2012 current projects post, which holy fuckweasels and little fishes, how is it already June 15th? How have we used up half this year? How?! I do not approve. But whether I approve or not, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Ashes of Honor, Midnight Blue-Light Special). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Parasite is the first book I've written largely in secret. Not because I was ashamed of it, but because first it wasn't sold, so I couldn't say anything about it. Then it was sold but unannounced, so I couldn't say anything about it. Then, when it was finally announced, I was so far into the writing process that I couldn't force myself into the normal flow of word counts and benchmarks and all the other things I use for motivation.

Pro tip: I work better with word counts and benchmarks. I know this now.

Friday I wound up staying home from my day job, thanks to an inability to breathe that was only resolved when I had another of my amazing fire hose nosebleeds, or, as I like to call them, "blood vacations." (It's not high blood pressure, it's a weakness in one of the blood vessels that runs through my sinuses. My doctor and I have discussed it. So please, no medical advice.) And once I mopped up the blood and got some clean clothes on, I got to work, and quietly, without any real fanfare, passed 500 draft one pages.

It's not a perfect book, by any means; for one thing, it's missing about 8,000 words still, and for another, it hasn't had any editorial, which means that all the Mira Grant "tics"—repetition, over-explanation, Joss-y dialog—are in full display, with no mitigation. But I can see the shape of what will be a good book, once we finish kicking the crap out of it, and that's very reassuring to me.

It will be awesome.

I don't think it's any secret around here that I've been running at warp speed basically since a month before WorldCon, last year. This has resulted in a general decrease in available content here at my journal, because slowing down enough to type an entry hasn't always been an option. So here are some things I've meant to blog about, and haven't:

1. I went to Disney World for a week, with Vixy and Amy and Brooke and Patty. My mother and sister were there, too, but we sort of had parallel-but-rarely intersecting vacations. This was ideal, as my idea of "fun at Disney" involves pin trading and shows and ice cream and frogs, while theirs involves luaus and smoking and ludicrous plush and more smoking. Our only real point of overlap is roller coasters, and we already had a full car.

2. Also I went to Disneyland for a weekend, with Vixy, my mom, and my sister. See above for the basics.

3. I watched a lot of television, in an extremely non-critical manner. I don't believe that you should shut off your brain completely while consuming entertainment, but sometimes I really just want to be all "you know what? I like what I like," and not be all analytical and thoughtful about it. This stops when somebody blows up a blonde girl.

4. I went to New York for a week and a half, where I saw the Counting Crows (with my agent), Ludo (with a large group of friends, my former editor, and my agent; I have a very full-service agent), and The Devil's Carnival (with several friends, including Tu, who I didn't even realize was on the East Coast until I found her in line).

5. Also there is a permanent haunted house called Times Scare in New York, open 365-days a year. If I lived there, I would wind up asking about a Frequent Dier's card or something, because I would be in there at least once a week, being chased by a man with a chainsaw and giggling unnervingly.

6. I wrote some book club articles for SFX Magazine. The second, which is about The Midwich Cuckoos, is out now. I need to think more about the responses some of the readers have had to the book (not to my article), because they're fascinating to me. But basically? I got paid for my Wyndham and telepaths obsession. Life is good.

7. I went to Maine! I stayed with Cat and Dmitri! I want to move to Maine! I won't, because I'm moving to Washington, but seriously, in another timeline, I have already bought a house on Peaks Island, and I am not sorry. I sort of envy that version of me.

8. An old friend from high school literally showed up on my doorstep. Randomly.

9. I ate six pounds of cherries and I'm not sorry about that either.

10. I am currently behind on word count in several areas, which is why comments are going unanswered for what feels like, to me, an unreasonably long time. But I'm catching up. Slowly. I think.

And those are some of the things I've been too frazzled to blog about.

And now, the May 2012 current projects post, which makes me a little sad, because I made the April post from Cat's place in Maine, and I am not in Maine now. Oh, well. This is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout, Ashes of Honor). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

It's time for the April 2012 current projects post, coming to you live from the wilds of Maine! This is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout, Ashes of Honor). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

I was recently talking to a friend* of mine who is also a writer about inclusion and inclusiveness in fiction. He was frustrated. Why did people keep asking him to include a non-heterosexual character in a starring role in his work? After all, he'd said that non-hetero characters existed, and were actually the norm. It was right there, in black and white. So why wasn't that enough?

My first reaction was, naturally, "It's not enough because it's not enough." But at the end of the day, that reaction isn't enough, either. He was trying. He wanted to understand. So I figured I should try, too.

I explained how, when I was a kid, the only smart blondes I could find were Marilyn Munster and Susan Storm. How I wound up identifying with the Midwich Cuckoos, rather than the humans who they were threatening, because the Cuckoos looked like me and were isolated like me and no one understood them. How, as I got older and realized that what I wanted wasn't necessarily the kind of marriage my mother had, every gay character became a magical revelation—even the ones I would look at now and think of as stereotyped and cardboard. It was enough for me that they were there.

I don't think I saw bisexuals in fiction until I encountered ElfQuest. I definitely didn't encounter them in sympathetic roles, where they were allowed to be people first, and define their sexuality second. It was honestly a revelation to me.

I explained how important to me these characters were, first because they looked like me, and then because they were like me, and how it mattered for them to have a bigger part in the story than just "oh, honest, blondes and bisexuals exist, we keep them all in Australia because they really like the tax situation there." It wasn't that I didn't want straight while males having leading roles. I just wanted them to share.

I read three books recently where race and sexuality were just sort of there. They didn't change the shape of the story, although they were treated fairly and reasonably (and awesomely) by the author. One, Black Blade Blues, was an urban fantasy with an awesome blacksmith heroine who just happens to be a lesbian, and have a girlfriend. And while she had some personal issues to work through (which made her a compelling, relatable character), her story was still recognizably an urban fantasy story, with all the tropes and twists of the genre. The second, Storyteller, was science fiction/fantasy in the Pern style, where you have extremely advanced technology and fascinating aliens, but you're spending most of your time on a low-tech planet that might as well be a fantasy world. One of the central characters is gay; so are several secondary characters. None of them are treated in any way as either superior or inferior to the rest of the cast.

The last, The Hum and the Shiver, dealt more with race than sexuality, although it was notable for having a strong female lead who really enjoyed sex, had really enjoyed sex in the past, and was not in any way ashamed of herself for being a sexual being. It's not a sexy book; she actually has no sex during the book, for reasons the plot makes very clear. But she's not punished for who she is. One of the secondary characters is married to a Southern-raised Asian woman. Why? Because that was who she was. It's not a thing. It's never a thing. It's awesome.

He was still a little confused, so I tried another tack: in my Faerie, in Toby's Faerie, as far as I'm concerned, almost everyone immortal is also bisexual. People who are purely straight or purely gay are almost entirely changelings, and young changelings, at that. Out of the entire current cast, the only one I can point to and say "Yup, totally straight" is Toby, who was raised in the mortal 1950s, and never really considered girls as an option. Everyone else is bi. Yes, him. Yes, him, too. Yes, her. I'm not sure it counts in Lily's case, since she's a body of water that enjoys looking like a person, but she doesn't care about the gender of her meat-based lovers. So yes, even her.

Most fae marriages, on the other hand, are male/female, because the main motivator for fae marriage is having kids, and surrogacy isn't really an option when it takes three hundred years of steady marital relations to reliably get someone pregnant. So if you look at the first several books, everyone looks straight. I was too close to the material to realize that. I knew about Amandine's relationship with Lily, the Luidaeg's long-term Selkie lover, and lots of others. No one else did. What was on the page was heteronormative male/female love, over and over again, in all its good and bad forms.

As soon as I recognized that, I started making more of an effort to actually show the non-hetero relationships in the books. Not because I owed anyone anything. Not because I was pressured. Because saying they were there wasn't enough. It's never enough. We need to see those people, in part because for every kid like me, combing the margins for hidden people I could relate to, there are ten kids who just calmly accepted than yes, they were always going to be the protagonist. Mix it up. Make it different. Make us all learn to identify with other people, and take out the shadows. I learned to identify with straight white males because I had to, and I clung to my narrow band of options. How about we widen the spectrum until everybody gets the chance to learn to identify with everybody? Because that would be awesome.

I explained all this to my friend. I think he understood. And even if he didn't, he's thinking about it now, and he's smart; he'll get there.

I'll be waiting for him.

(*I won't name him, because that's not the point, and he's a damn good guy. He just hadn't thought some things through. Everyone has had their instances of not thinking things through, and it's easier when you're a middle-class white male with no particular religious affiliation. Everyone is you unless stated otherwise, in fiction. So please don't ask who my friend was, and I won't be forced to look at you sadly.)

Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigolds. You and your arithmetic will probably go far. Or something like that. I am surviving! I am surviving this wet, cold, mucky, awful, no good at all weather week, and I'm doing it with cheer and elan, because I am on the New York Times Bestseller list. Nope. Not tired of saying that. Not gonna be, either.

Here is the current shape of my 2012, with travel dates and everything. Beautiful travel dates. Hope to see you sometime in the months to come.

2012

Publications:
Discount Armageddon, March 2012.
"We Will Not Be Undersold!", March 2012.
"No Place Like Home," April 2012.
Blackout (as Mira Grant), June 2012.
Ashes of Honor, September 2012.

"Rat-Catcher," middle 2012.
"Laughter at the Academy: A Study in the Development of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)," late 2012.

Conventions/Appearances:
Consonance, March 2-4, Newark CA.
Borderlands, March 17, San Francisco CA.
AggieCon, March 23-25, College Station TX.
Emerald City Comic Con, March 30-April 1, Seattle WA.
San Diego International Comic Convention, July 11-14, San Diego CA.
Confluence, July 27-29, Pittsburgh PA.
Chicon (WorldCon 2012), August 30-September 3, Chicago IL.
World Fantasy Convention, November 1-4, Toronto.
Windycon, November 8-11, Chicago IL.

No fixed deadline/being written/unsold:

"Fiber"
"Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea"
"These Antique Fables"
"Pixie Season"
Sparrow Hill Road
"Velveteen vs. The Uncomfortable Conversation."
"Velveteen vs. The Fright Night Sorority House Massacre Sleepover Camp, Part III."
"No Place Like Home"
"Stingers and Strangers"
"Loch and Key"
"In Sea Salt Tears"
The Chimes at Midnight
"San Diego 2014"
"We Are All Misfit Toys in the Aftermath of the Velveteen War"
Parasitology
Echo
"How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea"

Beware the Ides of March! Beware the March 2012 current projects post, in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout, Ashes of Honor). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer—although this month, thanks to a vast spate of "THE END," it actually got shorter. It'll grow again soon. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

It's the 15th of the month, and that means it's time for the February 2012 current projects post, in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Welcome to the first current projects post of 2012. That's...daunting. Anyway, these posts are made because I am the gift that keeps on giving, and time is the gift that keeps on taking. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout, Ashes of Honor). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Welcome to the final current projects post of 2011. Wow. These posts are made because I am the gift that keeps on giving, and time is the gift that keeps on taking. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout, Ashes of Honor). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Apparently, "December" is synonymous with "that month where Seanan is too busy and/or distracted to remember to update her journal, even when she thinks she really ought to." Super-fun! Also, I'm sorry. Also, I need a nap. So here are some bullet points to soothe your abandoned souls, while I try to find my head:

1. Human For a Day is available now at a bookstore near you! This awesome anthology contains "Cinderella City," my second Mina Norton story (the first, "Alchemy and Alcohol", appears in Tales from the Ur-Bar). I've read through the whole book, and it's excellent, easily passing my "should I keep this" test for anthologies even without taking into account the whole "I have a story in there" aspect. You should totally pick it up.

2. Speaking of picking things up, my beloved Borderlands Books has published their holiday gift guide, which is insightful and lovely, and lists my Mira Grant books as great presents, thus providing that it's also brilliant and worth listening to. If you're wondering what to buy for the reader in your life, or for yourself, check it out.

3. Also, I was three of the top ten paperbacks for November. Feed came in at number three, One Salt Sea at number eight, and Deadline at number nine. I am well pleased.

4. As of right this second (this will change), I have all the Monster High dolls (except for 2010 SDCC Frankie, and I'm not paying that much for a doll I wouldn't be willing to take out of the box). I'm missing one fashion pack, and that's it. Since there are six more characters confirmed on the horizon, and the eternal looming rumor of a basic Jackson Jekyll, I intend to enjoy this rare moment of completeness while it exists.

5. Geek Fest in Seattle was absolutely wonderful. I met awesome musicians, made music with some of my favorite people, and discovered how much cranberry sauce constitutes "too much" (hint: I multiplied the recipe by a factor of six). Also I got to see some of my favorite people meet and hang out with others of my favorite people, and a good time was had by all.

6. Still loving Criminal Minds, woefully behind on everything else except for Glee, New Girl, and Bones, probably going to get lynched by my housemate if I don't clear some things off the DVR soon.

7. You know what? Seriously, go pick up Human For a Day. It's my good friend Jennifer's first editorial job with a big six publisher, and I really want her to be able to do more of these, because she really does a fantastic job. She brings a degree of integrity and focus to the table that really shows in the finished product, and I want to see her wind up becoming a name on a level with John Joseph Adams or Ellen Datlow, where anthology construction is concerned.

8. The new Glee soundtrack has been released, with the end result that I now have "Red Solo Cup" so firmly wedged in my head that I would need a crowbar to get it out. I don't dislike the song, but I didn't sign up to have it permanently melded with my skull. Bah.

9. Oh, hey, skulls! Have any of you read Dawn Metcalf's debut YA novel, Luminous? Because it's about skeletons. And stuff. And I need to do a proper review, because it was awesome. And while we're all talking about diversity in YA, this book has: a Hispanic heroine (who is sometimes a skeleton), an Orthodox Jewish character not presented as being misguided or odd, at least one character who isn't skinny and doesn't want to be, real consequences, real concerns, and characters of multiple non-Caucasian races, apart from the protagonist. This is an awesome book.

10. Zombies are love. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. Probably anti-zombie security measures.

Today is November 30th. For those of you who have been busting your asses to survive National Novel Writing Month, this is it; this is where the deadline looms, and you suddenly scream "BUT I'M NOT READY!" as you begin frantically paddling your boat backward up the stream.

...or maybe that's just me when I see a deadline looming. We all react differently. Now, I didn't participate in Nanowrimo; it's always Nanowrimo at my house, and to avoid wear and tear on the Machete Squad, I'm usually rotating two to four projects at any one time, allowing me to deliver them the next segment for review in a convenient 10,000 to 30,000 word chunk, rather than dropping a complete unedited novel on them every few months. But I respect the people who decide to find out first-hand how difficult it is to write a single full-length work. And in honor of your efforts, here are some links you might find helpful.

First off, here are my fifty thoughts on writing, many of which have been turned into essays. Some of them may strike you as useful. And if you're really morbidly curious, here are fifty more thoughts on writing, bringing it to an even hundred. I am not currently planning to turn the second set into essays. That way lies madness.

Now that you're living in Writerland, you may want to reference this handy phrasebook to help you get around. If you've been here before, this more advanced phrasebook may be what you're looking for.

And of course, wear sunscreen, and do research. (I don't care if "Sunscreen" parodies are no longer cool. I am not fixated on cool.)

Happy writing!

The time has come for the forty-sixth essay in my fifty-essay series on the art, craft, and barely controlled interpretive mosh pit that is writing. I know, it's been a little while. Blame my deadlines. All fifty of the essays in this series are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, meaning that I'm nearly done. Yay!

Now, to the essay itself. Our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #46: "Easy" Is For Other People.

That's a little hard to follow. Here's today's expanded thought:

Not everything you write is going to be easy, and not everything you write is going to be fun, and if you think "easy" and "fun" are your rights as a writer, please go find something else to do. Every book has a chapter you don't want to finish. Every story has a connective segment you just want to be done with already. It's going to happen. Acknowledge it now, and when it hits, you won't be so surprised. But you'll still be a little surprised. The painful parts of a project are like ninjas, and they sneak up on you.

Writing a book is a lot like cleaning a house. For every counter you de-clutter or deliciously sweet-smelling sheet you tuck into place, there's a toilet to be cleaned, a stove to be scrubbed, and a distressing stain to be attacked with baking soda and prayer. If you only take care of the easy, fun parts, you're going to wind up with a house that's one part showroom, one part disaster...and the disaster will spread. The hard parts are often the important ones, even if they're the parts that no one appreciates but you.

Today we're going to be talking about the hard parts, why they matter, the forms that they take, and why you can't avoid them, no matter how hard you may try.

Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on doing the hard stuff.Collapse )

Words: 113,490.
Pages: 380.
Chapters: 26.

Reason for stopping: draft two is finished.
Music: a lot of fan mixes, actually.
The cats: Lilly, in my tank top drawer; Alice, on the orange cat tree; Thomas, occupying half the bed.

And there we are; draft two is finished, roughly a month after draft one was put solidly to bed. All the edits have been processed, many words have been trimmed, many logic puzzles have been solved, and many more surely remain. The trimmed-down, slimmed-down manuscript is off to The Agent, who will savage it with sharp, sharp teeth and cruel, cruel claws, and it will be a better book as a consequence.

Next up, The Chimes at Midnight, which stands a good chance of losing the "The" before it ever sees print. But we shall see, won't we?

1. It's Saturday! Which means no day job for me, and twice the word count! DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT. I got up at 8AM (for me, that's sleeping in), watched Criminal Minds while I ate breakfast, wrote and edited for a few hours, watched Criminal Minds while I ate lunch, took a shower, did 5 Things A Room, and now I'm getting ready to head for Borderlands. By arriving several hours before the event, I'll have time to, you guessed it, work.

2. "5 Things A Room" is where I go through the four rooms that contain the majority of my stuff and de-clutter five things, by either putting them away, throwing them away, or shifting them to another room. (Sometimes shifted things can't be put away immediately, due to other things being in the way. This is the issue with having a very, very cluttered house.)

3. Mom and I will be packing the next huge wave of shirts to mail tomorrow; the goal is to get them all packaged for mailing. Before you get too excited: our most recent pack wave revealed that there was at least one size/color/style combination which I didn't receive when I was supposed to, and was unaware was missing. The shirt shop is printing them now, but it means that not all shirts will be mailing, and that I may still be missing some combination I haven't tripped over yet. I'll keep you posted.

4. Remember that "six Velveteen stories in 2011" thing that I promised, and then had people tell me I couldn't do? Well, five of the six are now finished, and the last one will be in the bag before New Year's. So yes, I can so do six crazy superhero romps in a year. They just didn't balance out the way I thought they would.

5. If you're planning to go Black Friday shopping, can you drop me a line and let me know? I'm not going to be shopping that day, but there are supposed to be some new Monster High dolls releasing for the holiday, and I'd really appreciate if you could look for them for me.

6. Zombies are love.

7. There's a lot of shifting and shaking going on at Marvel Comics. The fabulous X-23 has been canceled, which just plain breaks my heart, and I'm not sure what I think of some of the narrative choices being made. I'll stick it out—I'm me—but I'm a little sad all the same.

8. Wilde Imagination is supposed to be announcing a new resin Evangeline Ghastly at IDEX in January. I know, this is relevant to like, three of you, but it's relevant to me. I really want a resin Evangeline, and the last several have been totally unappealing to me. Here's hoping the new one will be as awesome as Cemetery Wedding, which I have thus far been unable to obtain.

9. I'm getting ready to head into the city for the Narbonic Perfect Collection launch party. If you're local, I really do hope to see you there, and if you're not, remember, the bookstore ships.

10. The cats are possessed by demons today, and are following me through the house trilling and fluffing their tails (except for Lilly, who just squawks like she has a duck stuck in her throat). So if I'm never heard from again, it's because they ate me.

Welcome to the November 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving, and time is the gift that keeps on taking. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

We are rapidly approaching the middle of November—as in, it's tomorrow—and that means that 2011 is almost over. December will largely be taken up with editorial notes, holiday preparations, and going to DisneyWorld, so I'm getting my crazy-pants introspection out of the way early. These, then, are five things I am really, really hoping to accomplish in 2012.

1. Finish four books.

In 2012, I want (and in some cases, need) to finish four books. Midnight Blue-Light Special, The Chimes at Midnight, an undisclosed YA project, and an undisclosed Mira Grant project. (Please don't ask me to disclose them. You'll just get looked at with profound sadness.) Basically, it's about half a million words of fiction by the end of the calendar year. I can do it, although it helps if I look at it in slightly smaller chunks. They're less terrifying.

2. Re-print Stars Fall Home.

I'm going to do a Kickstarter to pay for re-printing my first studio album, Stars Fall Home. Looking at my deadlines and responsibilities for the first quarter of the year, I'm estimating somewhere around March for the announcement. That also gives me time to put together incentives for higher support levels, although "I will be really, really grateful" features fairly heavily.

3. Move to Snohomish.

Is this possible? I don't know. But the house I've wanted for the past eight years is about to be within my grasp, if I can just convince the bank that I can handle the mortgage. And yeah, adding "buying a house" and "leaving the state" to my four-book year is a little bit insane...but I want it. I want to never have to move again. It's literally the house I've based my house hunting off since the first time I saw it. I love it so much. It needs to be mine.

4. Finish the current "Velveteen vs." cycle.

I don't know that I'll ever finish the Velveteen stories, because her world is infinitely flexible and insane, but there's a certain big event that everything is building toward, and I'd like to get there. I think that getting there would be awesome.

5. Record Terror from the Alintangy Wood.

So yeah, I'm going back into the studio, this time for the followup to Red Roses and Dead Things. It's me and Jeff again, and while we're having to juggle to make everything work, I think it's going to be awesome. Planned songs include "Pumpkin Patch," "Zombie Wedding," "Time Travel Girl," and "Ozone in October." It's going to be a blast.

Got any big goals for 2012?

So last night, my body decided it was time to hit the shiny red STOP button on my life, by bringing on a bell-clanging migraine of the sort that I only have once or twice a year. I went to bed at six o'clock, figuring I'd sleep until eight or nine, and have trouble going to bed, but feel much better. Instead, I slept until seven the next morning, and woke up groggy, dehydrated, and feeling faintly like I'd been hit by a truck.

Needless to say, I did not go into the office today.

Instead, I have done ALL THE WORK here at home, and written ALL THE WORDS, in-between unplanned naps and episodes of Criminal Minds. I'm on season three now, which is very comforting and reassuring. By season three, most shows have found their feet, settled in for the long haul, and stopped shifting their perspectives without warning. It's a nice place to be. And serial killers make me feel better.

I'm hammering away on Midnight Blue-Light Special, hoping to buy myself Sunday as a free day for processing edits on Ashes of Honor, since every little bit counts. I'm also working on the page proofs for Discount Armageddon, and writing another John/Fran story set decades before the start of the series. Literally decades; they're the parents of the POV character's grandmother. It's one of my favorite universes, because it's both very open and accessible, and very close and snug. I love that sort of narrative contradiction.

The cats have loved this last day. Thirteen hours in bed, followed by hours and hours without leaving the house? Feline bliss. They'd be happier if I would feed them more than twice, but right now, they're taking what they can get, and what they're getting is my total attention. I'm a little vexed about today being a no-mail holiday, since I wanted to both send and receive mail. Since I didn't make it outside, I should probably let the vexation go.

And that's my Friday. Hope you're all gearing up to an amazing weekend!

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my journal. I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.

Anyway, here you go:

( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )

Things are insane around here (which is ironic, given that I'm finally between conventions), so here are the updates and events du jour, presented in convenient bite-sized fashion.

Science Crawl.
Tomorrow night (Friday, November 4th) the Bay Area Science Crawl will be at Borderlands Books from 7:15 until 8:15 PM. Quote: "The Bay Area Science Festival is proud to present the first ever Sci-Crawl, a coordinated takeover of venues throughout San Francisco’s Mission District, showcasing the science inherent in the neighborhood." I'll be appearing as Mira on a panel discussing the Science of Science Fiction, along with Jeff Carlson and Scott Sigler, and moderated by Brian Malow. The event is free, and should be super-fun. Come and join the geek!

Dental horrors.
Yesterday, I had dental surgery. Yes, again. This time, I managed to somehow break a titanium post inside my mouth. SUPER FUN. Without going into details, largely because they would freak me out, I shall simply say that I am rarely given that many pharmaceuticals during a twenty-four hour period, and I can still taste colors. No fun at all. I basically lost a day and a half to a great gray pit.

T-shirt mailing.
According to my spreadsheet, there are still over a hundred shirts that have not been introduced to envelopes. Over a hundred means that one in three, roughly, has not been mailed. Unless you have reason to think that gnomes have stolen the contents of your mailbox, please don't email yet asking where, specifically, your shirt is located. I'm packing and mailing them just as fast as I possibly can, and this being such a manual process means that it's very hard to track specific list items. Also, because there is such a variance of colors and styles, sometimes the only way to find a shirt is to remove all the shirts around it, which makes it impossible to go "oh, you mean this one? Yeah, it's right here." So I plead for patience. All you do by poking without good cause is make me, and Deborah, sad and grumpy.

Cats.
We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of Alice getting so very, very sick, and she has realized that this means she can basically get away with anything, just by doing while Not Being Sick. This morning, she hit my abdomen like a fuzzy bowling ball, shoved her wet feet up my nose, and trilled happily, only to receive hugs and love, because She Wasn't Sick. Am I setting a bad precedent? Yeah, probably. Do I care? Not one damn bit. Alice isn't sick, and that's really what I need out of life.

Television.
All the shows are coming back on the air. ALL THE SHOWS. Bones starts up again tonight, and I'm gamely plugging through season two of Criminal Minds, which means I may be catching up to watching it live before too much longer. It may seem counter-productive to watch this much TV while also trying to get writing done, but it actually speeds me up, by giving me something to finish for. Speaking of which...

Writing.
Ashes of Honor is done, and I'm getting ready to go into draft two. Midnight Blue-Light Special is finally moving at what I'd call a reasonable pace, and I'm about a quarter of the way through the projected text. And there are various other projects kicking around, including the second installment of the latest Vel story, which will take us to four for the year I can so make my goal. Hah.

Zombies.
Are love.

Words: 9,947.
Total words: 25,207.
Reason for stopping: through with chapter seven, time to send off to the Machete Squad for review.
Music: an astonishing amount of modern country.
The cats: Lilly, drawer; Thomas, floor; Alice, top of the front room cat tree.

I'm finally working on Midnight Blue-Light Special again! Hooray! Not only that, but I'm making good progress; given that the first book was roughly 100k, I'm about a quarter of the way through the book, and most of the really important pieces have been put into position, ready for me to start knocking them over. I'm totally excited, and also deeply relieved, since I want to be mostly, if not entirely, finished by the time Discount Armageddon actually hits shelves. I am a simple soul.

The mouse exaltation of the day is a pretty straightforward one: "CHEESE AND CAKE!" It's not as common in the actual text as you might think, despite it being a major part of their religion, because they don't need to say it all the time. This chunk also featured Istas, which always makes me happy. She's a fun girl.

I really, really want to buy myself a few "free days" (days where I have already written so far ahead of target word count that I can do other things), so that I can write the next two Jonathan and Franny stories, "Hell of a Ride" and "Loch and Key." The first John and Fran story will be appearing in the anthology Westward Weird, coming out in January.

Cheese! And! Cake!

This is me, inchworming into the future. I'm stealing a page from Bear's book, and hoping that a little rolling accountability will make me, if not saner, then at least easier to understand when I start to flail and cry about the ice worms coming out of the wall. ICE WORMS EVERYWHERE.

In other news, Kate and I canceled dinner last night, which turned out to be a good thing, because I have the clingiest clinging cats in Clingycatdonia. They are distraught by my recent travels. I think that if I hadn't come home last night, I'd never be seen again after tonight.

Not everything is on this list yet. Some things aren't announced, some things aren't confirmed, some things may have been forgotten. I expect coherency to come with trial and error.

2012

Publications:
"The Flower of Arizona," February 2012.
Discount Armageddon, March 2012.
"We Will Not Be Undersold!", March 2012.
Blackout (as Mira Grant), May 2012.
Ashes of Honor, September 2012.

"Rat-Catcher," middle 2012.
"Laughter at the Academy: A Study in the Development of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)," late 2012.

Travel:
Conflikt, January 27-29, Seattle WA.
Consonance, March 2-4, Newark CA.
San Diego International Comic Convention, July 11-14, San Diego CA.
Confluence, July 27-29, Pittsburgh PA.
Chicon (WorldCon 2012), August 30-September 3, Chicago IL.
World Fantasy Convention, November 1-4, Toronto.

No fixed deadline/being written/unsold:

"Fiber"
"Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea"
"These Antique Fables"
"Pixie Season"
"Martinez and Martinez v. Velveteen"
Sparrow Hill Road
"Velveteen vs. the Alternate Timeline, part one"
"Velveteen vs. the Alternate Timeline, part two"
"Velveteen vs. the Retroactive Continuity"
"Hell of a Ride"
"Loch and Key"
"In Sea Salt Tears"
Midnight Blue-Light Special
The Chimes at Midnight
"San Diego 2014"
"Misfit Toys: A Chronicle of the Velveteen War"
Parasitology
Echo
"How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea"

Everyone has what my friends and I refer to as "narrative kinks": those storylines, themes, tropes, and motifs that really get you cooking as a reader, a writer, or both. (Note: despite my use of the word "kink" here, there is nothing inherently sexual about a narrative kink. Ask any small child what kind of story he or she likes, and you'll get a much clearer, more honest picture of what they want out of a story than you will from most adults. We start forming these tastes from the second we understand what stories are, and while they may shift, refine, and totally change over the course of our lifetimes, we always have them.) Mine are pretty straightforward; years of writing fanfic helped me hone in on them like a mosquito going for the one inch of skin that doesn't have bug spray on it, and now I know exactly what they are, where they are, and how to spot them when they come into play.

A few of my preferences:

* Mermaids! I love mermaids. I've been thrilled by everyone enjoying the glimpse of the Undersea in One Salt Sea, because wow did those chapters feel self-indulgent. I could have written a whole book just explaining how the social structure of the Undersea functions. Someday, if I get a good enough excuse, maybe I will.

* Evil twins. Yeah, I know, it's a Patty Duke cliche, and I don't care. I love me some evil twin action. Blame my early exposure to All My Children and move on.

* Mathematicians and scientists in leading rolls. I think math is sexy. Science is basically my favorite thing that isn't the Great Pumpkin or my cats. It's pretty rare to find a book of mine that doesn't have at least one of these character types represented. (Ironically, Feed didn't need a scientist because I was the scientist, with all that delicious virology kicking around.)

* Alternate universes and timelines. Yes, I love breaking continuity and seeing what happens when it's put together in a new shape. Enough so that sometimes people have to hold me down and take the hammer away, since otherwise, I'll just keep smashing things. My one regret about prose as a primary medium is that it's hard to pull off alt-universes in most prose settings.

* The malleability of death. Look, I grew up on X-Men comics, soap operas, and horror movies. I enjoy playing with the elasticity of mortality, and finding ways around things that seem permanent. You can't cheat, but watching your dead girlfriend's robot replacement come to terms with the fact that she's really a brain in a jar delights me.

...there are more, but you get the idea.

One of the interesting things about knowing and being at peace with my narrative kinks is that I get much, much pickier about how they're used. You can't just raise the dead and expect me to be happy; I want it to make sense within the rules of your universe, hang together internally, and be fair to the character you've just brought back. If you're going to have a lead scientist, they'd better be a scientist, and not a magical knows-everything widget that can somehow apply every field of science KNOWN TO MAN to whatever situation they happen to be in (Winnifred Burkle, I'm sorry, but I'm looking at you).

If you're going to do an alternate universe, I expect you to think it all the way through. Yes, all the way through. One of my favorite shows rebooted their continuity two seasons ago, and while they made the usual assortment of flashy surface changes, they didn't consider all the ramifications of those changes. The fact that at least two of the characters involved didn't tear down heaven and earth looking for a way back to the original timeline was incredibly disappointing to me. (Shawn says this is because I over think these things. I point you, again, to my list of narrative kinks. These are the things I am programmed to over think!) Basically, I want stories that will give me what I want, but really commit to giving it, not tap-dance around going all the way.

Also, often, narrative kinks are a lot like salt or bacon: a little can go a long way. I adored Marvel's House of M alt-universe, but I would have been annoyed if it had replaced the main Marvel Universe completely (even though it was an awesome setting, and I want them to do more with it). I'm enjoying the current season of Fringe, with its re-imagined continuity...and at the same time, I find myself restlessly demanding the original timeline back, because I invested a lot of time and emotional attachment in those characters, those relationships, and every delighted "oh, it went like that over here" is followed by a "...wait, does that mean that this other thing didn't happen?" So sometimes, getting what you think you want out of a story isn't ideal.

And this is why I have proofreaders and editors who don't share my narrative kinks. They may encourage me to put more foxes, or talking animals in silly hats, into the narrative, but they'll help me avoid the story turning into a stew of "things Seanan wants to play with."

What are your narrative kinks? How do you feel about their use, and how do you react when they get overused? What narrative toys would you rather never came off the shelf again? Enlighten me!

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you when I wake up.

Welcome to the October 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving, and time is the gift that keeps on taking. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company. There has been very little change between this month's list and last month's list, as I've been trying to hammer through Ashes of Honor.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Let's talk about Mary Sue.

We've all met her. She's the violet-eyed, crimson-haired, secret daughter of Amadala and Obi Wan, sent to be raised on the hidden planet where the last Jedi ran to escape the war, and she has just emerged back into the universe with her spinning light saber batons to save her half-brother Luke from falling to the Dark Side. She's the missing Winchester sister with the two magic guns, one for shooting angels, one for shooting demons, who just fought her way out of Purgatory to rejoin her family. She's smarter than you, she's prettier than you, she's more competent than you, her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and the odds are good that she doesn't even notice, because she's just existing in her happy little cloud cuckoo land of sunshine and zombie puppies. Mary Sue, like mistletoe, is a parasitic growth, only she grows on stories, and not on trees.

Mary Sue is misunderstood. She's a cuckoo egg left in a starling's nest, hatching into something big and bright and demanding that doesn't belong where it is. In her own story, she would be something else altogether: she would be a protagonist, she would be the biggest, brightest thing in the room because that's what a protagonist is. But because she's trying to be a starling instead of a cuckoo, she's out of place. She doesn't work. That doesn't make her welcome where she is...but it does mean that maybe all Mary really needs to do is fly away home.

Meeting Mary Sue.

In fanfiction, Mary Sue was used specifically for an original character, often closely resembling an idealized version of the writer, who was inserted into a world and caused the world turn upside down and reconfigure itself around her center...The problem with using this term outside of fanfiction is simple: the world of a novel has always configured around main characters. They are at its center and, often, they are the best at stuff.

—Holly Black, Ladies Ladies Ladies.

Mary Sue, like mistletoe, like cuckoos, has a natural habitat, and that habitat is fan fiction. She is the character who steps in and warps the story beyond all recognition.

Can she exist in original fiction? Yes, but it's harder. Usually, she'll be the minor character who somehow winds up rising from spear-carrier to scene-stealer to magical-perfect-solution-to-everything. Can a central character be unlikeably perfect, never challenged by anything, and all too ready to solve every situation with a wave of her perfect hand and a flick of her perfect hair? Yes, but that isn't the same thing as being a Mary Sue.

Not all Mary Sues are author self-insert, although the majority will have some aspects of self-insertion. Really, what makes Mary Sue Mary Sue is this:

Mary Sue breaks the story.

Mary Sue arrives on the scene and everyone loves her, instantly and without question. Mary Sue is adorably insecure, but only so she can be even more perfect. Mary Sue has a unicorn in a science fiction universe, and a robot butler in a fantasy universe. Mary Sue either gets the hero, or heroically arranges for him to be with the heroine, because she's too good and nice and wonderful to stand in the way of destiny. Mary Sue changes the game...and she is able to do so because the game isn't hers. If Mary Sue owns the game, then her name changes, and she gets to be something other than a concept.

She gets to be a person.

Eves and Apples.

When I read reviews, I see the term Mary-Sue used to mean:

1) A female character who is too perfect
2) A female character who kicks too much butt
3) A female character who gets her way too easily
4) A female character who is too powerful
5) A female character who has too many flaws
6) A female character who has the wrong flaws
7) A female character who has no flaws
8) A female character who is annoying or obnoxious
9) A female character who is one dimensional or badly written
10) A female character who is too passive or boring

—Zoë Marriott, You Can Stuff Your Mary Sue Where the Sun Don't Shine.

The definitions of Mary Sue are often contradictory, as are the definitions of her male counterpart, Gary Stu. That being said, I have seen many, many female protagonists accused of Mary Sue-ism, but have very rarely seen the opposite accusation leveled at male protagonists, even when the weight of the definition seems to point much more firmly at the males in the situation. Harry Potter is the son of two incredibly beloved, talented, respected wizards; he's never been exposed to the wizard world before the start of the series, yet is instantly one of the most skilled Seekers the Quiddich Team has ever seen; all his flaws turn out to be advantages; everyone loves him, or is instantly branded a villain for ever and ever and ever. Hermione Granger has worked hard for everything she has. She's the smartest girl in Gryffindor, but that's about it; she isn't naturally incredibly magically talented, or handed all her advantages for nothing. Yet I see her accused of Mary Sue-ism way more often than I see him accused of Gary Stu-ism.

Half the time, "Mary Sue" seems to mean "female character." And that doesn't work for me, for a lot of reasons, including "I write female characters who aren't Mary Sues," and also, "if all women are Mary Sues, why does my hair get frizzy when it rains?" (I would totally be willing to be a Mary Sue if it meant my hair was always perfect and I could go to sleep wearing eyeliner without waking up the next morning looking like a raccoon.) Male characters get to be competent or obnoxious, skilled or clumsy, intelligent or ignorant, without being accused of being Mary Sues. Shouldn't female characters have the same luxury?

An example:

I love Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld books. In the very first volume, Bitten, we meet Elena, the world's only female werewolf, and Jeremy, the current leader of the North American Pack. Both Elena and Jeremy are physically stronger than humans, with super-fast healing, severely slowed aging, and supernaturally good looks. Both of them turn into giant wolves who can eat your face. Elena, despite being the only female werewolf, is a pretty standard werewolf. Jeremy is the only non-bruiser Pack leader ever; is psychic; is rich and artistically talented and smart and his mother wasn't a werewolf at all, but a super-secret special non-werewolf supernatural and also the hottest necromancer ever loves him and and and...

Now, I think both these characters are well-written, well-rounded, and equally plausible within the setting, even if Jeremy is a bit more over-the-top than Elena is. But I've only heard the term "Mary Sue" applied to one of them. And it wasn't Jeremy. His spectacular special snowflake awesomeness is viewed as only right and fair, while her only unusual attribute—"female werewolf"—makes her, not the protagonist, but the obnoxious self-insert parasite who won't go away.

There's a problem here.

Playing Like A Girl.

Nobody has to like a girl, fictional or otherwise. But words like "annoying" or "Mary Sue" are both used as shorthand for "girl I want to dismiss." We've all read about characters who seemed overly perfect, or who had flaws the narrative wouldn't admit were flaws, and those characters are irritating. But I've seen just as many fictional boys like that as fictional girls (with the caveat that boys tend to get more pagetime, so they get more explored) and those boys don't get seen in the same way. As I was saying on twitter a couple days ago, I want characters to be flawed and awesome: I want them to be flawesome.

—Sarah Rees Brennan, Ladies, Don't Let Anyone Tell You You're Not Awesome.

So here's the thing.

When a female character is awesome, when she's the star, when she's the one the story is about, she runs the risk of being called a Mary Sue. I've had people call several of my characters Mary Sues, sometimes following it up with the all-condemning statement that clearly, these characters represent my ideal self. So you know? Toby is not my ideal self. Neither is George, or Velma, or Rose (or Sally, who you'll meet soon). Even the romantic comedy I wrote based entirely around a real trip I took to real England doesn't have a self-insert version of me as the main character; instead, it has a neurotic tech writer named Margary who likes far more adventurous food (and far more adventurous shoes). If any of my characters represents my "ideal self," it's probably Angela Baker in InCryptid, who is one of the only characters who never stars in her own book. Instead, she stays home, watches a lot of television, and does math. Heaven.

Mary Sue is a problem in a piece of fanfic. But if she's in her own story, if she's on her own stage, she can still be implausible, overly perfect, annoying, and unlikeable. What she isn't is an actual Mary Sue; what she isn't doing is warping the story to suit herself. She is the story, and that changes everything.

If you think a character in a work of original fiction is overly-perfect, say so. If you think they're overly-lucky, or overly-loved, or overly-cutesy, say so. But don't call that character a Mary Sue, or a Gary Stu, unless he or she is coming into someone else's story and warping it all out of shape (and even then, look at the context; Elphaba would be a Mary Sue in a piece of Wizard of Oz fiction, but wow is she a protagonist given her own stage in Wicked). Saying "This character is just a Mary Sue" is a way of dismissing them that isn't fair to reader, writer, or character. We can do better. We can write better. We just need to know how.

And give Mary Sue a break. I think the girl's earned it.

So we survived another iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show (always a risky proposition, what with all those snakes), and now it's time to get back to normal, everyday life. Naturally, for me, this means "now it's time to start packing for Michigan." Because nothing says "restful" like jetting straight off to another convention, right? Right?!

Ahem. A few snapshot statuses, for the interested and alert:

"Wicked Girls" shirts.
Yes! They have arrived! Well...mostly. It turns out the shirt shop was out of certain size/style combinations, so my order was short about fifty shirts, which will be coming along later. How are we finding out which size/style combinations are missing? By trying to pack orders and being unable to find the associated shirts. Naturally. So shipping is being a little bit odd at the moment, and I'm filling as many complete orders as I possibly can. Feel free to email the merchandise address (the Gmail.com account that contacted you for shipping and payment) if you have questions about your specific order, or need to update your address in any way.

Ashes of Honor progress.
I now have approximately 86,000 words written on Ashes of Honor, which means I'm on target to finish my first, deeply flawed draft of the book by the end of October. At which point, the flensing will begin. The flensing has already begun, on a localized level, but the deep flense requires a wider audience. I'm actually pretty happy with the shape of this book. I finally got to bring back a lot of the cast from A Local Habitation, some questions are getting answered, and Toby eats Pop-Tarts. Life is good.

Discount Armageddon approaches.
According to my planner countdown, Discount Armageddon will be released in one hundred and fifty-five days. But, you know. No pressure or anything. I am deeply excited and deeply terrified, and getting ready to rearrange things on my website to make the InCryptid section easier to find and navigate. This means the Field Guide will also be going totally live. You, too, can live in fear of the Apraxis Wasps.

Zombies.
Are love.

Albino banana slug.
ALBINO BANANA SLUG!!!!!! He's like vanilla soft serve with eyes, and I want to love him forever, even though this picture was taken a year ago and so he's probably been eaten by an owl by now. (I know slugs are hermaphrodites. I don't care. I want to name this particular slug "Geoff," and have grand adventures with him. He is my beloved squishy friend.)

HAIL FROGLORD!
This Questionable Content strip speaks to the depths of my soul.

And that's me. What's new with you?

Moshe posted his review of Deadline. He didn't like it very much, which is absolutely his right as a reader, and some of his points as to why he disliked the book are interesting and thought-provoking for me. Most of the time, I don't link to the negative reviews, both because I try to be fairly positive (biosphere ignition and all), and because I don't want to risk accidentally sending a swarm of people over to yell at a reviewer* for being wrong.

(*All reviews are matters of opinion. One man's trash is another man's treasure is a third man's raw materials for their planet-buster earthquake machine. Please do not yell at reviewers, unless the reviewers are saying things like "and this book is so bad that it proves the author likes to microwave kittens." If I am accused of being a kitten microwaving fiend, feel free to step in.)

I did not meet this reviewer's expectations, and my ending did not meet his standards for "this is how a book should end." That is fair, and I am sorry, although I stand by the shape of the story. I do find it interesting that there's often this assumption that a) things are artificially inflated into trilogies, and b) my publisher forced me to end Deadline the way that I did. So I wanted to state two things, for people who may have been wondering:

This was always a trilogy. It's a trilogy not because people expected it to be, but because that was the shape the story took. I started writing Feed (then Newsflesh) as a stand-alone book, and watched as it turned into something longer, a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Acts one, two, and three. We went to Orbit with three books, one finished, one half-finished, and one heavily outlined. The next project I'm planning to undertake as Mira Grant is a duology, rather than the admittedly more marketable trilogy. Why? Because that's the shape of the story.

The ending of Deadline (then The Mourning Edition) was always exactly as written. Why the stress? Because when you read the book, I want you to understand that the book's last line was in the original pitch package. Orbit had absolutely nothing to do with that ending. If anything, they might have encouraged me to provide something a little more concrete, and a little less "now is the time that the house lights come up and we all go to intermission."

The Newsflesh trilogy is a Schwartz musical, not a Sondheim; it's a 1980s horror film, not a 1950s monster mash. That's just how the story is shaped. I'm really sorry if I let any of you down, or if you don't like this shape. But it was my choice, not my publisher's, and it was dictated to me by the way the story needed to go. I will always go the way the story needs to go, even if that way isn't the one that's guaranteed to make the most people happy.

Treasure, trash, or death ray. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

I am slammed, and so you're getting one of those dense little fudge-like blog posts where everything fits easily in your mouth and also, you probably don't want to eat the whole box. You're welcome. And so...

The Return of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show.

The Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be coming together again on October 1st, to blow the roof right off of Borderlands Books! It's going to be a party. This time, the lineup includes Vixy and Tony, Betsy Tinney, Katie Tinney, Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff, Paul Kwinn, and the always-awesome Beckett Gladney. Mia Nutick will be on hand, with pendants. Kate Secor will be on hand, with sticks. Come for the music, cupcakes, readings, raffles, and fun; stay to buy books and make the bookstore like me. Hooray, Circus!

Ashes of Honor.

The sixth Toby book is trekking right along, and is currently on-schedule to have a finished first draft by October 26th. I even have a progressive daily word count goal sheet to prove it. Once the book is done, it goes off to the Machete Squad and The Agent for review and severe physical harm, and I can really buckle down on Midnight Blue-Light Special, a few YA projects, and the next Mira Grant book. This is what we call "Seanan rewards herself for working by creating more work." This is also what we call "Seanan has no social life."

Social life.

Except that I do have a social life, honest! I'm flying to Seattle this weekend for a Counting Crows concert (yes I am flying to another state just for a concert DON'T JUDGE ME I LOVE THEM). The Pirates of Emerson are getting ready to re-open their annual haunted house park, and I'm very excited about that. And I'm already making sure to plan dinners and lunches with the friends I'm going to see during...

My fall convention schedule.

The first full weekend of October (7th-9th), I will be the Literary Guest of Honor at Conclave, in Romulus, Michigan. The weekend after, I will be appearing at the LitCrawl!, this time in the Borderlands Cafe. The weekend after that, I will be flying to Ohio for OVFF, where I will sing in the Pegasus Concert, share a room with Brooke, hug Vixy a lot, and wear a pretty dress.

And after that, I nap.

Too much TV.

All my fall shows are coming back on the air. Right now, as of this week, I'm watching Eureka, Warehouse 13, Alphas, Castle, NCIS, Glee, The New Girl, America's Next Top Model, Fringe, Haven, and Doctor Who. Some of these shows are ending for the season very soon. Others are just getting started. Still others have not yet made an appearance on the schedule. Thank the Great Pumpkin for Tivo.

Toys!

The spring line of Monster High dolls has just been announced. I have acquired the Modern Doll Collector's Convention Evangeline ("Soul Sweeping"), but not the centerpiece doll (which I want very much). I have arranged a proxy for the Halloween convention. I am, in short, insane. But wow, do I have lots of toys staring at you while you try to sleep.

Cats.

Insane.

"Wicked Girls" T-shirts.

At the printer now! Soon, I shall have them, and soon, we shall begin sorting out the shipping process. Since some of you did order them as gifts for the holiday season, I may try doing a "priority boarding" post, where I say "let us know if you need yours soon for any reason," and bump those people to the front of the queue. If I do this, however, I need to trust that only people with real need will ask; more than fifty such requests, and we won't be able to handle them, so no one will get out-of-order shipping. And the spreadsheet is really random, the order in which your request was placed has nothing to do with it.

...and that is all, for right now. More to come later.

I need a nap.

So there's been a huge influx of people over the course of the past few days—hello, people!—and while I expect that the majority will leave again when it becomes clear that discussion of sweeping social issues is less common around here than discussion of that cute thing my cats did, some of the new folks will probably stick around. Welcome! A few things you ought to know...

1. My name is Seanan; I'm an urban fantasy author. My name is also Mira Grant; I'm a science fiction author. Both of my personas write other things, but those are mostly what we're known for. As Seanan, I won the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. As Mira, my first book, Feed, was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2011. I put out three books a year. I don't sleep.

2. I have cats. I'm not currently blogging about them much, because there was some unpleasant mail that I'm still calming down from, but they are a huge part of my life, and my word count posts include a note about where the cats are. All my cats came from reputable breeders. I believe in supporting both animal rescue and healthy, responsible breeding.

3. I watch a lot of television. Like, a lot of television. However much you're thinking, it's probably not enough. During the fall, my DVR is a sad, overworked little monkey that deserves lots and lots of treats. Given a choice between sleeping and watching television, the TV wins. Thankfully, writing is like TV for my brain, so I manage to meet my deadlines.

4. I collect toys. Specifically, I collect classic 1980s My Little Ponies, Monster High, interesting plush, the occasional totally awesome vinyl figure, and dolls from Wilde Imagination (Evangeline Ghastly and Ellowyne Wilde). As I type this, a Beautiful Nightmare Evangeline and a Blithe Spirit Ellowyne are sitting on my desk. It is very difficult to hang out in my room if you have issues with creepy dolls watching everything that you do.

5. I try to answer every comment posted on one of my entries, although not necessarily every comment posted on a thread. This can take a while. Please have patience with me.

I have a free friending policy, and a permanent unfriending amnesty. You don't need to tell me, either way. :) Again, welcome, and I'm glad you're here.

Welcome to the September 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving, and time is the gift that keeps on taking. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Wow, it's been a while since we've had one of these, hasn't it? The proofer spotlight is my way of publicly of thanking the tireless workers in the Machete Squad, who go through endless reams of bad prose and bizarre typos so that you won't have to. Seriously. I would have a lot more problems on the publisher end if I didn't travel with a trained squad of comma-killing, modifier-munching bad-asses. Hail to the Machete Squad!

It used to be a lot easier to get new proofreaders, because I didn't need to find people with the time, appropriate skill set, interest, and proven ability to keep their mouths shut until publication. I could literally just throw thirty people at a project, let them winnow themselves out, and keep whoever survived. Now I need to practice care and...gulp...discretion. But once in a while, someone new comes along.*

Enter Lauren and Priscilla.

Lauren has an amazing eye for time. She actually catches flow and logical progression in a way that none of the other currently active Machete Squad members tends to manage, which makes her invaluable to our cause. She also does line edits and presents herself with a dry, entertaining wit (I like funny in my critique). She's worked on Blackout, One Salt Sea, and Ashes of Honor, and she's amazing.

Priscilla is great with dialogue, flow, and detail work. She's one of my Manhattan-area subject matter experts, which is good; she's also a keen eye applied to general editorial matters, which is great. She's fun, she's funny, she's accessible, and she's enthusiastic, which is not something to be overlooked in measuring the value of a proofreader. She's worked on Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-Light Special.

And those are my newest proofers. Look upon their works, oh ye mighty, and rejoice!

(*Please do not comment here volunteering to read for me. I just wind up feeling awkward when I have to turn you down. I don't solicit readers in public, and I don't currently have any openings in need of filling. Thanks for understanding.)

Authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith have written a very brave, very straightforward article about being asked to remove homosexual characters from dystopian YA. Check it out. It's a fascinating read, all the more because it's so topical.

I have never been asked to turn a gay character straight; I'm very thankful for that. I have also, as yet, not been working all that extensively in YA (although I hope that will change in the future). So who knows what's going to happen? I have faith in The Agent, however, and I truly believe that she will fight for me, and for the integrity of my work. Both my houses (both adult houses) have been fabulous about my having gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters in my books; I do not yet have any explicitly transgender characters in published work, but I have absolute faith that when those characters appear, both DAW and Orbit will treat them with the same respect that they show to all my other characters.

That being said, I'm noticing one disturbing trend in certain replies/rebuttals* to this entry. Specifically, I've seen several people saying "There are absolutely gay characters in YA. What about ________?" and naming specific examples. Tom and Carl in the Diane Duane books. The protagonists of Annie On My Mind. Pretty much anything by Francesca Lia Block. And, well...

To me, this is the same as saying "Of course there are female leads in the movies! Didn't you see Bridesmaids?" or "Of course there are female protagonists in cartoons! Don't you watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?"

Yes, those stories exist. But they exist in the context of "chick flick" (how I hate you, rhyming label), or "girl's cartoon." If you omit "chick flicks" and action movies involving Mila Jovavich or Angelina Jolie, both of whom are basically playing video game heroines most of the time, it's really hard to find a female lead. We get romances and we get to fight evil in our skivvies. We don't get to have stories that are essentially gender-neutral. If you take out the cartoons where pink is the primary color of the universe, it's really hard to find a cartoon that has gender balance, much less a female in a leadership role.

When I talk about wanting diversity in my YA, I'm not asking for more specifically "queer YA." I love it, I want to see it keep getting published, I think it's important, and I think it's not the point of this particular sword. What I want is paranormal romance where the lead is in love with the head cheerleader, not the head jock. What I want is heist books and con men where it's Mike and Dan, not Mike and Dawn. I want gay best friends and gay parents and sisters who were born brothers but got that fixed. I want books that are sold as being normal, everyday, perfectly ordinary books, that just happen to have gay people in them, not the next! Big! QUEER ADVENTUUUUUUUUURE! I have plenty of queer adventures. What I want is gay men doing laundry, lesbians chasing werewolves, and transgender superheroes fighting to save Metro City. What I want is books where the story matters more than the sexual orientation of the characters it contains.

Saying "queer YA exists" distracts from the issue at hand: there is very little in the way of YA with queer characters, as opposed to queer YA. And that's something we should be aware of, and something we should be working to fix. My sexual orientation did not somehow change the stories that I was interested in, or the adventures I was able to have as a human being. It was just one factor, amongst a whole lot of other factors. We need explicitly queer YA the way we need sports books and horse books and The Babysitter's Club and every other niche story: to tell us that this is okay, that this is an option. But characters in apocalypse YA ride horses, play sports, and babysit for children. So why can't they date whoever they want, without being changed into something they're not?

It matters.

(*I don't really understand how you can present a rebuttal to something that happened. The surrounding circumstances can be argued, but if a dog bites me, you can't present an argument for why the dog didn't bite me. I'm bleeding, I was bitten. This does not stop people from trying.)

Newsflesh trilogy, final stats.

Start date: September 4th, 2005.
End date: September 2nd, 2011.

Volumes: Three.
Words: 455,814.
Pages: An awful lot.

...so yeah. That happened.

Last night, at approximately 9:15PM, I finished processing the last of the editorial changes to Blackout, and kicked the manuscript off to The Agent for a final typo check. She kicked it back to me this morning, and at approximately 5:21AM, I finished correcting the last of the grammatical and typographical errors. The book is back with her for a final final check, and then it's off to The Other Editor, to begin the process of transforming into something you can read.

It's over.

I have other things to do in this universe, other stories to tell and to enjoy telling, but this story, this trilogy...it's over. I am finished with the Masons. Their tale is done.

I've never finished anything like this before. I feel a little numb and a little scalded and a little overwhelmed, all at once.

Thank you. Thank you to everyone who's read these books, recommended these books, loved these books, hated these books, or interacted with them in any way. Thank you to Michael and Amanda, Kate and GP, Spider and Steve, Alan and Jude, Brooke and Vixy and Bill and Mike and Rae and Sunil and Amy and Cat and...and...and everyone. Just thank you.

Thank you for helping me tell this story. I never could have done it on my own.

Alive or dead, the truth won't rest. Thank you for helping me to rise up while I could.

First:

I have leveled up in Real Author. How do I know? I know because I actually managed to miss a publication date. Not a deadline; a publication. As in, "something got released, and I completely missed it." So! My poem, "Clockwork Chickens," was published in issue #25 of Apex Magazine, which previously published the stories "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On" and "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells." Hooray!

You can read my poem here, for now. Apex takes down back issues in a sort of rolling pattern, so you should read soon, or better yet, buy the e-book download of the issue so that you can keep it forever and for always. Apex is a company that does good work, and they keep buying my stuff, which naturally endears them to me. I would like it if they would keep doing that. And also, I like this poem.

In other news, I am safely home from Ohio, and attempting to figure out where I left my head. I sadly suspect it may have been in the Houston airport, where I was so hungry that I ate an entire cheeseburger in approximately four bites and an inhale. I think I scared the waitress. I know I counted my fingers when I was done. Just in case. So I am tired and I am grumpy, and I am getting tired of being tired.

I am almost done packing the most recent run of poster orders, and should be getting those in the mail this week. Better yet, the lovely Deborah has finished collating all the T-shirt orders, and I am working with the printer now to get everything submitted and start the production process. We wound up with over three hundred shirts on the order. My house is going to be one hell of a shipping party.

I am also almost done with the technical revisions on Blackout, which I will be shipping off to my publisher Real Soon Now. And thus do I buy myself time to finish the other three books I need to be working on, and perhaps someday, one day, take a nap.

Onwards and upwards.

Zzz.

I am leaving for the WorldCon in Reno tomorrow, and a little bit horrified by how quickly this year has gone by. Maybe if I started sleeping, time would slow down. Do you think? Yeah, probably not. Oh, well. A girl can dream. Anyway:

Welcome to the August 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (One Salt Sea, Blackout). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my journal. I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.

Anyway, here you go:

( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )

So there's been a spate recently of people going "What's the status on _________?" or "Where can I buy _________?" This is usually referring to either the Lycanthropy books or the print edition of Sparrow Hill Road, although I've also had a somewhat surprising number of inquiries about print editions of "Velveteen vs." Here, then, is my across-the-board answer:

If I am able to give the status on a project (sold, in print, not yet shopping, not yet finished), I will. I am not in any way shy about going "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT?!" I will probably give you this status whether you want it or not, whether you care about it or not, and whether you ask me or not. And just to live up to this statement, my confirmed publications for the remainder of 2011 and the beginning of 2012 are...

One Salt Sea, novel, September. Toby Daye book five.
"Cinderella City," short story, in the collection Human For A Day, December.
"Flower of Arizona," short story, in the collection Westward Weird, February.
Discount Armageddon, novel, March. InCryptid book one.
"We Will Not Be Undersold," short story, in the collection The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity, March.

The third Newsflesh book, Blackout, will be published in May 2012.

I have a few other short stories slated for publication, but don't have release dates and/or permission to announce them yet. See, once something is sold, I am unable to tell people until I am given permission from the publisher—it's part of the standard contract. So if I'm not telling you where you can buy something, it's because there's a "can't" involved. Either you can't buy it, or I can't tell you. Either way, please, please believe me when I say that anything I am allowed to share, I share as quickly as I can, to keep my own head from exploding. This includes information about audio books and foreign editions.

Thank you for understanding. And stuff.

It wasn't until I went to my "current projects" tag to pull the format for this entry that I realized just how hectic and insane May really was: I didn't do a current projects post. That's like, earth-shaking busyness, and sort of terrifying. Almost as terrifying as the fact that it's June now, meaning that the year is officially half over. Already. Who the hell authorized this?

Anyway. Since I don't control time and hence can't reset us to February, welcome to the June 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (One Salt Sea). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )