I have been living in the same house for over fifteen years. Understandably, this has led to a lot of stuff building up in closets and in corners. Sometimes I know it's there. Other times, it just sort of...happened, and I am constantly surprised by turning around and finding it looking at me.

As referenced in the BPAL post, I'm about to start selling stuff, both because I need to declutter and because I need the money. I'm not selling stuff that is a daily part of my life: I am not so desperate for cash that I'm even looking at my Pokemon, for example. I just need to have less stuff that I don't care about, and more liquid funds.

(Some of you know why this is. For the rest of you, please don't ask: I assure you, all will be made clear in the very near future. It's just one of those things where the foundation work is visible in advance, whether I want it to be or not, and as I am not a subtle beast, I'm admitting it up front. It's not major medical or Disney related. Yay on one, sad on the other.)

Figuring out how to sell my stuff is a fascinating exercise in chaos, convenience, and laziness. I'm actively bad at mailing things, as many of you know; selling in any way that requires mailing is just not a good plan until I'm desperate. I don't have enough for a yard sale, and I'd rather avoid going Craigslist for right now. So at least for a little while, I'm just going to be popping up with "make me an offer and either pick it up or be somewhere I'm already planning to be" things on various sites.

(It's working out okay so far. I sold a pair of bongos.)

So...

If you'd like to make me an offer on the 2011 San Diego Exclusive My Little Pony, mint in box, or on either the Teen Titans Go! or Gotham vinyl bags from San Diego Comic-Con 2015, drop me a line. Must be able to either pick up from me directly, or be planning to be somewhere I'm already going to be.

We've talked about Unicorn Empire and how awesome their stuff is. Now let's talk about why it may be relevant to you.

Here is the design I commissioned from Amber for Sparrow Hill Road. A very limited number of shirts were printed, for conventions I was attending. Some people have asked me what they'd have to do to get one. I've spoken to Amber about whether she'd be willing to do a small run, and she's agreed, as long as there's enough interest.

So this is me, checking interest. Note that if we were to move forward with this, all ordering and fulfillment would be done by Unicorn Empire; no waiting for me to go to the post office or fear of cats in boxes. I would also not be the one handling the money. It will go through her store, as with a normal order. This makes me very happy.

And now...the poll. If your answers are conditional, "IE, I will only order if it's not pink" or whatever, please indicate in the comments.

Amy and I left France on Thursday morning, following a ride in a cab operated by a surly but talented driver (we didn't die!), and some exciting airport escapades that I have already detailed in the "Paris" post. Our flight, operated by Aer Lingus, was short and pleasant, although I had never encountered "pay for your soft drinks" on a plane before (I prey Southwest never starts doing that). We landed in Dublin a little early, and made it to the car park with the assistance of a very nice local wheelchair operator. (Airport wheelchair services, for those who've not used them, generally consist of young, athletic people who are willing to push people who need it from one terminal to another. We tipped well, and everything was lovely.)

Gareth from Shamrokon met us at baggage claim, and loaded us into his car for the first of our odd transits. See, Sheila—my editor—and Betsy—my publisher—had both come to Dublin, and Thursday night was the only night that was really good for us to have dinner together. So Amy and I needed to be dropped off at the restaurant, while he took our luggage on to the hotel. Good thing he's a good sport! We wound up in a Michelin-starred French restaurant attached to their hotel, where we spent four and a half hours eating, drinking, talking, and enjoying cheese. So much cheese. It was a really divine dinner, and I completely understand why people make such a big deal about the place.

So much cheese.

Friday kicked off the convention. I had a panel with Tim Griffin and Jordan Kare, during which we talked about filk and how to be comfortable in the filk community; Kathy Mar attended, as did Teddy and Tom, and we had a lovely time making them do the heavy lifting for us. After that was opening ceremonies, and then, concert prep!

Yes, we did a concert, largely due to the tireless efforts and incredible talents of Dr. Mary Crowell, who herded all the cats so that I could look good. She is amazing. My band consisted of her, Amy McNally, and the Suttons, and everyone was splendid. We did basically the same set as Loncon, which was fine, because there wasn't that much audience overlap between the two cons, and it was really lovely. Brenda sang my part on "Wicked Girls," while I sang Vixy's, and a good time was had by all.

The next item was "In Conversation With Seanan McGuire," the solo version of the panel I like to do with Cat, where I will answer everything I am asked. We ran about ninety minutes over, and it was beautiful. Some very serious topics were discussed, like depression and OCD and the difficulty of talking about feeling suicidal. (One well-meaning man asked "Well, have you tried being sad without hurting yourself?", and while I hate the question, it opened the door for some very good discussion.) It was uncomfortable but important, and no one left the room, so I'm calling it a win.

Saturday, I had my Guest of Honor interview, with Janet as my interviewer, who had smartly brought Kinder Eggs. Every time she felt I'd answered a question sufficiently, I got chocolate. A+ interviewing technique, would be interviewed again. My panel on pseudonyms went well, and ended early enough that Amy and I were able to go out and grab dinner before the Doctor Who season premiere at eight, or the filk jam at nine.

I did not stay up to close out the jam. I am weak.

Sunday, I signed stuff; talked about zombies with great enthusiasm; and talked about toys with equally great enthusiasm. Then we closed the con, and I darted off with Amy and Wes to join the fabulous dinner already beginning at the Winding Stair, where the food was traditional and delicious.

Monday was the off-site Dead Dog at the Porterhouse downtown, and Wes and Mary and I had a lovely time, after bidding our beloved friends adieu. We swung by the nearby bookstore, which had my picture in the window, and bought books, before handing me off to the con chair, James, to go back to his place for a week's Irish tourism.

On the whole, Shamrokon was absolutely lovely. A good con, well-run, by extremely friendly people. Would guest again.

Next up, IRELAND.

1. So I already wrote this entry once, and it was long and chatty and fun, and then I hit a button I didn't even realize existed and it all went away. I am thus suddenly grumpy, and my original tone may have changed a bit. Stupid buttons.

2. Amy Mebberson made a thing and you should all go admire it. I ordered mine so fast when it went up for sale that I actually got #1 of 50. That is love.

3. If you don't have a budget line item for Amy's art (which, let's face it, is a weird line item to have in a budget, and yet), take a look at Renee Nault's incredible watercolor mermaids. She has prints and calendars for sale, and has an incredibly diverse undersea world waiting for you to dive in. So pretty. So cool.

4. Starting Christmas Day, and continuing all the way through my birthday festivities, I will be doing a chain of twelve giveaways, for everything from ARCs and printed books to cover flats, posters, and special surprises. Each giveaway will have its own rules; watch this space for details.

5. Omnivoracious posted a super-fun thing about books at San Diego Comic-Con, including a picture of me in my Umbrella Corporation blue dress, standing in front of the Umbrella Corporation red cover for Parasite. I look very smug. You would, too, if that were your cover.

6. Alice and I did the Macarena this morning. I enjoyed it more than she did.

7. The year is almost over, but there are still some fun surprises to come: watch this space for details, and watch the sky for alien invasions. Darn those alien invasions.

8. Zombies are love.

9. I will be making my last pre-Christmas stop at Borderlands Books this afternoon. At this point, anything ordered won't reach you before the holidays, but you can still get signed and personalized books if you contact them before 2pm PST. After that, I don't guarantee another swing-through until sometime in January.

10. Finally for right now, Jill is still accepting donations to fund her surgery. As I said when she first started this campaign, we could buy her a future for Christmas, and that's amazing. If you've been looking for a tip jar to shove a couple of dollars into as a karmic investment for the year to come, please swing by and take a look at her plea.

I hope that you're all having the merriest holiday possible; I hope you're warm and safe and content, even if you're not in a place where you can be happy; I hope you're taking care of yourselves.

Let's get through these holidays together.

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 )

Someone commented, in reading the responses to my "stop checking my credentials" post of yesterday, that it was somewhat distressing how many people seemed to feel the need to go "yeah, I may not X, but I Y, I Z, I A B C D I am an alphabet I am a geek don't dismiss me." And it is distressing. It distresses me. I am distressed. Because I do the same thing when my credentials are challenged in an area that I can't match: I start rattling off things I do know, waving flags that prove my geekdom like I was going to be thrown out of the club. I can't stop myself. I think many of us can't. It's distressing to me, not because it makes us collectively a bunch of braggy over-achievers, but because it represents how many times, collectively, we have had our right to exist in our own spaces challenged.

The first challenge is met with confusion. The second with contention. The third, and all others, with exasperation and desperation: see me, let me be, leave me alone, allow me to exist.

Every cred check, or even shadow of a cred check, is starting to lead to this defensiveness: we're not looking for common ground anymore, we're just looking for the right to keep the ground we already have. And there's the concern that this is going to start driving new female fans away, because all the women who are already there have these laundry lists of "I am a fan because I ________," and some of them are just like "uh, I watch some TV shows?" That's not good. We don't want to lose the next generation of female fans, both because they have a right to this ground, too, and because it would show the cred checkers that they can win: push us hard enough and we go away, or at least stop coming, which can look like the same thing.

I don't think the laundry lists are going to go away. They're bruises, left from being hit too many times, and bruises don't heal instantly. But we should be aware of why the bruises are there, and promise each other not to cred check.

You are safe here. No matter what kind of geek you are, or whether or not I understand your passions.

This ground is yours.

So it's been a little more than a week since my glorious return from the San Diego International Comic Convention, where I saw cool things, met cool people, and learned that "Hell" is another word for "being on the SDCC exhibit floor in a wheelchair." I also contracted a horrific cold, and have been fighting my way back to the semblance of health, which is why my relative radio silence on the subject. But that's neither here nor there: that's just framework and excuses. Here's what happened.

Leading up to SDCC, basically every woman I talked to expressed the fear of being "cred checked" at least once. The fake geek girl may not be a real thing, but her shadow is long, and since people started claiming to have seen her, the rest of us have been accused of being her with increasing frequency. She is the geek urban legend, the prowling, predatory female who's just there to take up precious space/time/swag with her girly girlish girliness, and she's like The Thing From Outer Space—a creature with no face and every face, AT THE SAME TIME.

I attended SDCC and similar shows for years before anyone said "Gasp! Some of these geek girls ARE TOTALLY FAKE!" and I started getting my geek credentials checked. Since that began, I have been forced to defend my knowledge of horror movies, the X-Men, zombie literature, the Resident Evil franchise, Doctor Who, and My Little Pony.

Let's pause a moment and just think about that. Men—adult men—have asked me to defend my knowledge of and right to be a fan of My Little motherfucking Pony. My first fandom, the fandom that is arguably responsible for getting me into epic fantasy (not kidding), the franchise that I have publicly credited with teaching me how to plot long-term. A franchise that was, at least originally, aimed exclusively at little girls who enjoyed ponies and hair-play. I think that all fandoms should be for everyone, and I love that My Little Pony has finally found a male audience, but are you kidding here? Are you seriously telling me that the second men discover something I have loved since I was four years old, I suddenly have to pass trivia exams to keep considering myself a fan? Because if that's the way things are going, I want to hear the Sea Pony song right fucking now.

Ahem.

Most of the female fans I know have expressed concern about this credential checking, in part because who the fuck wants to have to take a quiz when you're standing in line waiting to get Chris Claremont's autograph? I mean, really. And there's always the possibility that you'll fail the exam, and a) many of us have deep-seated test anxiety, courtesy of the American school system, and b) no one likes being bullied. Telling me I'm not a real geek because I can't name the members of the Justice League (spoiler: I can't, I don't read DC) is bullying. It's offensive and it's upsetting and it leaves me feeling like a faker, even when I'm not. Even when I'm demonstratively not.

And this "you're a fake, you have no right to be here" routine is almost universally directed at women. I see these women in these incredible costumes that took hours to make and will cause chafing and shin splits and lots of other discomforts, and then I see them getting mocked for being "fake" by men in jeans and hero logo T-shirts. Captain America probably doesn't like you making fun of women, good sir. Just saying.

Then, this year, I saw something wonderful. I was crossing the floor with Amy when we encountered a tall blonde dressed as Emma Frost. I will always stop and admire a good Emma—it's in my genes—so we paused to study her costume and tell her how amazing she looked. She saw the name on my badge and lit up.

"I was hoping to run into you!" she said. "I remembered that you love Emma!"

One of my fans dressed as Emma Frost and she did it for me.

I have never felt so much like a rock star.

We stayed and chatted with her—because let's face it, you dress up as Emma Frost to make me happy, you have damn well earned some chatting with—and she confessed that she had been cred checked not long before. "I said Emma was both the White Queen and the Black Queen," she said. "Was that right?" I started explaining the Dark X-Men. While we were doing that, a man with a camera came up and started taking her picture without asking permission. She stopped talking to us, turned her body slightly away from him, held up her hand, and said, "You can't take my picture unless you can tell me who I am."

She was dressed as a very iconic Emma: all in white, with the half-cape connected to a semi-corset top, white boots, and a white "X" logo on her belt. She had small snowflakes on her collarbones, representing Emma's transformation. She had the white choker. She had the blue lipstick. Basically, if you have any familiarity with Marvel, you would recognize her, and since that version of Emma has been on literally hundreds of comic book covers in the past five years, even most DC readers should have recognized her.

"Storm?" guessed the man.

All three of us laughed, but uncomfortably, like we were discovering a terrible secret. And while Amy and I stood there, this happened four more times: the unsolicited pictures, the refusal, the incorrect guess. Only three of the men actually stopped taking pictures when told to.

As women, we are afraid of being unmasked as somehow "not geeky enough." Meanwhile, these men, who were clearly just trying to take pictures of a scantily clad woman, not pictures of an awesome costume, can't identify one of the most iconic figures from one of the largest publishers.

I've been saying for a while that the "fake geek girl" thing was a form of harassment: a way of making sure that women in fandom don't "forget their place." But this, more than anything, drove home to me just how big of a double standard it is. As women, we're expected to know enough to "earn our spot," but not so much that we seem like know-it-alls; we're supposed to add attractive eye candy to the proceedings, but shouldn't expect men to stop taking our pictures when asked; we're supposed to worry about not seeming geeky enough, while never worrying whether the men around us could pass those same tests. The mere fact of their maleness is sufficient.

There was something beautiful about seeing the fake geek girl check flipped back in the other direction, but there was also something profoundly sad about it, because it illustrated just how deep this divide is growing. We're all geeks. We need to have respect for each other, in all ways—no taking pictures without asking, no shouting "Emma!" at a cosplayer and then saying "See? I told you she knew who she was dressed as" when she turns around. Just no.

It needs to stop.

(And if you were that Emma, drop me a line, hey? I never did get your name, and you were awesome.)

I am a total geek. I have never tried to conceal my geekiness, choosing instead to embrace it for the wonderful thing that it is. Without my geeky pastimes, I wouldn't have the same friends, the same toys...the same life. I don't define myself by my geeky passions, but I can't pretend that they haven't defined me throughout my existence. Much like a bonsai is shaped by wire and scissors, I have been shaped by the X-Men and horror movies and roleplaying games and mythology, and I like me this way.

All things considered, it's probably not a surprise that when I was offered the chance to blurb Michael Underwood's Geekomancy, I said "sure, why not." A magic system based on and powered by the geeky joys that run my universe? Yes, please. And to no one's shock or amazement, I adored it. It's fun, it's peppy, it's about people I recognize, because they're the kind of people I voluntarily surround myself with every day of my life. The sequel, Celebromancy, came out recently, and is even more fun.

But here's the thing: these books are e-only, which means they miss out on bookstore browsers and surprise eyes, and too many of the awesome geeky people I know haven't encountered them or had the opportunity to give them a try. So I asked Michael's editor if I could do an e-book giveaway for the first book, to get people hooked on the series, and he said sure (after he finished blinking at me a great deal). And so I now present...

SEANAN GIVES AWAY SOMEONE ELSE'S BOOKS FOR A CHANGE!

This giveaway is for three electronic copies of Geekomancy by Michael Underwood. The limitations:

1. You will need to get the book through a specific channel (the publisher's website), because what I have are download codes.
2. The book is not going to be "Kindle ready," and may not be transferable onto a Kindle without evil magic.

To enter, leave a comment with your geekiest moment. No geek is too great! I, and the Random Number Generator, will select three winners on Friday, June 28th. Open to US residents only (sorry), please leave your comment on the entry itself; comments on comments will not be eligible to win.

Game on!

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 )

How about a celebration of his evil works, and the evil works of others? Introducing the latest album from awesome-tastic filk rock band, Ookla the Mok, vs. Evil.

A little background:

Ookla the Mok has been through a couple of incarnations, but has always included Adam English and Rand Bellavia. Their first album, Less Than Art, is one of my all-time favorites. Their comic book themed album, Super Secret, is a filk classic. Both are absolutely worth picking up and adoring. Apart from all that, Rand is a friend of mine, and so when he asked if I wanted an early copy of vs. Evil, I pretty much shrieked, grabbed, and ran.

vs. Evil lacks of the deep emotional content of Less Than Art, but that's actually a good thing in this context, because it lets the true silliness of their subject matter shine. From "Evil I" through "Kang the Conqueror" and "The Lizard," this is a celebration of the mad scientists and evil bastards of comic books and movies. The song "Mwahaha" could play over one of Megamind's exploits and no one would bat an eye. It's awesome.

Here is a link to the album:

http://www.ooklathemok.com/vsevil.php

Here is a wholehearted endorsement of the album:

"vs. Evil warms me to the bottom of my black predator's heart." —me.

Here is a death ray.

Draw your own conclusions.

I have been tagged by the ever-lovely NK Jemisin to do the "next big thing" meme that has been floating around, and as I am an amenable soul (when I want to be), I thought I'd give it a go. So...

1. What is the working title of your next book?

Midnight Blue-Light Special. Which is probably the final title at this point, since the ARCs have been printed and I don't enjoy having things thrown at me by my publisher. They're generally amiable over at DAW. I try not to push it.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

At the end of Discount Armageddon, Verity was in a pretty good place as re: basically everything. She defeated the bad guy, solved the mystery, kissed a pretty boy, and pretty much won at life. So I started from the position of "how can I ruin her day?", and it all went downhill from there.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Urban fantasy, with just a hint of paranormal romance. The CW, rather than HBO.

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Can I have a TV show instead? If I could have absolutely anyone, no barriers, I'd cast Alona Tal (Jo from Supernatural, Meg from Veronica Mars) as Verity, and Ryan Cartwright (Mr. Nigel-Murray from Bones, Gary from Alphas) as Dominic. And I think Amber Benson would make an amazing Sarah.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When cryptozoologist Verity Price finds herself dealing with a Covenant purge of Manhattan, she quickly has to redefine her idea of "bad situation."

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I am represented by Diana Fox, of Fox Literary. Midnight Blue-Light Special will be published by DAW Books.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About six months, give or take a trip to Disney World.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

It has a similar structure to Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld, and a similar snappy feel to Tanya Huff's Keeper Chronicles or Gale Girl books.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Honestly, Verity did. The character has a lot of momentum behind her. At this point, I just point her at things and watch what happens.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

Talking pantheistic cryptid mice worship the main character as a living conduit to the gods. And also to the baked goods section at Safeway.

I became a geek when I was four years old. That's when my grandmother handed me my first My Little Pony (Cotton Candy) and told me that if I liked her, I could have more. That was also the year when I first really and truly understood that Doctor Who had an ongoing storyline that could be followed and thought about, even when the TV wasn't on. I don't remember much about the year when I was four, but I remember those two moments of epiphany.

But wait, some people would have said (and did say), as recently as three years ago: being into My Little Pony doesn't make you a geek. It makes you a girl. And to them I said, every time, that if being into My Little Pony didn't make me a geek, then they had to turn in their Transformers street cred. Science fiction and fantasy got tickets to the geek-out party, and if teleporting unicorns who live on the other side of the rainbow and fight darkness with magic and thumbs doesn't count as fantasy in your world, you are not relevant to my interests. You don't gotta like it. You do gotta admit that not only the boys' cartoons of the 1980s contained the seeds of geekdom.

He-Man? She-Ra. Both were epic fantasy adventures. The Care Bears were basically friendly aliens who just wanted us to stop blowing shit up all the damn time. The Littles lived inside your walls. How is any of this not genre? But if you asked the boys in my neighborhood, it was girly, and hence it wasn't good enough. I saw proto-geek after proto-geek give up and drop out after she'd been told, yet again, that Transformers were serious and My Little Pony was stupid. I very quickly found myself in the unenviable position of being the only girl geek in my neighborhood.

I played with the boys pretty much exclusively (after I'd beaten respect for My Little Pony through their thick skulls), at least until we got to middle school, and my being a nerd became a problem. (Note: I'm using "geek" to mean "obsessed with geeky things and very open about liking them" and "nerd" to mean "thick glasses, read constantly, did math for fun.") The boys scattered. The girls, who had been socialized that geeks were icky, wanted nothing to do with me. I nested in my interests, and waited for the world to be fair.

Then, like a shining beacon: high school. Access to conventions. Access to that new miracle, the internet. I was no longer going to be a girl geek. I was just going to be a geek! I could be interested in ANYTHING I wanted, FOREVER, and my people would understand me, because they'd been through the same thing! FOREVER!

...only My Little Pony wasn't really fantasy, because it was "too pink," and Amethyst Princess of Gemworld wasn't a real comic book, and I had to be lying when I said I loved Warren Magazines because girls don't like horror, and Stephen King? Ugh so lame. In order to be a geek, I had to conform to the shape that others defined for my geekiness, hiding the things I really loved behind a veneer of Star Trek and learning the names of all the members of the Justice League (even though I had zero fucks to give). During that period, I guess I was a "fake geek girl" in some ways, because the people I perceived as having power over me had informed me, in no uncertain terms, that loving the things I genuinely loved, following my true geeky passion down the dark corridors it so temptingly offered, would mean I wasn't a geek.

It would just mean that I was lonely.

I learned to fake it. I can name multiple incarnations of the Flash, even though I am not and never have been a DC girl. No one who's ever asked me to do this has been able to explain the entire Summers family tree, but I've known since I was fourteen that if I confused Wally West with Barry Allen, I would be decried as a faker who didn't really like comics. I learned to quote Monty Python without ever seeing the show, and made at least a stab at all the big popular epic fantasy series of the day. My geek cred was unquestioned.

And it got better. I discovered fanfic, where people were a lot more willing to tolerate whatever I wanted to get excited about, as long as I didn't expect them to read my novel-length fixfic for a Disney Channel Original Movie. My Little Ponies became "retro" and "vintage," and my collection was suddenly "ironic" in the eyes of the people I allowed to judge me. I learned to roll my eyes at moments of judgement that would previously have reduced me to snotty tears. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I stopped giving two fucks about what other people thought of my geekiness. I stopped trying to be a gender-neutral geek and became a geek girl.

But you know what? I wish I hadn't been forced to go through that particular evolution. I wish I'd been able to walk in and say "My Little Pony is as good as Transformers" without needing a sudden surge in male My Little Pony fandom to make that opinion acceptable. (I love all My Little Pony fans. Friendship is magic. But as a girl who grew up with Megan and Firefly, it really does feel a lot like "okay, girls, we've finally decided your sparkly unicorns are cool, so they qualify for membership in the genre now.")

I've been watching the "fake geek girl" mess go around, and it feels like middle school. It feels like people going "your passions don't match my passions, ergo your passions must be invalid." And I say fuck. That. Noise. Geeks like things. That's why we exist. If what someone likes is costuming, or Twilight, or SETI, or looking for Bigfoot, why the fuck should I care? If you like something enough to shape your life around it, you're a geek. Period. You do not need to prove anything. Ever.

I look at geek culture now, and we're primed to allow a whole generation of little girls to grow up without that horrible middle stage that I had to live through. But they can only have that freedom if we stop pretending that unicorns are inferior to robots, or that girls can't like zombies, or that boys can't like talking bears with hearts on their stomachs.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go to Target and buy some Monster High dolls, which I will unbox, redress, and play with, like a boss.

LIKE A GEEK BOSS.

So it's, like, holiday time. And stuff. And sometimes this means that people want to give people things they think those people will like, which frequently translates into "here, have a book," because we're all enormous book nerds. Being a person who like, writes books, I am very interested in this phenomenon. Moreover, I'd like those books to be as cool as possible. So! Do you want to give a signed, personalized book to the person of your choice, after exchanging money for it? Here's how!

1. Contact Borderlands Books (http://borderlands-books.com/) in San Francisco, California. You can contact them by either email or phone; check the website for specific options.

2. Order books! You have to tell them which ones, naturally, and whether you want them signed and personalized, or just signed. Personalized books must be paid for up-front. You can request a specific inscription. Some inscriptions (ie, my phone number) will be refused, although your book will still be signed.

3. While you're at it, order anything else that you'd like to get. I mean, hello, bookstore, and you're already paying for shipping, so why the heck not?

4. Give the store any information they need, like shipping address and billing and stuff.

5. The store will contact me, and I'll go in and sign things!

If you want your book or books shipped in time for Christmas, you need to contact the store and place your order by December 12th. That's still not a guarantee, especially if you're in like, England, but at least it's a ballpark.

But wait, you cry! What books are currently available?

TOBY: Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses, One Salt Sea, and Ashes of Honor.

INCRYPTID: Discount Armageddon.

NEWSFLESH: Feed, Deadline, Blackout, and the Newsflesh box set.

VELVETEEN: Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots.

ANTHOLOGIES: The Living Dead 2 (Newsflesh-universe story); Home Improvement: Undead Edition (Toby-universe story); Zombiesque; Westward Weird (Incryptid-universe story); Tales From the Ur-Bar; Human For a Day; The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity; Other Worlds Than These; Human Tales; Grants Pass.

Because Borderlands does not carry non-fiction, none of the Mad Norwegian Press titles are available from them.

Any questions?

(Post concept gleefully stolen from John Scalzi. I love you, John!)

Ahem:

"This installment bumped this series up to the top of my urban-paranormal series list! I am so invested in the world building and the characters now, and the looming sense that something bad is around the corner. At the same time the romance is real and awesome, but doesn't overshadow the adventure. October is such a great heroine, she's come a LONG way from the first book in the series, that's for sure! Highly recommend it, can't wait for the next! Of all the "Faerie" urban fantasy series out there, I enjoy this one the most. If you like the Dark Fever series or Kate Daniels series, you'll def like this one."

From FELICIA DAY. ZOMG.

I win at everything. I will now eat some pilfered Halloween candy, and rejoice in finally feeling like this cold is going away.

Happy Halloween!

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!

To celebrate the release of Ashes of Honor, here. Have an open thread to discuss the book. Judging by the comments I'm seeing, you've had time.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.) I will be DELETING all comments containing spoilers which have been left on other posts. No one gets to spoil people here without a label.

You can also start a discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun, and try not to bleed on the carpet.

So y'all may have noticed the epic awesomeness that is the Price Family Field Guide to the Cryptids of North America (slowly expanding into "Cryptids of the World" as more and more critters make their first appearance). If you haven't, go ahead and click on over. I can wait.

So you may have also noticed the amazing and awesome Kory Bing art that makes these cryptids come to fantastic and occasionally gruesome life! Well, it's time for the next batch of cryptids to join the party...and that's where you come in.

Who wants to sponsor a cryptid? There are literally hundreds in the InCryptid world, and I'd eventually like to see them all in glorious color up in the Guide. If you have $35 to spare and want to add a critter or two to the queue, drop me a line, and I'd be absolutely ecstatic to make it happen. Previously sponsored cryptids include the poison dart fricken, and the hitchhiking ghost (still to come to the guide itself).

Make history. Or at least, make pretty things. Either way, life is good!

I watch a great many horror and monster movies, and have since I was a very small child. This explains a lot. This has also taught me a great many things about what not to have characters do, 'cause it's dumb. I will share some of those things now.

***

10. Do not clone predatory dinosaurs and expect things to go well right out of the gate. Seriously, here. In the movie Raptor, they're trying to clone "dinosaurs with a brain*" to do heavy labor and generally become grunt workers for mankind. Okay, if you're a moron, I guess that's a plan. So they start with...velociraptors. And Tyrannosaurus Rex. Because, y'know, that ten-ton killing machine is totally going to use sentience to go "sure, tiny meat-snack man, I'll work my tail off for you!" If you're going to clone dinosaurs, start with a plant-eater.

(*Meaning "a human level of intelligence and reasoning." Because that's a good idea.)

( 9. While we're on the subject, do not make anything that already likes the taste of people super-intelligent...Collapse )

Forgive me: I was tired, and forgot to select a winner for our casting contest. Today's lucky recipient of a signed copy of Blackout is...

dimestore_romeo!

Please email me via my (not Mira's) website contact form by this time on Sunday, July 22nd, to claim your prize. Also let me know whether you want the US or UK edition. I'll need mailing info and all that, and congratulations! Truly, your geek is strong.

Thanks to everyone for participating, and we'll have Ashes of Honor giveaways shortly.

To celebrate the release of "San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats," here. Have an open thread to discuss the novella. It's been out for a week, I figure you've had time.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.)

You can also start a discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun, and you can't stop the signal.

Every year around this time, someone says to me "Gosh, I've never been to the San Diego International Comic Convention before. I don't see what the big deal is. I really don't believe it's as big as everybody tries to make me think it is." And every year, I smack myself in the head and update this guide and pray for their survival.

Since I've been posting these obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon on a yearly basis for some time now, I strongly suspect these people are being aimed at me. But since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by amiably indifferent toward those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience you possibly can, I have once again updated my Handy-Dandy Survival Guide to the San Diego International Comic Convention. See? It's handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide includes tips on:

* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Things to do at the con.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.
* Not getting killed by your friends.
* Budgeting.
* Bathing.

It is also heavily biased toward my own opinions on all these things, because hello, totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2012.Collapse )

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Zombies are love.

First, the cool thing: I received my author's copies of Chicks Dig Comics last night, and they are genuinely gorgeous. Every essay in this book, even the ones that relate to properties I'm not emotionally invested in, makes me go "oh, my people, oh, we are growing every day." I have a copy in my bag to take to my comic book store tonight, and I will give it to Joe, the owner, and say thank you. And he will understand, because he is awesome, and also, he is used to me.

You can order Chicks Dig Comics on Amazon.com; it will be released, retail-wise, on April 10th. If you love comics, this is the book for you, regardless of gender. It says, very clearly, "you are not alone," both to men wondering what the female experience is like, and to women wondering if anyone else has ever had that female experience. I am so pleased to be a part of it. (Also, I am mentioned on the back cover. Great yayness.)

Now, the favor: I'm preparing for the second batch of "Wicked Girls" shirts, and I realized that I no longer need to use the mock-up from the original post, because there are actual shirts in the world now. So please, if you have a shirt from batch one, and you don't mind being shown as an example of a wicked girl, snap a picture and leave it here for me to maybe link in the shirt post. I'm hoping to put the post up within the next week, so time is of the essence, but I'd really love to see all of your awesomeness.

And that, for the moment, is all.

I have been home, dead of sick, for two days. We're talking "deep, rasping chest cough, I sound like a Batman villain, spent eleven hours on the couch yesterday, watched all of The Number 23 because changing the channel seemed too much like work" levels of sick. (PS: Maybe the number-obsessed OCD girl shouldn't watch movies about being driven to increasing levels of paranoia by numbers when she's already sick. Luckily for me, the movie made no damn sense, and just triggered nice little daydreams about prime factors and pi. What? I don't judge what helps you feel better.) So here is some stuff from my link file that I have been unable to find context for.

First off, no matter how bad a cover your book gets, it will never win the bad cover lottery. That prize has already been claimed by this not-safe-for-work edition of The Princess Bride. What is that I don't even. Flesh-snakes are attacking her lady bits with the intent to burrow their way into the promised land. Presumably the promised land has a cover that makes sense. Also, I do not remember Buttercup using a falcon as a cunning hat. Maybe somebody was hitting the cold meds a little too hard when they approved this one? I don't know.

The next time I go to the UK, I am totally visiting Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, which promises me "bespoke and everyday items for the living, dead, and undead," and is the only shop I've ever seen that was polite enough to request that angry mobs douse their torches before entering. Hell, forget visiting; I want to live there.

This is Alton Brown's Fanifesto. It makes me happy, even as I am sad that it needed to exist.

Disney Princesses have their issues, and I am the last person to pretend that they don't, but they have their good sides, too. This is a lovely collection of moments to illustrate that. (And while I'm pointing you at Princesses, why not swing by Amy Mebberson's Tumblr? Her weekly "Pocket Princesses" cartoons are a real treat.)

Finally, for now, cuckoos are in a biological arms race to continue their egg parasitism ways. So maybe there's hope for humanity. If the cuckoos don't figure out a better way...

I'm going back to bed.

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

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

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

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

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

Happy writing!

Hey, kids. Wanna see something awesome? Well, this coming Sunday, I will be performing as part of the Geek Fest Concert and Vendor Fair, hosted by the Seattle Browncoats.

Music! From such luminaries as Vixy and Tony, Betsy Tinney, Sunnie Larson, the Doubleclicks, and Eben Brooks (and more! MUCH MORE!). Oh, and me. I'll be performing with my usual Seattle backing band, and it's going to be AWESOME.

Vendors! Are you looking for that perfect gift for your geeky sweetie? Well, this is your chance to buy directly from the creator, cutting out silly little things like "shipping" and "waiting for the mail." Again, it's going to be AWESOME.

Admission is a mere $10 ticket, granting you full access to the concert and the vendors. Food and drinks will be available for sale. The whole shindig is going to be indoors, so we're not going to get rained on, and your admission will go to a great cause. Support geeky pursuits, the Seattle Browncoats, and the randomness of me flying to Seattle for a one-day event, and show up for the Geek Fest!

Hope to see you there!

...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 )

I love doing interviews. It's a really fun, awesome way to interact with people, and sound a little bit less like either a chipmunk on a sugar high or a formal press release (two of my default settings). A good interview is an amazing thing, and even a bad interview is darkly comic, like a barn owl flying into a plate glass window. (Funny for me. Not necessarily so much funny for the owl.) So without further ado, some interviews.

The first, and most recent, is this interview for Fantasy Magazine, conducted by Paul Goat Allen. Paul asked amazing questions, and called me "a force of nature," which is always the way to endear yourself to me. He also seemed fairly sure that I am actually an artist commune. Silly Paul. Hive intelligences from beyond the solar system don't need communes...

Our second interview was actually conducted at SDCC, by the lovely Linda, for Muse Led. She came up to my hotel room while we were all unpacking, and asked lots of fun questions (when we weren't talking about our cats, which happened a lot). She was very sweet, and I had a lovely time. In-person interviews are always exciting.

I was supposed to do an interview with Teen Skepchick during Convergence, but we couldn't get our act together. Luckily for everyone involved, email exists, and we were able to finish the interview anyway. Lots of super-fun questions, most aimed at the interests of teen readers (which I really appreciate).

Finally for now, Jeff Vandermeer interviewed both me and A. Lee Martinez (author of Gil's All-Fright Diner!), which was totally cool. You can click through to his interview from this post...where you can also read a small sample of Ashes of Honor.

Happy Monday!

It's fan art awesomeness time! shadow71689 has designed some incredible Newsflesh banner art, using my casting choices for Shaun and Georgia as her models. Seriously, this is some high-quality photo manipulation, and I am in awe.

Not only that, but she's cooked up a truly awesome soundtrack for Shaun; I've bought all the songs off iTunes, and I'm rocking to it RIGHT NOW. Check out her work, it's mad cool!

I am a happy blonde.

I am currently trying to transform my place of residence from a welter of stuff* into something halfway functional. I have a lot of motivation. I not only want to have a viable idea of what I have, thus telling me what I need to acquire if I want to finish various collections, I want to get rid of things that I don't really want. That way, I can pack with more assurance. Every move is focused on that sweet eventual goal: Seattle. I want to get out of the Bay Area, and after co-habitation with The Housemate for over a decade, my extraction has to be slow and careful, lest we wind up going to war over who owns that battered old paperback book.**

Some of the de-cluttering efforts are obvious. For example, I am putting books in boxes, indexing their contents, and putting the boxes in a big stack of boxes (also filled with books). I am putting things I have no emotional attachment to/desire to keep in other boxes, and sending them away on a regular basis. I am freely giving things to strangers. Other efforts are less obvious. I bought two new cat trees, because cats knock stuff over, thus creating more mess than they will when given places of their own. I've been saving boxes, which makes more mess, at least until the boxes are filled and put away. And so on.

My brain is no tidier. In trying to clean up my link list, I found things that have literally been waiting for their shining moment for up to two years. Will I ever really get around to some of these? No. No, I will not. That makes me sad, but I'd like to see the floor in my rotating "to do" file someday, just like I'd like to see it in my kitchen, and so away they go. Farewell, sweet links. I hardly knew ye.

Still. Once, Feed was a best-selling title in an Australian bookstore. I was nominated for a Romantic Times award. Apex put out an anthology with my wacky Fighting Pumpkins alien invasion story in it. And I needed to take a nap.

I will probably do some really random review posts in the next few days, just to clear out some links that have waited long past their best-by date. This has never been a judgment on those reviews in specific; it's just how out of control the file has gotten. I need a maid to go with that nap, I swear.

Anybody want to come over and help me index stuff?

(*Let's be clear here: most of it is good stuff. That's why it's there. But not all of it is good stuff. Some of it is bad stuff. Some of it is the kind of stuff that seemed like good stuff six years ago, when I was a different person, or when I really thought that someday I, too, would be a world-class guitarist. And some of it, sad to say, is crap.)

(**If you don't think this is something worth going to war over, you're either not a bibliophile or have never had someone try to take one of your best-beloved books away from you. Not being in the mood to start global thermonuclear destruction, I am doing my best to avoid this.)

Ah, July. When a fan girl's thoughts turn to sweet San Diego, city of a thousand delights, fairy tale wonderland of geeky goodness...at least for a week. We roll into town like the biggest circus ever, make a huge mess, drink all the rum in the county, and then disappear, leaving city coffers fuller and city children more confused. It's a good life. And now, now...now I tell you where to find me.

No Damsels in Distress Here. Thursday, 4-5 PM.
Chicks kick ass! According to the panel description, "danger just might be these girls' middle name." (Toby's middle name is actually "Christine.") Come see me trade barbs and witty banter with Marie Lu, Kathy Reichs, Chloe Neill, Jeanne Stein, Merrie deStefano, Carrie Vaughn, and Sherrilyn Kenyon. Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy. Room 25ABC.

Note: The panel will be immediately followed by an autographing session in the autograph area.

Orbit booth signing. Friday, 11-12PM.
Hey, look, it's Mira Grant! I'll be at the Orbit booth on Friday morning, eleven to noon, signing books. Perhaps your books. Perhaps someone else's books. Don't you want to find out?

Writing the Apocalypse. Friday, 4-5 PM.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine, yo. Also, my name is listed first on this panel description, which is a San Diego first for me. Yay! Come see me argue the end times with Thomas Mullen, Anna North, Walter Greatshell, Richard Kadrey, Daniel Wilson, Isaac Marion, and Steven Schlozman. Maryelizabeth Hart is moderating. Fear for her soul. Room 7AB.

Note: The panel will be immediately followed by an autographing session in the autograph area.

Penguin booth signing. Saturday, 12-1PM.
How many things can I sign in a weekend? I'll be at the Penguin booth Saturday from noon to one, signing things as my actual self. You should totally show.

SFX booth signing. Sunday, 11-12PM.
SFX Magazine makes me happy, so I'm going to make them happy by being their trained booth monkey for an hour. I will sign things! I will smile! Maybe I will sign your things! This is your last chance to catch me in an official capacity this year, so you should take it. I'm just saying.

And that's San Diego! Hope to see you there.

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!

Every year around this time, someone says to me "Gosh, I've never been to the San Diego International Comic Convention before. I don't see what the big deal is. I really don't believe it's as big as everybody tries to make me think it is." And every year, I smack myself in the head and update this guide and pray for their survival.

Since I've been posting these obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon on a yearly basis for some time now, I strongly suspect that these people are being aimed at me. But since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by amiably indifferent toward those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience you can possibly have, I have once again updated my Handy-Dandy Survival Guide to the San Diego International Comic Convention. See? It's both handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide includes tips on:

* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Things to do at the con.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.
* Not getting killed by your friends.
* Budgeting.
* Bathing.

It is also heavily biased toward my own opinions on all these things, because hello, so totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2011.Collapse )

I was asked recently if I would be willing to make a list of some of my favorite urban fantasies and paranormal romances. Because I am an amiable blonde, I am doing so. In the case of series, I will list the series name and first book, so you know where I at least think you should start. Format is as follows:

The Toby Daye Series, Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire.
Half-fae private investigator-slash-knight errant October Daye tries to solve magical murders and prevent more than the usual amount of chaos in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ongoing series, sequential, told in the first person. Five books currently available, two more confirmed.

Genre: Pretty unadulterated urban fantasy.
Recommended for: People who like my books, since I wrote them.
Romance level: Low so far. Sex not shown onscreen. Safe for teenagers and your mother.

For this list, "favorite" is defined as "I enjoy reading them, and am actively pleased to see another book in the series or by the same author," rather than "this is the highest quality that the genre has to offer." My books, my biases. This is by no means a comprehensive list, since my attention span is not that great right now.

With me? Awesome. Let's rock.

( Click here for some of Seanan's favorite urban fantasy and paranormal romance reads.Collapse )

I am officially too tired to brain. Wait, no; that's not entirely true. I am too scatter-pants to brain. I need more sleep, but I'm also trying to think about like twenty things at the same time, which doesn't help with the braining. Someone come over and give me a booster shot of single-mindedness, because I am out.

Anyway, here, have some interviews I've done recently, because they're fun.

Ramblings of a Teenage Novelist is a relatively new blog, and demonstrated "if you don't ask, you don't get" by requesting an interview about the Mira Grant books. I was glad to oblige, and some awesome questions got asked! Check it out.

Remember the whole thing with Feed being up for a Shirley Jackson Award and me being basically dead of amazed? Well, here's my official interview for the award site, about suspense and research and plausibility. I squealed when I got the request. It made the nomination way more real.

Amazon Omnivoracious posed some excellent questions about the world of Newsflesh, which I was happy to answer. It's hard doing the interview circuit right around the time of a book release; I keep needing to find new things to say. Go see if I succeeded.

Finally, not quite a review, but: Georgia Mason made io9's list of the Top Ten Investigative Reporters from Science Fiction and Fantasy. They're from the future, you know. Them liking me melts my blackened little serial killer heart.

Now can I have a nap?

1. Deborah (the Lovely Assistant for the Wicked Girls shirt project) is now contacting anyone whose payment hasn't been received via LJ comment, in an effort to give folks every possible chance to complete their order before we go to press. Remember, this is a limited-run thing, so we're not making more shirts than have been paid for, at least not for general sale (I may make and squirrel away a few extras, but that isn't going to help you if you haven't checked your email for her payment request). So if you're still trying to complete your order, please do so ASAP.

2. Speaking of completing things...my LJ comments got a little bit away from me, with over 600 waiting in the queue at one point. I've managed to peck and pick them down to 74 comments in need of answers, and I'm going to be trying to get to all of those this week. If you left me a comment and didn't hear back, and you thought I was ignoring you, I wasn't. (This applies to first comments only; I don't reply to all replies, I would lose my mind. Also remember that I declared amnesty for all comments left on the countdown, and will not be answering those.)

3. I am still waiting to hear back from all winners in Friday's Deadline drawing. Specifically, I have not yet heard back from irish_ais. If I do not hear from you by 5PM PST tonight, I will be choosing a new winner. Sorry about that.

4. I'm going to be doing my first giveaway of an ARC of One Salt Sea (Toby Daye #5) later this week. Watch this space for details.

5. Here is a lovely interview with Elizabeth McClellan which mentions, among other things, "Wicked Girls," Sooj, Amal's splendid Honey Month, and Cat Valente. Go, read, be delighted.

That's all for right now. What's new with you?

Item the first: remember that I currently have a random-number giveaway for Deadline and some swag gathering entries. I'll be picking my three winners tomorrow. For details on how to enter and what you can potentially win, please see the post I've linked above. Go ahead. I can wait.

Item the second: this has literally been sitting in my link soup for a year, waiting for me to find something that makes it topical. As I have failed, I am now providing the link in isolation, because it amuses me. Moshez comments on zombies and weapons, and why my Horror Survival FAQ is sometimes sub-optimal. Join me in giggling.

Item the third: while I'm linking to random crap that makes me smile, here. Have the Animal Review review of the deep sea anglerfish. They give the anglerfish an overall F for being horrifying and upsetting and not really very friendly at all. Amusingly enough, these are all the reasons I give the anglerfish an overall A. For AWESOME.

Item the fourth: I can't remember if I ever actually linked to these, despite their being, you know, mad awesome, so here. Have a link to some absolutely gorgeous icons that were made using lyrics from my latest album, Wicked Girls. The icons, which are by snowishness, cannot help but make me happy, and so I am sharing them with you.

Item the fifth: Megan Lara's art is pure hammered awesome.

Item the sixth: I managed to find the Dead Tired Frankie Stein doll last night, which means a) I now have all the individual Dead Tired dolls except for Cleo De Nile, who I'm hoping to find this weekend, b) everyone at my local Toys R Us knows me on sight, and c) I am a total nerd. I am, thus far, a total nerd who has managed to resist the lure of the ball-jointed Soom doll, however, so I'm calling this a win for me, even as I call it a loss for my shelf space.

Item the seventh: I am so tired it physically hurts. I have to sleep tonight, or I'm just going to dissolve off my own bones like an overcooked chicken or one of those airline passengers in the first episode of Fringe. I didn't sleep at all on Tuesday night, and last night was our first really hot night of the summer, so the cats kept waking me up to freak out. Please play nicely today, as I may start to tremble and cry otherwise.

What's news with you?

[NOTE: I am a day behind, due to the convention I attended this past weekend. This should have gone up yesterday; after the next one, I'm all caught up.]

Atlanta, Georgia. June 18th, 2014.

The atmosphere at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia was best described as "tense." Everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and had been waiting since reports first came in describing the so-called "Mayday Army's" release of an experimental pathogen into the atmosphere. The tension only intensified when Dr. Alexander Kellis responded to requests for more information on the pathogen by supplying his research, which detailed, at length, the infectious nature of his hybridized creation.

One of the administrative assistants had probably put it best when she looked at the infection maps in horror and said, "If he'd been working with rabies or something, he would have just killed us all."

If he was being completely honest with himself, Dr. Ian Matras wasn't entirely sure that Kellis hadn't just killed them all, entirely without intending to, entirely with the best of intentions. The proteins composing the capsid shell on Alpha-RC007 were ingeniously engineered, something that had been a good thing—increased stability, increased predictability in behavior—right up until the moment when the Mayday Army broke the seals keeping the world and the virus apart. Now those same proteins made Alpha-RC007 extremely virulent, extremely contagious, and, worst of all, extremely difficult to detect in a living host. The lab animals they'd requested from Dr. Kellis's lab in Reston were known to be infected, but showed almost no signs of illness; four out of five blood tests would come up negative for the presence of Alpha-RC007, only to have the fifth show a thriving infection. Alpha-RC007 hid. It could be spurred to reveal itself by introducing another infection...and that was when Alpha-RC007 became truly terrifying.

Alpha-RC007 was engineered to cure the common cold, something it accomplished by setting itself up as a competing, and superior, infection. Once it was in the body, it simply never went away. The specific structure of its capsid shell somehow tricked the human immune system into believing that Alpha-RC007 was another form of helper cell—and in a way, it was. Alpha-RC007 wanted to help. Watching it attack and envelop other viruses which entered the body was a chilling demonstration of perfect biological efficiency. Alpha-RC007 saw; Alpha-RC007 killed. Alpha-RC007 tolerated no other infections in the body.

What was going to happen the first time Alpha-RC007 decided the human immune system counted as an infection? No one knew, and the virus had thus far resisted any and all attempts to remove it from a living host. Unless a treatment could be found before Kellis's creation decided to become hostile, Dr. Matras was very afraid that the entire world was going to learn just how vicious Alpha-RC007 could be.

Dr. Ian Matras sat at his desk, watching the infection models as they spread out across North America and the world, and wondered how long they really had before they found out whether or not the Mayday Army had managed to destroy mankind.

"Cheer up, Ian!" called one of his colleagues, passing by on the way to the break room. "A pandemic that makes you healthy isn't exactly the worst thing we've ever had to deal with."

"And what's it going to do in a year, Chris?" Dr. Matras shot back.

Dr. Chris Sinclair grinned. "Raise the dead, of course," he said. "Don't you ever go to the movies?" Then he walked away, leaving Dr. Matras alone to brood. It wouldn't be long before they all had cause to regret those words.

***

The Centers for Disease Control have issued a statement asking that people remain calm in the wake of the release of an unidentified pathogen from the Virginia-based lab of Dr. Alexander Kellis. "We do not, as yet, have any indication that this disease is harmful to humans," said Dr. Chris Sinclair. A seven-year veteran of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, Dr. Sinclair graduated from Princeton...

When will you Rise?

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 )

A kind soul who dislikes my ability to sleep helpfully compiled a list of the weirdest Pokemon ever. And for "weirdest," read "most horrifically fucked-up and likely to cause you to have nightmares which rock the very foundations of your soul. Seriously, Pokemon is totally breeding the horror writers of tomorrow, today. It's awesome.

Speaking of horror, "Everglades" made the Honorable Mentions list for The Year's Best Horror. Yay! Maybe "Pavlov" or "The Box" can make the actual cut in 2011. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Zombies are the new black. If you've been here for a while, you probably already knew that, but this is a fun article, and I contributed a quote, so hey. No loss here.

Tentacle pot pies. Yeah, you're welcome. I want to make an adorable Lovecraft theme dinner, and have everything be a) cute, and b) horrifying if you think about it too hard.

Speaking of horrifying, this was not designed for me. Or maybe that's not so much "horrifying" as it is "proof that life isn't fair." Woe to me, that I do not have this dress.

And yet Amy Mebberson drew Amy Pond as a My Little Pony to make me happy, so maybe the world isn't such a horrible place after all.

...that's all for right now. I still have roughly a metric ton of links to post, but most of them are reviews or things which require actual thought. So I leave you with this lovely dish o' random to get you through this gloomy Wednesday night.

See you tomorrow!

For all that I argue constantly that urban fantasy is one of the oldest genres, and that those of us who write it are the descendants of Lily Fair and should be afforded the same respect as the children of her better-known sisters, Snow White and Rose Red, the fact remains that urban fantasy as we know it right now, today, is a relatively recent beast. It developed slowly, lurching and slithering its way out of the jumble of general fantasy and into its current position.

A lot of the classics* of the urban fantasy genre were published during the 1980s, and many of them fell out of print during the same time period. They were like thieves in the night, only instead of sneaking into your house and stealing all your stuff, they snuck into your head and planted ideas like seeds. Maybe they didn't germinate overnight. Maybe they took years, or decades, to begin sprouting. But they did sprout, and the flowers they grew into spread more seeds, until the genre itself began to grow.

I was too young to really appreciate what was going on during those beginning days, but I already read voraciously, and several of those strange flowers have been a part of my mental landscape for as long as I can remember. Jack of Kinrowan. War for the Oaks. Gossamer Axe.

Bordertown.

Bordertown was a modern-day Neverland, a place where the lands of humanity and the fae collided, with magic and science at continual war with one another. It was a place for teenage runaways, filled with music and madness, and there were times when I, as a pre-teen nerd girl who never felt like she really belonged anywhere, practically ached with the longing to find that magic doorway that could get me there. In Bordertown, I would find friends, and adventures, and stories, and maybe I'd get hurt, but I'd do it in a place that hurt everyone, not just the ones who didn't quite fit in. In Bordertown, I could make the rules, and break the rules, and take the rules for whatever they were worth. All I had to do was find the door.

I knew even then that Bordertown was just a story, but it was a beautiful story, and stories have power. I read every Bordertown tale I could find with the same voracious need, and when they stopped coming, I started looking further afield. When I met Ellen Kushner last year in Australia, I told her that I wrote urban fantasy because I'd come too late to write Bordertown, and the genre as it exists now was as close as I could get.

Those original books are sadly out of print now. For thirteen years, the doors to Bordertown have been closed.

The doors to Bordertown are opening again on May 23rd. Welcome to Bordertown is a gorgeous, glorious anthology of all-new stories and poems set in that magical place, written by an incredible assortment of authors, and because the authors and editors are clever, you don't need to know anything but what I've told you here to appreciate it. Bordertown is where the magic is. Bordertown is where the music is. Bordertown lives.

In the meanwhile, you can read three of the original stories on the website; you can begin exploring this world; you can fall in love the way I did when I first heard the city's name, and the way I did again when I went to Boston and was handed an advance copy of the new map. Bordertown lives.

Now step into the story and find out why so many of us have loved this world so fiercely, so cleanly, and for so very, very long.

Bordertown lives.

I missed it so much.

(*Defining "classics" as "things without which the genre would not occupy the shape it occupies today," not based on popularity or staying power or even, in some cases, quality.)

April is the cruelest month. It is also, apparently, the month where I spend half my time dealing with the pieces and paperwork that I spend the other half of my time ignoring. Yippee for me!

In a weird way, I really do mean that. I am a creature of essential chaos, bounded and defined by an equally essential degree of order. I can't have an artfully disorganized shelf of stuffed toys unless I know where they are to artfully disorganize them in the first place. I can't make room for more Monster High toys (and I am about to make room for a lot more Monster High toys*) unless I have the ones I already own put where I want them. My intellectual life is very similar. I can't tell the stories I want to tell unless the ones I've already told are where they're supposed to be.

So last night I processed edits and approved page proofs and made my word count (which I've been pushing hard lately, to try to buy myself a day off on Sunday for Jeanne's wedding), and then I set up the spreadsheet for the Wicked Girls shirts and started confirming people's requests. Remind me next time I say "I don't know if twelve people will want this..." that the answer is almost certainly "yes, they will" and "hire an assistant for the duration." I may have to cut orders off after two weeks, rather than waiting a whole month, just so I'm not still mailing them come time to head for San Diego. (Yes, I have lots of other trips between here and there. That's just sort of the big 'un for this summer.)

I also managed to place my order for convention ribbons for the next year (or two, or three). Wow, did I order a lot of ribbons. Like, even the person who handles the ribbon orders was all "that's a lot of ribbons." But it means I will have AWESOME RIBBONS, so that's okay, then. Not all of them will be handed out with joyous abandon, since some are specific to events or panels or states of mind, but there should be plenty to share with all. Yay, ribbons!

Today, I will go to the passport office and apply for my new passport, go by the DMV and get an actual state ID for the first time in ten years, and then go home, write 2,000 words, and update my T-shirt spreadsheet a whole bunch. This is going to be the way my week goes.

How about you?

(*See, this is how you know I don't have any advance copies of upcoming books. Because if I did, I would so be trying to BRIBE THE WORLD FOR TOYS. I'd be like, "Who wants to swap me a zombie novel for a zombie in her prom dress?", and I'd have the Dawn of the Dance Ghoulia Yelps to love and hug and shamble for me.)

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.

The second round of this year's BSC Book Tournament has closed, and Toby is still standing, since An Artificial Night managed to crush the competition handily. That's good!

Now I am up against Cat Valente's Habitation of the Blessed. That's not so good. Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth to follow. But still, I entreat that you should vote, regardless of your choice in this round, and hope only that Toby will prevail. Why? Because it amuses the living crap out of me, naturally, and I am a simple blonde.

I'll add the voting link as soon as it goes live. Vote your heart. Vote your champion. Vote for MAXIMUM CARNAGE.

Girl fight tonight!

ETA: As promised, here is the actual voting link for the contest. Now get your smackdown on!

You know those little things on books that are like, "This book raised my IQ twenty points!" &mdashA. Famous Author, or "The Ikeamancer series just keeps getting better," —Ima Writer? Those are called "blurbs." They're supposed to encourage you to buy the book, since clearly, people other than the author (or the author's mom) think it's good enough to read, and are thus providing valuable perspective.

So let's play the blurb game! You've been asked to blurb an existing book in a way that is honest, accurate, and true to your feelings on the text. Most of these will probably not be used for publication, because when I'm being honest, accurate, and true, there's a lot of swearing.

I'll start:

"This book is like a cozy blanket for my soul. A cozy blanket full of evil clowns and profanity. IT is the most comforting thing I have ever read." —Stephen King's IT.

"Matthew Swift's London crackles with electric fire, neon heartbreak, and all the power and sideways logic of urban sorcery. Kate Griffin is at the top of her game, and she just keeps getting better." —Kate Griffin's Neon Court.

"FUCK YEAH, SEAKING." —Peter Clines's Ex-Heroes.

"It takes a truly great story, and a truly great writer, to make a book about rabbits more true to the human condition than most books about humanity." —Richard Adams's Watership Down.

"Lucy Snyder attacks the page with the raw, manic intensity of an early Sam Raimi. Jessie Shimmer is urban fantasy's answer to Ash from The Evil Dead: ballsy, profane, and too much fun to put down." —Lucy Snyder's Spellbent.

"Hey, look! It's a retelling of 'Tam Lin' that makes me root for Janet! That never happens!" —Pamela Dean's Tam Lin.

"You need to meet the people in this book. They have things to tell you." —Janet Kagan's Hellspark.

"The true power of fairy tale archetypes is the way they let us tell the stories that need to be told while framing them in a veil of the familiar. Jim Hines has created a Cinderella with a future, a Sleeping Beauty with a past, and a Snow White present in more than merely apples. These books are all the stronger for not being 'serious' fiction; by the time you realize that you're learning, it's too late. You've been taught." —Jim Hines's The Stepsister Scheme.

Now it's your turn! BLURB THE WORLD!

It's that time again: that time when the air is sweet, the daffodils are blooming, and a young girl's fancy turns to thoughts of BLOODY INTERNET SMACKDOWNS. Specifically, it's time once again for the BSC Review Book Tournament, wherein books published during the last year BEAT THE HOLY CRAP OUT OF EACH OTHER for your amusement. See how much we love you?

Currently, An Artificial Night is up in the first round of the Westeros Bracket, and Toby needs your help! She's up against Wizard Squared by K. E. Mills (which I have not read, but which I am sure is a fabulous book in its own right), and if you don't step in, she could get schooled.

So come on! Let's indulge in some good, old-fashioned schoolyard brawling. Because it's fun.

I am so easily pleased sometimes.

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.)