LJ Messenger.

So I've been experiencing a real uptick recently in people using LJ's internal messaging system to reach me. I don't know why? I don't know if this is a societal switch toward "let's use one site for absolutely everything, always, and if you ever have to switch tags, that's bad," or if LJ has started giving out free kittens with every message sent, or what, but I am here to beg you to please not do that.

One of the functions of my OCD is that I feel compelled to answer all comments that are not somehow covered by comment amnesty, such as being second-level (a reply to one of my replies) or on a post that's connected to the RNG. This can take a long time. I have over 1,300 unanswered comments right now. I do not mind this! Comments are very rarely time-sensitive, and when they are, such as with the WG orders, I either get help or I leave myself a post-it. But this means that anything that's not on those entries just gets buried. Your message can wait up to a year for me to notice it.

Please, if you need to reach me privately, use my website contact form. That's what my website contact form is for. I get all that mail. I read all that mail. I answer most of that mail (some things do not require an answer). I do not overlook that mail for a year. Please, do not message me here, or on Tumblr, or on Facebook. Use my contact form. Please.

Slasher Chicks shirts.

I have answered all currently outstanding inquires, and I still have pretty, pretty Slasher Chicks shirts for sale. So pretty! So totally random in terms of color and size! It's an adventure every time I have to look up a size/color combo, and the adventure can be yours.

Old ARCs.

I have two ARCs of Half-Off Ragnarok left over, and I would like to see them go to a good home where they will be turned into art. People periodically need books for art projects, so...anyone out there looking to do some fun papercrafts and need an ARC or two? Please do not ask if you want to keep the ARCs in book form for reading purposes; I'm looking for people who are looking to make things. US addresses only, since postage is expensive and I'd need to ask you to pay it and ARCs aren't worth it (unless you're emulating a friend of mine and making something like a bridal bouquet out of ARCs, because that's a really important and long-term papercraft, and justifies you paying for postage).

Go ahead and comment on this post if you're interested, so other people can see that the ARCs may have been claimed. Again, please, crafters only.

Media stuff.

Surprisingly good: the movie Big Ass Spider.

Also surprisingly good: Girl Meets World.

...and thus do I summarize my entire experience with media in two three-word titles.

More later, but these are the things that mattered right now!

Title: Five Moments In a Life That Never Was.
Rating: PG.
Fandom: Doctor Who.
Synopsis: Five snapshots of Susan Foreman, later Susan Campbell, daughter of Gallifrey. Written ages ago, and re-posted in honor of the 50th. Thanks to khaosworks for fact-checking.

( When she sleeps, her name isn't Susan. When she sleeps, her name is something long and liquid...Collapse )

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.

And now, the final two Sailor Moon fairy tales, again because I like keeping things in one place. It's tidy.

( Click here for the Prince who loved roses, and the Rabbit who lost the moon...Collapse )

My friend Nikki asked what Disney Princesses the Sailor Scouts mapped to; I, naturally, responded that the Sailor Scouts were too awesome to be pre-existing Princesses, and would have fairy tales of their own. Nikki then dared me. This was the result.

( Together for the first time in one place, four Sailor Moon fairy tales. Enjoy.Collapse )

I'm just going to get this out of the way before I say anything else:

THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE THE KICKSTARTER FUNDED AND THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE!!!!

Ahem. Look, my cat is named "Lilly Kane," there's a signed poster hanging in my guest room, what do you want from me? I wear my geeky heart upon my sleeve. And now, on to the actual substantive post you may have hoped was hiding here. To whit:

Yesterday morning, Rob Thomas, creator of the show Veronica Mars and author of books such as Rats Saw God and Slave Day, announced a Kickstarter to make a Veronica Mars movie. The Kickstarter, which is still going, had a target of two million dollars, with reward levels starting for a $10 donation. Here's a link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project

The Kickstarter raised its first million in four hours. Last night, I watched it click over the two million dollar mark. There was much rejoicing, because dude. Veronica Mars movie. I shrieked, I chair-danced, and all was right with the world...

...only not, because it turns out a lot of people are really perturbed by the fact that a movie which will have corporate backing (Rob Thomas is not the Veronica Mars intellectual property owner, which means Warner Brothers has to be involved) was asking for money on Kickstarter. Mind you, no one held a gun to my head and forced me to fund this project; no one forced me to sit here carefully considering the reward tiers and choosing the one which came with the most awesome swag. No one clicked the button for me. But somehow, my backing this movie has stolen projects from indie artists who really needed it.

And unto this do I say: bullshit.

The world is not a zero-sum game. Yes, if I have one dollar, and I give it to Sunil, I am not going to be able to give it to Vixy. But if I only have one dollar, I'm not giving it to anybody. I'm keeping it for myself, to live. I am an artist and a creator of art, and I know as well as anyone that art is a luxury: art is something that we pay for after we've paid for food and housing and heat in the winter and all the other things that keep our physical bodies going. Yes, I do believe that we need art to live, but that's a spiritual and emotional life, not a "I can no longer breathe because Fringe is off the air" life. They are different.

So let's say that I've paid for my necessities, my survival is assured, and I have a dollar to give to a super-deserving project. Obviously, if I give it to one person, I can't give it to anyone else (although I could give both people fifty cents, but I digress). And you know what? That experimental retelling of The Crucible with sock puppets probably needs my dollar more than the Veronica Mars movie. But I'm paying for my luxuries here. I'm paying for what I want. And what I want is to see Logan, and Veronica, and my fictional friends again. I miss them.

The Veronica Mars movie did not take my dollars away from "more deserving" projects, because no one gets to measure that but the person who holds the dollars. Me. And Sunil, and Chris, and Rae, and every other Veronica Mars fan I know. Rob Thomas did not violate the Kickstarter terms and conditions: I know, I checked. I am not somehow being rooked into paying for something that I will then have to pay for again: I chose a reward level that gave me enough stuff that I felt the price tag was justified (and they did a great job of balancing the rewards; $10 gets you a PDF of the script, and that's reasonable, if you're a fan of the show). Yes, I'll have to pay if I want to see the movie in the theater, but that's paying the theater, which has its own bills to take care of (and will feed me delicious popcorn).

Life is not a zero-sum game. Kickstarter is not a zero-sum game. The money I am willing to shake out of the couch cushions for Veronica Mars is not the money I am willing to shake out of the couch cushions for anything else. Living in a capitalistic society means I get to pay for what I want, and saying that it was tacky of Rob to even ask, when there was no better funding channel available, is missing the point.

You do not have to want what I want. No one does. But just like I don't get to say "the things you want are worthless and not worth wanting, come want this other thing instead," nobody gets to make that statement to me. And there is nothing that makes "I want two million dollars to make a movie of a TV show that the network canceled, that the studio won't fund, but that the fans adore" any more or less legitimate of a request than anything else. And "Well, what if the studios start holding your shows hostage?" doesn't scare me. I've been waiting to be able to pay for the things I love, to count directly with my dollars, not just as a shadow of a Nielsen household, for a long time.

It's not a zero-sum game. But it's a good one.

I love the SyFy Channel Saturday night movies. The goofy effects, the giant monsters, the sometimes wooden acting, it's all a delicious cheese sandwich to help me relax into the one night of the week where I don't feel rushed to accomplish ALL THE THINGS before I go to bed. I try to judge them by what they are, and not by what I want them to be: silly, shitty movies that accomplish what they set out to accomplish, no more, and no less. Sometimes they're even pretty good.

This past week, the Saturday night movie was The End of the World. It was about a group of geeks who owned/worked at a video store specializing in disaster movies, the judgmental SO of the geek who actually owned the store, the faintly evil cousin of the geek who actually owned the store, the disapproving parent of one of the geeks who worked at the store, the disaster guru idol of all the geeks, and a bunch of extras. The extras fell into three categories: evil looters who wanted to take stuff from our heroic geeks, assholes at the mental hospital where the disaster guru had been committed, and people at the military base.

Now. Looking only at what I've written above, how many of these characters were female? If you guessed "judgmental SO" and "disapproving parent," then ding ding ding! We have a winner!

None of the geeks were women. The SO even knowing what the Death Star was called was treated as a virtual miracle, and something so hot as to make the alpha geek temporarily forget about saving the planet, because she was speaking Forbidden Knowledge, yo. She was saying things that implied girls could be geeks too, and man, that was so impossible it was like she was demonstrating super powers! The mother figure was literally introduced calling one of the secondary geeks at work and asking him how the job search was going, because it was time for him to get a real job, in the real world, amirite girls? (The SO had a similar speech.) That's how we should interact with geeks! We should drag them kicking and screaming into respectability, because no one can ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever be happy and fulfilled just being a professional fan of things. And women can't even start being fans of things. It's not allowed.

None of the extras were female. None of the secondary characters, apart from the two listed above, were female. One of the female characters was there to nag and be a burden; the other was there to be a prize and to be enlightened about how Geek Things = Man Things and Man Things = Awesome.

And here's the thing. None of these characters—not a single fucking one—had such a gendered role that their character could not have been played by a member of the opposite sex. Testosterone did not unlock the key to saving the world. Estrogen did not cause the cataclysm. You could have literally flipped a fucking coin for every single role, and cast accordingly. "Whoops, female lead, male antagonist, female love interest..." Better yet, make it a d10, and if you roll a ten, roll again for assigned birth gender, and then go from there. "Female lead, male antagonist, ftm love interest..." It would have been the same damn movie.

But they didn't do that. They went with boys and boys and boys, and an exclusionist narrative that had me saying sadly "I like disaster movies. I exist, too."

I wound up stopping the movie halfway through because the lack of female voices had become so alienating to me that I needed to wait a while before I came back and finished watching. It was an okay movie. I won't be watching it again. There's no one for me there.

Men can identify with women, and should. Women can identify with men, and should. But there's a big difference between saying "Seanan, you should have been able to identify with the struggles of the protagonist, regardless of gender," and saying "Seanan, you should have been able to accept a world that cast your gender into the role of harpy and martinet, and not felt objectified or rejected by this setting." I did identify with Owen. I did care about his story.

It was everything around him that lost me. And honestly, I'm still lost, and I've been lost too many times.

Sometimes it would be nice to be found.

Hi.

My name is Seanan McGuire, and I'd like to talk to you about the Hugo Awards.

I'm going to be upfront here: I do have a potential horse in this race. I've posted about my eligibility for this year's awards already, and I've never made any secret of the fact that I really would love to win a Hugo for fiction. In my perfect world, this would be my year, because a Hugo for Blackout would be like a Hugo for the whole trilogy. There's no way I could make this entry without these facts being considered, because if I didn't state them up front, it might seem like I was trying to hide them, and I'm not. I just want you to set them aside for a moment, and focus on the awards as a whole.

Did you know that anyone can nominate, and vote, for the Hugo Awards? All you have to do is become a Supporting Member of this year's World Science Fiction Convention by January 31st. (You could also become a full member and attend the con, if you've been hankering for an excuse to go to Texas and see lots of cool people, like me, and Paul Cornell, and probably more than that, but let's be honest. Me and Paul in the bar for the weekend would be a pretty good time.) The Book Smugglers hosted this amazing post about the Hugos, and I want to quote one bit that really stood out to me:

"I highly encourage everyone, especially people who believe, like I do, that there’s space for YA recognition, more women, non-white, and international voices, to look at the membership options and if joining the process and the conversation around it is possible, give it a shot. See if it’s worth investing in each year. Nominate the people and things you love. Vote for the stuff you think represents the best of genre, the best of all the things that the future science fiction and fantasy fandom should remember."

We can shape the future of the genre, everybody, and that's amazing.

Now that I've made my plea for the awards in general, and made my own horses known, I'd like to bring up three horses that I have nothing to do with, but which I still think deserve your consideration, if you have the opportunity.

Fringe season four, episode 19, "Letters in Transit." Oh my sweet Great Pumpkin. This is an amazing hour of television, it's just breathtaking, whether you're a Fringe fan or someone who doesn't know the show. Fringe hasn't made the ballot before, and seriously, I think that may be a crime against televised science fiction. Please consider this episode for Best Dramatic Short Form.

Phineas and Ferb season three, episode 18, "Excaliferb." Phineas and Ferb is some of the best science fiction being made for television today, and the fact that it's primarily geared at eight-year-olds doesn't stop it from being enjoyable and accessible to an adult audience. This was the first part of the time-slip chronicles, and is basically a Princess Bride parody with a fire-breathing dragon/platypus hybrid. Please consider this episode for Best Dramatic Short Form.

And finally, my biggest horse...Mark Oshiro, of Mark Reads. Mark produces interesting, hysterical, thoughtful videos and blog posts almost daily, and has built a huge, inclusive, interactive, exciting fan community dedicated to discussing and dissecting his reviews and analysis of speculative fiction. Seriously, this is some of the best deconstruction of genre I've ever seen. Plus the man is a living reaction shot. When he is not prepared for something, he is totally not prepared. Were he to win a Hugo, his acceptance speech would probably go on to receive an Oscar nomination, because it would be the ultimate in unpreparedness. He's a great guy who runs a great blog and provides some of the best fan writing I've seen on the Internet in years. Please consider Mark Oshiro, of Mark Reads, for Best Fan Writer.

Those are the horses, and those are the reasons you should put yourself into a position to choose some horses for yourself. The Hugo Awards are a big deal, and participation, while not free (or even affordable for everyone), is well worth the cost if you can swing it. Be a part of history. Be a part of choosing what the community etches into the roll of heroes. Help somebody win a medal so big and shiny that it'll make all of Felix's medals wet their pants (did I mention that I want Wreck-It Ralph to win everything, forever?).

Thank you for your time.

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!

Hello, boys and ghouls. It's your friendly internet horror hostess with the most...machetes...coming at you with another update in the zombie roller coaster ride that is my work as Mira Grant. Specifically, I want to let you all know that "San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats," is now available for pre-order.

Click here for all the exciting details!

This stand-alone novella follows the events of the last San Diego International Comic Convention after the Rising, and is framed, narratively, by Mahir Gowda's interview of the only known survivor of the event, Lorelei J. Tutt (USCG, Retired). We already know how it ends; we already know how it began. What matters is what happened in the middle.

"San Diego 2014" is being released via the Orbit Short Fiction program, and will be available in just about all ebook formats on July 11th, 2012. The retail cost is $2.99. While Orbit is working on getting the program up and running in other regions, it is currently US-only. I'm sorry about that, and you should contact Orbit if you have any questions.

Zombies!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. If you read yesterday's post about ebook distribution around the world, you may want to go back and read it again; I made some pretty hefty edits after having a contract discussion with The Agent, and I think it's more accurate now.

9. While I will not say that Joss Whedon is my master now—I remain too critical for that, and still haven't forgiven him for several things—he has made my two favorite theatrical releases of this year, Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers.

8. Although if we don't get another female hero in the sequel, I am going to be one cranky kitty. I knew that would be an issue for me going in; I was not wrong.

7. We're down to three girls on this season of America's Next Top Model, and I don't hate any of them. What? How can this be? I think the world has been intrinsically damaged by the inanity of this season's "US v. UK" concept.

6. You know what's awesome? Disneyland, that's what's awesome. You know what's better? I'm going there in two weeks, with Vixy. Are we now planning to hit every Disney park in the world? Yes. Yes, we are. Next up, Disneyland Paris.

5. Eleven days to Blackout! Who's excited? I'm excited!

4. If you somehow get an early copy, please don't tell me. There's nothing I can do about it, and it'll just raise my blood pressure. But feel free to post a review. Reviews are awesome.

3. You know what makes everything better? Poison dart frickens make everything better. Look at their tiny technicolor deadliness!

2. Jean Grey is still dead.

1. I'm seeing The Devil's Carnival tonight! Yay!

Hope you're all having a great Friday, and are looking forward to an even greater weekend.

Point the first: If you are a member of Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, who joined before January 31, 2012, you are eligible to submit a nomination ballot for the 2012 Hugo Awards. The nomination deadline is now less than a month away. Please, please, consider nominating for the Hugos if you are eligible to do so. (Note: This is not the same as saying "please nominate me." The ballots are secret, and you can nominate whatever you damn well want. Nominate the best things you saw in 2011.) If you are not eligible to nominate, remember that buying a supporting membership now means you will receive the electronic voter packet, and be eligible to vote on the final ballot.

Point the second: If you're wondering who is or is not eligible, many authors have made convenient posts delineating their eligibility. My eligible works are listed here. Because I am occasionally lazy and do not want to do work that other people have already done for me, I wish to direct you to this fabulously hysterical post by Jim Hines, which helpfully links to a bunch of "what I am eligible for" posts by other people. Sometimes my laziness gives me an excuse to expose others to awesome. My life, so hard.

Point the third: As you know, I watch a lot of television, and hence often have very strong feelings about the Best Dramatic Short Form category (there's a shocker). I sometimes feel like American science fiction television winds up at a disadvantage compared to UK television, not because it's bad, but because the seasons are so much longer that it's far easier for us to "split the vote" during the nomination period, resulting in a ballot with three episodes of Doctor Who and nothing from, say, Fringe, which I would only love more if the producers started arranging for cupcake deliveries to my house every time there was a new episode. (Seriously, the episode "Peter" from season two should have been on last year's ballot, with bells on. It was sheer genius.) So I am asking you, as people who may not watch quite so much television, to consider a specific work for the 2012 ballot.

Specifically, I am asking you to consider Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension, which is within the length-limit for the short form category. It's real science fiction, folks, seriously. Only with songs and a secret agent platypus. This show is inspiring the science fiction fans of tomorrow in a way that very little else currently is, and it inspires me, daily. You can view the whole thing on Netflicks; it re-runs regularly on Disney and Disney XD; and it's available on DVD. Please, if you haven't seen it already, give it a gander, and consider whether it might be worthy of your nomination.

"Every day is such a dream
When you start it with a monotreme..."

—from "Everything's Better With Perry."

This is a topic that's been sitting in my rolling note file for a while, waiting both for the sting of the event that triggered it to fade, and for the actual event to recede far enough into the past that even a vague description wouldn't trigger a big red SPOILERS sign. So you know, it took more than two years. That's a long time, even for me.

I watch a lot of television, read a lot of books, and buy a lot of comics. I am a huge consumer of media of all types. And, like many consumers of media, I'm looking for characters I can relate to. For me, yes, that usually means the females* (although not always). And yeah, it bothers me that in a narrative with eight males and one female, it's frequently the female who will be the target of violence or killed off to make a point.

Now, I'm not saying that female characters should have a "get out of mortal injury free" card, nor that they should be immortal. But there's "everyone in this story gets the crap kicked out of them on a regular basis, it was Karen's turn," and then there's "mysteriously, every male character survives the explosion unscathed, again, but Karen is in the hospital, again." Or, even worse, "all the guys are fine, Karen's dead, meet Katie." Karen, in this scenario, was probably a replacement for Kelly, who replaced Kendra back in season one. And the beat rolls on.

I am not saying that all things must have absolute gender equality. Big Bang Theory was a primarily male cast for the first several seasons, and that was fine. H2O: Just Add Water was a primarily female cast for its entire run, and that was fine, too. Sometimes, there are situations where it makes sense for it to be mostly one gender or the other. But this is a "sometimes" thing, not a "four times out of five" thing. If there's no pressing reason for a character to be one gender or the other, why not try striking a balance? One of the only things that's ever disappointed me about Leverage is the way that the "evil doubles" of all the main characters have been male. Male thief, male hitter, male hacker, male mastermind. When your core cast is so well-balanced, why not make your Mirror Universe equally well-balanced?

(Yes, we have seen another female grifter, but as she was brought in to essentially be a replacement Sophie while Gina Bellman was pregnant, she's a bit of a different duck, and she wasn't brought in when they needed an alternate team. Which is too bad, because she's awesome.)

And now to the event that caused me to start thinking these things so critically:

Once upon a time there was a show, and it was made for me. It could not have been better tailored to my tastes if the producers had been bugging my phone. I loved it without reservation, even though the cast was almost purely male, and I defended it from accusations of misogyny. It was my show.

Time passed, and more female characters were introduced. They didn't become core cast, but that was okay; there were natural limits on the number of core cast members, and I was happy with the expanded universe. It made things more realistic. And then things started getting bad in that expanded universe. How could they make us, the viewers, understand how bad things were?

By killing all the female characters who had appeared in more than one episode, naturally. And by doing it in a way that was meant to be "heroic," but involved them failing to navigate a scenario that left the male characters entirely untouched.

I cried until I was sick after that episode. I turned off the show. I never went back. Literally never; I haven't watched so much as a preview since that narrative decision was made. Was I overreacting? Maybe. But there is so much media out there these days, so many stories, that once you make me cry for reasons that are not "this is so moving and tragic," but are instead, "this is so unfair and infuriating," we're over, you and I.

And that, right there, is when a story loses me. When they use the female characters as a shortcut to emotional anguish; when they kill or maim the women because that's easier than setting up a genuinely and realistically painful scenario. Especially since we almost always start out with a severe gender imbalance in genre or action shows, and that means that killing the token woman can leave us with an all-male cast.

Bones, which I adore, has a rotating cast of interns, only one of whom is female. When they had to kill an intern last season, it wasn't her. I cried like a baby over the death they chose; the intern they killed was my second favorite among the available choices. But it didn't make me angry the way it would have if they'd chosen Daisy. Why? Because killing the woman is so often viewed as the "cheap and easy" choice that I wouldn't have been able to focus on the tragedy through my anger.

Again, I am not saying "never kill the woman." Veronica Mars is one of my favorite shows ever, and they started off by killing Lilly Kane. NCIS, which I also adore, killed off a central female character very early in their run. But both shows killed their characters in a way that made sense for the show, and did not reduce her to an emotional red stamp. "We need this to hurt, so kill the girl." You need to kill the character, not "kill the girl." If you can do that, you'll keep me. If you can't, you'll lose me. And I am not the only one you'll lose.

I find it a little fascinating that women make up such a large percentage of the audience for these stories, but we're still the ones who die when the monster comes, to prove that the threat is real. I'd like to see it change.

And I still miss Lilly.

(*I don't say "women" because I watch a lot of science fiction, and a lot of cartoons and teen dramas. So "girls" is often accurate, as is "blue lizard people of the egg-laying gender.")

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. Zombies are love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, here you go:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zombies.
Are love.

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you when I wake up.

Too busy to brain. Here, have some bits and pieces.

Wicked Girls T-shirts.
My mother is on her way to Carmichael, California to pick these up right now. So assuming that there hasn't been some horrifying and unforeseen printing error (which seems unlikely, as we had very clear graphics, and a very clear work order), I will be starting to mail these out this week. I'll post again once I'm absolutely certain that everything is good. I will also announce when and where hand-delivery will be available, for those of you who don't want to wait for the mail, but will be in the same place as me in the weeks to come.

CD statuses.
When CD Baby runs out of Pretty Little Dead Girl, that's it, it's gone. I have twelve copies left; five are going into my vault, and the other seven will be going to the book release party and my October conventions. I will definitely be reprinting Wicked Girls, but it may need to wait until early 2012, since there's a whole process involved in doing something like this. I am also considering reprinting Stars Fall Home, with certain changes/enhancements (new cover, to match better with Wicked Girls, maybe a new track). I'll keep you posted.

Conclave, October 9th to 11th.
I'll be posting about this at more length once I make it through the weekend alive, but next week, I am the Literary Guest at Conclave, in Romulus, Michigan. It's going to be a big party, with me teaming up with Wild Mercy (including Amy McNally) to set the stage on fire, as well as bunches and bunches of exciting panels, fabulous events, and general good times. If you're in the Michigan area, this should definitely be on your radar.

Mailing things.
If you're expecting me to mail you something, and I haven't mailed you something, and you're wondering if the post office may have eaten your something, it didn't. Everything has been insane, and I am way, way behind on my mailing of things. I am sincerely hoping that the shirts will fix this, since it's going to mean taking van-loads of crap to the post office, and that usually inspires more stuff to go into the mail.

Why aren't you watching this?
Man, the new season of Fringe is so good that I want to take it home to meet my parents. If you're not caught up, or if you dropped the show in season one before it got good (which many people did, I know), you should totally give it a go. I could not love this show more if it was dipped in chocolate and rolled in candy corn.

...okay, maybe that's going a little far. Om nom nom.

Candy corn.
In my belly.

The Pirates of Emerson!
If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, you should be aware that the Pirates of Emerson haunted house park is re-opening tomorrow night for its annual Halloween bash. There are six haunted houses included in general admission, and there's a corn maze, and ghost pirates and and and. It's like someone made a sweet, refreshing oasis for my soul, and then kindly dropped it within easy driving distance. Best of all, general admission is only $20. Not suitable for easily scared children, adults, or house pets. Hugely recommended for everybody else.

Anything else?
Be...excellent to one another.

And PARTY ON, DUDES!

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

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

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

Ashes of Honor.

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

Social life.

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

My fall convention schedule.

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

And after that, I nap.

Too much TV.

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

Toys!

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

Cats.

Insane.

"Wicked Girls" T-shirts.

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

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

I need a nap.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...can't trust that day.

Getting out of bed this morning was complicated by the fact that I was so thoroughly covered by cats that I had to practically do sit-ups to recover the use of one arm. This is the true danger of having large cats. When they want to, they win.

Still, the weekend was good, despite back issues which kept me abed a bit longer than I wanted them to on Sunday (as in, "they kept me abed on Sunday"). The new episode of Doctor Who, "The Girl Who Waited," was stellar. The season premiere of iCarly was excellent. I managed to package two-thirds of the pending poster orders for shipping. I made Chris watch War of the Worlds: Live, which was the big concert of selections from the War of the Worlds musical (complete with giant floating Richard Burton head). And Contagion...

...seriously, this movie was designed to be porn for Seanans. It could not have made me happier if it had come with the first theatrical trailer for the upcoming prequel to The Thing.

OH WAIT. IT DID.

Now, I want to note, firmly, that this is not a movie for people who are looking for plot, detailed characterization, clear enemies, happy endings, or absolutely absolute endings. It's a story about a virus. Viruses don't have secondary motivations. They don't have desires. They just have biological imperatives, and when they start exercising those imperatives, it's the job of people like the CDC, EIS, and WHO to step in and try to make them stop. Characters don't get detailed back stories or motivations, because there isn't time.

And yes, lots and lots and lots of people die. That's what happens when this sort of thing occurs. It's a good movie. It's smart, it's solid, and while the science is extremely rushed (and several layers of medical care are missing), it's rushed in the way that says "we needed a two-hour narrative, not a twenty-hour miniseries," rather than being rushed in the way that says "honey badger didn't give a fuck."

If you're not a germaphobe, I recommend this movie hugely. If you are, I recommend you stay home and watch iCarly. Or War of the Worlds: Live.

Ulla!

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 )

It's time for ARC giveaway #3...the casting call! Here's how this is going to work:

1. Leave a comment on this post with YOUR DREAM CAST for ANY of my projects. Want to cast the Toby books? How about Feed? Or Sparrow Hill Road? Have the perfect actress in mind for Velveteen? The sky's the limit!

1b. Be sure your comment starts its own thread. Only casting choices left on the original post (not as a comment on someone else's comment) will count as entries. You can suggest cast members for someone else's dream team, but they won't be entries.

2. One entry per project per person (so you can cast the Toby books and the InCryptid books in different comments, but not enter twice with different Toby casts).

3. Explain your cast in the comment. Why are they perfect? Why should we agree with you?

And then...GAME ON! I will choose a winner via random number generator on Friday, at 5PM PST. I reserve the right to supply a bonus prize or prizes for the person whose cast amuses me most, or strikes me as the best supported. (Yes, you can use my casting choices, but you do need to explain why you agree with them.)

Go Hollywood or go home!

1. It is now twenty-one days to Deadline. I am scrambling to catch up on "Countdown" (the series of little in-universe snapshots has a name!), and writing ahead so as not to get caught flat-footed by my next convention adventure. I'm not certain I'll have internet while at Wiscon, so the last few pieces may be posted a little late, but they will be posted.

2. The cats responded to my going to Leprecon by magically acquiring giant felted mats which should have taken them well over a week to create. Last night's brushing adventure was a lot of fun for everyone involved, let me tell you what. Also, ow. Also, I am so saying "screw this noise" when I get home from BEA/Wiscon, and just taking the pair of them straight to the professional groomer for trimming and mat removal. I am not going through that again if I don't have to.

3. My whole house is clean! Why is my whole house clean? Because my mother is awesome! Why is my mother awesome? Because she cleaned my house! The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

4. I get a Cat this weekend! Cat Valente is using my house as her base of operations during the San Francisco Bay Area branch of her tour for The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She'll be at our best-beloved Borderlands Books this Saturday; there will be cupcakes, and carousing, and all the usual wonderful things. You should totally come.

5. There will be another, probably photo-heavy post about this later, but...I got an Evangeline Ghastly doll! More precisely, I got two; the one I bought, and one that mysteriously appeared on my doorstep in a big-ass box from Wilde Imagination. My squealing, it was vast. Of course, now I have entered the dark realm of the ball-jointed doll, from which there is no returning. Which leads us to...

6. I am allowed to do one fiscally silly thing every time I do certain things, career-wise. As I have done a certain thing (more on this later), I get to be silly, and I've decided that this time, for silly, I want a resin Evangeline doll. They fit more of the clothes, and can wear all the shoes. Specifically, I want the Cemetery Wedding Evangeline, since she has the best face. If you know anyone who might be selling part of a doll collection, please let me know?

7. The new season of Doctor Who continues to delight me.

8. I have finished the Tybalt short! "Rat-Catcher" is 10,000 words long, and has been officially submitted to the market it was written for. If they buy it, I'll announce when and where it will be appearing. If they don't, I'll start looking for something else to do with a story full of Cait Sidhe. Whatever I do, it will probably need to involve gooshy food.

9. Zombies are love.

10. I am hammered enough right now that my response time is slow, and the amnesty on replying to comments on the "Countdown" posts endures. I'll still answer comments on all other posts; it may just take me a little while. Thank you for being understanding.

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

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

Anyway, here you go:

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

So this has been a week. Yes. That is definitely what it's been. Rarely has a week been so very week-shaped, and so equipped with lots of little pointy days to stick things to. I have thoughts, honest I do, and many of them even make sense, but it's been such a week that I really am essentially reduced to sitting here going "well, yeah, that was a week." So here, have some bullet-points instead.

Writing.
I'm making awesome progress on Blackout, which is up to 115,000 words, which technically puts me a day ahead of target. If I can make my overly-ambitious goals for the weekend, I may be able to get far enough ahead of target that I can actually enjoy LepreCon next weekend without needing to get up in the morning and worry about word count. (I'll get up in the morning and worry about word count anyway. I just won't have to.)

"Rat-Catcher" is also coming along nicely, and I'm about halfway through the story. I'm shooting to finish the first draft by Monday or Tuesday of next week, and then hand it over to the Machete Squad for glorious abuse. It's being written for a specific anthology, but I can't say which one until the story is finished and the editor decides that it's worth printing. Assuming that happens, I'll make sure to share the ordering info, because who wouldn't want a story about Tybalt in London before he was King? Questions are asked, questions are answered, you get to meet the elusive September Torquill, and as a bonus, Tybalt's family is involved.

Watching.
So the season premiere of Doctor Who was amazing, and I can't wait for tomorrow night's episode. I love Matt Smith's Doctor so very much, and I really hope we get to keep him at least as long as we kept Tennant. (Young actor, more likely to want to avoid getting typecast. Young actor, more likely to go "This is AWESOME!" and keep doing the show just so he can play with more aliens. So it's a wash, and we'll need to wait and see.) I love Amy, I love Rory, I love that Rory's in the opening credits now, and yes, I even love River Song. Although there is now officially an embargo on characters named "River."

Two episodes remain in this season of Fringe, which is absolutely one of my favorite things on television, bar none. I'm even kind of jealous, since "alternate versions of the main character or characters" is one of my narrative kinks, and it's really, really hard to do when you're working purely in text. I've got some alternates coming up in the Vel stories, but that's about it. The storytelling on Fringe just keeps getting better, and I am so excited and terrified to see where this season ends.

Wandering.
May sort of kicks off my convention season in a big, big way, and next weekend is LepreCon, in scenic Tempe, Arizona. I'm their Music Guest of Honor! Which will be fun, since I'm working with an unfamiliar guitarist and we won't have much time to practice. That means our performance will be, if nothing else, sincere. I'm planning to have a great time, even if it kills me.

Later in the month, I'll have Cat Valente crashing at my place before her event at Borderlands to promote The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which you should totally attend, and then heading to New York for Book Expo America, followed by Wiscon, with a stop in the middle at a high school in Wisconsin. And all of this should explain why I am quite so passionate about making my word counts every day, even if it kills me. There is no room left for slippage.

Wanting.
The new Monster High dolls have been announced, and to absolutely no one's surprise, I want them all. ALL OF THEM. I am going to need to get a new shelf. "All of them" includes the San Diego International Comic-Convention Exclusive Ghoulia Yelps cosplaying as her favorite superhero. Yes. A ZOMBIE SUPERHERO. I control all things.

What's up with you guys?

1. The Roseville event was awesome, and the store now has autographed copies of all five of my currently published books. A Local Habitation is naturally in the shortest supply, so if you'd been planning to swing by the store and pick up a set, you should probably do so soon, before everything goes away. Thanks to Alex, for having me, and to Sunil, for bringing me wonderful goodies from England and giving me hugs.

2. In case you missed the announcement, An Artificial Night is in the BSC Review Book Tournament Finals, and Toby could use your vote. Also, once she has conclusively CRUSHED HER OPPONENT, I can stop posting about this, thus freeing up your valuable display space for other topics, like the ever-popular "complaining about my cats."

3. I really enjoyed the newest Disney Channel Original Movie, Lemonade Mouth. I did not enjoy them presenting the first hour of the movie sans commercials without warning me first, as it meant I had not brought a soda, or a blanket, or the paperwork I needed to finish during the movie, before sitting down on the couch. I am told the book is better than the movie. I must now read the book.

4. Served at yesterday's brunch: potato cake. It's cake, made of potatoes, bacon fat, and bacon. HOW CAN THIS BE? The spirit of sweetmusic_27 hovered over my shoulder and watched me eat it, and I now need the recipe, because I must cook it for her. It is a moral imperative.

5. I visited the Sacramento Shirt Shop, and plans for Wicked Girls shirts are now proceeding apace. I should be posting about it soon. Girl-cut shirts are available up to 2x, and we'll be able to do standard-cut shirts up to 5x, as needed, for no additional cost. Baby shirts are a different setup, and so would be a different order. Details will be forthcoming; I don't have them just yet.

6. I am solidly on target to hit 100,000 words on Blackout by Saturday. This is both incredibly exciting and incredibly stressful, since it means I'm coming closer and closer to the point where I have to stop setting things up in favor of knocking everything down. Considering what I have left to do in this volume, I'm starting to worry that the first draft may need more trimming than I thought. Since I am a perennial trimmer (better a late trim than a panicked plumping), this is okay, it's just surprising.

7. Zombies are love.

8. The Cartoon Network schedule for the rest of 2011 has been released, and Tower Prep is not represented. Here's hoping this is either a glitch, or they're about to announce moving Tower Prep to SyFy, where it could find an enormous audience and live forever.

9. I will probably celebrate hitting 100,000 words on Blackout by cleaning as much of my room as is physically possible and then writing the rest of "Rat-Catcher" in one feverish sprint. Don't judge me, this is how writers party hard.

10. Doctor Who comes back on Saturday. Saturday can't come fast enough.

Hello, world! It's the Thursday before Wondercon, and I'm trying to take care of all the little rags and tags of reality that build up over the course of a week like cat hair on velvet pants. So anyway...

1. The fight is still raging in the BSC Review tournament! This round closes Sunday morning, at which point, eight books will be reduced to four, and those four will duke it out for the right to do to the bracket semi-finals. Cat and I both still have horses in this race, so please, help keep Toby swinging!

2. Speaking of Cat, her new book, Deathless, came out this week. Hooray for book release! There's a lot of neat free stuff to have and enjoy and be amazed by; my darling talkstowolves has made a big post collecting it all into one place. I even drew a Pretty Little Dead Ghoul for the occasion. Feel the love!

3. My new phone is lovely, and allows me to do exciting things like "take pictures of my cats" and "access Twitter from the train." It also allows me to answer email when I'm not at home, which is going to be a huge, huge relief as time goes on. It's already taken some of the weight off, since I've been able to respond to things while in transit.

4. Thomas and Alice have started working against me. Thomas jumped onto the back of my knees at four o'clock this morning, jarring me INSTANTLY AWAKE, at which point Alice began pushing their ceramic food dishes back and forth in the feeding tray. Scrape. Scrape. Scraaaaaape. So yes, I got up, and I fed the cats. I am so doomed.

5. The full-length trailer for the new season of Doctor Who has been released, and is so intensely awesome as to cause me to sit, weak-kneed and gaping at my monitor, for several minutes before hitting "play" again. I remain overjoyed and giggly over the fact that this show, my show, is back.

6. Also, there's a new My Little Pony cartoon that doesn't suck. I clearly control the universe. You can place your requests with Kate, who will only allow me to fulfill the ones that don't involve diseases or amphibians.

7. I'm getting ready to do a massive post office run, so I am once again taking orders for "Wicked Girls" posters. According to my files, if it's been paid for, it's been sent out; please email me if you don't have yours. Comment either here or on the original post if you'd like to request a poster, and we'll coordinate.

8. I will be mostly offline this weekend, as I will be attending Wondercon. I'll have my awesome new phone with me, but let's face it, when given a choice between answering email and staring raptly at James Gunn, James Gunn wins without a contest. I'll definitely Tweet my location at various points throughout the weekend, and if you find me, you could win a prize. Or not. I may be out of prizes.

9. Zombies are still love.

10. I get to see Amy this weekend (Mebberson, not McNally)! And Kaja! And Phil! And there will be cupcakes, and hugging, and artwork, and Mom will probably wear her chicken hat, and I'm so excited!!!!!

What's new and awesome in the world of you?

1. I have done mailing! Very nearly all the mailing, in point of fact; the only things that are a) paid for/contest prizes, and b) still in my possession are Lu's posters (trying to make sure I didn't double-pack them) and seawench's ARC (returned by the post office, only just got confirmation that it was safe to ship a second time). So there is no mail waiting for me to do something with it! I dance the dance of joy.

2. Since this weekend is the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show's fourth appearance at Borderlands, my mother's been cleaning my house from stem to stern, to get it ready for company. This, naturally, upsets the cats. Thomas has been expressing his displeasure by sulking in the kitchen and knocking over the trash can. He doesn't seem to understand that neither of these behaviors is going to do anything beyond getting him scooped and scolded.

3. Having assessed my current stress levels and their effect on my ability to get things done, I have taken a major step toward reducing them. Namely, I have set aside the to-be-read pile, turning my back on all those beguiling new stories and unfamiliar authors, and have picked up my dearest, most faithful literary companion: I am re-reading Stephen King's IT for the first time in well over a year. This is seriously the longest I have gone without reading this book since I was nine. So yes, it will be sweet balm for my stressed-out soul.

4. Safeway has two-liters of Diet Dr Pepper on sale for eighty-eight cents this week. This, too, is sweet balm for my stressed-out soul, but in a different way. A more hyperactive, I CAN SEE THROUGH TIME, kind of a way.

5. Still on the New York Times bestseller list. I check every day, just to see if I'm still there. Call it part of my monitoring routine against dimensional slide, and let it go. I feel like I should do something to celebrate, like another round of book giveaways or something, but that's going to have to wait until my capacity to cope catches up with the rest of me. Say around next Tuesday, at the current rate.

6. I am the Rain King.

7. Last night's episode of Glee made me happy the way the show used to make me happy in season one, and that was a wonderful thing. I'm glad I bought the soundtrack before the episode actually aired; it let me get used to the original songs the way I am to the covers, and assess the performance on the show based on the actual performance, not on "WAIT WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY SINGING." It's a thing.

8. Last night I dreamt a detailed remake of Nightmare on Elm Street, updated for the modern era, without sucking righteously. It was scary and strange and really awesome, and it says something about my psyche that I still don't think it was a nightmare. Sadly, I woke up before the end. Stupid alarm clock.

9. The bigger my cats get, the more I realize that I need a bigger bed. Which means I need a bigger bedroom. Which means I need a bigger house. Anyone know where I can find Dr. Wayne Szalinski's shrinking/enlarging ray?

10. Zombies are love, be excellent to one another, and party on, dudes.

Today is the official release date for Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them. No, we don't expect you to use the book's whole name every day. That's just for company. You can call it Whedonistas when it's at home.

This is a book of essays about the many and varied works of Whedon, from Buffy to Dollhouse. I somehow managed to resist the burning urge to write about his work on the X-Men* in both movie and comic form, and wrote instead about how Buffy: the Vampire Slayer shaped my identity as both a fan and a creator of my own work. When the apocalypse comes, beep me.

I am, naturally, biased in favor of this book, which contains some awesome essays by some awesome women, many of whom are friends of mine. So here's a review written by an objective third party, which should hopefully sell you on the sheer awesome of this book better than I, who am biased, could ever manage. But if you buy this book, angels will sing, pixies will get their wings, and my cats will feast on sweet, sweet tuna. I'm just saying.

Or you could always win this book. My beloved catvalente is having an awesome book giveaway, for Whedonistas AND her upcoming totally rockin' books Deathless and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland... Go forth! Enter! Read the instructions carefully before entering, because they are specific and also important. There could be ice weasels in your future if you don't read the instructions. Again, just saying.

Whedonistas! Happy birthday, awesome book of awesome!

(*Let's be realistic here: I was able to resist solely because I was already planning to write about the relationship between Scott Summers and Emma Frost, and why Jean Gray needs to stay dead, for Chicks Dig Comics. I am a blonde with very basic needs.)

I have received my copies of Whedonistas [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]! This book is a celebration of all things related to Joss Whedon, with essays from lots of wonderful writers, and interviews with some of the people actually involved with the shows! Buffy to Dollhouse, it's all here.

I don't really need four copies for my very own. So...

In my essay, I talk about my love of Buffy, and how it helped me grow into myself as both a fannish adult and a professional author. Others talk about finding community through the Browncoats, or the treatment of good and evil in Angel, or the Hero's Journey of Dr. Horrible. If you're a Whedon fan, you probably have a story of your own. Tell it! Be as detailed or as brief as you like. On Friday, I shall unleash our old friend, Random Number Generator, to pick two winners, each of whom* will receive a copy of Whedonistas.

The book officially comes out next Tuesday, so even if you don't win, you should absolutely pick up a copy for the Whedon fan in your life. Or in your head. Whatever floats your boat.

Game on!

(*North American entries only, please, unless you're willing to pay postage. I just can't afford it right now, I'm sorry.)

1. I'm still taking entries in my "ask a question, win an ARC" drawing. Remember that two prizes will be awarded, one by our old friend, Random Number Generator (oh, Genny, you're so capricious), and once by me choosing the best question of the bunch. Please, please don't ask for spoilers. Ask questions that would potentially be found in an FAQ, even one as profoundly silly as mine.

2. I'm a Barbie girl! Well. Sometimes. The brilliant Tara O'Shea (who does my website graphics, and isn't she amazing?) does Barbie customs, because she is marginally insane, and is now making me my very own Alice Price-Healy, because I am marginally insane. Tracking down 1/6th scale weapons and camping gear is surprisingly soothing. As is the part where, when I'm done, I get to ship it all off to Tara, and not deal with it until it comes back as a real, live Barbie of one of my characters. My life is so hard sometimes. (This will not be my first custom Barbie. That honor goes to Lt. Anis Bihari of the USS Rutan. She has spots!)

3. According to DAW, finished copies of Late Eclipses now exist, and I should have mine in a week or so. So you can look forward to pictures of Thomas putting the now-traditional toothmarks in the cover of my file copy, right before I start hyperventilating.

4. Yesterday, I went to two flea markets with my mother and youngest sister, both of whom acquired Immense Amounts of Crap. Despite bringing my naked Gloom Beach Draculaura along so that I could try clothes on her (Monster High dolls can wear many Bratz and Moxie Girl fashions), I managed not to buy anything except for a bottle of water. I compensated for this by swinging through the Berkeley Half-Price Books and acquiring yet another sack of books I won't get around to reading for a month or more. I need help.

5. And by "help," I mean "I need someone to come over and shelve things with me for about seven hours solid." Even that may not conquer the leaning piles of literature and restore my capacity to see the floor, but I am occasionally a crazy idealist where such things are concerned.

6. In an effort to not be a total wreck today, I spent about two hours last night sitting on the couch, watching telly. Specifically, the post-Superbowl episode of Glee, which I loved, and the first episode of the North American Being Human, which I loved. So it was a night full of love. That's even before you take into account the seven-month-old Maine Coon draped across my lap, loving me so loudly that I had to turn up the volume on the TV (kid has a purr like a lawnmower).

7. CD Baby has sent me their restock request, and so I'll be mailing them restock of Wicked Girls, Red Roses and Dead Things, and Pretty Little Dead Girl tomorrow. If you're looking for Stars Fall Home, I really am sold out, but Southern Fried Filk has several, as do many other filk dealers I know.

That's my Monday. What's new in the world of you?

Welcome to the second, and hopefully final, portion of my not-a-con-report for Arisia. I really did have a wonderful time in Boston, snow and all, and I'm definitely going to be going back. Eventually. After I've had the opportunity to take a nice nap, and maybe watch a whole lot of really, really dumb television. Anyway, here are the summarized highlights (and lowlights), for your amusement and edification.

My candy corn hat! The Agent knows me too, too well, it seems, and when the time came to give me the last piece of my holiday gift, she led me to the dealer's hall and purchased me a felt candy corn hat from one of the local vendors. Yes. I now have a hat that looks like a piece of candy corn. TREMBLE WITH FEAR, MERE MORTALS. I wore this hat to almost every serious panel I had during the weekend, and proclaimed proudly that wearing it provided that I was a professional. I never said what kind of professional.

The Mad Science song circle! I didn't make it to very many filk events this year, sadly, because I was busy with other programming and also wound up spending most of Sunday vilely ill (more on this in a moment). But the Mad Science circle was awesome, and Ben Newman sprung a positively wicked new science parody on me. It was a very cool circle, and I'm so very glad I got to go.

Alice and Josh! My life is better when it contains large quantities of Alice, and since I had to leave my beloved Maine Coon in California, I supplemented diet of Alice with a local fan and acquaintance of mine from this blog. She and her husband took me to dinner, where I ate, unsurprisingly, shepherd's pie, and then she and I sat and talked for like an hour and a half while he ran off to a panel. It was a really nice, relaxing way to spend an evening, and I had a wonderful time. Since they didn't run screaming, I assume they did, too.

Meeting Toni! My friend Toni lives near Boston, and was able to come out to the convention on Saturday, transforming herself from "my Internet-only friend Toni" to "my friend Toni, whom I have met in real life." She brought her husband, who was witty and fun to talk to, and I brought Diana, who was witty and fun to talk to and bought me chicken fingers. There were exchanges of books and hugs, and life was very good. It's nice to have people transform from words on a screen into actual humans. It makes me happy.

The Guest Breakfast! Arisia had a special breakfast event on Sunday, where people could buy tickets to have a special, intimate breakfast with the Guests of Honor and Special Guests. Each of us had a table of our very own. Sadly for me, someone at the next table over was wearing a mango-based perfume, and the breakfast went rapidly from "yum yum, free fruit" to "quietly excusing myself, walking to the bathroom, vomiting copiously, and walking back to my table to resume being entertaining." I would become progressively sicker for most of the day. It was so much fun. My poor roommates had to deal with my basically being a creepy dead girl from a horror movie. How I try their patience.

Cat and Seanan strike back! Cat and I are getting pretty good at our urban fantasy girl version of "An Evening With Kevin Smith." Every time it happens, the crowd gets a little bigger, the questions get a little smoother, and our comfort levels get a little higher, which leads to, you know, more swearing, more craziness, and more references to Lord Byron's penis. It's a victory for everybody! This installment of the Cat-and-Seanan Show was pure hammered awesome, and we only had to decline one question, which is possibly a record. More impressively, I wasn't even able to walk without throwing up an hour before the panel. So this is what I do for love.

Better Off Ted! Diana and Cat introduced me to this show, and Cat's Netflicks account allowed us to wallow in it each night before bed. I now require the box sets. And maybe a meat blob.

Post-antibiotic science fiction gone wild! My final panel was on Monday morning, and was all about post-antibiotic science fiction. It turned into "Seanan defends her thesis on causative agents for the Black Death" for about twenty minutes, which seemed to be fun for everyone, if a little more mentally rigorous than I had wanted to be that early in the morning on the last day of a convention. I recommended not licking things as a way to avoid infection. You're welcome.

Flying home! Actually, the flight was pretty lousy. But my cats made up for it.

See you next time!

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?

I am utterly obsessed with a show called Doctor Who, and have been since I was somewhere in the neighborhood of three years old. (This is not an exaggeration. You can ask my mother.) I contributed an essay to Chicks Dig Time Lords [Amazon], a book of critical essays on being a fan of the show while also being a girl (not always easy).

So naturally, when Tor.com contacted me and asked if I wanted to be a contributor for their mad awesome "12 Doctors of Christmas" blog event, I said yes so fast it left a few heads spinning, including my own. Here, then, is the official announcement:

Tor.com's 12 Doctors of Christmas: A Holiday Extravaganza!

...okay, so many the extravaganza part was me, but seriously, how cool is this? They've got at least one person for each Doctor, and the lineup is gorgeous. To whit:

First Doctor (William Hartnell), George Mann. "Susan, history is a gift. Do not break it."
Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Nick Abadzis. "Be Scottish at it, Jamie. Perhaps it will go away."
Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), Paul Cornell. "And don't wander off!"
Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), Nicholas Whyte. "Care for a jelly baby?"
Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), Pia Guerra. "Celery is good for you."
Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), Josiah Rowe. "You wicked, wicked little thing."
Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), Seanan McGuire. "Come on, Ace. We've got work to do."
Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann), Steve Mollmann. "I didn't mean to."
Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), Graham Sleight. "Brilliant!"
Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), Nasty Canasta. "The last. The very last."
Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), Lynne Thomas and Tara O’Shea/Mark Waid. "Who's the man?...right, never saying that again."
Twelfth Doctor(s), Jason Henninger. "RESULT!"

That's going to be twelve days of pure, unadulterated awesome. None of which will make any sense at all if you don't have at least a little familiarity with the show, for which I apologize. But not too much.

I love Doctor Who. Squee!

Tonight is a double-bill of Tower Prep episodes, with "Phone Home" at eight and "Trust" at nine. I'm trying very, very hard to convince myself that the doubling up is because Cartoon Network wants to finish the season before the end of the year, not because the ratings have been bad and they're burning back episodes to complete their commitment. (And if it's the latter, at least they're letting us see how it ends.)

Tower Prep has been one of the most consistently gratifying, well-constructed shows of 2010; I rank it just after Fringe in my current personal rankings. The plots and themes are less mature than they are on Fringe, but the show is also aimed at kids, and bearing that in mind, I just wish we'd had stuff like this when I was thirteen. As it stands, I'm enjoying it plenty right now.

The final two episodes will air next Tuesday, again from eight to ten, and I'd say the odds are good that Cartoon Network will have a marathon somewhere in the middle there. You should catch up, if you get the chance.

It's awesome.

Bill Mudron, who is an incredible, amazing artist, and has done quite a lot of commission work for me over the years, has put up some absolutely drop-dead gorgeous prints for sale. Specifically, he's put up a pair of incredible Doctor Who prints themed after the world of Alphonse Mucha, showing Amy Pond and River Song in a whole new light.

You can view and order the prints here, should the desire strike you. I've already ordered mine, and I intend to have them framed and hang them in a place of honor. Assuming a place of honor can still be located on my increasingly-cluttered walls...

Anyway: Beautiful art! Supporting small artists! Absolutely unique gifts! And, you know.

Stuff.

As a pop-culture junkie who treats monster movies as something barely this side of a religion, it was inevitable that I would wind up falling in love with a certain California blonde girl when she funky chickened her way into my life ("How loose is your goose? My goose is totally loose..."). My love for her impacted my view on life, my video collection, and even my speech patterns—you can tell when I've been watching old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer by changes in my cadence and intonation. It's a little freaky.

So it was also inevitable that when I was invited to be a contributor to Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them, I would jump at the chance.

This star-studded essay collection is the second in the female-centric essay series from Mad Norwegian Press, and was edited by Lynne Thomas and Deborah Stanish. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but just the list of contributors feels me with geeky glee. I'm in a book with Emma Bull! My fourteen year old self can finally die happy! I mean, except for the part where then, I wouldn't remember why being in a book with Emma Bull is cool, so let's skip that.

One of the other contributors, Teresa Jusino, has written a lovely post explaining the book and why it's awesome at Tor.com. Just to further convince you that the book is made of win, the editors and Tor.com have conspired to let you get an early look at my essay, "The Girls Next Door: Learning to Live with the Living Dead and Never Even Break a Nail." (If you can come up with a more me-esque title, I'm not sure I want to know about it.)

Go forth! Read! Maybe improve your holiday season and chances of surviving when the Hellmouth finally opens by ordering yourself a copy! It's going to be fun for the whole family.

Grr. Argh.

I have just finished watching the fourth episode of Tower Prep, thanks to an awesome unexpected screener from the doubly-awesome folks at Cartoon Network. For those who missed my last enthusiastic blog post, Tower Prep is Cartoon Network's second live-action mystery drama, following the kick-ass Unnatural History. It was created by Paul Dini, and is a true delight. Every week intensifies and expands the central mysteries, without losing sight of the core premise:

What is Tower Prep? How did we get here? And how in the hell are we going to get out?!

Episode four, "Buffer," is flat-out awesome in all the right ways. It's definitely Ian and CJ-centric, but Suki and Gabe are both given plenty of room to show off and shine. Once again, the show neatly dodges gender stereotyping—all the characters are given things to do that make sense for them, not for "generic hero-type" or "generic love-interest/heroine." It's incredibly rare to find a show that does this at all, much less one that's ostensibly aimed at teens.

With "Buffer," the mystery surrounding the Gnomes—Tower Prep's mysterious security force—deepens, and we finally get to see more of the Buffer Team, those sporty guys who harassed Ian back in episode one. If I have any complaints about the episode, it's that they didn't have time to spend, you know, a week teaching the rest of us the rules of Buffer. That sport looks wild.

Tower Prep is just getting more awesome with every week that passes, and I can't encourage you enough to hop on while it's still early enough in the ride for you to come with us to the end. Seriously, I don't think I've been this passionately in love with a show from day one since Supernatural.

The mystery continues!

So my "little cold" turned quickly into "my big cold," and from there turned into my "oh sweet Great Pumpkin, let me die" cold. Isn't the human body awesome? I have treated it, thus far, with chicken soup and television, including a multi-hour House marathon. No matter what I've got, they've got something worse!

The cats, self-centered beasts that they are, love-love-love it when I have a cold that requires me to stay at home, crumbled under fluffy blankets and yearning for death. Why? Because it means I don't move much, and am, instead, available for endless petting of the cats. This is exactly how the world is meant to be...at least if you're asking the cats. I do love my cats. That's why they are not yet mittens.

(I'm getting my revenge, actually. I'm making them eat their Science Diet. They hate Science Diet. Mwahahahahahaha.)

The nice thing about a cold, for me, is that I get to spend the night sleeping the deep sleep of the Q-dosed heart, with its attendant, incredibly vivid dreams. I went to the premiere of the Feed movie last night in my sleep, you guys, and it was totally awesome. So hey, there's something to be said for viral amplification, right? Right?

Okay, writing this has exhausted me. I'm going to go watch more House.

So I watch a lot of television. I know people who look at my schedule and word counts and laugh at this claim, like "Ha ha, Seanan is being droll and pretending to do things other than slave away like a weird robot-alien-pod plant," but the fact of the matter is, I probably under-report my television-watching, because it's nobody's business but mine a lot of the time. I use television as a way to wind down once my word counts are achieved.

This doesn't mean I don't consider television an intellectual exercise. I mean, witness the fact that I have essays in multiple books of critical analysis of television programs. I think TV is hugely important in our culture, and that a lot of the time, it does more to influence the way people think about story than anybody else.

I am a television omnivore. I watch dramas, I watch science fiction, I watch comedies, and I watch things that are supposedly aimed at children. I can explain the social structure from Wizards of Waverly Place, identify more than fifty Pokemon on sight, and am eagerly awaiting Unnatural History on DVD. Shows for kids are actually more devoted to plot arcs and character development than anything else currently on the air...except, maybe, for some of the high-concept science-fiction dramas.

Which brings us to the point of this entry: I am head over heels in love with a show called Tower Prep. It airs on the Cartoon Network. Here's the Wikipedia page. You've only missed three episodes. But you should really start from the beginning if you can, because Tower Prep is a mystery series. Not a procedural; not a mystery of the week, although there are weekly plots and challenges; a mystery series.

We begin when our POV character, Ian, passes out at home and wakes up in a strange boarding school called Tower Prep, one that's designed to "nurture and develop" his special abilities. No one knows where the school is, or how they got there. No one knows why they have their abilities, or what they're honing them for. But Ian, and the friends he quickly finds, know that they're afraid.

The writing is sharp. The mysteries are engaging. The plots are complex enough to hold an adult, simple enough to be viewed as "kid friendly" by the network, and just scary enough to have that enthralling edge. The dialog is snappy, the characterization is consistent. And really, that's why Tower Prep is awesome. The characters.

There are four main characters in Tower Prep: Ian, our protagonist, whose ability allows him to see certain things before they happen; Gabe, whose ability allows him to talk anyone into anything; CJ, whose power lets her act as a "human lie detector" and borderline psychic by reading all the minute changes in people; and Suki, whose ability lets her mimic the voice of absolutely anyone.

Two girls, two guys. While Ian's ability could be viewed as stereotypically "masculine," especially since he uses it in fights, he comes to the attention of the school for stopping a bully for beating up a weaker kid. And while CJ is sort of the "team psychic," which is often a female role, most people would reverse Gabe and Suki's abilities, since "persuasive" is often viewed as feminine, and "mimicry" is often viewed as masculine.

All four of them are smart, but Suki is the computer genius, and Gabe is the social butterfly. CJ is perfect, but not cookie-cutter pretty. They are, in short, actually people, rather than being "the hero," "the heroine," "the sidekick," and "the best friend," as they would be in so many other settings. Of the four main characters, only Suki is distinctly non-Caucasian, which is about the only criticism I have...but there are a great many non-Caucasian students and teachers on the campus, providing a slightly better balance to the show as a whole.

Tower Prep is a show I want to watch over and over again. I want to have a viewing party of the whole first season when it's done, and pick the mysteries apart. And I want to give it to every kid I know, because it says, without saying, that gender doesn't have to matter when it comes to solving mysteries and being smart and having superpowers. Also? Neither CJ nor Suki wears a bikini and calls it a uniform.

It's made of raw awesome. If you haven't checked it out yet, you totally should.

The first time I remember seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I was twelve years old. We had successfully managed to beg, whine, cajole, and generally be annoying little brats, and Lucy's mom had agreed to rent it for us—a movie that had already taken on truly cult status in the hearts and minds of middle school girls everywhere. We'd heard older teens talk about it, and now, at long last, we were going to see it.

If you ever want to make absolutely sure a movie lives up to the hype, make sure you show it to a group of twelve-year-olds after they've spent the entire afternoon gorging themselves on pizza and sugar. Seriously. Every line was poetry, every song was the music of the spheres, and every fishnet-covered body part was a revelation (I hadn't even known you could put fishnets on some of those body parts). I walked away obsessed with all things Rocky. I acquired the photo "novelization" of the movie, a book on the history of Rocky Horror, and a copy of the score. I begged until my grandmother bought me the soundtrack from the stage show. I developed a real fondness for fishnets.

As the years stacked up and I plummeted into my teens, I began going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show almost every Saturday night at the UC Theater in Berkeley, where Indecent Exposure was the standing cast. I dutifully learned all the call-backs and dance routines. I bought cast T-shirts and learned to put on pancake makeup. I even started making my own sequined applique patterns, and designed my own Transylvanian costume* from scratch. I pan-handled for quarters to pay my admission. I dragged my friends. I sat up all night in IHOP, talking about this movie which was a shared experience and a shared community for all of us.

If you've never been a Rocky fan, it was sort of like being a Browncoat, only sluttier and with more sing-alongs.

I'm older now than I was then; I no longer have the time to devote three nights a week to being part of a specific fandom. But I miss it. I really do. I miss the feeling of community, the in-jokes that we were happy to explain to anyone who said they wanted to join, the ticket stubs and the smell of damp velvet and the after-movie donuts at the cheapo donut stand down the block. I miss sewing canvas backing into my lingerie and calling it "outerwear." But most of all, I miss the moment when the whole theater would be chanting "LIPS! LIPS! LIPS! LIPS!" and the lights would go down, and for two sweet hours, the world would start making sense.

Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change ready. This moment of nostalgia brought to you by tonight's Rocky-themed episode of Glee, which will be watched by twelve-year-olds, and which brings my world full-circle.

Let's do the Time Warp again.

(*My hand-sequined tuxedo coat was one of the things I lost when we lost our entire storage unit the year I turned seventeen. I scoured yard sales and flea markets for years, hoping it would show up. It had a sequined applique of a teddy bear dressed as a Transylvanian on one sleeve, and one of a doll whose hair matched the way I always styled mine on the other, and it was battered and odd and I loved it. I still miss that jacket, even if I don't do Rocky anymore.)

Saturday continued the "early comes the dawn" trend, with Jeanne and I both out of bed by seven. Jennifer and Jeff didn't murder us for our sins against the sleeping, and that's probably a sign that they're in line for sainthood. (Then again, we didn't murder them for snoring, so maybe the scales are just nicely balanced.) This was already shaping up to be my busy day, and just got busier once we got to the convention center and discovered that my three o'clock panel had been moved to noon. Yay for the fluidity of time!

(Footnote: Originally, I was supposed to be on the eleven o'clock panel about female superheroes. For some reason, it wasn't printed on my badge, and I wound up not attending, since once the convention starts, my back-of-badge panel list is about the only thing that can make me change directions. While this was deeply disappointing at the time, all recountings of the panel have made me glad to have missed it, as I might have killed someone. Hint: telling me that there is no sexism in comics is a good way to get your head bitten off. I am a vermicious knid when provoked.)

The time-shifted panel was that glorious old standby, "What Is Filk?", and consisted of me, Bill Sutton, Kathleen Sloan, and Terence Chua. If you want a bunch of people to talk about filk and the definitions of same for an hour, well, you could do one hell of a lot worse. It was a lot of fun, watching all the local filkers realize that no, really, They Are Not Alone. We are filk. We are legion, yo.

I went literally straight from my panel-on-filk into an hour-long two-person panel with Paul Cornell, titled "Fringe: Paranormal Investigations in SF Television." I adore Paul. I adore geeking madly with Paul. And I adore paranormal investigations in science-fiction television. This panel was like the delicious chocolate bonbon of my weekend, and the only way it could have been better is if Jeanne had delivered a ham, cheese, and tomato croissant to me at the panel's end.

Oh. Wait. BEST PANEL EVER.

My signing was scheduled for four, right after Cat's signing. I went over and kept her company for a while, until her line began to form and she was occupied by her fans. Ah, the trials of stardom. Or something. Her signing ended, mine began, and I signed a bunch of stuff (as one does), while inking during pauses between people. Someday, this damn mermaid will be finished.

The AussieCon V filk concert was arranged a lot like the UK Filkcon Main Concert: everyone piled into a single room and performed two or three songs during the multi-hour slot. Kathleen Sloan was my stunt guitarist, and we went on after (among other people) the Suttons, Terence, and Nan Freeman. NO PRESSURE. I performed my own "Wicked Girls," and Vixy and Tony's "Burn It Down," both of which went over very well, before running to get changed for dinner.

Dinner! It was me, Jay and Shannon, Daniel and Kelly, and two people whose names sadly escape me right now (I'm sorry!). We went to a very nice place attached to the casino attached to the hotels attached to the mall, where we spent several hours chatting, enjoying decadently good food, and, in my case, eating a big bowl of bugs. Bay lobster! It's delicious! And looks like a horrible cross between a lobster and a trilobite, which made it EXTRA DELICIOUS.

There was some unpleasantness about the service, but Daniel was able to resolve it with a minimum of fuss, and we all decamped back to the Hilton to resume Barcon. While there, I got to meet Ellen Kushner, and tell her that she's a big part of why I write urban fantasy now. Also, there were cocktails. Which made it easier for me to actually fall asleep when I finally made it back to my hotel, since, well...

Saturday night. That meant it was almost time for the Hugos.

I did not sleep through the night.

10. It's Friday! And that means that tomorrow is Saturday, which further means that it's finally time for me to have a book event at the Other Change of Hobbit! Conveniently located next to Ashby BART, spacious, and full of neat things, this is one of my favorite bookstores. You should totally come.

9. Karen Healey (I know, right?) has a poll for the best moment of WorldCon 2010/Aussiecon IV, and yes, my squeaky acceptance of the Campbell Award is currently in the lead. Which is the sort of thing that makes me blink and cry a little. But in the good way, I promise! Also, John Scalzi licking stuff.

8. After our horrible "oh crap the house is full of fleas" experience this summer, everything seems to have settled down. Alice's belly-fur is growing back, no one's trying to claw their own flesh off, and our strict regimen of flea powdering the carpets and pouring poison on the cats is keeping the blood-suckers away. Thank the Great Pumpkin.

7. SHARKTOPUS! Tomorrow night on SyFy! Because Coyote loves me and wants me to be happy.

6. By the same measure, have you seen Jane Austin's Fight Club? Because seriously, this video is love. (Technically safe for work, if you're allowed to watch videos at work and feel like doing some potentially awkward explaining about why all those girls are smacking the crap out of each other.)

5. Resident Evil: Afterlife actually doesn't suck. I know, I'm as surprised as you are. Sort of tickled, too, but mostly just surprised. It's not as good as Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but then, what is?

4. Jean Grey is still dead.

3. Things that are back on the air: Glee, Fringe, Big Bang Theory, Bones, and America's Next Top Model. Things that have managed to stick the landing in their season finales: Rizzoli and Isles, Leverage, Unnatural History, and Warehouse 13. Things that make me happy: watching too much television.

2. Despite my currently perennially delayed posting schedule (curse you, Australia, and your lack of Internet), the latest iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show went well, and we all had a fantastic time. Plus, the bookstore now has signed books, and that makes everything wonderful.

...and the best thing about today...

1. Welcome to fall.

What's awesome about your Friday?