Check out this Barnes & Noble blog about the October Daye series.

Specifically, about seven awesome things about the October Daye series. I think there are many awesome things about the October Daye series, including the way it helps me keep the brain squirrels from eating me alive, but it's always super fun to see what someone else thinks of as the highlights.

What highlights do you think they missed?

10. Seattle is beautiful. I know this, because I am currently in Seattle, at least until Monday (the 30th), when I will fly back to California, have my hair done, do my laundry, sleep, and get on a plane to England. I won't be home for more than a day until April 15th. My accountant is thrilled.

9. Emerald City Comic Con is this weekend! I have posted my schedule. It's very packed and very pretty, and I am super excited about all the good things to come. Whee!

8. Before I left California, Kate and I did a massive post office run, and I mailed another huge batch of domestic shirts, as well as about a third of the remaining international shirts. I will try to send another batch before I leave for the UK (although I can't guarantee it). Also, my mother called to let me know that a box from the shirt shop has shown up, which I presume contains the shirts that weren't printed in the initial delivery. Hooray! I won't be able to sort these until after April 15th, but hopefully this means we can finish fulfillment sooner than later. Thank you all for your patience.

7. Still not writing the X-Men. Give me time.

6. Rolling in the Deep comes out next month! On the seventh, to be exact, and it is fancy. Seriously, this may be the fanciest book I have ever written, at least in terms of awesome production values. What a fancy, fancy book. Also it is filled with murderous mermaids and ill-fated ocean voyages, which are two of my favorite things. Because this is a Subterranean Press book, there's no guarantee it will be coming to a bookstore near you, and it may need to be ordered directly from the publisher.

5. This morning was the San Diego Comic-Con hotel scramble, and it says something about how stressful this is on an annual basis that I was on the Air B&B site shortly after, looking at local condos and thinking "maybe this wouldn't be so bad." I need help, and the con needs a better way of handling hotel assignments.

4. We are getting pedicures today. Because we are fancy ladies.

3. Speaking of fancy ladies, I am seeing so many of my favorite fancy ladies this coming weekend that I can't even express how happy I am. Like, I try, and all the words go away and then the flailing happens and sometimes I just really love my life, okay? Sometimes my life is best.

2. Zombies are love.

1. I will be going to Disney World for the first half of May, so if I seem a little AHHHHHHHHHHHH for the next few weeks, it's because I am literally three conventions and six weeks away from Disney time, and I need Disney time so bad y'all, I need it so bad I can taste it.

What's shiny and new with all of you?

Slasher Chicks shirts.

I have opened a new Slasher Chicks tank top sales post right over here. While I won't say with 100% certainty that there's not a shirt mistakenly shoved into a different box, so far as I am aware, the currently posted numbers represent all the remaining stock of this design. Once they're gone they're gone, unless I find a really good reason to reprint, and even if I do, that won't be happening for a year or more (probably more). So check it out! They're great, soft, fitted tanks, stretchy and comfy and cool.

But wait, there's more.

If you do decide to buy a tank top for yourself or as a Hogswatch gift, I will tell you to PayPal an email address, and ask you to send your mailing info via my contact form. What this means is that I need you to PayPal an email address, and send your mailing info via my contact form. My PayPal is connected to a very old email account that doesn't include a graphic mail client, and extracting shipping info from PayPal notifications is borderline impossible. Meaning I won't mail your shirt until I receive an email with your contact info.

More old ARCs!

I have some leftover ARCs of The Winter Long for the crafters and creative people of the world to claim and enjoy. Because they're heavy, I would prefer to only mail them domestically, as I will have to charge postage; basically, it would be cheaper to buy a new paperback and cut that up if you're in a country other than the US. (I say "prefer" because sometimes you really need an ARC for a specific craft. Like the friend in England who turned one of my ARCs into paper roses for her wedding bouquet.)

As I said above, I do need to charge postage this time, so it'll be $5 for an ARC to a US address, and postage to be determined for an ARC to anywhere else. I won't sign them; these are intended for craft use, not collectable use. Comment with your location if you want one.

Shirt status.

Still not on my doorstep.

Monster High status.

Looking for the entire Haunted Line, looking for all Gloom and Bloom except for Jane Boolittle, looking for Freaky Field Trip, not looking for Geek Shriek because fuck that line.

Cat status.

Puffy.

What's new and cool in the land of you?

I (as Mira Grant) was asking to put together a list of potential pandemics for Buzzfeed. I like anything that gives me an excuse to wallow in delicious virology, so...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/orbitbooks/10-epidemics-waiting-to-happen-that-you-wonat-e-16hk

Enjoy, and remember, medical science is more interested in keeping you alive than it is in cutting you up and reassembling you as a shambling horror.

Most of the time.

10. For some reason, people have been sending me Livejournal messages a lot recently. You are totally welcome to do this, but please be aware that I may take months to answer, even years, as they are a lower priority than messages which come in through my website contact form. If you want to contact me for any reason, your best channel is my website, which has a lovely and easy-to-use contact form. These emails go to my PA, who answers some questions herself and forwards the rest on to me. Where they appear in my inbox, impossible to ignore. Where they get answered.

9. Seriously, just use the contact form. I don't really answer messages received through any other channel in any sort of a reasonable time (and I don't answer Facebook messages at all).

8. I am making cioppino tomorrow night! I am so excited about that! Except...

7. ...I'm making it for me and Olivia to eat while we watch "The Quarterback" and cry. I know Glee is a frequently terrible show, but I am genuinely saddened by Cory's death, and this is going to be emotionally devastating.

6. The tip jar is remaining open until tomorrow morning, largely because I forgot to post this reminder yesterday. Thanks to everyone who's chipped in so far, and to everyone who hasn't, too, because sometimes life says "not this time." Y'all are awesome.

5. So awesome, in fact, that I am compelled to make sure you've seen the incredible videos on SymboGen.net. Seriously, this is some of the best marketing ever, and it's for my book. I am overcome with squee.

4. The field of Alice's fucks lies fallow, and I support this.

3. Carrie: The Musical is really fantastic. If you're in the Bay Area, I recommend the Ray of Light production, now playing in San Francisco. If you're not, look around; there are a lot of productions going right now, due to the rights opening up.

2. Zombies are love.

1. HAPPY OCTOBER HALLOWEEN IS COMING.

10. I haven't been posting much recently, and I'm sorry. I could make a lot of excuses, but at the end of the day, it boils down to one thing: I'm tired. I had a lot of deadlines hit all at once, and I've been spending the time that would normally go to blogging trying to "recharge my batteries" by doing things like cleaning out my inbox and re-dressing my many, many dolls. And on the one hand, I feel sort of like I'm failing you guys through my radio silence. But on the other hand, I feel like you'd rather have me alert and peppy than gloomy and drooping, so it'll all come out in the wash. Right?

9. Vericon was lovely; Boston was not, so much, since New England observes this season called "winter," and they celebrate it by leaving huge heaps of snow everywhere. Ev. Ery. Where. There were literally heaps of snow all over the place, and since I am a California girl, my tolerance for snow is basically non-existent. People kept asking me where my coat was. It's adorable how they assume they own one, isn't it?

8. But an old friend of mine showed up at my book signing, and brought me a PAX East scarf and several hugs, and that was lovely. Really, Boston was awesome for people: I saw Shawn, and Dave, and Nora, and Tammy, and Katy, and it was all splendid, and I have no regrets. So many hugs. I love hugs.

7. Oh, and then I found Carrie at the airport, as we were on the same flight home from Boston. She was quite ill. I fed her Pepto Bismol chewables and made her feel better. This is why I carry such things.

6. The cats are done being furious with me over my absence, and are now trying to love me so enthusiastically that I will never leave them again. For Thomas, this means a lot of flinging himself at me and trusting that I'll catch him. I have some really interesting scratches from where one of us misjudged the distance he was going to need to travel. Kitty love is pointy love.

5. My podiatrist has given me a prescription for...running shoes. Because that is the next rehabilitational step, after the walking boot that I've been in for the past month. Basically, they have the support and cushioning that I need, and they'll allow me to continue healing while also walking more normally. I have never been so excited about the prospect of putting my jeans back on, you have no idea.

4. I have so many deadlines in 2013, and some of them have been moved by other people, and it makes me pull my hair and whimper. But! I am triumphant thus far, and thanks to my compulsive list-making and passion for organizing my life, I am confident that I will be able to stay on top of them. As long as I don't get sick or distracted or forget to come home from Disney World in May (which is a genuine risk, let me tell you; Disney World is like a black hole for Seanans).

3. Jean Grey is no longer dead and I am not happy about that fact.

2. Zombies are, however, still love.

1. You all make me very happy, and I am glad that you're still here. I promise to try to be better about staying on top of things. I can't promise to succeed, but everything begins with trying.

I have been doing stuff! On the internet! With people!

Have you ever wondered whether I had guilty pleasures? Well, I don't actually believe in being guilty about the things that bring me joy, but that didn't stop me from appearing on My Countless Lives to talk about my not-so-guilty pleasures. Looking at this list, I believe I can say, without reservations, that I'm a little weird. But I'm also super-fun to go to Disneyland with, so it all balances out.

Orbit asked me to write a thing about fictional politicians. So I wrote a thing about fictional politicians. Being as I am me, it's a pretty eclectic list. I kept it short by leaving off people who inherited their titles and became kick-ass royals, because yes, Neo-Queen Serenity is awesome, but that would have been the point at which things got completely out of control.

Oh, hey, I did an interview (as Mira Grant) for the Examiner. So that's a thing and you should totally read it.

Oh! Also! I did a sort of micro-interview with Romantic Times, also as Mira Grant. Not many questions, but the ones they asked were fun, so that works out.

Also, this one time, at band camp, I interviewed Mira Grant, and things quickly got really weird. So that's a thing which I have done on the internet.

And those are things and stuff what I have done on the internet.

Doobie-doo.

We here on the internet are a lot like intersecting flocks of crows: constantly chasing the shiny things, and then bringing them back to the nest to be pecked at, admired, and envied. These are some things I've been brought recently.

1. Singing mice. Yes! Mice can sing. I know this, and am delighted by it.

2. Mark Reads is doing Feed. Actually, Mark Reads is doing the whole series. I drew him a nun. We have a close friend in common, so I'm pretty well-informed.

3. Many people are making many types of horrifyingly flavored candy corn, including caramel, sour apple, and worse. None of these are The One True Corn. Only candy corn, flavored like candy corn, is The One True Corn. Chocolate candy corn is acceptable in Autumn Mix, and no other time.

4. Community is awesome and I should be watching it. Well, I listened, and I'm now most of the way through season two. Y'all were right. I salute you.

5. Amy Mebberson drew Disney Princesses as the various Doctors. I have dispatched people to try and get me a print at NYCC, since I'm not attending the convention this year.

6. The Bay features tongue-eating isopods eating an entire small community. I am so excited for this movie!

7. Steampunk Disney pins, coming this November.

8. That video of a bulldog puppy whining for five minutes. Adorable.

9. There is no new Glee until November. I hate the mid-season hiatus with a burning passion, but I did notice that it was happening.

10. The Monster High dance class dolls have been released. Yes! But they're not showing up in California yet. Boo.

And those are the things I know, because I have been told about them multiple times in the last week. I hope the world is as relevant to your interests as it is to mine!

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!

1. So I have been forced, by the technical limitations inherent to LJ, to change my Friending policy. Specifically, I am now at MAXIMUM FRIENDOCITY, and adding any more Friends will cause me to be instantly sucked into a horrifying shadow dimension where demons will feast on my delicious bones. Read also, "LJ won't let me Friend any more people." So while I am still a Friend/Unfriend amnesty zone, I will no longer be automatically Friending back. Also, I have now typed the word "Friend" so many times that it has lost all meeting. I shall have to Foe some people.

2. You know it's summer when the Maine Coons felt their bellies by sleeping in their water dish, and you have to take them back to the groomer to be shaved. Again. In other news, guess who gets to take forty pounds of cranky kitty to the groomer? Good guess.

3. I've been scarce recently because a) I've been trying to catch up on some things, and b) I have 600+ comments to answer and it scares me. I will endeavor to post more, if y'all will be understanding about it taking me a while to answer you. S'good? S'good.

4. Disneyland was awesome, except for the part where I twisted my ankle and spent Sunday in a wheelchair. It turns out that I'm still surprisingly good at navigating myself when I need to, and Vixy pushed me when we weren't in spaces that required fine cornering and control. Neither of us died, but wow, was that not an experience that I am in a hurry to repeat.

5. I will, however, say this: if you see a girl pushing a manual wheelchair down a hill, maybe stepping right in front of that wheelchair is not the world's best plan. Especially if that wheelchair contains a person larger than the girl doing the pushing. Because you know what neither of us was able to do in that situation? Stop. In other news, I ran over some idiot-ankles, and I am not sorry.

6. The Hugo Voter Packet has been updated, and now contains the files for Best Related Work. That means that, for the first time ever, a full length filk CD is included in the Hugo packet. So. Cool. It's not too late to register and get your voting rights into the bag! Check out https://chicon.org/membership.php for details.

7. The new season of So You Think You Can Dance has started, and that means that my urge to write InCryptid is returning to normal. This show is totally restorative, in the best, weirdest way possible. I am a happy bunny.

8. Other things that make me happy: the San Diego Comic-Con exclusives have been announced for this year, and they include a new Monster High doll (Scarah Screams) and a new My Little Pony (Derpy Hooves/Bubblecup). I am a sucker for toys.

9. Other things I am a sucker for: Australia. My Mira Grant Q&A on Saturday was the most marsupial-centric Q&A I've ever been a part of. It was sort of impressive, in a "why are we talking about this again?" sort of a way. It may have had something to do with the fact that I had a plush Perry the Platypus on the podium...

10. Jean Gray is still dead.

10. Orders for the second run of Wicked Girls shirts are now open, and will remain open until May 18th. Please read the post carefully, as it includes important ordering information. We're planning a more gender-neutral shirt next, probably saying "My story is not done," but we need to get through this batch, first. In other news, I am a glutton for punishment.

9. A bit of confusion has arisen relating to my East Coast trip. So here's the skinny: I am going to the East Coast, I am not attending any conventions while I'm there, I may or may not be doing any appearances. It's all still up in the air. I'll sign books at any bookstores I stumble over, but that's about all I can guarantee right now.

8. If you're in New York, however, and enjoyed Repo: The Genetic Opera, might I recommend looking at the tour dates for The Devil's Carnival? It's the new project by the same people, and it looks awesome. I'll be attending the 7pm showing in Manhattan on April 26th, and more people always make for a better party. Unless there's a limited amount of cake.

7. One of my favorite comic books, The Boys, is going into its final story arc. I am going to miss it so much when it's gone. On the other hand, I said the same thing about Preacher, which was this creative team's former collaboration, and look what it got me. I'm excited to see what comes next.

6. I am trying not to be nervous about the Philip K. Dick Awards, which happen Friday evening, while I'm, you know, a state away. I have managed not to get my hopes up too high, although I have to admit, it would be awesome to win. It really is just an honor to be nominated.

5. To the two girls dressed as Jean Gray who called the girl dressed as Emma Frost a skank this past weekend at Emerald City: Not cool. We're all geeks here together, and while you may have been giggling in character, she wasn't with you.

4. To the extremely pretty girl dressed as Emma Frost who got called a skank this past weekend at Emerald City: You looked absolutely stunning, and your confidence and poise as you walked made it even better. Don't let people bring you down. You are amazing.

3. And yes, that message would have been the same if it had been two Emmas and a Jean. I only noticed because the costumes caught my eye.

2. In further comic book news, my comic book store tried to incite a Sharks vs. Jets throw-down between Avengers fans and X-Men fans last night. Apparently the Avengers were winning...until I walked in the door. Turns out, I'm a destructive force of nature where my comics are concerned. Who knew, right?

1. Zombies are love.

1. First off, for those of you who may have missed it yesterday, the cover of Ashes of Honor has been posted for your viewing pleasure. Chris McGrath has done it again, and I am totally overjoyed by the ongoing evolution of Toby. (Also by the fact that I am now six books into an urban fantasy series, and the most sexualized my protagonist has been was on the cover to book five, where she had no pants on. She was also a fish at the time. I am overjoyed.)

2. I am home from Emerald City Comic Con! Yay! I am too tired to die, and there's a very good chance that I am going to bed without any supper tonight because I will be herded by the cats (to my doom), but it was a great weekend, I got many, many hugs, and I am now safely back in the Bay Area. Life is good.

3. Welcome to all the new people who got linked here via my post on diversity in fiction! I'm thrilled that you're here, and promise not to be upset when you realize that I'm rarely that intellectual and go off to do something more useful with your time. I hope you enjoy us while you're at the party. We are already enjoying you.

4. Speaking of not being intellectual all the time...If anyone out there is collecting the blind bag My Little Pony figures, I have all of them except for the basic, non-glittery Rainbow Dash. I have many doubles I can trade, including the special edition Twilight Sparkle. Inquire within. Please.

5. Shirt post coming this week.

That is all. Now I must nap.

Hey, look! I'm in an anthology! River, from Dark Quest Books, edited by Alma Alexander. It's a book of stories about, well. A river. My story, "Lady of the Waters," is about a ship called The Jackdaw, her centaur captain (no, really), her faintly annoyed crew, and some giant catfish. I quite like it.

Oh, and hey, the audio books of all the Toby Daye adventures are still available at Audible.com, including Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea, which periodically appear as customer favorites. I find this awesome, and you should totally check it out if you haven't already listed to the fabulous audio narration. Or even if you have. I'm not picky.

SCIENCE CHEERLEADERS. It's like a beautiful dream. With pom-poms. There was no earthly way not to share.

...and because that last link may have restored your faith in humanity, here are some insanely depressing "rules for girls" collected from Twitter. The next time someone asks you why I keep threatening to ignite the biosphere, this is why. We can't have nice things until we've burned out all the stupid.

The title of this article right here is "How Amazon Kills Books and Makes Us Stupid." Again, destroying faith in humanity through the aid of my link file. You're welcome.

So it's a mixed bag today, but it includes SCIENCE CHEERLEADERS and CENTAUR SHIP CAPTAINS, so I'm going to call it overall a positive. Your mileage may vary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Zombies are love.

So first off, I'm not dead. I am, however, home from Disney, and coping with my own flare-up of food poisoning, which haunted my party during our Disney World adventure. Getting sick on the plane is awesome! But anyway...

It's award eligibility season! Nominations are now open for both the Nebulas and the Hugos. Nebula nominations are open until February 15th for SFWA members only. Hugo nominations are open until March 11th, and to quote the website: "Nominations are open to members of the current year's Worldcon, the members of the past year's Worldcon, and, starting with the 2012 Hugo Awards, the members of the following year’s Worldcon." This means that if you had a membership to Renovation, you are eligible to nominate. If you didn't, you have until January 31st to purchase a membership for Chicon if you want nominating as well as voting rights on this year's ballot.

Anyway, this is what I did in 2011. If you are eligible to nominate, please consider these works, as well as many others by many awesome people.

Novel:

Late Eclipses
One Salt Sea
Deadline (as Mira Grant)

Novella:

Countdown (as Mira Grant)

Novelette:

Through This House

Short Story:

"The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells."
"Gimme a 'Z'!"
"The Alchemy of Alcohol."
"Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box." (as Mira Grant)
"Riddles."
"Uncle Sam."
"Cinderella City."
"Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage."

Of these short stories, many of which I am very proud of, "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells" can be read for free at Apex Magazine, "Uncle Sam" can be read for free at The Edge of Propinquity, and "Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage" can be read for free at Fantasy Magazine (soon to merge with Lightspeed Magazine, which may change the way they archive things, I don't know).

Best Related Work:

Wicked Girls

I'm serious. According to the Hugo website, this category is..."Awarded to a work related to the field of science fiction, fantasy, or fandom, appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year or which has been substantially modified during the previous calendar year. The type of works eligible include, but are not limited to, collections of art, works of literary criticism, books about the making of a film or TV series, biographies and so on, provided that they do not qualify for another category." I believe that filk albums would thus be "related works," not dramatic presentations. Also, the idea cracks me up.

Best Fancast:

The SF Squeecast, in which I babble about all things awesome with Paul Cornell, Cat Valente, Elizabeth Bear, and Lynne Thomas.

I think that's everything. 2011 was amazing for me, publication-wise, and I am so happy and so pleased that all of you were there with me. And now, to quote the lovely Cat, who reminded me to make this post myself...

Quoth Cat: "A final note: you do not have to go to Worldcon to nominate and vote for the Hugos. You can buy a supporting membership for $50 and get that perk. I realize $50 is a lot to express an opinion, but every year we hear complaints about the ballot and every year I hope that my generation will vote a little more, because the Hugos are kind of a bellwether for the field, and I want new crackly risktaking goodness in there, too. Since I have no control over the price of the supporting membership all I can say is—give it a thought, if you have the scratch."

So if you have the funds and you want the voice, consider it. You could be a part of science fiction history.

Happy New Year!

1. I'm currently running an ARC giveaway for Discount Armageddon, and will be choosing a winner via random number generator tomorrow morning. US addresses only for this particular giveaway. I'm leaving the state very shortly, and I don't have any customs forms, so I have to limit the entries if I want to be sure of mailing out the book.

2. Speaking of mailing things...I sent a massive batch of shirts this weekend, and will be preparing another batch to go out at the end of this week. The "I do not have any customs forms, and neither does my local post office" issue means I'm only sending US orders right now, but hopefully they'll have more customs forms soon. The shirt shop finally sent me the last of the shirts, so if your order was skipped before due to me not having your actual shirt, I should now be able to package it. (Yes, this is taking a long time. I can only send what I can hand-deliver, and that sort of complicates things.)

3. Why am I leaving the state? Because I am going to DISNEY WORLD!!!! More specifically, I'm going with my mother, my youngest sister, and vixyish, who has been drafted into the role of "person who keeps Seanan from killing her family." We're meeting up with hsifyppah and sweetmusic_27 in Florida, along with Amy's friend Patty, and then we're going to spend NINE DAYS enjoying the glories of Orlando. I'm the only person in my group of four that's ever been before, and I can't wait.

4. This does mean, however, that I won't be online for over a week. No email, no LJ, nothing but Twitter from my phone. So please don't email me and then get upset if I don't answer. (I mean really, don't do that anyway, I beg of you. I am unable to promise a swift reply for anything sent in my email. I'm even retooling my website in a vain attempt to reduce the amount of email coming my way. Have mercy.)

5. Which brings us to release dates. All books and stories with confirmed release dates that I can say "yes, it comes out on that day" about are listed on my bibliography page. Please check there before you ask me when something is coming out. It's unfair, I know, but I get asked that question so often that it makes me cranky, and I hate being cranky at people who don't deserve it.

6. I am currently trying to either write or revise ALL THE THINGS, and will be doing another inchworm post shortly, because that has turned out to be a distressingly good way of staying on top of things. Thanks, Bear.

7. So The Agent returned her editorial notes on Ashes of Honor, and as always, has proven to be incredibly good at identifying the major structural flaws that all the rest of us mysteriously missed. I'm currently fourteen chapters in on the editorial rewrite, after which the book can go off to The Editor, and I can forget about it for a little while. And by "forget about it," I really mean "start The Chimes at Midnight." I think there's something wrong with the way my brain works.

8. I am now on season four of Criminal Minds. I'm sorry I started watching so late, because damn. I'm also glad I started watching so late, because it means I've had lots to enjoy. Also, Penelope Garcia for the win.

9. Jean Grey is still dead.

10. Happy holidays! Try not to freak out and bludgeon anyone to death with a fruitcake, okay? Because that would be a horrible way to go.

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?

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.

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 )

1. I don't know why this needs to be repeated, but here you go: If you friend this journal, I will friend your journal in return, so that you can see any friend-locked contests or giveaways (they're rare, but they happen). I will not necessarily read your journal, as I am very, very outnumbered, and I need to sleep occasionally. Assume I don't see anything you post unless you point it out to me explicitly. If you unfriend this journal, I will unfriend your journal in return. This is not a personal thing. This is just mirror-image reciprocity.

2. If you're looking for book release dates, or want to know when/where a story will be appearing, check my bibliography page. I update it regularly, and while not all recently-sold stories will be present (since I don't add things until they have a firm release date), this will answer ninety percent of the "when can I get...?" questions.

3. If you want to know where I'm going to be and when I'm going to be there, check my appearances page. It, too, is updated frequently (although I'm not as good about editing past appearances to put them in the correct tense as I would like to be). I'll usually post about an upcoming appearance here, but long-range planning is rendered easier by the actual appearances page.

4. If I was supposed to mail you something—a poster, a CD, a book you won in a contest, a severed human head—and you haven't received it, the appropriate channel for letting me know is via email. My website contact link is easy to find and easy to use, and if I don't know you don't have something, I can't look into it. I don't use mail confirmation when I send things; the additional postage cost is simply not an option. So please, please, if you don't have something you think you should have, email me!

5. Zombies are love.

It's Friday. There's barely a weekend between us and Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], which officially hits store shelves in four days. I can barely believe that it's so close. I'm still a little stunned when I look at my shelf at home, and there's book four, staring at me. But the show must go on, and in honor of that fact, here are four exciting things coming in the next year.

4. Well, naturally, Deadline. The second book in the Newsflesh trilogy is coming out at the end of May, and it's exciting and terrifying and Feed was so well-reviewed that I'm considering disabling my Google spiders and hiding under my bed for a week when this one comes out, just to escape the inevitable comparisons. I think it's a good book. I even think it's maybe a better book. But it's not a sequel in the "do the same, only bigger" sense, and that makes me twitchy.

3. "Through This House" is my first novella set in Toby's world. More, it's my first novella appearing in a Charlaine Harris/Toni Kelner anthology, which still has me a little WAIT WHAT NO WHO IS DRIVING? BEAR IS DRIVING!! HOW CAN THIS BE?!? about the whole thing. I love the story, which bridges the span between Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea, but isn't necessary to enjoy either. And I love that I was somehow lucky enough to be allowed to write it.

2. Book Expo America! This is one of the biggest literary trade shows in the world. It's like, the Emerald City of giant book expos. I've never been before. And this year, I get to go. Lemme hear a "woo" from the crowd! Hell, I'll do it myself. WOO!

1. One Salt Sea. It comes out in September; I'm in final editorial revisions now; it's the book where, well, once again, everything changes. It's also the book I sometimes thought I would never finish, because it required admitting to myself that the series would make it five books, and I never quite believed that. But I did, and it did, and soon, you'll get to read it, and I'm so excited.

And that's four exciting things in the year ahead.

Well, here we are. Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is officially five days from release, and most of those days are part of the weekend, which means they'll pass in like, eight minutes, flat. The point of no return is sending nice postcards, and wishes we were still there. Sadly, we've passed it. In honor of passing things, here are five things I wish I'd known when I started publishing (but am probably glad I didn't).

5. By the time you've survived peer critique, the agent search, submissions, and editorial, you're pretty much accustomed to bad reviews. You'll never be used to them, but they're no longer the shocking "but...but...but I'M THE PRETTIEST PRINCESS" catastrophes they were in the beginning. This will do absolutely nothing to prepare you for the bad reviews which have nothing whatsoever to do with your book. Bad reviews I have received: "This costs too much, so it sucks." "This book had no sex in it and I wanted sex, so it sucks." "No one told me this book would have fairies in it." There is no avoiding these reviews. No matter how much you want to.

4. Everyone in the world is going to assume that you, as author, have a great deal more knowledge and control than you do. You will constantly be asked questions to which you will not have the answer, and some people will not believe you when you tell them that really, you don't know. Also, if you're wired anything like me, you'll start having trouble not snapping at people after the seventy-fifth time you're asked something. This is a problem, unless it was the same person asking the question seventy-five times. In that case, snap away.

3. Again, if you're wired anything like me, you'll probably have become a writer because you enjoy writing. It's what you do for fun. Yay, writing! This becomes a little complicated when suddenly, writing is also your job. Sadly, the odds are good that after about six to eight months of existential angst, you'll find yourself unwinding from a long session of writing by...writing something else. On the plus side, your agent will love you.

2. An awful lot of traditional publishing is "hurry up and wait." Patience is a virtue. So is the ability to distract yourself with bad television.

1. It never stops being terrifying, exciting, and basically the most interesting thing going on in your world. It may, however, stop being terrifying, exciting, and the most interesting thing in the world for your friends. Be prepared to buy interest with chocolate.

Well, here we are. Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] comes out in one week, exactly. If past trends hold true*, people will begin reporting sightings in the wild any day now. This will either cause me to clap my hands, cry, hyperventilate, or all of the above. Safe money is, as always, on "all of the above." And so here are seven things you can do to help with this book release!

7. Talk about the book. Are you excited that it's coming? Awesome. Are you excited about the series as a whole? Awesome. Do you plan to use Late Eclipses to fuel your world-buster canon? Rock on. Word-of-mouth is the best advertising there is.

6. Review the book. Do it on your blog, on Amazon, on Goodreads, wherever you feel comfortable. Reviews help more than almost anything else. (But please, please, do not send me copies of your Amazon reviews. I try to avoid that particular pitcher plant of pain.)

5. Loan copies of Rosemary and Rue to people you think might be interested. The first hit's free!

4. Do not poke at me with sharp, sharp sticks. I am a very thinly-stretched blonde right now, on account of book release and all, and I am neither fast to respond nor particularly well-suited to being jabbed at. Please, be gentle, and understand that right now, you're looking at a longer than normal response time.

3. I love fan mail, and I respond to everything I get, although it can sometimes take a while. Please don't get upset if I don't answer right away.

2. Also? Please don't ask for kitten pictures. Seriously.

1. And the number-one thing you can do to help Late Eclipses have a successful launch is...buy the book. Please, please, buy the book. During the first on-sale week if you possibly can, because that's the week that counts against all the bestseller lists. Making those lists is a long shot, but a girl's gotta dream, right? So if you're planning to buy the book, please, go out and do it. Let's see if we can hit the NYT.

If we do, I promise to faint.

(*Past trends may not hold true. Traditionally, early copies have been spotted at Borders, and I don't know whether Borders will be receiving any shipments of Late Eclipses. I actually dare to hope that my on-sale date may be accurate this time.)

(This post was supposed to go up yesterday, when we were fifteen days from the official release of Late Eclipses. I was ill, and so it didn't get posted, and you are thus getting a double-dip today. Either I'm sorry or you're welcome, depending on your point of view.)

15. Formal courtship is still alive and well in Faerie, and involves a great deal of poetry, flowers, and elaborate ritual. It is customary for the person being courted to thank the person doing the courting for each step after the first, to remind them that they have an obligation to finish what they've started. If you see a couple of moon-struck young fae thanking each other a lot, they're engaged in a formal courtship.

14. Most purebloods speak and utilize the ritual language of flowers when courting; every bouquet is a poem in and of itself. Never buy a Daoine Sidhe flowers from Safeway, you'll just confuse them.

13. The majority of fae marriages do not result in children, and are dissolved without issue by the participants. In these cases, it's not even really considered a "divorce," so much as a parting of the ways, and there is almost always no resentment between them. In some cases, people will even dissolve a marriage, and then turn around and marry the siblings of their former spouses, just because they're bored, but enjoy the overall dynamic of their extended family.

12. Same-sex marriage is relatively common, and even well-regarded, especially by families who do not have titles of their own; long-term fostering leading to formal adoption will usually provide these couples with an heir, and provide the foster's original family with a closer tie to the nobility.

11. Setting quests for a suitor is acceptable, if currently somewhat out of fashion for anyone lower in rank than the heir of a Duke.

10. Because sexual relations with a mortal are not considered infidelity, many married couples will take human lovers from time to time, just to break up the tedium.

9. Marriage to a human is not considered legal or binding under fae law. Consequentially, all changelings are considered bastards.

8. Purebloods have access to incredibly rich, complicated foods in the Summerlands. Their wines are beyond mortal comprehension, their cakes a doorway into divinity. This does not prevent them really, really liking Hershey's chocolate. Many otherwise expensive courtships are heavily centered around Mr. Goodbar. No one knows why.

7. Arranged marriage still occurs among some races of fae. This is a hold-over from when Faerie was very young, and they needed to make sure people were as distantly related as possible. (Fae genetics are weird and not the topic here, and all members of any given race are descended from the same First, but they still wanted to avoid marrying their sisters when possible.) The underground races are especially fond of arranged marriage.

6. But not the Gremlins. Gremlins marry for love, or because you have a really big...forge. There's nothing a Gremlin girl likes better than a man with a really big forge.

5. There are different rules for courtship between a man and a woman, two men, two women, a man and two women, or a woman and two men. Beyond that, they sort of make it up as they go along.

4. Yes, group marriage occurs. It's especially common among Centaurs, Satyrs, Cetacea, and Gremlins. As a rule, we don't ask. Especially not about the Gremlins.

3. It is considered exceedingly rude to break off a courtship in the middle for anything short of "My liege has arranged a marriage for me" or "We're going to war." Once the courting period has been finished and you're just dating, it becomes a lot more acceptable.

2. Watching really traditional purebloods try to court their human lovers is funnier than anything currently on weeknight TV.

1. The fae believe in true love. Even when it hurts them. And because they're going to live forever, they're usually willing to wait until the time is right to buckle down and pursue it. This can make them infuriating to humans and changelings, because they're so damn slow...but when they marry for love, it tends to be forever.

I was bored, I remembered catvalente's list of things to do before she died, and so I decided to write my own list of things to do before I died. Because that's just the way we roll around here. Also, a bored blonde is a dangerous blonde.

25 Things I Want Deeply Enough to Put Them On a List of Things to Do Before I Die, Assuming My Life Doesn't End With Cackling, a Flaming Biosphere, and Joyous Shouts of "I Showed You, You Fools! I Showed You All!":

1. Tour a Level-4 biohazard safety area

Look, I never claimed that I was going to be reasonable, safe, or sane in the things I wanted to accomplish before shuffling off this mortal coil, and at the end of the day, if said shuffling occurs because I was exposed to smallpox while touring a CDC lab, I can't say anyone's going to be overly surprised. I want to actually experience the moon-suit and the tugging from negative-pressure airflow. It's something that part of me really feels I need to do.

Necessary objects not currently owned: access to a Level-4 biohazard lab, understanding lab technicians who don't mind civilians in their workspace, possibly some sort of government clearance.

2. Have a display area suitable for my dolls and Ponies

This is one of those wishes that's sort of wrapped up in a bunch of other wishes, since having a display area suitable for my toy collection basically means having a larger house. The place I live right now doesn't have any room left for a series of proper glass-fronted cabinets, and that's what it would take to really set my My Little Pony collection up properly, to say nothing of my Monster High dolls and assorted other toys. Am I a massive nerd? Yes. Yes, I am. I embrace my nerdhood, and dream of proper shelving.

Necessary objects not currently owned: several nice glass-fronted display cabinets, a room where they would fit without my needing to sleep on an inflatable mattress or something.

3. Visit Maine

Maine is something akin to Fairyland in my heart: this strange, impossible place where mysterious things happen, like ice falling from the sky, or killer clowns dragging your little brother down into the sewer to eat his heart. I've been dreaming of Maine since I was seven years old. There's no possible way for the state to live up to everything that I hope it's going to be, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to go there and see it for myself.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a block of vacation time without any other commitments. Ha. Ha. Ha.

4. Become functionally fluent in American Sign Language

I've been learning ASL out of books and off of webpages and from friends for the last few years, and I've reached the point where I can sign along with Journey songs without really dropping words. My finger-spelling is still terrible, but it's getting better. I think it's just shy of magic that we can have a language that doesn't require spoken words, but exists somewhere between the realm of the written and the spoken. Besides which...I go through life expecting that since I live in a country where the dominant language is English, everyone will understand me. I'd like to be able to assist in making that true for other people. And the sign for "science" is just plain fun.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a good ASL class. I'm going to be looking into one during the upcoming semester.

5. Take a ludicrously long walk to nowhere of any specific use to anyone else

I love taking long walks. Like, really, really, REALLY long walks. We are talking "bring a tent"-length long walks. And I love stories about people who walked to Mordor, or Oregon, or just about anyplace that is, like, crazy far away and means sleeping on the ground or at weird slightly creepy motels with broken neon signs out front. I want to take an epic walk. I want to take a "bring a tent" walk. I'd really like to take it either alone or with a large dog, which probably means having someone who follows me in a car about ten miles back, just in case I run into issues with being female and alone by the side of the road. But this is something I really, really want to do.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a destination, time to get there, a large dog, an escort.

( Twenty more odd wishes after the break.Collapse )

So, like, disclaimers and stuff: this post, more than almost any other, represents 100% personal opinion, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. I am not drawing from critical sources, focus groups, or anything but my own impressions of things. This means you may disagree with me, and that's totally cool. Just be aware that I speak not from a position of on high, but from a position of "that weird girl who likes weird stuff sometimes."

With all that out of the way, I present...

Seanan's Best Cinematic Media Moments of 2010.

( We cut because we care. Seriously, cutting is caring when it's in a situation like this. I promise.Collapse )

Next up, books, comics, and anything else I think of that needs listing. (Best Kitten of 2010: Thomas!)

What were your bests of 2010?

5. I love country music. Mostly modern country, Christian Kane and Little Big Town and Taylor Swift, but I also love that sappy old dead dogs and pickup trucks country that you find on AM radio at six in the morning. I inherited my love of the genre from my grandmother, who was respectable and stoic and could bellow along with "Fancy" like nobody's business.

4. When I'm having a bad day and want comfort food, I go home and curl up with a big bowl of frozen peas that have been heated in the microwave. All I put on them is a) salt, and b) pepper. This stems from a childhood misinterpretation of what chickpeas were, when the characters in a book I loved ate "fresh hot buttered chickpeas."

3. My family was very, very poor when I was younger. As a consequence, I think that butter tastes horrible, because we always got a brick of government butter in our "please don't starve to death" box. Margarine, on the other hand, is the taste of luxury. I had a bad margarine habit for a while after getting my first job, and bought a tub every time I went to the store.

2. I am very superstitious, and very picky about my superstitions. I count crows, pick up pennies, and occasionally look for auguries in bags of M&Ms. I do not, however, freak out when I see a funeral procession, or insist on touching my collar and asking magpies how their wives are. This helps me strike a good balance. Just never get between me and a street penny.

1. I have a paralyzing phobia of pudding, which extends to all "pudding-type" substances, including custard and overly-warm milkshakes. Suddenly biting into an unexpected cream filling has been known to make me throw up on the spot. Luckily, this does not extend to the unnatural white goo inside Twinkies.

So that's five things you may or may not know about me. What do you think I may or may not know about you?

I promised you shopping lists, and I intend to deliver! I'm taking a very generous definition of the word "friend," here, using it as a sort of shorthand for "friends and acquaintances and people who've emailed with me a few times and would probably buy me a drink at a convention if it was convenient and they had their wallets with them." Since that takes a long time to type, "friends" is our winner.

I have read every book I am recommending to you today, so consider this my Endorsement of Awesome. I've tried to be upfront about things like age ranges and such, but let's face it, I was reading Stephen King at the age of nine. My ideas on what you should and shouldn't give to your seven-year-old are messed. Up. So please try before you buy, and don't come crying to me if your kid starts claiming the clown in the closet is coming for his soul (hint: the clown probably means business).

First up, the inimitable Jim Hines! I mean that. He's hard to imitate. One of the things that makes him so amazing is the way he crosses age and gender barriers like they weren't even there. You think I'm funning with you? Hand Goblin Quest [Amazon] to any teenager who likes things that are awesome, and watch the divide between "boy books" and "girl books" melt away. Now try it again with the adults of your choice. It's fun, well-written comedic fantasy that has something for everyone. It's also the first of a trilogy. Hard to go wrong with that!

Once you've spent some time with the goblins, you could do a lot worse than sticking with Hines and taking a peek at The Stepsister Scheme [Amazon], the first of his modern action-adventure fantasy answers to the Disney Princess craze. It's a very pink book, but it, like the goblin books, works for male and female readers alike, with its engaging plot, awesome characters, and wicked-good dialog. I even helped to copyedit the third and fourth books in the series, which tells you something about my love for this world.

Moving on from Jim—thanks, Jim!—means it's time to take a look at the fantastic Jeri Smith-Ready, whose fantastic Wicked Game [Amazon] will introduce you to some of the most unique, most fascinating vampires currently stalking the shadows. They're the DJs of WVMP, and with the help of a con-artist protagonist and an author who knows how to go for the jugular, they can keep you rocking all night long. I love these books. Check 'em out.

But hey, maybe vampires aren't your thing. You could be more X-Files than Angel. And if that's the case, may I direct your attention to the delightful Gini Koch, and her steaming-hot, sexy, silly, utterly enchanting Touched By An Alien [Amazon]. (Okay, I admit it, I love Gini in part because there is now a DAW heroine whose name is sillier than Toby's. Thank you Katherine "Kitty" Katt, for making my protagonist less likely to kill me.) The sequel comes out next week, and wow, do you not want to miss the opportunity to beam up.

Cat Valente is exploring a different kind of alien landscape in her beautifully-written Habitation of the Blessed [Amazon], a landscape populated with creatures out of myth, legend, and allegory. She conjures up historical myths almost forgotten in the modern world, and weaves them together into something just probable enough to hurt your heart. It's a beautiful book.

Finally (for now), a book I loved so much that I actually blurbed it: Carousel Tides [Amazon], by Sharon Lee. It's an urban fantasy old-school enough that it wouldn't look out-of-place next to War for the Oaks and Tam Lin, and at the same time, it's totally part of the modern urban fantasy explosion. It's gorgeous and rich and deep and unique, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

That's books by my friends for today!

In 2008, Entertainment Weekly decided to rank "the new classics," and made lists of the "100 Most Influential" bits of various media in the last few decades. They had a list of movies, a list of books, a list of TV series, and so on. This, naturally, made me grumpy and contemplative, because their list looked absolutely nothing like mine. I then took umbrage, as I am wont to do, and made my own list of books that influenced and informed my reality. I proceeded to update it in 2009, because things can change considerably in a year.

I bet you know what comes next.

Books on this list aren't necessarily high literature; they're not necessarily classics; they're not even necessarily particularly good, although I think the bulk of them are. They're just the books that combined to construct a me. They are, in short, not the books I was supposed to fall in love with; just the ones that I did.

Your list will probably be drastically different. You may still want to take a look at mine. You might just find a few things that will surprise you.

( Click here for Seanan's updated list of 100 books that have influenced and rocked her world, and which may have influenced and rocked yours. Complete, in some cases, with commentary. Because she can, that's why.Collapse )

1. Only four hours remain to enter my random drawing for an ARC of An Artificial Night! It's probably the simplest contest I'm going to have, so what have you got to lose, right? Besides, they're pretty. I like pretty things. I am a simple soul.

2. Speaking of pretty things, remember that the ALH pendant sale will be starting today at Chimera Fancies. I cannot possibly overstate how much I love Mia's pendants. If I were a wealthy woman, I'd just pay her to sit around and make them all day, and keep the bulk of her output for myself. Again, simple soul. Also, occasional magpie.

3. Leverage comes back this weekend! So You Think You Can Dance is back on the air! Cartoon Network has Unnatural History and Total Drama World Tour! Oh, I love you, summertime television. I love you so much, forever.

4. Tomorrow is my last pre-Westercon rehearsal with the fabulous Paul Kwinn, renowned in song and story, master of the meaningful look while wearing a gaudily-patterned shirt, husband of Beckett, whom I love beyond all reason. I'm very excited, despite the fact that I'm still occasionally coughing like I'm on the verge of actual death. It's gonna be awesome.

5. I have my editorial notes for Late Eclipses, and I'm busily incorporating them into the finished manuscript...while, possibly, fixing a few little language issues at the same time. It's been long enough since I touched this book that it appears to have been written by an alien, which is the best time for doing editorial. It's still my baby. It's just my weird alien baby, and that makes it more fun to autopsy.

6. Zombies are still love.

7. It's June already. That means we're getting closer and closer every day to my departure for Australia, LAND OF POISON AND FLAME, which I have only been dreaming about for most of my life. I'm so excited it's scary, and not just because I'm on the ballot for the Campbell (although that remains a constant GOTO loop at the back of my brain). I get to go to Australia! I get to breathe Australian air! My life is awesome sometimes.

8. We've entered the final stages of recording Wicked Girls, and it should, I hope, I pray, be able to make the October release date that I so optimistically set for myself. I'll be announcing the pre-orders soon, since that's how I finance mixing and mastering, and I'm really, really happy with this album, as a whole. It's just...it's what I wanted. And that's incredible.

9. I think the cats are stealing my will to leave the house. I just want to sleep.

10. I need more ARC contests! Suggest something. Be silly, be serious, request that I do your favorite all over again, whatever. I need ideas, and so I turn to you, the glorious Internet, to give them to me.

It's Friday!

It seems like there are books that everybody hears about. I don't mean books like Pride and Prejudice or The Great Gatsby, where you would have to be either dead or completely unfamiliar with English literature to have missed them; I mean books like World War Z, which even my non-zombie lovin' friends have heard of, or Twilight, which, God, you couldn't miss without stranding yourself on a desert island for the foreseeable future.

Because every group is essentially a sociological tide pool, shifting slightly whenever the tide comes in but still cross-contaminating itself at a remarkable rate, we also tend to have a somewhat distorted view of "everybody." I bet if you polled a sample size of, say, the readership of this journal, you'd discover that Rosemary and Rue was one of the best-known books of 2009. Why? Because I wrote it, and talk about it constantly, and you read this journal, hence exposing you to it on a constant basis. I'm a literary pathogen!

On a more localized scale, we loan books to our friends, talk books up to our friends, and constantly infect each other with our literary passions. In the last year, I have caused my friends to read I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Shivers, A Madness of Angels, the complete works of Kelley Armstrong, The Mermaid's Madness, The Enchantment Emporium, and Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. These aren't the only good books I've read in the last year; they're just the ones new enough to still be available, and to have excited me with their sudden existence.

So here is today's challenge: Infect us with books we may not have heard of, but which are so damn AWESOME that it verges on a crime that more people don't know about them. Go for out-of-print things (that's why libraries and used bookstores exist), or the first books in series that started eight years ago. Bring enlightenment to the heathen, in the form of literary smallpox.

I'll start with five of my favorites, books I honestly think everyone should read (whether you enjoy them is up to you):

Hellspark, by Janet Kagen.
Mermaid's Song, by Alida Van Gorres.
Emergence, by David Palmer.
The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, by Tim Pratt.
Paper Moon, by Joe David Brown.

Authors, feel free to pimp your own work here; just get the word out, and let's see what we're not reading!

I originally made this list a while back, after reading Maxim's list of "200 Movies Everyone Should See" and discovering that their horror movies seem to have been chosen through purely arbitrary measures, largely having to do with how much gore could be splattered on the screen. That doesn't work for me all that well, being as I am not a fan of the "gore porn" sub-genre of horror. Since it's been a year and a half since then, and since that year and a half has included a lot of horror movies, I've decided to update my better, more carefully considered list. IE, "the horror movies I say everyone should see."

( We cut because we care. Also because failure to cut results in a much higher bodycount, and nobody wants that. Well. I want that. But I'll be merciful, just this once.Collapse )

***

What did I miss?

Two more days remain in our pre-release countdown, which has been a surprisingly fun and distracting way to pass the time between now and A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. So that's a big "hooray," at least on my part. I like distractions that actually work, rather than ending with me starting a new essay series or something.

2 Things About the October Daye Series.

2. People periodically ask me "well, if you had your way, how long would this series go?" And to them I must say...I don't actually know. See, I know how it ends. I have detailed outlines through book seven, and looser outlines for books eight and nine, as well as a lengthy list of things that happen after that. Also, there's a prequel called Strangers in the Court that's supposed to happen between books six and seven; it's about how Toby got knighted, and it's going to be lots of fun. I always know where I am in relation to the ending, and I can always get there in one volume, but I don't have any sort of firm "it is X books long" statement that I can go bandying around.

1. I really do take a malicious glee in doing horrible things to Toby's car. I mean, people are like "why do you do those things to Toby's car?", and I'm like, "BECAUSE IT'S FUNNY." I also enjoy preventing her from sleeping, taking away her food, and denying her coffee. I am a cruel, cruel author.

Point the first: There has been an epic influx of new people around here in the past few days. Like, epic. The kind of influx which causes me to start doing careful web checks to see if someone has been claiming that I regularly give away chocolate, kittens, and live Suicide Girls. (Hint: I do not do any of these things.) In the end, I have to admit that I'm stumped. I don't know where y'all are coming from, and while I'm happy as heck to have you, I'd love to know where you're coming from. And yes, I get the part where I have a book coming out in three days and this might—might—potentially be influencing the sudden flood of new names and faces. Still.

Point the second: If you enter a CVS Drugs in search of the tiny, addictive balls of malted goodness called "Robin's Eggs" by the makers of Easter candy, you may find that there are no Robin's Eggs on the shelves. There are, instead, extremely similar-looking candies called "Speckled Malted Milk Mini Eggs." Now, this is basically what Robin's Eggs are, so you could be forgiven for saying "fuck it, buy generic" and picking up a bag. You would not be the first. Once you had purchased this cruel temptation, it would be understandable if you then opened the bag, and placed one of the little balls of sugar in your mouth. But I have walked this path for you, and I have come to tell you the truth:

Speckled Malted Milk Mini Eggs are NOT fucking Robin's Eggs, and whoever decided to market these things as if they were should be forced to drown in their horrific, slime-like pseudo-chocolate coating.

I suffer so you don't have to.

Point the third: My house is currently in the throes of a full-scale invasion. To be specific, it is currently inhabited by Betsy Tinney, her daughter Katie, SJ Tucker, Kevin Wiley, Alexander James Adams, and the people who normally live here. Plus my opinionated monster cats, who can fill a house all by themselves. On Monday night, the fabulous Amy McNally arrives. If we run out of coffee at any point, cannibalism cannot be far behind. You have been warned. Also, if fandom did reality show filming, we would so be prime time right now.

Point the fourth: Since A Local Habitation comes out in three days, and one of them is mostly over now, I have to warn you that I may go basically batshit at any moment, and need to be removed from the ceiling fixtures by men with tranquilizer darts filled with Diet Dr Pepper. On the plus side, again, Amy gets here Monday, and she will sacrifice herself upon my dark altar that you may all be saved. Be kind to her. She suffers for your protection.

Point the fifth: Here. Have a picture of Lilly and Alice, sitting together, without injuring each other.

Just three days remain before the official North American release of A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], which has been cropping up in stores around the US as we get closer and closer to release day. It's been fun, in that way of things that are both glorious and flat-out terrifying. Whee!

In honor of day three, and because I am a predictable creature, I give you today's entry in the countdown. Enjoy.

3 Myths About Writing.

3. Writing is easy. After all, we all have ideas, and we're all smart people, so we should all be able to write books, right? Sadly, this is not the case. Writing may be easy, but writing well is damn hard, and even with as much practice as I've had, I'm constantly aware of how much more practice I need if I want to get really good. Whoever first said that it was ten percent inspiration, ninety percent perspiration was very right. This does not relieve my urge to punch them in the nose.

2. All real writers are inaccessible and intellectually difficult. I periodically get people asking me when I'll stop writing to "what's hot" and start writing what's in my heart. You know what? My heart is full of fairy tales and zombies and blonde girls in high heels kicking monsters in the head. My heart is full of snappy dialog and cinematic tropes and screams in the muggy summer air. I am a real writer. It's just that what I really want to write about is occasionally the Fighting Pumpkins cheer squad, a hitchhiking ghost with a thing for cheeseburgers, and genetically engineered parasites. And that's okay.

1. Good writing will always be recognized. Sadly, this is also not true. There are a lot of books released every year, and a great many of them will be excellent, yet somehow manage to go essentially unnoticed by most of the reading public. This is a crying shame. This is the fear of every working author, at least at the beginning of their careers, because what if you do the best you can do, what if you're hailed as an amazement and a rediscovery of the written word...and you fail anyway? This is why authors are a little bit crazy. Be kind.

I am now four days out from the release of A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. The uncontrollable twitching hasn't started, largely, I'm assuming, because I've been too tense to twitch. I literally coughed myself into a migraine yesterday, which only went away when I went home and went to bed.

In an effort to keep myself breathing, I am now going to envision my perfect world. A world of sunshine and zombie puppies, where all I have to do is watch horror movies, take long walks, go to conventions, and write. In that world, I don't have to put things aside because there's no time.

I want to live there.

4 Things I'd Love to Write.

4. It's been on my "current projects" post for a while now, because hope springs eternal, but I really, really want to write this crazy math/language/Greek philosophy epic urban fantasy monster called The Nativity of Chance, which should probably have moved into the head of Tim Powers, but wound up with me instead. It's book one of a trilogy, and it's so deliciously messed-up that I just want to spend some serious quality time in its loving arms.

3. Lady of the Underground is the sequel to a romantic comedy I wrote a few years back, called Chasing St. Margaret. (I'm planning to revise Chasing St. Margaret this year, probably on the plane to Australia, and get it into publishable form, because I love it so.) Lady of the Underground would give me an excuse to spend more time with some characters I really adore, and that's just an awesome concept.

2. Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld. It's the tenth book in the InCryptid series, and the story of Alice Price-Healy's quest for her wayward husband (who is going to be getting so punched in the face when she finds him). Don't judge my series-oriented ways. My idea of pacing is not like your Earth idea of pacing.

1. The rest of Toby. I want the world to arrange itself so I can write this series until it's finished and over and done. And then I will do a little dance, and it will be glorious.

I'm a writer. I've been a writer for as long as I've had a grasp of written language, although my earliest works were, admittedly, not all that complex. I get asked "when did you start writing?" pretty commonly in interviews, and my response is always something along the lines of "I have no idea, in the womb, maybe, I don't know." Because really, I don't.

So as we continue our countdown (five days! Sweet pumpkin pie, five days!), here's today's list:

5 Reasons I Love Writing.

5. Stephen King put it best when he said that writing is like a form of telepathy. I make things up, I write them down, and then you can see them, in your mind. You "hear" dialog that I wrote. You "meet" people that I invented. When I write, I am Emma Frost, and that is awesome.

4. Writing continually surprises me. No matter how long I do it, no matter how much time I spend working to improve, I still find myself staring at things on the page and going "whoa, where did that come from?"

3. Writing comes with a very concrete and visible reward for hard work. If I write 2,000 words, I have 2,000 words that I didn't have before. If I write a book, dude, there is now a book in the world that didn't exist before I started typing. Me! I made that! It's incredibly fulfilling. Very few things in life are this immediately fulfilling.

2. I have to work to write. It's my hobby and what I do to relax and it makes me happy, but it's also work. If I don't revise, edit, check my spelling, check my continuity, and basically do hard labor, I don't get good books. I feel like I've done something when a story is finished, and that's amazing.

1. When I'm writing, I make all the rules. I don't think there's anything better than that.

My pre-release countdown for A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] continues. I'm six days out now. Books have been sighted all over the place (although still not in my home town, which is probably good for my overall level of twitchiness, if not for the local folks who want to buy them). And I've been thinking a lot about urban fantasy.

I've been thinking so much about urban fantasy, in fact, that it's today's countdown item. So there.

6 Awesome Things About Urban Fantasy.

6. Because urban fantasy is a relatively new genre, there's a lot of flexibility for making up rules as you go along. No one says "oh, this book was terrible because they didn't all meet up in a bar and there was no quest for the magical wing-diddy of Macguffindonia." There's an insane amount of freedom in urban fantasy.

5. Because urban fantasy in an incredibly old genre that's just making its reappearance, there are centuries of tradition to draw on. Seem like a contradiction? It's not. As I've said many times, we are the children of Lily Fair, and we are carrying on the traditions of our fairy tale ancestors. There are monsters in those woods.

4. Urban fantasy gives its authors the freedom to play with creatures from both sides of the divide between "fantasy" and "horror." You can have pixies and werewolves, if that's what makes you happy, and nobody gets to tell you different. It's awesome.

3. The modern/pseudo-modern settings of most urban fantasies make it easier to build engrossing and detailed non-human societies, without needing to first introduce your readers to a whole new reality. That creates an illusionary accessibility that reveals itself only when it's too late to escape. Mwahahaha.

2. The scope of urban fantasy means that it really does contain something for everybody. Maybe you don't like my work. That's fine. Kelley Armstrong is more horror, and Kim Harrison is more sexy, and Anton Strout is more funny. We can find you a match!

1. All the ass-kicking heroines. Naturally.

Our countdown to book release has reached lucky number seven, which means we're exactly one week out, and that it's sort of a miracle I'm sleeping at all. Ah, the glorious crazy of an author getting ready for their drop-date. How did I live before I knew this feeling?! Oh, right. With a lot less flailing. Anyway, here's today's countdown entry:

7 Things You Should Know.

7. A Local Habitation is the second book in the series, following Rosemary and Rue. You don't necessarily need to read Rosemary and Rue first, but I think that it helps. Possibly quite a lot. Remember that there's only so much recapping that can go into a book before it turns boring.

6. The word "series," not "trilogy," applies to the October Daye books. A trilogy is a closed, three-volume unit. While I am currently contracted only for the first three books in the series, there's a lot more story after that. Which means I'd really like A Local Habitation to sell super-well, so that I can get a contract for the next set of books. Take two, they're small.

5. A Local Habitation is the first of the three books I have coming out this year. The second is Feed in May (as Mira Grant), and the third is An Artificial Night, in September. I currently have only one book scheduled for 2011, Deadline, again in May (and again, as Mira Grant). This seems likely to change.

4. Remember, every time you buy a copy of Rosemary and Rue, a pixie gets its wings. (Contrarywise, every time you buy a copy of Rosemary and Rue, you can elect to have the Luidaeg part a pixie from its wings in a violent and thoroughly unpleasant fashion. She'd like that. She'd like that quite a lot.)

3. Thankfully, I finished Deadline just in time, and am now spending my evenings watching Disney Channel sitcoms, drawing comic strips, and drinking port. I appreciate this small break in my borderline-hysteria.

2. I really and truly appreciate every one of you for being here, for commenting, for participating in giveaways, for discussion, for dissension, for buying my books, for reviewing my books, for recommending your own books, and generally just for existing. It does a lot to keep me getting out of bed in the morning. Which may be faintly pathetic, but I have a book coming out in a week, I'm allowed to be faintly pathetic. It's actually in my contract.

1. I am possibly the luckiest Halloweentown Disney Princess in the world, and I know it.

Around this time in the release cycle, I get lots of people asking me what they can do to help. This is because people are awesome sometimes. So here is a handy list for day eight of our pre-release countdown, telling you what you can do to make the release of A Local Habitation as good as a book release gets.

8 Things You Can Do To Help.

8. Post book reviews. Your blog, Goodreads, Amazon, wherever. (Don't post them in the comments of someone else's blog unless they've asked you for book recommendations. That's rude, and may have the opposite of the desired effect. But other than that...) Book reviews give people an idea of a thing, and can tell them whether it's something they want to read.

7. Check with your local library to be sure they have a copy of A Local Habitation on order and, if they don't, fill out a library request form. Spread the paperback love!

6. While we're on the subject of libraries, remember that many libraries, especially on the high school level, are really strapped for cash right now, and that book donations are frequently tax deductible. If you have a few bucks to spare, you can improve the world on multiple levels by donating books to your local public and high school libraries.

5. Do not expect immediate email response from me for anything short of "you promised us this interview, it runs tomorrow, where are your answers?" I normally make an effort to be a semi-competent correspondent, but with the book dropping in eight days, I've hit the stage where I flail around and scream "ICE WORMS!" a lot, which doesn't help me answer email.

4. Do not email me my Amazon reviews. I don't read them, I don't want to read them, and I really, really don't want them ambushing me in my inbox. Please show mercy, and don't share.

3. Please don't ask me when book three is coming out. I may cry (also, the answer is "September").

2. When you visit a bookstore and discover that they don't have any copies in stock/on order, don't be unpleasant. Just politely suggest that it may be something they'd want to carry. Unless they're, like, a non-fiction bookstore specializing in travel books. In that case, don't.

1. Buy the book. Brick-and-mortar store purchases are best, as they encourage reordering. After that, Amazon or mail order purchases, and after that, e-book purchases (which do not count the same way against my sell-through). If you've already bought the book, consider buying the book again, as a single copy might get lonely. They make great gifts!

Well, we're now nine days out from the release of A Local Habitation, and so our countdown continues, with...

9 Things About Faerie.

9. All the various races in Faerie trace their origins back to Oberon, Maeve, and Titania in some way, even the monsters.

8. Descendants of Titania tend to be skilled at the classes of magic called "flower magic." Descendants of Maeve tend to be skilled at the classes of magic called "water magic." When Oberon gets involved, things get weird.

7. The prohibition against saying "thank you" originated with the Firstborn, many of whom are so tied to Faerie that they really are bound by gratitude. Their descendants are less bound by their given word, but cling to the restriction anyway.

6. Humans with too little fae blood to be considered changelings can sometimes develop magical powers anyway. These individuals are called "merlins," and can be substantially more powerful than quarter-blood changelings. They don't have instinctive magical knowledge, but they also lack most fae weaknesses.

5. Faerie as a world is very protean, and creates a new country for each new race, allowing them to live in the conditions they prefer, without needing to constantly war with their neighbors. A lot of the tensions in the current fae society stem from the fact that they can't get away from each other when they want to.

4. Not all fae have surnames. Those that do generally take them to reflect descent from a noble line. When two fae of noble lines marry, they will each keep their own name, and the children will take the surname of the parent with the higher title.

3. Fae started immigrating to North America years before the Europeans did, but the big population rush came when the settlers started moving en masse, as that allowed them to bring their changeling children and mortal servants without forcing them to travel via magical means.

2. The four sacred woods of Faerie are oak, ash, rowan, and thorn.

1. All fae races are claimed by one of the original Three. Much like the surnames issue, a race can only be claimed by one parent. The Cait Sidhe are a major exception. As they had three Firstborn (Malvic, Erda, Jibvel), each descended from a different of the Three, they are technically claimed by all, and by none.

Welcome to my book release countdown! With A Local Habitation available in North American stores as of March 2nd, we're ten days out, and so I give you...

10 Things About October Daye.

10. Toby developed her caffeine addiction as a result of trying to hide her fae nature from Clifford Marks, her human ex-boyfriend. Humans are diurnal, fae are not, and so she needed a lot of coffee to stay awake during what were, for her, sleepy naptimes. You can often recognize fae who've played fairy bride by their raging Starbucks addictions.

9. It wasn't until she moved Home that Toby began refusing to be called "October," since her name is really nothing even remotely weird by fae standards. After six months of being teased by the other changelings, she started demanding people call her "Toby," and was happy to support her requests with hitting.

8. Toby has a secret weakness for name-brand cereal.

7. Cagney and Lacey are the first cats Toby has actually adopted on her own. She actually hadn't spent that much time around cats before the two of them; Amandine didn't allow them in her tower, Shadowed Hills is really more a "rose goblin" kind of place, and Devin hated them.

6. Toby loves James Bond movies and old musicals. Really old ones, the ones where nothing needs to make sense as long as it can get you to the next musical number. She can't carry a tune in a bucket, but she still sings along if she's alone.

5. Toby's illusions aren't good enough to let her visibly age her mortal glamour, and has looked roughly the same age for as long as anyone in the human world has known her. She avoids her neighbors as much as possible because she wants to stay put as long as she can, and when they figure out she isn't aging, she'll have to move.

4. Despite the fact that she hates courtly settings, Toby has been thoroughly schooled in courtly behavior, and can dance multiple forms of waltz, foxtrot, and other formal forms. She can also behave herself at dinner parties. She just generally doesn't bother.

3. Toby sets her wards every morning before she goes to bed, even knowing that the sun will destroy half of them before she wakes up. It's the only way she can get to sleep.

2. If she could go anywhere in the world for dinner, and know that she wouldn't be interrupted, Toby would probably go to the Outback Steakhouse. And eat an entire cow.

1. Toby likes people. She just wishes she remembered how to trust them.

At the risk of sounding sappy, here are things that make me happy.

I think that everyone has certain things that make them unconditionally happy. Because it is a stressful and dismal day, I'm updating my list of some of the things that work for me. It's good to be happy.

( What makes Seanan happy? Well, among other things, people using cut-tags for long entries makes Seanan happy. If you want to know what else works for her, click here.Collapse )

So that's my list. What's yours?

So I'm past the hangovers and sugar-crashes and travel and oddly excessive number of cookies, and it is now time to begin assessing my current status. Beyond "awake," I mean. It's 2010! It's a whole new year! Sadly, the old year did not do all the dishes before it left, but hey.

Books. I have three coming out in 2010: A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] and An Artificial Night as me, and Feed [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] as Mira Grant. I have one currently due in 2010, Blackout (the sequel to Feed).

In addition to the books that are already sold/slated for publication, I have one finished October Daye book, Late Eclipses, and one finished InCryptid book, Discount Armageddon. I am currently working on The Brightest Fell (Toby five), Midnight Blue-Light Special (InCryptid two), and Sit, Stay, I Hate You (Coyote Girls two). In 2010, I'm planning to finish all three of these, start on Deadline (Newsflesh three), start on Ashes of Honor (Toby six), and start on Hunting Grounds (InCryptid three). I am not planning on a particularly large quantity of sleep.

Short Stories. I'm one of the 2010 universe authors for The Edge of Propinquity, which will be running my Sparrow Hill Road series from January through December. The first story, "Good Girls Go To Heaven," has been turned in, and I'm about two-thirds of the way through the second story, "Dead Man's Party," which should be finished by this weekend. After that comes "Tell Laura I Love Her," which should be a lot of fun. This is a series heavily influenced by the mythology of the American highway, and with a very strong soundtrack accompanying every story. There will be playlists! Much fun.

I have various other short stories out on secret missions, including two Fighting Pumpkins adventures ("Dying With Her Cheer Pants On" and "Gimme a 'Z'!"), my first-ever steampunk piece ("Alchemy and Alcohol," which comes complete with cocktail recipes), and an actual Mira Grant short story ("Everglades"). I'm noticing a high level of dead stuff in my recent short story output. Somehow, this is not striking me as terribly surprising.

Non-fiction. My essay in Chicks Dig Time Lords [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] will be available in March, along with, y'know, the rest of the book. So if you've ever wondered why I love math and have trouble with linear time, you should probably pick up a copy of this book. (You should do that anyway, because the book is awesome, but that's beside the point.) My introduction for jennifer_brozek's In A Gilded Light will also be available with the rest of the book, sometime in mid-2010.

Albums. Work on Wicked Girls is proceeding apace, and beginning to pick up speed as we get deeper into the process of mixing and arranging songs. I'm scheduling my various instrumentalists to come into the studio and get their parts recorded, and some of the arrangements are just going to be incredible. I still need to confirm the covers for this album, and start thinking about graphic design, but I'm still really, really pleased. There's no confirmed release date yet, and there's not going to be one until we're a lot closer to done: as I've said a few times, as soon as there's a deadline, this ceases to be fun and relaxing, and right now, we're too far from finished for that to be a good idea.

I'm within a hundred copies of being entirely out of Stars Fall Home (my first studio album), and right now, I couldn't tell you if or when there's going to be another printing. I'm doing a little better for Pretty Little Dead Girl, but at the current rate, I'd estimate that I'll be out (or very close to out) by this time next year. Red Roses and Dead Things, being my most recent release, is also the one with the most remaining stock (paradoxically, it's also my fastest seller, since a lot of folks don't have it yet). In summary, if you're missing any of my first three albums, you may want to consider whether you're going to want them, because when they're gone, they're gone.

Cats. Thanks to Susan's lovely gift of triple-strength catnip mice, I have discovered Alice's response to catnip. Basically, she goes batshit moonmonkey pumpkinfuckers INSANE for about half an hour, before singing arias to the invisible bug-people for the rest of the night. Lilly, on the other hand, takes advantage of Alice's, ahem, "delicate condition," and spends several hours gently shoving her off things.

And that's the local weather report. Back to you, Ken.

1. Remember that voting is still open for the second A Local Habitation ARC giveaway, and while there are a few clear favorites, it's still anybody's game. I'll announce the third giveaway as soon as I figure out exactly what it's going to be.

2. A Local Habitation gets a little closer every day, as this page on the Penguin Group website can attest. It's still weird and wonderful and a little terrifying to look at websites and go "wait, that's my book, I wrote that, oh whoa, that's Toby." I am assured this feeling will eventually pass. I'm...not sure I want it to.

3. If you want to see me compared to an Emma Frost-esque diamond golem, click here and join the giggling. I don't object to being a golem, or being made out of diamond, and I admit it, my productivity is occasionally terrifying even to me. I am also assured that this phase in my life will eventually pass. That idea scares me.

4. Things about this weekend that I'm really excited about: the first holiday party of the season. Getting more time to work on Blackout. The premiere of the Alice miniseries on Syfy. It's by the people who did Tin Man last year, and while it doesn't star Zooey Deschanel (a definite minus if you ask me), it looks absolutely incredible. Plus it has Connor from Primeval, and he is mad hot.

5. Matt Fraction has declared that Emma Frost is the love of Scott Summers's life. Matt Fraction is my new favorite person, at least for right now.

Tonight, I'm going out with my cousins to do something mysterious which required me to buy two rolls of quarters from the bank. I am wary but interested to learn what lies in store on the misty streets of San Francisco. Here's hoping you're planning for a wonderful weekend of your own, and feel free to let me know what you have going on!

The urban fantasy/paranormal field is huge, and it's easy to miss things in the hectic whirl of books as they come and go. In an effort to make your holiday shopping a little easier this year, or at least a little less crazy-making, here are some urban fantasy/paranormal suggestions for the book-lover on your list—or for you, if you haven't read them all yet!

Out in hardcover just this fall, we have Frostbitten [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], the latest in Kelley Armstrong's fabulous Women of the Otherworld series. If you're not familiar with this gorgeous patchwork world of werewolves, witches, sassy necromancers, and more, I highly recommend it. I also recommend starting with Bitten [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], the book that started the whole adventure. Fun, fast, and best of all, if you love it, you don't have to wait for the sequels the way the rest of us did!

I stumbled over Wicked Game [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Jeri Smith-Ready this last year at DucKon, and was instantly delighted by her sense of humor, snappy writing, sexy heroine, and totally awesome sideways take on vampires. Best of all, the sequel, Bad to the Bone [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], is already available! You can have your cake and eat it to with the staff of WVMP, the radio station with bite.

Tanya Huff is always a masterful mistress of urban fantasy, and she proves it again with her latest release, The Enchantment Emporium [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. She introduces the Gale family of witches, a mysterious junk shop in Calgary, and more, in a fast-paced rocket ride of a book that will leave you gasping for more. I really, really enjoyed it. Plus it's hardcover, so it makes an excellent tool for killing spiders.

The first book in Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series, Ill Wind [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] totally rocked my socks off—enough so that I tracked down and devoured the rest of the available volumes (all nine of them) in less than a month. This is the gift that keeps on giving, although it may get you nasty looks from the person whose book budget you've just blown all to hell and back. The Weather Warden books are fast, fun reads, suitable for reading on vacation. Especially during a storm.

Lori Devoti's Amazon Ink [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] was one of those awesome surprises, a book that does something that totally unexpected and yet totally awesome at the same time. Combining Amazons who are more Xena than Wonder Woman with the modern-day Midwest, Traveller culture, and a genuine affection for tattoos makes this book a rock-and-roll romp for urban fantasy fans of all ages. Seriously. I'm loaning my copy to my mother, and then to my youngest sister.

In Dead to Me [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Anton Strout (and in the sequel, Deader Still [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]) we are taken where sane men too-often fear to tread: into the strange and surreal world of humorous fantasy, which is too often overlooked in favor of its serious siblings. These books are purely in the spirit of Bureau 13, Men in Black, and The Middleman, with their snarky, cynical humor and tendency to turn the absurd into the morbid and creepifying. I recommend them for anyone who likes to laugh. And we all like laughing, right?

A Kiss Before the Apocalypse [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] and Dancing On the Head of a Pin [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Thomas E. Sniegoski are noir done right, angels done right, end-of-the-world done right...really, they're just right, and they're incredibly enjoyable to boot. An angel and his dog, a love story worth living for, and a whole lot of things worth dying for combine to make one delicious bundle of awesome.

Finally, of course, you can do worse than ordering Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] for any readers in your life, or pre-ordering A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies]. Surprise them with time-delayed goodies! Better yet, get both, and then astonish them with your foresight when the second book shows up in their mailbox. Or just buy extra copies for yourself, thus giving me a holiday gift. I am neither picky nor proud.

What can you add to the list? Wow us all!

1. BART is not on strike. I would say "yay, the unions reached a settlement," but since I left Lilly alone with my Internet-equipped computer just before the strike was called off, I'm going to opt for "yay, my Siamese is not fire-bombing the California coastline to protest Mommy not coming home for a week." Don't mess with the Siamese. You will regret it.

2. Fourteen days. Just saying.

3. My new Netbook is a joy and a wonder, except when it's royally fucking stuff up. Most recently, it has elected to royally fuck up the .ms of Red Hood's Revenge that I was giving a quick polish for Jim. I'm attempting file recovery now, and if that doesn't work, I'll just go through the .ms a second time. Thankfully, it was relatively clean.

4. Also thankfully, my Netbook did not elect to royally fuck up the latest draft of The Brightest Fell (Toby Daye, book five). This is A Very Good Thing. I would be substantially less sanguine about that particular rewrite. There might be screaming, and possibly the eating of human flesh. Mmmm, human flesh.

5. The incredibly awesome stick insect that has been sticking to Kate and GP's front door frame for the last few weeks was gone this morning when I went out to meet the bus. I wish him all good things in his future endeavors, and hope that he is not inside the house, preparing to crawl into someone's ear.

6. I have decided that I don't like second books in trilogies that don't admit to being trilogies when I pick them up. There will be more on this later.

7. I want a nap.

How's by you?

So last year, Entertainment Weekly decided to rank "the new classics," and made lists of the "100 Most Influential" bits of various media in the last few decades. They had a list of movies, a list of books, a list of TV series, and so on. This, naturally, made me think, because their list looked absolutely nothing like mine would. I promptly took umbrage, as I am wont to do, and made my own list of books that influenced and informed my reality. That was a year ago. Things can change considerably, in a year.

You know what comes next.

Books on this list aren't necessarily high literature; they're not necessarily classics; they're not even necessarily particularly good, although I think the bulk of them are. They're just the books that combined to construct a me. They are, in short, not the books I was supposed to fall in love with; just the ones that I did.

Your list will probably be drastically different. You may still want to take a look at mine. You might just find a few things that will surprise you.

( Click here for Seanan's updated list of 100 books that have influenced and rocked her world, and which may have influenced and rocked yours. Complete, in some cases, with commentary. Because she can, that's why.Collapse )

I, Seanan McGuire, am a first-time novelist. (I refuse to say "first-time author," because that wouldn't be just disingenuous, it would be silly, and nobody wants to see what people would dredge out of their closets if dared to do so by such foolish comments.) My first book comes out on September 1st of this year. Naturally, I'm petrified. And so, in an effort to save some sanity—not mine, as that's basically a lost cause—I am making the following promises. To myself, if to no one else.

I. I will not read Amazon reviews. I keep saying this, and reminding myself that Kate will beat me if I so much as twitch toward the page, but that doesn't matter, because obviously, I need the reminder. I. Will not. Read. Amazon. Reviews.

II. If people insist on forwarding me Amazon reviews, notifications that my book is on eBay, or other things that are either guaranteed to upset me, things I've promised not to look at, or both, I will give one warning, and then I will start deleting their mail. Because dude, I don't need an extra dose of crazy pie to go with the crazy pie I already have over here.

III. I will not call my publisher unless I have a reason to call my publisher.

IV. Wanting to talk about the new season of Supernatural does not count as a reason to call my publisher. Neither does that cute thing my cat just did.

V. My agent probably doesn't want to hear about the cute thing my cat just did either, and even if she does, I should maybe not call to tell her about it after midnight.

VI. No matter how much I think the populace is going to march on the house with torches because they don't like my book, the odds are very low, and I probably don't need to triple the fire insurance protection. I will not call the fire department every time I think I smell smoke.

VII. I will not allow my mother to post reviews without clearly identifying herself as my mother. Actually, if at all possible, I will not allow my mother to post reviews, as this rarely ends well.

VIII. I will continue to breathe. Holding my breath has been clinically proven not to make my publication date come faster.

IX. I will not spend the entire month of September hiding under my bed. For one thing, there are probably spiders down there. For another, the cats would insist on hiding under the bed with me, and the bed isn't big enough for that to be even remotely comfortable. Also, as there is no television in my bedroom, I would probably go into withdrawal or something.

X. I will not start a new series in an effort to distract myself.

XI. Okay, so maybe I will. But I won't start anything more than three books long.

XII. While I am aware that no amount of saying "I will not take negative reviews personally" will change a damn thing, I will discuss negative reviews with people I trust, remember that nothing is universally adored, and refrain from eating more than three bags of candy corn. Sugar doesn't fix everything. It just makes me care less.

XIII. I will occasionally stop running.

I read semi-constantly -- I've never really gotten past that third-grade geek-girl with a book in her hand, another in her desk, and three more in her backpack phase -- and as a consequence, I've developed some rather eclectic, rather specific tastes. I like urban fantasy, I like sociological science fiction, and I like horror with monsters in it. I like non-fiction books about horrible diseases, both modern and historical. I like modern chick-lit of the Meg Cabot school. And I like good YA.

The recent renaissance in young adult fiction has really been a miracle, at least from where I'm sitting, because it's like it went from zero to 'holy cow, look at all this AWESOME' in less than six years. Sure, there's a lot of chaff mixed in with all that wheat, but there's more than enough wheat to make a really healthy, fiber-riffic loaf of bread. I have now beaten this metaphor to within an inch of its life, and will move on.

Because I've been reading so much YA recently, I thought I should do a quick round-up of books I've read which have proven to be awesome. This isn't what I'd call a book review post, per se, since I'm not really taking the time to review things, but with as much as I read, this may be the only way to get the word out about some truly rockin' books. The word needs to be gotten. You should get the word.

First up is the fantastic Evernight [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies], by Claudia Gray. This book hit shelves officially yesterday, and I've already read the whole thing twice, read some of my favorite scenes three or four times, and planned to loan it and Evernight both to my niece Kristine, because they will rock her world completely. I'm going to say something I don't say very often: Stargazer is totally worth the hardcover shelf space. If you like vampires, supernatural romance, school stories, or just plain good fiction, you should really give it a read. There will be a better review later.

Lipstick Apology [Amazon] by Jennifer Jabaley is a) non-genre, b) really awesome, and c) not technically out yet, being as it's one of those wacky advance reader copy things. How I love you, ARCs. Anyway, Lipstick Apology is sort of like a combination of Gossip Girl and I'll Be There For You (the sequel to Beaches), as written by Meg Cabot. It's smart, it's sassy, it's sentimental without becoming sappy, and it's just all-around really worth reading. I didn't find any of the lessons preachy, and all the characters were actually people, even if they weren't necessarily people we were supposed to like. I figured out the central mystery pretty quickly. I'm also substantially more well-read than most of the book's target audience, and even knowing what was probably going on did nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the book as a whole. I really recommend it.

I'm actually in the middle of So Lyrical [Amazon] by Trish Cook right now, and since I've never read it before, I guess I technically don't know if it's actually going to maintain its early promise and come out awesome on the other side. But frankly, I don't care. This book is like a fantastic mashup of Gilmore Girls and Rock of Love. It's snappy, it's sharp, it's trashy when it needs to be, ironic when it needs to be, and I would totally have hung out with all the main characters when I was in high school. Plus, it's in paperback, so it's not like you're taking that much of a gamble.

Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies], on the other hand, is almost like the antidote to all those sappy vampire books that seem to be flooding the shelves in the post-Twilight haze currently covering the young adult section. Beth Fantaskey has managed to create a vampire romance that's touching, interesting, and oddly realistic, with a vampire society that makes an incredible amount of sense. I mean, between her and Claudia Gray, I actually believe this genre has a lot more of a future than people give it credit for. Plus, I really like her hero, as well as her heroine. It's a win all the way around.

Because this is my post, not yours, I'm also choosing to give a quick shout-out to one of my favorite young adult books of all time: The Girl With the Silver Eyes [Amazon] by Willo Davis Roberts. It's out of print, but in today's world, that only means as much as you want it to mean, and this is the sort of book that's just like a warm, fuzzy blanket filled with goodness and warmth. The technology is naturally a bit outdated, but the social aspects of the book, and the outsider aspects, all remain very true.

That's my YA round-up for today. Because I like to share.