The 2017 Hugo Awards ballot is now live, and I am stunned and honored and delighted to announce that I am on it not once, but twice.

Every Heart a Doorway has been nominated for Best Novella. This is the book of my heart: this is the one I look at and dare to hope for, because I want it so badly, and I am so touched by its inclusion. Thank you to everyone who has looked at this little book and thought "how far can we help it go?" We have gone so far.

But that's not the stunner.

The stunner is that this year is the first time the Hugos have featured a category for Best Series. It's a trial run, a test, for a way to honor books and settings that work best in the context they create for themselves. Book eleven of something ongoing may not be the best candidate for Best Novel, but it may be part of something that, overall, is just as glorious.

And October Daye is up for Best Series.

I am stunned. I am overjoyed. I am not going to win--but winning isn't always the point. I have been given this honor, and I am not giving it back.

Thank you all so very, very much.

I will do my best not to let you down.

Sometimes sitting on news is hard.

I mean, part of my job involves not telling people things until I'm given permission. I'm bad at remembering who I've said what to, and so usually, I just tell people everything, sometimes eleven times; that isn't always an option these days. I have to accept that it's not lying when I refuse to talk about embargoed information. Sometimes I have to accept that it's not lying even when it is, when people go "hey, do you know anything about ________?" and then respond to "I'm not allowed to say" with a smug grin and a "that means yes!"

Silence doesn't always mean "yes," but sometimes people thinking they've tricked me into saying something one way or another can mean that the thing doesn't happen, because now I've run my mouth off and can't be trusted and so I'm off the project. So I sit on news, and I say nothing whenever possible, and I tell absence of information lies when I'm backed into a corner, and I twitch a lot.

Here's my latest point of twitchy goodness:

HOLY SHIT Y'ALL I'M A SPECIAL GUEST AT THE 2016 SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL COMIC-CON!!!!!!!!

Me! A Special Guest! At the con I've been attending since I was sixteen! Me! I AM A FANCY LADY AND I AM MAKING A NOISE THAT ONLY BATS CAN HEAR!!!

Sitting on this one was hard. But wow, was it worth it.

Who likes to party?

Tomorrow I will be at Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California, appearing as part of the Tacos and Tecate Tor event alongside Greg van Eekout and Fran Wilde! Both cool people with cool books!

Since my Tor.com book, Every Heart a Doorway, will not be available until April of next year, I will be representing the fabulous The Doll Collection. To properly honor this, I'm bringing a bunch of my creepy dolls for people to admire. The fun starts at 6pm, so bring yourself, your book budget, and your willingness to get into a staring contest with a bunch of scary resin and vinyl people.

It's a party!

Psst. C'mere.

So it's no secret around here that I love, love, love my DAW covers, or that showing them off is one of my true pure joys in life. Chris McGrath, who designs the covers for the October Daye books, has been everything I could have hoped for in a cover artist. He's incredible. Want proof?

Go ahead. Take a peek.

( Cut-tagged for the protection of your friends' list, which really doesn't need something this huge suddenly showing up without warning. But trust me, you should totally click.Collapse )

Psst. C'mere.

So it's no secret around here that I love, love, love my DAW covers, or that showing them off is one of my true pure joys in life. Aly Fell, who designs the covers for the InCryptid books, has been everything I could have hoped for in a cover artist. He's incredible. Want proof?

Go ahead. Take a peek.

( Cut-tagged for the protection of your friends' list, which really doesn't need something this huge suddenly showing up without warning. But trust me, you should totally click.Collapse )

It is with the utmost delight and no small amount of profound relief that I announce that the next three October Daye adventures have been acquired by DAW Books. That takes us all the way to thirteen, a benchmark I dreamt of but never thought I'd really reach.

The next three books are:

The Brightest Fell
Night and Silence
When Sorrows Come

(For the curious, the titles this time are from "Macbeth," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and "Hamlet.")

I am...I am over the moon. This gets us through some really major story beats that I've been really looking forward to, and moves us toward the conclusion of as "act two" of the whole series (act one officially concluded with The Winter Long). There are two more books to come before I start on this new set, A Red-Rose Chain and Once Broken Faith, and having the security of knowing the story will go on is just incredible.

Thank you, DAW, for having faith in me.

And thank you all, for reading.

(Comment amnesty is ON, ye gods and little fishes.)

I love comics.

I have loved comics since I was very small, paging through the issues that belonged to older friends of the family (IE, the teenage and pre-teen children of my mother's friends). I was always brutally careful, and fully aware that failure to take care would result in losing my comic privileges. I essentially grew up at Flying Colors, my local comic book store. The owner, Joe, has seen me go from skinny little girl to adult woman in one-week increments, framed by trips to the quarter box and the graphic novel shelves. The idea that comics weren't for girls never occurred to me, and he's part of the reason why. I wish everyone had a local comic guy like Joe Field.

I want to write for comics. That, too, has been true since I was very small. When I first started working with my agent, Diana Fox, she asked me what I wanted out of my career. She was probably expecting "a million dollars" or something else improbable. What she got was "I want to write the X-Men." So yeah, I've been trying to find a way to start writing for comics for a while now.

I found it.

I am proud, thrilled, and terrified to announce that I have signed on with Thrillbent.com to script a new ongoing series titled The Best Thing. We don't have an artist or a release date yet, but I am so, so excited about this concept and this world, and I am going to smash things so hard. The Best Thing is to magical girl titles as Velveteen vs. is to superhero teams, and I am really hoping it lives up to its name.

I'm gonna write a comic book.

It's gonna be the best thing.

...it turns out Alex Price is just as popular as his sister!

I am delighted to announce that Half-Off Ragnarok debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List in position #18, a new high for this series. With every book, we inch a little closer to the top ten, and I couldn't be more delighted.

I was very nervous about this book. I announced from the start that InCryptid was going to be a family affair, but it's still hard to switch protagonists, especially when people seem to enjoy the one you already have. I did see some early rumbles from people who were sure that the books wouldn't be any good at all without Verity there to anchor them, and I have been incredibly relieved and delighted to see my readers embrace Alex with open arms.

I love all the members of the Price family, and more, I love the way I can use them to show different things about one another. Verity doesn't see how much her dance career hurts Antimony, who has never been allowed to pursue anything she really loved in the same way, and Antimony doesn't see how much Verity works and sacrifices for the things that seem to come to her so easily. Having both of them onscreen lets me explore both sides of the story. It's wonderful.

Alex has one more book to go, next year's Pocket Apocalypse, and I hope you'll like it just as much as you did this one. Thank you all so, so much.

It's been a lot of fun so far.

I am ecstatic to finally be able to announce that I—as in "me writing under my own name," not Mira, who has a different publishing setup than Seanan does—have acquired a UK publisher! Both the October Daye and the InCryptid books will be coming out from Constable & Robinson, under their Corsair imprint. I AM BEING PUBLISHED BY AN IMPRINT THAT IS ALSO AN X-MEN REFERENCE.

My life is complete.

My page on the Constable & Robinson site is right over here, and will eventually have neat things like book covers (no idea yet what the books are going to look like in the UK market IT'S AN EXCITING MYSTERY). There's also an awesome pre-order page for the UK edition of Discount Armageddon, which will be coming out in April of 2014.

The deal includes all the current books in both series, which means a) non-imported editions for my UK readers, and b) easily available ebooks. Such excitement! Such delight!

I am really over the moon about this, and I'm so happy to be joining the Constable & Robinson/Corsair family of authors. UK publisher!

Bliss.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Tomorrow's Party Schedule!

The Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show is returning to our home of homes at Borderlands Books, and we couldn't be happier about it. SEE! The Amazing Mary, imported all the way from Alabama to enchant you with her wicked ways! HEAR! The Incredible Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff, masters of the rocking arts! GAZE IN AWE! At Paul and Beckett, guitar and harmonica, as they ensnare your senses! And I'll be there, of course.

Our evening...

4:00 PM: Setup, sound check, and final details. You can show up, but we may ignore you if you do. Sorry about that.
5:00 PM: Welcome to our party. We're done ignoring you now. Would you like some music?
5:30 PM: Perhaps you would like to win things.
5:40 PM: Now there will be cupcakes and autographing.
6:00 PM: More music?
6:30 PM: More prizes?
6:40 PM: Q&A and book discussion.
7:10 PM: Last music of the night.
7:40 PM: Let's raffle some more stuff off.
7:50 PM: Thanks and final questions before we close the evening.

This iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be in the cafe; the bookstore will be open throughout the evening. The cafe will also be open, and they've promised to have plenty of bread and delicious pastry this time. Raffle tickets will be available through the two standard methods: show up, or buy something from the bookstore.

All performing musicians will have CDs for sale, because we're predictable like that. There may also be T-shirts. There will be cupcakes provided in the bookstore as part of the party, and a whole cafe full of delicious things to purchase and enjoy.

It's gonna be a good night. Hope to see you there.

Guys guys guys! The Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling* Show is tomorrow! For the eighth time, my band of merry wanderers will descend upon San Francisco, bringing music, chaos, and the excitement of a book release party with us! This time, we're actually not going to be at my beloved Borderlands Books, although they will be selling books at the event: thanks to an opening in the Variety Preview Room Theatre, we're going to be trashing someone else's house for a change! The party begins this coming Saturday at 6:00 PM, at...

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor (use the entrance next to Citibank on Market St.)
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.

Delicious cupcakes! Free popcorn, for that circus feeling! A cash bar, including a signature cocktail designed just for us, The Snakehandler! Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff rocking the house, now with special bonus Paul Kwinn and imported bonus Vixy! And this time, I'm not the only author who's going to be taking her turn in the ring. That's right: I have AWESOME BONUS GUESTS. Sarah Kuhn, awesome author of the geek rom-com One Con Glory, will be joining the fray, as will Amber Benson, whose latest Calliope Reaper-Jones adventure, The Golden Age of Death, dropped just two weeks ago.

Three authors. A lot of music. Plenty of sugar. Accessible booze. NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?

I thought so.

Seating at the Preview Room is limited, so please show up early. We are a kid-friendly circus, although there will probably be swearing (I'm planning to show up, I swear a lot). The doors will open at 6:00 PM to allow for getting drinks and books, meeting people, and generally relaxing into the night; the Circus takes the stage at 7:00 PM. Here is the full schedule for the evening (subject to change):

6:00 PM: Welcome to our party! The doors will open for milling, schmoozing, hitting the bar, and finding seats. AND CUPCAKES!
7:00 PM: Would you like some music?
7:30 PM: Perhaps you would like to win things.
7:40 PM: Now there will be a reading! WHO WILL IT BE? NO ONE KNOWS! (Amber, Sarah, or Seanan.)
8:00 PM: More music?
8:30 PM: More prizes?
8:40 PM: Another mystery reading!
9:00 PM: Last music of the night.
9:30 PM: Q&A and book discussion.
9:50 PM: Thanks and final raffle before we move to the lobby for signing.

One note from the management:

"Don’t Drive—Seriously. Parking sucks in this area. Take BART or MUNI downtown, as we are directly adjacent to the Montgomery Street BART/MUNI station! Street parking ($3.50 per hour/coins or meter card, no charge cards) is metered 7 days a week til 6PM. If you have to drive, we suggest parking at the Folsom St. Garage at 3rd & Folsom (cheapest), across from Moscone Center."

See you Saturday!

(*No snakes will be present at the event, which is a shame, because I like snakes. I will content myself with humans. FOR NOW.)

I am home.

I am recovered.

I am well-rested.

I am the proud owner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Fancast.

YES. YES, I WON A FUCKING HUGO AND IT'S IN MY HOUSE AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND IT HAS MY NAME ON IT AND I THINK IT STARTED OUT AS CAT'S (I'M PRETTY SURE WE TRADED AT LEAST ONCE) AND I DON'T CARE BECAUSE IT'S MY HUGO!!!! I HAVE A HUGO!!!! I AM A HUGO-AWARD WINNER!!!!!!!!

...be really glad you can't see my uncoordinated geek dance. You might go blind.

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who voted. This truly means the world to me. Y'all gave me a Hugo for never shutting up.

Message received.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Tomorrow's Party Schedule!

5:00 PM: Setup, sound check, and final details. You can show up, but we may ignore you if you do. Sorry about that.
6:00 PM: Welcome to our party. We're done ignoring you now. Would you like some music?
6:30 PM: Perhaps you would like to win things.
6:40 PM: Now there will be cupcakes and autographing.
7:00 PM: More music?
7:30 PM: More prizes?
7:40 PM: Q&A and book discussion.
8:10 PM: Last music of the night.
8:40 PM: Let's raffle some more stuff off.
8:50 PM: Thanks and final questions before we close the evening.

This iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be in the cafe; the bookstore will be open throughout the evening. The cafe will also be open, and they've promised to have plenty of bread and delicious pastry this time. Raffle tickets will be available through the two standard methods: show up, or buy something from the bookstore.

All performing musicians will have CDs for sale, because we're predictable like that. There will be cheese and cupcakes provided in the bookstore as part of the party, and a whole cafe full of delicious things to purchase and enjoy.

It's gonna be a good night. Hope to see you there.

Saturday night was my belated natal day celebration, wherein several* of us gathered at The Mint in San Francisco to get our karaoke on. Now, if you're going to get your karaoke on, The Mint is the place to do it. They have an incredibly large, diverse catalog of songs, and their resident KJ**, Frank, is a snarky miracle. Plus they have pear cider on tap. It's a perfect storm of karaoke awesome.

Because it was my birthday, Vixy actually flew out from Seattle on Friday night, and we were able to spend a good chunk of Saturday ambling around San Francisco. I showed her Toby's new neighborhood, and we ate lunch at the Phoenix. All was well. Our reservation was for six; we reached The Mint about ten minutes early, and secured our tables. Several people were already there, karaoke-ing away. Some of them were even sober.

The rest of our party trickled in by dibs and dabs; you never knew who was going to show up next. Naamen, for example, spent an hour at the wrong bar before he checked his email and realized he was in the wrong place. Oops.

Successful karaoke requires an odd mix of "taking it totally seriously" and "not taking it seriously at all." You either need to choose songs that sound good in your range, or songs that are utterly ridiculous, like our lengthy run of Disney standards (Kate's "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" was awesome). You need to have a sense of humor, but not clown it up so much that it hurts to watch you. Because we are a group of lunatics, we're very, very good at successful karaoke. Not all of us can sing, but we can all laugh at ourselves while still being PROFOUNDLY SERIOUS about the source of our laughter.

We sang rock. We sang country. We sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" en masse. Morgan claimed not to know Melissa Etheridge, so Kate did "Come to My Window"; Morgan allowed that she knew Melissa Etheridge after all. Morgan sang "The Final Countdown," and we were all kazoos. Vixy sang "Barracuda," and I watched all the drunk sorority girls hate her forever (it was adorable). Victor and Lara did "Istanbul," which was hysterical and amazing. Sunil sang "Dragula," JUST FOR ME. In short, we had a seven-hour karaoke party of karaoke party awesomeocity.

At one point, having already exhausted the songs that other people wanted me to sing ("When You're Good to Mama" for Kate, "Raise Your Glass" for Vixy), I decided to do "Independence Day," by Martina MacBride. Only I don't really know her version. I know Talis's version, which has less spousal abuse, and a lot more alien invasions. So I figured what the heck, if the scansion worked, I'd run with it.

The scansion worked. I ran with it. Turns out I know the whole thing! The drunk people looked confused, since they could tell I wasn't singing what was on the screen. The sober people cracked up. One nice man even came up to me after to tell me that I was his favorite performance of the night.

Kate and Morgan saw us out with a duet of "Don't Stop Believing" that got literally the entire bar singing, and then we all limped, exhausted, home.

And that was my karaoke party. We're going to do it again soon. Frank promised me he'd get the new Taylor Swift***, and I need to get my karaoke on.

(*The Mint is not a massive establishment, so "several" was defined by how much space we could successfully reserve. Another party had already reserved most of the seating area for their loud drunk bridal shower. In the balance of things, I wish we'd reserved first, but we live with what we get.)

(**Karaoke DJ. Basically, he's the guy who decides whether you get the song you asked for, or the obscure Swedish cover that's been pitch-shifted up an octave and shifted to a faster tempo. Be nice to your KJ. Tip your KJ.)

(***"I think her ever-present frown is a little troubling. She thinks I'm psycho 'cause I like to rhyme her name with things.")

So, uh. That happened. Deadline—the second installment in the Newsflesh trilogy—has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. This is a juried award, and, to quote the website, "The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States."

Distinguished science fiction. Screw winning (although naturally I'd like to win; I am only human, and pretending I don't dream of winning the things I'm nominated for seems needlessly coy and a little idiotic): I have been nominated for an award because I wrote something that's regarded as distinguished science fiction.

Dude. What.

Orbit, which has three books in the list of seven, has already posted a gleeful post of gleeful congratulations, which made me feel very loved. I'm seriously over the moon about this.

The full ballot for this year:

The Company Man, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
Deadline, Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Other, Matthew Hughes (Underland)
A Soldier’s Duty, Jean Johnson (Ace)
The Postmortal, Drew Magary (Penguin)
After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer)
The Samuel Petrovich Trilogy, Simon Morden (Orbit)

I am very excited, and very flattered, and yeah, a little hopeful, because who wouldn't be? This is amazing.

Yay.

As of today, it is ninety-nine days to the release of Discount Armageddon. This is the first book in the InCryptid series; it's my first new series since 2010 (and wow, does that feel like a weird thing to say). It's the introduction to my huge, crazy, wonderful family of cryptozoologists and happy eccentrics, who think that taxidermy and talking mice are perfectly normal things to have around the house.

I am excited. I am terrified.

See, when A Local Habitation came out, some people compared it to the latest Dresden files book and said that Toby lacked the emotional resonance of Harry Dresden. This was sort of understandable, given that I had two books to build my character, and Butcher had like eleven, but it also awoke in me a deep existential dread. Which is now back, full-force, since following One Salt Sea with the start of a new series is a really good way to invoke that same critique. I don't borrow trouble. I rent it, and yes, I am an insecure blonde sometimes.

I am also mad happy, because I love this series so much, and I love this family so much, and I'm writing nine books to make you care enough to let me write book ten, Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld and have you really really care and WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT. You know I was an alien pod plant when you picked me up.

While I'm loving on things, I love my cover (and so do some other people, which is mad awesome, much like the cover itself). I love my subject matter experts. I love my Machete Squad. I love my publisher. I love my editor. I love The Agent. And I love everyone who has been involved, no matter how tangentially, in making this series a reality. It's had a long, weird genesis, and I am excited beyond words.

It's gonna be a book.

So people are stating to post their "best of..." lists for 2010. Heck, I'm even doing it, and I'm frequently the last person to notice that the bandwagon is rolling through the center of my town. Much to my surprise and delight, Feed is showing up on a few of those lists, which is sort of like, whoa, really? I mean...whoa, really? I love this book like I love sunshine and zombie puppies, but I didn't write it to make lists, I wrote it to get it out of my head. So the fact that it is is just...

It's staggering.

But here it is on Book Yurt's 2010 W00t List, described as "smart, scary, sassy and not at all what you'd expect from a zombie novel." (I'm also described here, as "both hilarious and ferociously smart." I can roll with that, being an overly-intellectual former stand-up comic. See? Every skill applies somewhere.)

And the Devourer of Books listed Feed as one of the books she gushed about in 2010, describing it as, "a smart book with fantastic world building." She was talking about the audio book, too, and gave kudos to the narrators.

But the one that really floored me—I mean floored me, knocked me on my ass and stole my lunch money—is the one that half the world emailed me about while I was sleeping. Because Feed, my little zombies-and-politics Sorkin/Romero love letter, Feed...

Well, it made The Onion AV Club's list of the Best Books They Read in 2010. Feed. My book. Made that list. HOLY CRAP. And they say:

"Feed resembles a Cory Doctorow novel in its intelligent speculation about how technology will reshape familiar aspects of the world, but it's more like The West Wing in its close observation of a presidential campaign from the inside, as seen through the eyes of a handful of bloggers invited along on the campaign trail. It's a breathless, exciting pulp novel with one of 2010's most surprising endings, but it's also a smart futuristic extrapolation about what the future may look like thanks to the Internet and new modes of communication, zombies or no."

I am stunned. Totally stunned. And also, have no lunch money, because this review took it. And somehow, I do not mind.

BEST OF 2010, BABY! WOOOOOOOOO!

I keep saying that the dead of winter is when we need to be reminded that we're allowed to have nice things, since that's when nice things often seem to be the furthest from our grasp. And so it is with awe and delight that I announce that the next two October Daye novels have been acquired by DAW Books. These urban fantasy/mysteries continue the adventures of October Daye, under-caffeinated changeling detective, and will be coming soon to a world near you. They are:

Ashes of Honor
The Chimes at Midnight

...that's books six and seven, respectively. I am grateful and staggered and overjoyed and a little dizzy over the idea of being able to bring more of Toby's adventures to the world. I'm going to be working with the same team at DAW, which is awesome, and I'm really looking forward to wading into these books and taking the steps necessary to make then wonderful.

The world gets more Toby!

Happy holidays!

Behold! For now I wear the human pants! I have processed all machete squad and agent notes on One Salt Sea, gone through the book end-to-end to make sure everything still makes sense, returned it to The Agent, and made final tweaks based on her commentary. Now it's finally off to have a nice nap on The Editor's desk while she's in Australia, which means a) I made my deadline, and b) I can finally get to work on Ashes of Honor.

The current book stats:

Pages, 420.
Words, 113,912.
Chapters, thirty-five.
Diet Dr Pepper consumed, probably equivalent to Loch Ness.

Despite vicious trimming and dropping several sub-plots, One Salt Sea still wound up fifty pages/almost 7,000 words longer than Late Eclipses, because frankly, there's a lot of shit going on, and very little of it is "padding" in any sense of the word. Toby has matured a lot from where I first met her, in the short story that pre-dated Rosemary and Rue, and it shows. I've matured a lot as a writer, and that shows, too. This book is so much better than I expected it to be, and I'm so excited to have The Editor turning it into something even more awesome.

In conclusion...

...DINO DANCE PARTY!

Psst.

I've been sitting on this for months and months and months, and now, finally, I can show you something totally bitchin' that you really want to see. I mean, assuming you like things that are awesome, that is, and that you include FEED on that list.

Go ahead. Take a peek.

( Cut-tagged for the protection of your friends' list, which really doesn't need something this huge suddenly showing up without warning. But trust me, you should totally click.Collapse )

So first off, because I couldn't say this earlier, and also, HOLY CATS, here go: I was asked, by Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner, to submit a story for one of their totally insanely awesome urban fantasy theme collections. You know, the ones like Wolfsbane and Mistletoe and Death's Excellent Vacation. The ones I have sometimes DREAMED about being asked to write for.

THEY ASKED ME TO WRITE THEM A STORY AND I SAID YES AND OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, LOOK:



The story, titled "Through This House," takes place between Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea. It involves Toby, Quentin, May, Danny, and some giant spiders, and while it was intentionally written to be non-essential—you don't have to get the book to understand what's going on in book five—I really like it.

But mostly, right now, I'm just REALLY EXCITED. Like, super-duper grasshopper pie and a magic unicorn pogo stick excited. My first appearance in an actual hardcover! Ohmygawd!

Happy Saturday!

Well. There we go. As of roughly an hour ago, I'm done with my next-to-last pass through Deadline, incorporating commentary from The Editor, a vast file of notes from Vixy, and a lot of extremely useful technical detail from Alan, aka "my new things-that-kill-people expert." All hail those who actually know what the hell they're talking about!

I still have some work to do—the nature of my revision process means I'll be getting notes from my editorial pool for a week or so, and I want to go back and add a few things here and there throughout the text—but the heavy lifting is essentially done. The most thought-intensive part that remains is writing the acknowledgments page (which I hate doing, almost as much as I hate gargling with Spaghetti-Os). It's all commas and commentary from here to Australia...and it looks like I'll be making my "turn it in by" date, allowing me to spend the trip focusing on The Brightest Fell. Total win.

The nicest thing about final-pass editorial is that it generally happens after the book has been in someone else's hands for weeks, if not months, allowing the text to "age out" and turn alien to me. I remember writing scenes, but not sentences; I remember pages, not paragraphs. So I can rip things out with impunity, having lost all emotional attachment to the words in favor of being emotionally attached to the core point of the scene. This stage can also be dangerous, as the urge to rewrite entire chapters into something better is always there. It's the Mad Science Editorial phase.

(Appropriately enough, as I write this, my iTunes is producing a run of songs that can really only be referred to as "Seanan's greatest mad science hits." Seriously, it's played three versions of "Maybe It's Crazy" in the last half hour. Apple wants me to ignite the biosphere.)

I am done with book two of the Newsflesh trilogy. And because I've met me, I can say with certainty that while I'm busting ass on The Brightest Fell, I'll also be taking the first happy steps into the world of Blackout. It's...a little sad, actually. I only get to spend one more book with these weird, wonderful, fascinating, fucked-up people. I think I'm going to have separation anxiety when I get to the end of book three.

But I'm not there yet. Right now, I'm at the end of book two. And while the final stats are not yet ready, I believe I can say with assurance that I am now a magic murder pixie with a chainsaw.

DINO DANCE PARTY!

Um. Um. Um. Okay. Look:

The NPR List of 100 Killer Thrillers has been released.

HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS LOOK LOOK AT #74 LOOK AT IT LOOK THAT'S MY BOOK THAT I WROTE THAT'S FEED ON A LIST PUBLISHED BY NPR HOLY CRAP.

...okay, I'm better now. Sorry about that. Except that I'm neither better nor sorry, but I am fairly convinced that I've been asleep for the last two years. If I wake up and this has all been a really detailed linear dream, I'm taking my brain out behind the woodshed. I'm just saying.

I mean, this isn't the first awesome Feed-related thing that's happened. Consider, if you will, io9's top picks for summer reading. Sure, the summer's almost over, but there's still a little warm weather left in which to enjoy a good zombie apoca—WHO AM I KIDDING WITH THE CALM RATIONALITY?! MY BOOK THAT I WROTE IS ON A LIST PUBLISHED BY NPR HOLY CRAP.

I love this book so much, and I love that my weird science fiction dystopian political thriller full of zombies is actually getting out there and infecting the world with its, well, weirdness and its virology and I am so excited I could just about scream right now. Because HOLY CRAP. That's going to be my refrain today, I swear. HOLY CRAP.

I leave you with the meme your meme could smell like, an awesome Old Spice Man-inspired "everybody is awesome" feedback meme, and I go off to gibber and giggle in a corner until I can calm down a little.

HOLY CRAP.

Behold! For now I wear the human pants! I have finished processing the editorial notes on Late Eclipses, gone through the book end-to-end to make sure everything still makes sense, and finished processing the corrections in Vixy's gloriously detailed machete file. Then I packed it a lunch and sent it off to play with the Machete Squad, who will doubtless hack it to hell before it gets to go back to The Editor for the final time.

The current book stats:

Pages, 369.
Words, 107,372.
Chapters, thirty-seven.
Cans of DDP, oh, wow, I cannot tell you.

I'm finally happy with this book. It's in a very awkward position, because book four is sort of where you get to say "here's when shit gets real," and make people stop treating you like you're writing a trilogy (which I never was). It's a transition book, and it follows An Artificial Night, which is still my favorite in the series. But it's also better than I ever dreamt it would be, and I'm so thrilled to have watched it grow into something wonderful.

In conclusion...

...DINO DANCE PARTY!

Hello, 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 )

Words: 4,741.
Total words: 42,577.
Reason for stopping: I have reached the end of chapter eleven. I need air.
Music: the entire collection, on random.
Lilly and Alice: sniffing my picnic basket and on the cat tree, respectively.

This may seem like a less impressive word count than last night's 37k, but since that was "revised and official text to date," and this is "one night's hard work," I'm going to call it a win. Also, I feel like I've been ridden madly over the moors for most of a night, and I didn't even get a nice bucket of oatmeal cookies for my troubles. Tired author is tired, and about to retire to the bath.

The Brightest Fell is turning into a real book, with a real point and purpose behind it, and with real ideas about where the narrative is supposed to go. I'm going to spend a chunk of this weekend redoing my outline, since half of it has gone out the damn window, but the book is so much unutterably better for it that I'm not actually complaining. Just, you know. Whining a little. It's so nice to be back in Toby's world, hanging out with all these crazy-train fairy tale rejects and dealing with their even crazier, even trainier, problems. Lots of crazy in this one.

Next up, I attempt to get enough finished text that I can pretend to be at least a novella. Also, I take a nice long nap.

Okay, wow, the links are building up like lightning these days. It's a little daunting, especially since I keep losing links I wanted to talk about in the midst of the jumble of review links. This means it's time for another roundup. Fun for the whole family!

First up today, my beloved Rae (creator of the "Ryman for President" buttons we had at the book release) has posted her party report and book recommendation for Feed. She says, "I love this book. And I want all of you to read it. Except, if you hate it, I kinda don't want to know. That's horrible, right? But that's how much I love it. I don't want to hear people ragging on it. Every time I see a review of it posted somewhere, I hesitate before clicking on the link, fearful that it'll be bad and I won't be able to deal. I may have issues."

She may have issues, but this is seriously the sweetest thing anyone's said about my work in a long time. I love Rae so.

Reads From the Field has posted a lovely review of Feed. This is the Plainsfield Public Library District book blog, and it says "This compelling and suspenseful story gives an interesting and intriguing look at our world after the zombie takeover, and even gives a reasonable explanation for the virus spreading. The book isn't super gory, and the story line is great, so even if you're not a super zombie freak like me, I think you'll enjoy the book as much as I did." Glee.

fullcontactmuse has posted a very nice review of Feed, and says "Feed was an excellent and fascinating read for me and I highly recommend it. This is her book that I like most so far and it will live on my bookshelf next to Stephen King and Clive Barker when I finally get it back from the friends I've lent it to. I'll be coming back and reading this story again." So I'm keeping good company, at least in that household.

antigoneschase has also posted a lovely review of Feed, and says "When I say this book is a roller coaster ride, I'm not kidding. Between relief when people escape death, to sadness when they don't; with every testing kit they do to see if the virus amplification has started in their own bodies; with every lighthearted comment (that is completely serious) from Georgia to her brother that she's eventually going to be an only child, you are ripped from one emotion to the next until you feel almost raw with it. You want these people to survive. You want the story to continue. You want it to stop, so everyone's safe. But no one is safe in a world full of Kellis-Amberlee, and you're a fool if you think they are." Nice!

I will close this roundup with unadulterated love and happiness from a total stranger, because it made me giggle. B.E. Sanderson says "It's that good. The story is smart and funny and poignant and if it wasn't a total sacrilege, I'd pull all the pages out, just to roll around in them. (Better writing through osmosis, doncha know.)" I share this temptation from time to time; it's just never been aimed at me before. It's been a good night. Also...

DINO DANCE PARTY!

That's a full lid for tonight. See you at the morning briefing.

I hereby officially declare it time for a DINO DANCE PARTY. And why is it DINO DANCE PARTY time, that rarest and most glorious of all events?

I'm getting a bookstore display. Look!



Going from left to right, we have Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros, Anton Strout's Simon Canderous, and my own beloved October Daye. They're hot. They're here. And they're heavily-armed, so I recommend against ticking them off.

Dude, I'm getting a bookstore display.

This is awesome beyond words.

A friend of mine once started talking to me about God talking to Moses on the mountain, and handing down the commandments, and everything. Which led to the point that my patron deity doesn't really do commandments.

"Well, why not?" was asked.

"Um. Can you see Coyote giving commandments?" I replied.

...but of course, the damage was done, and I had to think about this now. Because that would be the way that my brain works, whether I want it to or not. Stupid brain. And now, after several days of thinking about it, I give you...

The Commandments of Coyote.

I. Thou shalt have as many Gods and Spirits and Personal Trainers and Gurus as you like before Me, but you shalt not let them block the exits, for this is considered a fire hazard. More importantly, thou shalt not permit them to take the last beer, for that beer is Mine. Seriously. Don't.

II. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, but thou art totally welcome to admire her ass when she walks by, and if it happens to come out that they are in an open relationship, dude, tap that ass as much as all parties involved are willing to allow. Same goes for thy neighbor's husband. Coveting is sort of stupid, but sex is just plain fun, unless thou art doing it entirely wrong.

III. If thy neighbor says "Hands off my wife, dude," thou shalt listen and back off. If thou dost not listen and back off, thy neighbor will be totally justified in hitting you about the head and shoulders with gardening tools, and don't think that I'm going to step in there and stop him.

IV. Adultery is actually pretty fun. Commit it all you like. Just make sure everyone is cool with it, or I will not help you out once the hitting gets started.

V. Thou shalt not eat poisoned bait. If you do, don't come whining to Me about it, because I am very unlikely to care. Once it is in your mouth, it is your problem, not mine.

VI. Of course thou shalt kill. Carnivores do that. Also, swatting mosquitoes, sort of instinctive. But all creatures are alive before you kill them, and so thou shalt respect them in their lives and in their deaths. Thou shalt not kill without reason. Thy neighbor tapping thy wife's ass? Is not a reason. Don't make Me set a plague upon thee. Thou wouldst not enjoy it, I promise.

VII. Thou shalt not hoard. Seriously, here. If you have enough, share. Only asshats bogart life.

VIII. Thou shalt not be a martyr. If you have one beer, drink it. Do not give it to Me and then expect adoration. Dude, that was your beer, I did not break your arm to get it. Give what you can give, and expect neither praise nor worship. You are not being morally superior, you are being a decent human being. There is a difference.

VIV. Assume this is it. Maybe there is an afterlife; maybe not. Maybe there is reincarnation; maybe not. Not only am I not saying one way or the other, please consider the fact that I probably get a say in whether you come back, and if you are the sort of person who doesn't do anything with one life, why should I waste My time giving you another one? Live like you get no second chances. You'll have more fun.

X. Are you going to eat that?

"Hey, why didn't you mention that Rosemary and Rue made the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2009?"
"I didn't think of it."
"Well, you should."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"It's not braggy?"
"MENTION IT."

So here, by order of one of my many secret masters, is the official mention: Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] made the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2009, under the "Debut Novel" category. I am...honestly stunned and bewildered and amazed and delighted, and a whole lot of other things. Like, emotionally, I'm scrambled eggs right now.

In case you don't know what Locus Magazine is, it's essentially the trade magazine for the science fiction/fantasy/horror literary community. They publish announcements, interviews, reviews, and basically anything else that readers (and writers) are likely to really care about. It's pretty awesome. The first time my name was in the magazine, I screamed and bought three copies. Now? Now I'm just looking stunned (and buying three copies).

This time last year, I was paralyzed with fear over the upcoming release of my first book. Now, I'm paralyzed with fear over the upcoming release of my second book, and still utterly over-the-moon and waiting to wake up. Also, if you haven't read Rosemary and Rue yet, you should get a copy.

Locus says so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through my mind
Were hitchhiking ghost-girls and struggles unkind,
And fairy tale murders and pandemic flu—
My friends hope my holiday dreams won't come true—

And Tara has finished the graphics so fine
To help and promote that new novel of mine
(The sequel to something you just might have read,
With Toby and Tybalt and new things to dread).

My tickets are purchased, my plans are all set,
I'm wracking my brain to guess what I'll forget,
And Vixy and Tony are waiting with glee
For the holiday gift that I'm giving them—me.

Two thousand and nine is a year nearly through!
Oh, the things that we did, and the things left to do!
I'm still with the agent who signed me last year,
She still knows I'm crazy, and yet she's still here.

The first of the Toby books sits upon shelves,
Full of wise-cracking Cait Sidhe and put-upon elves,
And two more adventures are coming this year,
Which ought to be good for your holiday cheer.

In March, Habitation, in May, you'll get Feed
(My evil twin, Mira, knows just what you need),
While "Sparrow Hill Road" will take twelve months to drive,
And Rose knows that nobody gets out alive.

InCryptid and Velveteen, Babylon Archer,
And so many more are prepared for departure
At seanan_mcguire the updates are steady—
I'm keeping you posted. You'd better get ready.

The year yet to come will bring wonders galore,
And I can't start to guess at the great things in store,
So whatever you celebrate when the world's cold,
Be it secular, modern, or something quite old,

I hope that you're happy, I hope that you're warm,
I hope that you're ready to weather the storm,
And I wish you the joys that a winter provides,
All you Kings of the Summer and sweet Snow Queen brides,

And I can't wait to see what the next year will bring,
The stories we'll tell, and the songs that we'll sing.
The dead and the living will stand and rejoice!
(I beg you to rise while you still have a choice.)

The journey's been fun, and there's much more to see,
So grab your machete and come now with me,
And they'll hear us exclaim as we dash out of sight,
"Scary Christmas to all, and to all a good fright!"

First up, some exciting Rosemary and Rue-related news: namely, it's going to be October's book of the month at Genreville. Genreville is an exciting genre-focused blog hosted by Publishers Weekly, moderated by some really awesome folks. I couldn't be happier.

If you've been waiting for an interview with me that dared to ask the really bizarre questions, you should take a look at this fun, flippant interview conducted by Jonathan Fesmire. Jon's a dear friend of mine, and I was his "maiden voyage" into the world of interviewing authors. Let's see if future interviews stay this surreal.

The nice folks over at BSC (a blog with the endearing subtitle of "Because We Said It") posted this charmingly detailed and lengthy review. Quoth the reviewer, "Rosemary and Rue combines mystery and fantasy to very good effect, making this book fast-paced and full of action. It's very nice to see an urban fantasy book that doesn’t include the modern trend towards paranormal romance." Also: "I would definitely recommend this book for fans of urban fantasy, as well as readers who don’t mind well-mixed genres." Yay!

Also in today's review roundup, the Suburban Banshee posted this awesome review, including such delicious quotes as "This is real urban fantasy, in short, and not the McDonald’s equivalent that’s been crowding the shelves for the last few years. Buy it, buy it, buy it, before the last few copies disappear from your bookstore." (If you could make those last few copies disappear, I'd be ever so grateful...)

Finally, I give you the review that made me squeal like I'd just been named Prom Queen at the Geek Prom, where the pig's-blood shower is a perk, not a problem: Rosemary and Rue has been reviewed on IO9. It's a long, detailed, and best of all, fair and balanced review which neither paints me perfect nor positions me for pillory. Charlie Jane is awesome that way, and says—among other things, you should really read it—"After exploring McGuire's fairy city for one dark murder mystery, I'm on board for more, and looking forward to seeing how October's tangled web of allegiances and obligations plays out over the course of the next few books."

I win at geek.

Hey, guys, remember, tonight is the first Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies] book release party. We'll be at Illusive Comics in Santa Clara, California, starting at 7:00 PM Pacific Time.

Illusive Comics is an awesome mix of comic books, games, and genre fiction, run by the intrepid and delightful Anna Warren, who is presently enormously pregnant. We'll have cake, snakes, and a rare California appearance by Kitten Sundae, one of the most kickin'-cool bands to hail from the Pacific Northwest. Come for the book, stay for the live music, the cool company, and the opportunity to walk away with a "no shit, there I was" story of your very own.

Mia of chimera_fancies will also be in attendance, and the shinies she has with her are the sort you have to see to believe. Plus you can meet my mom, and see just how serious I really am (very).

Hope you can be there!

It's Monday—a new week, and one week closer to the release of Rosemary and Rue—and I thought it might be good to provide another review roundup. Because I can. Also because it means I can just hit the "reviews" tag and see all my reviews on one clear page. I love the LJ tagging feature. I would go mad without it. Anyway...

thedalikiss was fabulous enough to post a lovely mini-review in the 100 or More Books community. This is because she's a wonderful human being. Yay!

The equally wonderful HagelRat posted a thoughtful and well-reasoned review over on her blog, thus delighting me entirely. It makes me happy when I see people post reviews. I'm a cheap date, I know.

Harriet posted her review in several places, including Worlds of Wonder. Her review provided my "happy blondes are happy, and just don't destroy North America" quote for today, namely:

"ROSEMARY AND RUE is a winner in a sub-genre that has been butchered recently with zillions of imitations."

Pardon me while I die of happy. And that's our Monday review roundup!

Behold! For now I wear the human pants! Earlier this evening, I finished doing the redline edits on the physical manuscript of Late Eclipses, finished entering those edits into my manuscript copy, and finished processing the corrections in Vixy's gloriously detailed machete file. Then I kissed it goodnight, told it to wear its jacket, and shipped it off to The Agent once again. Ha.

The current book stats:

Pages, 400.
Words, 106,830.
Chapters, thirty-seven.
Cans of DDP, beyond counting.

So basically the book gained two chapters and lost a thousand words. It also gained a lot of awesome, which is good, because otherwise, it might have gained a date with a wood-chipper. I am very, very ready to be working on The Brightest Fell, aka, "Toby Daye, book five," aka, "Seanan, honey, can we please wait for Rosemary and Rue to come out before you finish the second set of three?" But dude, it's been waiting so patiently, and I've been neglecting it for so long. Book five needs love!

In conclusion...

...DINO DANCE PARTY!

It is my considerable pleasure, absolute delight, and no small amount of awed bafflement, to announce that the Mason trilogy has been sold in a three book deal to Orbit, with concurrent publication by Orbit UK. They will be published beginning in 2010, with Feed (working title: Newsflesh) coming out sometime mid-year. All three books will be published under the name "Mira Grant," my shiny new open pseudonym. I have a pseudonym and a horror series. You have absolutely no concept of how much this makes me feel like Stephen King right now.

We sold the Mason books. Alive or dead, the truth won't rest.

Rise up while you can.

(PS: Please don't ask "why the title change" or "why the pseudonym" on this post. I'll post explaining both when I get over sitting here looking stunned and giggling to myself.)

Okay, follow the timeline with me here for a moment. On July 2nd, 2008, I started a major revision of Late Eclipses of the Sun, aka, "Toby Daye, book four." On December 15th, 2008, I gave it to my agent for review...and on January 15th of this year I started a second major revision, because the book had some issues, and those issues could only be solved through the application of more machete. Much, much more machete.

Last night, on the plane somewhere between Michigan and California, I typed "the end" once more, closed the file, and called it good. The current book stats:

Pages, 389.
Words, 107,089.
Chapters, thirty-five.
Cans of DDP, beyond counting.

Please compare these to the book stats before I started my revision:

Pages, 417.
Words, 115,310.
Chapters, thirty-six.

Oh, and did I mention that—at one point during the revision process—the book managed to swell to a high-water mark of approximately 118k? Yeah. This was a book in need of some serious surgery, and now that the surgery has been performed, I can look at the manuscript and not feel like a match would improve it immensely. (I have a real love/hate relationship with my work. I love it while I'm creating it. I love it six months after it's finished. Immediately after it's finished, I would really love to set it on fire.) At some point during the revision, even the book's name got tighter, becoming Late Eclipses and skipping that whole "sun" thing entirely.

So now I'm tossing my innocent manuscript into the wolverine pit with my hungrily slavering initial readers, who will gut it and play hackysack with its kidneys for a little while; then I'll send it off to The Agent, and resume prodding at The Brightest Fell, aka, "Toby Daye, book five," aka, "Seanan, honey, can we please wait for Rosemary and Rue to come out before you finish the second set of three?"

In conclusion...

...DINO DANCE PARTY!

So I'm still waking up, still shell-shocked from yesterday, when I get a message from a friend of mine going 'hey, guess what I found?' So I go and look at what he found.

And then, because I'm crying really easily today, I start to cry. Why?

Because of this. Click here to see the Rosemary and Rue page on Amazon.com. With the September 1st, 2009 release date and everything. Really posted, for really real and very true.

Holy cats.

February 22nd -- yesterday -- was the official 'release' date for Ravens in the Library, a benefit anthology to benefit S.J. Tucker following sudden, unexpected medical bills. (Yesterday was also, coincidentally, Sooj's birthday. Wonder how those two dates wound up synching up so closely...) Ravens features stories by twenty-five authors, some of whom are household names, some of whom ought to be household names, and some of whom are going to be household names if they have anything to say about the matter. I've read two of the original-to-this-volume stories, as well as several of the reprints, and I've seen some of the original interior art. This is going to be an amazing book.

Illnesses and technical issues during the layout process (read 'our editors came down with the plague' -- I DIDN'T DO IT) delayed delivery to the printer slightly, and the book's first run (comprising pre-orders and a few extra) is now at press. Barring issues with the printing, it should be flying out of that aerie in about two weeks, and landing on doorsteps everywhere. Everywhere that's ordered a copy, anyway.

To clarify one question I've seen asked several times now, yes, the book is still available for order. It will be print-on-demand when the initial 'print run' has been exhausted; how long that takes will depend somewhat on how many orders are received. Not available in any store, etc., etc. You know the drill by now!

On a more personal note...Ravens in the Library was the second anthology I was ever invited to be a part of (the first being Grants Pass, which will be out in July, from Morrigan Books). It was also the first anthology where the editors actually sought me out to invite me to participate. I am thrilled beyond all words to be a part of this project -- if, as various people have joked, writing were an RPG, this would represent leveling up my Anthology Writer character class. It makes me a little giddy. I can't wait to get my hands on this book. If you like anthologies at all, neither can you.

Words within our grasp: do we let go?
Do we fly heavily with the weight of what we know?
Words within our grasp: do we let go?
Do we fly heavily with what we know?

-- 'Ravens in the Library,' S.J. Tucker.

So let's pause a moment. It's January 20th. I'm about to be the Guest of Honor at a truly awesome convention. My first novel comes out this year. I have stories appearing in two upcoming anthologies, one of which is going to help a dear friend in her time of need, the other of which involves wiping out the bulk of mankind. Researchers have sequenced the 1918 flu, because we know that never ends badly. Multiple awesome horror movies are slated for release. I have already been part of a mad-awesome concert. I spent New Year's Eve watching Freakylinks on the Chiller channel. This should have been sufficient proof that 2009 was, in fact, my year. It has been manufactured entirely for me.

Don't worry. I'll share. And that's a good thing, because here's some more awesome from 2009:

Scientists have discovered what they say is a completely unexpected new giant dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago in Argentina. Meet our new buddy, Austroraptor cabazai. He was the largest raptor ever known. I mean, five meters of raptor? That's a lot of massively predatory dinosaur coming for your tasty flesh, buddy. Thanks, Argentina! Also, as this is a totally new dinosaur -- relatively speaking -- it hasn't been on Primeval, and I'm allowed to have one. Hooray!

Oh, and also? The Black Death has reportedly killed at least forty al-Qaeda operatives in North Africa. Now, they're talking about bubonic plague here, which, as everyone knows by now, I do not believe was the cause of the Black Death. But they're so vague about the details that it could just be something cheerfully making itself look like the bubonic plague. PS: if this is actually the Black Death, and is actually a virus, rather than something bacterial, we're all going to die. So 2009 might also be the end of the human race.

I am okay with that, because this is awesome.

I am pleased* to announce that the release date for Rosemary and Rue, the first of the October Daye books, has been officially confirmed and announced as September 2009. Yes. Nine months from now. On store shelves. Actual store shelves, not just shelves on the bookstore inside my head (they have very affectionate store cats).

Watch this space for news, updates, contests, giveaways, and hyperventilation. But for right now, I resort to the obvious:

HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD SEPTEMBER 2009 THAT'S LIKE PRACTICALLY TOMORROW THAT MEANS I'LL HAVE BOOKS AT OVFF AND WORLD FANTASY AND OH MY GOD AND I CAN'T BREATHE AND MADE OF WIN AND DINO DANCE PARTY TIME FOR EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. That is all.

(*By 'pleased,' we mean 'incandescent with glee and hasn't stopped squealing for the past hour.' It's a specialized definition.)

On July 2nd, I started the preliminary end-to-end dissection and revisions on Late Eclipses of the Sun, aka, 'Toby Daye, book four,' aka, 'the first book I don't actually have a contract for yet.' (Because that's ever once stopped me.) Now, almost four months later, I'm ready to toss the 'dear sweet gods above, below, sideways, and in the Menswear Department, it's FINALLY DONE' current draft into the pit of wolverines that is my initial readers.

The current book stats:

Pages, 417.
Words, 115,310.
Chapters, thirty-six.
Cans of DDP, beyond counting.

There's still going to be some rather severe correction ahead, and this book needs at least another month of work before my agent gets to see it (because otherwise, she will beat me with my own keyboard, and I don't like that game), but this is closer to the country of 'done' than we've ever been with this particular manuscript. And now I can finally start prodding at The Brightest Fell, aka, 'Toby Daye, book five,' aka, 'Seanan, honey, can we please wait for Rosemary and Rue to come out before you finish the second set of three?'

In conclusion...

...DINO DANCE PARTY!

Dear Great Pumpkin;

I have been a very good girl since last Halloween. I have given cookies and candy and cake to people who needed them. I have been kind to spiders. I have revered the pumpkin in all its forms. I have not drowned anyone in a well. I have not unleashed an army of the living dead, obedient to my every whim, and commanded them to destroy all that which might oppose me. Also, I have not called down the pandemic. So clearly, I have spent the entire year on my very best behavior.

This year, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:

* Awesome cover art. Please, Great Pumpkin, make sure that the cover art for Rosemary and Rue is made entirely of wonderful, and save me from the terrible specter of the bimbo on the cover of my book. (To quote the Bohnhoffs: “She is sultry, she is sexy, she is nowhere in the text, she is the bimbo on the cover of my book.”) I have great faith in my cover artist and my publisher, but it never hurts to plead for supernatural aid from the most superior of all squash.

* A fantastic convention season. I’m going to be the Music Guest of Honor at Duckon, Great Pumpkin, and Jim Butcher is going to be the Author Guest of Honor. Please help me to be the very best Disney Halloween Princess that I can possibly be, and smite those things which might attempt to oppose me. Please assist me in winning the hearts of all those who meet me, and all me to position myself well for a best-selling novel. Also, please make sure there’s edible food within walking distance of the convention hotel.

* The perfect kittens. My oldest cat is very old, Great Pumpkin, and in the interests of keeping my younger cat from going insane, I am in the market for Siamese kittens. I am looking for a chocolate and a lilac, both Classic, both with the sweet temper and massive size that I associate with the breed. They need to be sturdy, or Lilly will devour them while I sleep, and that will both make me sad and force me to go looking for new kittens. I don’t have time to go through this twice, so please help me get it right the first time.

* Quick, successful sale of the InCryptid series, wherein the various members of the Price family alternately protect and pummel cryptid ass for the sake of the ecological balance of the planet. If you give me this, Great Pumpkin, I promise to find a way to work you into the narrative, either as a benevolent protector of the pumpkin patch, or as a destroyer of the weak. The choice is entirely yours. Also, if you can, could you make sure the contract is for the first four? Because I really want an excuse to write them all.

* Happiness for my entire family, including my recently-married baby sister and her wife. I am very tired of people trying to say that my baby sister’s marriage is in some way dangerous, Great Pumpkin. She’s happy for the first time, and it’s wonderful to watch, and if anything, her joy is a testament to why people get married at all, not a sign of the marital apocalypse. Please make the stupid go away, Great Pumpkin, so we can all stay happy.

* An army of velociraptors, genetically-engineered to obey only my commands, and equipped with lasers on their forearms. I promise I will only use them to bring glory to your name, Great Pumpkin, and that I will leave enough of the world’s population alive to properly honor you on the next Halloween.

I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.

seanan_mcguire: Was Hawaii gorgeous?
jennifer_brozek: It was. Very.
seanan_mcguire: Were there lizards?
jennifer_brozek: Many. Most hanging out on my front porch.
seanan_mcguire: Did you bring me one?
jennifer_brozek: Hell no. Kate would kill me.

Behold the power of Kate. When the world ends in zombies rather than in plague-bearing dinosaurs created through use of a horrible mockery of science, you'll know who you have to thank.

Kate has a standing rule that I am not allowed to own anything which has appeared on the BBC show Primeval, wherein cute British scientists chase dinosaurs that have emerged into the present day through holes in the fabric of space and time. I think this proves that Kate is mean to me. Everyone else thinks this proves that Kate is a very smart woman who deserves a higher pay grade.

Last week's episode (which we watched last night) featured a saber-toothed tiger rampaging through an amusement park. This made me happy. This made Kate leery of my inevitable demand for one of my own. Finally...

"Can I--"
"No."
"But--"
"No."
"But--"
"Is it on this show? If it's on this show, you can't have it."

I attempted logic:

"They have grass on this show."

I should not attempt to use logic against Kate:

"And that's why you're not allowed to have a lawn."

Kate and her mighty hammer of logic: all that saves the world from dinosaur devastation on a daily basis. You can thank her later. And remember, she does take bribes.

Here go:

Words: 6,980
Total words: 70,060
Reason for stopping: finished THE ENTIRE BOOK. YES, IT'S DONE.
Music: largely, musical soundtracks.
Lilly: conked out on my bed.

First draft stats:

Pages: 246
Chapters: twenty-eight
Started: July 21, 2005
Finished: August 11, 2008

I think this may be the longest shortest first draft I've ever written -- the book is less than half the length of Newsflesh, yet took over a year longer to finish. I blame this on the tragic fact that Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues kept getting relegated to the literary status of 'other woman' -- the book I really loved, yet turned to only after I'd finished my obligations to more 'important' commitments. If I were Clady, I would have long since tracked me down and kicked me in the teeth, that's all I'm saying here.

The bulk of the work on this book was done in the past eight months.

I still intend to go back and flesh out some of the earlier sequences a bit more thoroughly now that I know what my overall pacing looks like; because of that, and a few continuity adjustments, I'm planning to declare a 'draft 1.5' and add to the text, before cutting ten percent with draft two. It makes sense if you're me (and is actually how I managed Newsflesh, which turned out to have two missing chapters). But it's done. It's finally done. And I think it's a better book for having taken the time, because I've learned so much in the past few years.

It's done. Tonight, I will sleep the sleep of the just and the joyous.

It's done.

Okay, now we REALLY have to have a dino dance party. Why, you may wonder? Why, you may ask yourself? Because I have just finished my first post-editorial pass through A Local Habitation, book two in the Chronicles of October Daye. And I have turned that puppy in. Yes! No longer is my manuscript malingering around on my thumb drive, looking lost and lonely and wondering whether it ever gets to go anywhere! It's gone, off to the magical wonderland of sunshine and zombie ponies that is DAW Books. (I've seen the offices at DAW. They're totally filled with sunshine and zombie ponies. I swear. Okay, not really, but wouldn't that be lovely? Zombie ponies for all!)

I kinda completely love this book right now. I mean, I kinda completely love this book all the time, because hello, my baby, all grown up and ready to go play with the big books, but also, I've just gotten up close and snuggly with all its little bells and whistles, and this has resulted in me kinda completely loving it. This is sort of awesome, as I have a very love/hate relationship with my books while I'm working on them.

I'm reasonably sure all this glowing happy 'yay my books are finished yay' is just the endorphin rush before the inevitable and soul-consuming crash. I'm basically okay with that.

Meanwhile, off in the land of 'people doing arcanely productive things that I don't understand but which fill my universe with buckets and buckets of awesome,' Tara is mostly finished with my website redesign, and Chris continues to keep the site itself alive and not eating people who happen to be passing randomly on the street. Let's be clear, here: my skill with HTML basically extends to the cutting-edge of 1997. I can close a tag with the best of them, as long as it's not, y'know, a hard tag. Once it gets difficult, I crawl under my desk and hide until Chris manfully rescues me. So credit for every ounce of visual and functional awesome? Goes to Chris and Tara, rather than to me.

Plans for this weekend include a lot of house cleaning in preparation for Terence's upcoming visit, a family funeral, and probably starting to dig myself into The Mourning Edition (which is the sequel to Newsflesh). I may also head for the Starbucks and spend a few peacefully isolated hours inking, as that's the best way to get ahead of myself.

I have finished this week in triumph.

DINO DANCE PARTY!

I tend to develop a somewhat...familial...attachment to the stores that I frequent on a regular basis, to the point that they monitor the status of my projects, warn me when things that may upset me have happened (my comic store guys are hysterical on days when certain X-titles come in), and generally know exactly what they're dealing with when I walk in the door. We argue, gossip, chat, and generally just have a good time together. It's pretty awesome, and I appreciate it.

My normal comic store, Flying Colors, is very much a family establishment, and the owner, Joe Fields, doesn't order anything of an 'adult' nature. This is a good thing, as there are a lot of unsupervised kids browsing at just about any given time. This is a bad thing, because when they advertised the new Hack/Slash special issue -- a crossover with the Suicide Girls -- it got listed as 'adult,' and was consequentially not ordered. (Believe me, I made sad noises when I got to the store on Wednesday and discovered this dismaying fact. I sort of figured that the existence of the title 'Hack/Slash' would make it an automatic order. Sad cat...is trekking to her alternative comic book store in Berkeley.)

Luckily for me, I have a backup comic store: Comic Relief, which has the added bonus of being located right next to the Other Change of Hobbit. I stopped in yesterday, and was gratified to find that yes, they had the issue in question, even as I confused the heck out of the on-duty staff, who see me about once every three months (when Flying Colors either sells out of something or, as in the case of my Hack/Slash-with-boobies issue, fails to order it). If they didn't know me from local comic conventions and geek meets and forums, they'd probably think I bought six comic books a year. Tops.

With the latest installment of the adventures of Cassie Hack (more on this later) firmly in my possession, I went next door to let Will know that I'd been assigned a cover artist. He and I (and some random store patrons, that being the way at the Other Change of Hobbit) had a fairly vigorous discussion of cover design about a month ago, which covered everything from 'marketing,' 'eye-catching design,' and 'current trends' to 'yeah, but that looks stupid' and 'I just can't understand why all these ass-kicking heroines have nothing better to do with their time than go around crouching on rooftops while wearing uncomfortable-looking latex catsuits.' (My ass-kicking heroines -- I'm currently working with three -- wear, respectively, jeans and T-shirts, track gear, and whatever she can manage to grab before the goddamn flying monkeys break her bedroom window again. Note the lack of inexplicable latex catsuits.) Anyway, as a consequence of this conversation, I wanted to tell him who the Toby cover artist was going to be.

Pathetically, as soon as I finished waving my hands and going 'we got a cover artist and he's awesome!', I forgot a) his name, b) Jim Butcher's name, and c) the name of the series Butcher writes and McGrath draws the covers for (IE, the Dresden Files). We eventually managed to fix this, and then there was much joyful dancing in the Other Change of Hobbit.

I was sitting down to spend some quality time with the two loaner kitties that the shop cat-sits for during the week -- Clearsword and Patch, a Siamese and his Oriental shorthair brother -- when Patch went Very Still And Quiet. I turned around to find myself looking at...

...a dog. A truly awesome dog, of a breed that I had never seen before. She was short-haired to the point of seeming to be made of suede, except for the ridge down the middle of her back, dark blue in color (which, for non-pet-people, means she was a very pretty sort of gunmetal gray), and had a long, intelligent face that made her look a lot like artistic representations of Anubis. I promptly threw myself upon the altar of dog-worship, and grilled her owner about her origins. Turns out she's a Thai ridgeback. So. Cool.

Yesterday, I got a new comic book, a happy dino dance party, and a new dog breed.

How was your Thursday?

Ahem.

I have just -- I mean, within the past fifteen minutes 'just' -- finished the first pass revisions on Late Eclipses of the Sun, the fourth book* in the Chronicles of October Daye. That's several hundred pages of text that I have now pummeled to within an inch of its text-y little life. Since I haven't closed the proofing pool on An Artificial Night yet, this book gets to go to bed and mellow for about a week, like fine wine. Tomorrow, I'll start processing Brooke's truly epic edits on Newsflesh. For right now, however...

For right now, I shall CELEBRATE MY TRIUMPH by opening a can of peas, getting a Diet Dr Pepper, finding my art supplies, and going into the back of the house to watch crappy horror movies and ink. Because that's just how we roll around these parts.

Tomorrow, there will be zombies. Tomorrow, poor Clady may actually get my attention focused her way again. Tomorrow, I will consider -- seriously consider -- turning my attention back towards Grace, Chastity, and their little homovore problem. But that's all tomorrow. Tonight, I bask in the glow of my success. Tonight, I consume legumes.

Tonight, I watch TV.

(*This is the first book not covered by my current contract. Just FYI.)