...is currently in France (la la!), and on pretty crappy wireless. All email bounces through her, thanks to The Great Profanity Storm of 2012, which means that some things may have gotten lost. Specifically, the emails from two of our ARC winners have not been received.

Jill, we have yours; if you are one of our other two winners, please re-send your mailing address via the website contact form ASAP.

Cranky blonde is cranky with the world, not with any of you (or with Kate).

So shirt orders are closed, and this is an update! Specifically, the update is this:

Kate, who is handling the administrative side of this shirt order, just got a new job, and is thus somewhat behind at contacting people to clear up things about their payments, shipping info, etc. She is still doing it. People are being contacted, and payments, once received, are being entered on the spreadsheet. Remember that "we're not making any money" disclaimer? Unfortunately, that means I'm not paying her, which is why she needed the new job, and why she's slow right now.

Everyone's order will be dealt with. Queries should go to the merch address; if you send them through the contact form, they have to go through Kate, and this is what happens:

1. You email.
2. Kate bounces the email to me.
3. I bounce the email to Kate, because I literally know nothing about where she is in the process.

It is not efficient, and it takes time away from her processing the pending orders. I promise, it's happening; we just need to be patient while we work the latest batch of kinks out.

Shirts soon!

This is your reminder that we will stop taking orders for a new run of Wicked Girls shirts, as well as the first-ever run of "My Story Is Not Done" shirts (for those of you who have asked for something a little more gender-neutral), at midnight PST on Monday, June 30th. So the second it becomes July, we are no longer taking requests.

Instructions on ordering, and what our options are, are all lain out on that initial post. Kate, using the "seananmerch" account, is reaching out now to confirm people's requests. I have no involvement with this part of the process, and emailing me directly (either via my contact form or because you have a contact address) just gets you bounced to Kate.

What does this mean for me?

It means that you must have commented on the original post by midnight June 30th to be included in the order.

But I haven't heard back from Kate!

No one who has commented on the post will be left out. Kate had real life loom on her a bit (as sometimes happens to even the best of us), but she's getting caught up, and everyone will make the spreadsheet. This does mean I won't be submitting the T-shirt order at 12:01am July 1st, but let's be honest: that was never going to happen anyway. For one thing, I was going to be asleep. I like sleep.

Please make sure you have added "seananmerch" to your spam filters.

Kate has been emailing people, but not everyone has gotten back to her to confirm mailing addresses and provide payment. This is a problem, since your shirt will only be printed if you pay for it (that being the nature of this particular ordering process). If you have commented on the original post and received a reply saying that you're on the spreadsheet, that means you should also have received an email. Please check!

We mean it when we say we can't promise delivery before October.

We opened this order period as early as we did because we want to be able to get the shirts back from the printer and shoved into envelopes before I leave for Europe in early August, but there are a lot of moving parts involved, and it's possible the printer will miss the deadline for mailing by as little as a day or as much as two weeks. If the shirts hit while I'm out of the country, they're not going to be mailed until October. We will not give refunds in September because you expected a shirt in August. I'm being really upfront about how long this could take, and this is part of why. Which brings us to...

I am not a store; we are not making any money off of this.

The last two shirt runs have netted cost of shirts + cost of postage and packing materials + one pizza party for the people who pack the shirts to mail. I am not a big shiny clothing manufacturer who prints her own shirts and can afford a shit-ton of extras. Teefury can do $11 shirts because they print their own and have runs well in excess of anything I've ever done. I am fighting to keep from needing to raise prices for these short bespoke runs. This is why I request non-CC PayPal and do my best to avoid transaction fees, which nibble away at the already very narrow overage.

Kate and I are both going to be as open and responsive as we possibly can be; transparency is best in a situation like this one. But please, please don't buy a shirt if you're going to approach it like buying something from Hot Topic. We're not that kind of operation. It'll be a long, long time before we can be.

Thank you.

All right! We are still taking orders for a new run of Wicked Girls shirts, as well as the first-ever run of "My Story Is Not Done" shirts (for those of you who have asked for something a little more gender-neutral). Instructions on ordering, and what our options are, are all lain out on that initial post. Kate, using the "seananmerch" account, is reaching out now to confirm people's requests.

Now, the notes.

Please make sure you have added "seananmerch" to your spam filters.

Kate has been emailing people, but not everyone has gotten back to her to confirm mailing addresses and provide payment. This is a problem, since your shirt will only be printed if you pay for it (that being the nature of this particular ordering process). If you have commented on the original post and received a reply saying that you're on the spreadsheet, that means you should also have received an email. Please check!

We mean it when we say we can't promise delivery before October.

We opened this order period as early as we did because we want to be able to get the shirts back from the printer and shoved into envelopes before I leave for Europe in early August, but there are a lot of moving parts involved, and it's possible the printer will miss the deadline for mailing by as little as a day or as much as two weeks. If the shirts hit while I'm out of the country, they're not going to be mailed until October. We will not give refunds in September because you expected a shirt in August. I'm being really upfront about how long this could take, and this is part of why. Which brings us to...

I am not a store; we are not making any money off of this.

The last two shirt runs have netted cost of shirts + cost of postage and packing materials + one pizza party for the people who pack the shirts to mail. I am not a big shiny clothing manufacturer who prints her own shirts and can afford a shit-ton of extras. Teefury can do $11 shirts because they print their own and have runs well in excess of anything I've ever done. I am fighting to keep from needing to raise prices for these short bespoke runs. This is why I request non-CC PayPal and do my best to avoid transaction fees, which nibble away at the already very narrow overage.

Kate and I are both going to be as open and responsive as we possibly can be; transparency is best in a situation like this one. But please, please don't buy a shirt if you're going to approach it like buying something from Hot Topic. We're not that kind of operation. It'll be a long, long time before we can be.

Thank you.

For those of you who missed it, we opened orders for a new run of Wicked Girls shirts this past weekend, as well as the first-ever run of "My Story Is Not Done" shirts (for those of you who have asked for something a little more gender-neutral). Instructions on ordering, and what our options are, are all lain out on that initial post. Kate, using the "seananmerch" account, is reaching out now to confirm people's requests.

Now, the notes.

We cannot provide any special mailing options.

A few people have offered to pay extra for expedited shipping or tracking, and that's swell, but we can't. We are not a store, and the size of these shirt runs means that we have enough trouble just feeding them through the post office as all-the-same. The only way we would be able to offer other postage options would be to cap the shirt run at something around 50, and a) we've already passed that point, and b) no. I can only handle this about once every two years, and capping things like that would be mean.

We mean it when we say we can't promise delivery before October.

We opened this order period as early as we did because we want to be able to get the shirts back from the printer and shoved into envelopes before I leave for Europe in early August, but there are a lot of moving parts involved, and it's possible the printer will miss the deadline for mailing by as little as a day or as much as two weeks. If the shirts hit while I'm out of the country, they're not going to be mailed until October. We will not give refunds in September because you expected a shirt in August. I'm being really upfront about how long this could take, and this is part of why. Which brings us to...

I am not a store; we are not making any money off of this.

The last two shirt runs have netted cost of shirts + cost of postage and packing materials + one pizza party for the people who pack the shirts to mail. I am not a big shiny clothing manufacturer who prints her own shirts and can afford a shit-ton of extras. Teefury can do $11 shirts because they print their own and have runs well in excess of anything I've ever done. I am fighting to keep from needing to raise prices for these short bespoke runs. This is why I request non-CC PayPal and do my best to avoid transaction fees, which nibble away at the already very narrow overage.

Kate and I are both going to be as open and responsive as we possibly can be; transparency is best in a situation like this one. But please, please don't buy a shirt if you're going to approach it like buying something from Hot Topic. We're not that kind of operation.

Thank you.

Because nothing says "Seanan has a lot on her plate right now" like me deciding it's time for a project, I am going back to the printer for a third limited batch of "Wicked Girls" T-shirts. How limited? "The number of orders I receive, plus maybe a few extras, but I don't make any promises"-limited. We will also be doing the first ever run of "My Story Is Not Done" T-shirts, again limited to the number of orders I receive, plus maybe a few extras.

The designs, thanks to the ever-lovely Tara:



These are mock-ups; the actual shirts will use these designs, but will vary a little. We are using the same local shop that we used for the previous two batches, and they are remarkably flexible about everything. I love them so. Here are some real people wearing real shirts (all "Wicked Girls," since this is our first time with "My Story" shirts):

http://a.yfrog.com/img864/1994/wdmqi.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahandbrian/6879521872/
http://pics.livejournal.com/tithenai/pic/0005p48p
https://twitter.com/#!/gienahghurab/status/183599757132955652/photo/1

We are offering four types of shirt, as follows:

The standard girl-cut T (click here to view the basic shirt) is available in small through 2XL. We can print with visible text on black, dark chocolate, dark gray, heather gray, indigo, kelly, light olive, midnight navy, neon orange, plum, purple rush, raspberry, red, royal, scarlet, shocking pink, teal, or turquoise. We cannot promise visibility on any other color, as white text is hard to read on light-colored shirts.

The girl-cut T with a shallow V-neck (click here to view the basic shirt) is available in small through 2XL. We can print with visible text on black, dark gray, heather gray, indigo, kiwi, midnight navy, neon orange, plum, purple rush, raspberry, or red. We cannot promise visibility on any other color, as white text is hard to read on light-colored shirts.

The larger girl-cut T (click here to view the basic shirt) is available in small through 4XL. We can print with visible text on athletic maroon, jet black, cardinal, charcoal, dark chocolate brown, dark green, kelly, navy, orange, purple, red, or royal. We cannot promise visibility on any other color, as white text is hard to read on light-colored shirts.

The unisex T (click here to view the basic shirt) is available in small through 6XL. We can print with visible text on athletic maroon, jet black, brown, cardinal, charcoal, dark chocolate brown, dark green, dark heather gray, deep marine, eggplant, fiery red, forest green, kelly, navy, olive, orange, purple, red, rich red or royal. We cannot promise visibility on any other color, as white text is hard to read on light-colored shirts.

HOW THIS IS GOING TO WORK.

If you want to buy a shirt, comment here with:

a) how many shirts you want, of which type ("WG" or "MS").
b) which size and style each shirt should be.
c) which color each shirt should be.
d) an alternate color, in case your first choice is out of stock.*
e) your email address.

(*Colors for which we receive fewer than three requests will be automatically considered "out of stock.")

Either Kate or I will add your information to our ongoing spreadsheet, and Kate will contact you to arrange immediate payment, using the "seananmerch" Gmail address. Shirts are $20 for sizes S through 2XL, and $25 for sizes 3XL through 6XL. Shipping is $5 per two shirts within the US, and $10 per two shirts outside the US. (So one size S to a US address would be $25. The same shirt to a UK address would be $30. Adding a second shirt to either order would not increase postage costs; adding a third shirt would.)

Orders will close on June 30; the goal is to have the order submitted to the printer by July 15th. Anyone who has not replied to three requests for payment will be deleted from the spreadsheet at that time. We're going to do our best to get these printed and mailed before I leave for Europe in early August. If this is not possible, shirts will not be mailed until I return in early October. I know that's a long gap, and I'm sorry about that; at the same time, it may be another two years before I do this again.

Because this came up last time: I understand security concerns, but if you want a shirt, you must provide an email address. The actual spreadsheet is being generated by Kate, who cannot access any more private mechanism you may decide to use for contacting me. No email address on the entry, no shirt. You can delete your original comment after you have received a comment from either me or Kate confirming that your information is on the spreadsheet.

Game on!

ETA: Game over. This shirt batch is now CLOSED, and no further orders are being accepted.

Click the thumbnail to see the details!

Wicked Girls being nominated for a Hugo Award made me stop and think about just how many wonderful, wicked girls I know. This comic is just a few of them. (Seriously. Every girl I drew, I realized two more I had forgotten.)

Top row, left to right: Seanan, Vixy, Erin, Kate, Amy, Patty.
Second row, left to right: Rachel, Kaja, Brooke, Betsy (with Arial).
Third row, left to right: Devany, Teddy, Kirsten, Morgan, Emily, Torrey.
Fourth row, left to right: Jude (with Frost), Tara, Bear (with GRD), Catherynne.
Bottom row, left to right: Beckett, Teddy, Tara, Vixy, Seanan, Amy, Dr. Mary, Kate.

I am sorry I couldn't fit more people into a single sheet of paper. You are all, forever and always, amazing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first weekend in October was my fifth Toby-related book event at San Francisco's Borderlands Books, home of naked cats, tolerant employees, and, every six months or so, the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show. We've appeared in other locations, but Borderlands is the one we keep going back to; Borderlands is the home base for this particular flavor of insanity. Why? Because we like them.

Normally, I try to be a little prompter with my write-ups of the parties and their aftermath, but let's face it here: I have been a little busy. Anyway, we started super-early on Saturday, since we all had to rehearse if we wanted to not suck. Rehearsal took place in Kate's basement, and featured the day's entire planned slate of musicians. Many things happened. Many of them were lovely. And then we all piled into a variety of cars and drove to San Francisco, hence to Make Things Go. The bookstore is used to us by this point, and no one batted an eye as we invaded the office, turned it into a green room, and began trashing the place like the good little circus that we are.

Jeff set up the sound system, which is both little and awesome, while Jude got the house in order, Mia set up with the pendants in her corner, and Shawn took over maintenance of the raffle table. I got cupcakes and candy set up (the important things), and we got that party started.

As always, the festivities were divided between music, Q&A, baked goods, and drawing prizes in our raffle. The questions were new and different, the raffle prizes were an awesome mix of standard and surprising (including some special additions by the bookstore, which made things even more spectacular), the cupcakes (from Cups and Cakes Bakery) were delicious, and the music was rocking. The set lists:

SET ONE:

1. "Let's Get the Monkeys to Do It." Paul Kwinn, lead vocals, guitar; Jeff Bohnhoff, guitar; Maya Bohnhoff, Michelle "Vixy" Dockrey, backing vocals; Betsy Tinney, cello; Beckett Gladney, harmonica.
2. "Caledonia." Paul, lead vocals, guitar; Maya, backing vocals.
3. "When I Go." Paul, lead vocals, guitar; Beckett, harmonica.
4. "The Dark Man." Paul, lead vocals, guitar; Jeff, guitar; Maya, backing vocals; Seanan McGuire, backing vocals; Betsy, cello.
5. "Where the Magic is Real." Paul, lead vocals, guitar; Maya, Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar.
6. "My Story is Not Done." Seanan, lead vocals; Paul, guitar; Betsy, cello; Beckett, harmonica; everyone in the store, backing vocals.

SET TWO:

1. "I Am the Walmart." Maya, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar; Betsy, cello.
2. "Dairy Queen." Maya, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar.
3. "Dance in the Darkness." Maya, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar.
4. "Wil's Song." Maya, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar.
5. "Turn the Page." Maya, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar; Paul, guitar; Beckett, harmonica.
6. "Get Off Of My Lawn." Maya, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar; Betsy, cello.

SET THREE:

1. "Still Catch the Tide." Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony Fabris, guitar; Betsy, cello.
2. "Eight-Legged Blues." Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar; Beckett, harmonica; Paul, percussion.
3. "We Can Be Anything." Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello.
4. "Six String Love." Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar.
5. "Build That Wall/Setting Sail, Coming Home (medley)." Vixy, vocals; Maya, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello.
6. "The Ocean." Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar.
7. "Got To Fly." Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar.
8. "Wicked Girls." Seanan, Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello.

"The Dark Man" and "Where the Magic is Real" are on the first Puzzlebox album, Assembly Required.
"Caledonia" is on Dougie MacLean's album Craigie Dhu.
"When I Go" is on Dave Carter and Tracy Grammar's album, When I Go.
"Six String Love" is on Vixy and Tony's first album, Thirteen.
"Dance in the Darkness" and "Turn the Page" are on Jeff and Maya's second album, Manhattan Sleeps.
"I Am the Walmart" and "Wil's Song" are on Jeff and Maya's fifth album, Grated Hits.
"Build That Wall/Setting Sail, Coming Home (medley)" are on the Bastion Original Soundtrack.
"The Ocean" is on Dar Williams's album, Mortal City.
"Got to Fly" is on Marian Call's second album, Got to Fly.
"Still Catch the Tide" is on Seanan's second album, Stars Fall Home, and on Talis Kimberley's recent live album, By Request at Duckon.
"My Story is Not Done" and "Wicked Girls" are on Seanan's fourth album, Wicked Girls.

A good time was had by all, and the cupcakes lasted almost fifteen minutes this time, because we finally ordered enough. We're already making plans and getting our ducks in row for the next time that the Circus comes to town. And if you're curious, or want to see some pictures, you can check out Beckett's fantastic (and more timely) writeup of the event.

Thanks to everyone who attended, and to everyone who didn't...see you next time!

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

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

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

2012

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

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

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

No fixed deadline/being written/unsold:

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

Hey, gang, this is your friendly reminder that the fifth iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be appearing this Saturday, October 1st, at San Francisco's own Borderlands Books. Festivities will commence at five, and will include delicious baked goods, live music, our inevitable raffle, and a Toby Daye Q&A.

This iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show includes, in alphabetical order, Jeff "Heavy Metal Squid" Bohnhoff, on guitar and sound; Maya "Sonic Boom" Bohnhoff, on guitar and vocals; Michelle "Ceiling Cookies" Dockrey, on vocals; Tony "Code Monkey Likes You" Fabris, on guitar and vocals; Beckett "Don't Lick That" Gladney, on harmonica; Paul "The Cute One" Kwinn, on guitar and vocals; Betsy "Living Improbability" Tinney, on cello and vocals; and me, doing my usual mix of vocals and random stage patter.

Kate and Ryan will be running support, because they are awesome, and my mother will be running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Jude and Naamen will be keeping the bookstore from burning down (respect the bookstore). Mia will be on hand for pendant sales, and Victor and Lara will be on hand for AWESOME (and inevitably getting drafted).

It's going to be an awesome time, with signings and questions and cupcakes, and you should come. If you can't attend, remember that you can contact the bookstore to place orders for delivery, and get your books signed by attending our Circus in your heart.

See you Saturday!

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

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

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

Ashes of Honor.

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

Social life.

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

My fall convention schedule.

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

And after that, I nap.

Too much TV.

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

Toys!

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

Cats.

Insane.

"Wicked Girls" T-shirts.

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

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

I need a nap.

I am home from Reno! Finally. I think I may be half-dead, and I definitely need a lot more of a nap than I'm going to be getting in the near future. Here, then, is my extremely truncated and specialized convention report.

The Good.

* Joe's Diner! Kate, Victor, and I arrived early, and were able to wander around, running errands. This led us to discovering an awesome little diner, just far enough from the convention center to be inaccessible if you didn't have a car (and thus entirely uncrowded throughout the weekend). Cheap, delicious food, real malts, and a waitress who came to know us all by name as we returned again and again for delicious meals. Yay!

* Also during our running around, I found a hardcover copy of Hellspark, one of my favorite hard-to-find books. (Actually, Victor found it. But he is a loving Victor, and he gave it unto me.) I will love it always.

* I wound up in two hotel rooms, one shared with Kate (and connected via adjoining door to Victor), one shared with Wes, Mary, and Amy. Both rooms were awesome in different ways, and I couldn't have asked for better roommates.

* "Just A Minute," where I not only became the new champion, I got to do it while hanging out with awesome people (including two of my favorite people, Paul and Caroline). Betcha John regrets telling me that lists were legal...

* Lauren Beukes's sloth! I nearly stole that thing. I still want to.

* Delivering an impassioned verbal smackdown during the zombie panel.

* Interviewing Tricky Pixie, Bill Wellingham, and this year's COMPLETELY AWESOME Campbell nominees. All on different panels, but still. I could not have shared a stage with more delightful people.

* Kaja hugs.

* Having a signing line longer than George R.R. Martin. It was bizarre and confusing, and totally fantastic.

* Brunch with Daniel and Kelly.

* Breakfast with Sheila.

* Surprise DDR with Kate and Vixy and Lauren and Amy.

* Dinner with Mike and Marnie and the posse, during which I received my official Barfleet tags. They're orange and green! I am truly loved.

...honestly, there were a lot of amazing people at WorldCon this year, but if I try to list them all, someone will be left off, because I am exhausted, and then we will all be sad. So please believe that I love all my friends, and I am so excited to have seen them, and I would not have survived this convention without them. Seriously. I would be dead.

The Bad.

* The one day when I didn't have, basically, a team of people handling me, I was unable to get any food for eleven hours, was repeatedly grabbed by people I don't know, and was even followed into the bathroom stall. Not the bathroom. THE ACTUAL STALL. Needless to say, I was not left alone again, resulting in my friends feeling put-upon, my feeling like I had to hide in my hotel room to have any privacy, and everyone being tense. Being grabbed is bad. It scares me.

* Smoking is allowed indoors in Reno. We were in Reno. I am not as sensitive to smoke as some of my friends, but I still feel pretty lousy, even after being home for almost two full days.

* The convention center was almost a mile away from my hotel, resulting in lots of walking back and forth in the extreme heat. Also, if I managed to forget something at the room, it stayed gone until I went home in the afternoon. This decentralized layout prevented a single Barcon from coalescing, and I am hence still faintly sad.

* The decentralized layout also meant that I saw some people I really care about rarely, if at all. Kate put it best when she noted that if you weren't part of the amoeba, we barely saw you.

* Finding things was almost impossible. I didn't even figure out where open filk was until Friday night, when I was doing "Whose Line?" across from it (an 11pm to 1am panel, so no, I didn't join the circle afterward). I made it to the dealer's hall twice, both times for under twenty minutes.

The Unhappy.

So. The Hugos. That happened.

You're not supposed to talk about being sad that you lost; it's considered poor form. Unfortunately, in this internet age, it's impossible to avoid addressing it at least a little if you have any sort of decent web presence. Not only is it obvious that you're avoiding an elephant, people keep hijacking other posts and other threads to tell you how sorry they are. That's worse for my sanity than having a few people sigh meaningfully at me, so I'm going to talk about this once, and have done.

Yes, I lost.

Yes, I am very sad about that. I wanted to win. Everybody wants to win. Wanting to win is human nature, and if you don't want to win, you decline the nomination. End of story.

Yes, I am aware that I lost by a very narrow margin. This doesn't make it easier. If anything, it makes it harder; what could I have done to make my book just twenty votes better? Rationally, I know this isn't a quantifiable thing, but, well. Me and numbers. It's a thing.

Yes, I hope that I get another shot next year.

No, I will not be responding to comments directly relating to the Hugos. I hope you understand why not. Congratulations to all the winners, and huge, huge thanks to everyone who voted. I came in second. I beat Bujold in the voting. That's a damn big deal. Maybe next time, we can win.

That was WorldCon, and now it's not. See you next year, in Chicago.

So, as you may have noticed, I am currently stretched...well, pretty thin. I am thus bringing on some help here in the salt mines, to make sure things keep running smoothly. Yaaaay!

The lovely Deborah (talkstowolves) has been handling the "Wicked Girls" T-shirt orders, which are almost ready to go to the printer, and will now be stepping in to help with basic website administration work. She'll be updating the news and appearances, fixing typos, and making adjustments to pages as needed. This will free me up to actually get some of the major things done in a more timely manner.

Also! While I will continue trying to answer all comments on this journal in a vaguely timely fashion, it...isn't always so possible. To help prevent confusion, I thought I'd give you the names of the folks who are Fully Authorized (tm) to answer direct questions on my behalf.

porpentine does my website code, and can answer any and all questions about how it works.
talkstowolves and vixyish do a lot of administrative duties for me, and can answer practically all questions about what the hell I think I'm doing.
aiglet has the best grasp of my schedule of anyone who isn't me, and can usually answer questions about where I am and when I'll be back.

In short, if you ask a question, and one of these four people answers it, you can take their answer as coming from me. (I realize there will always be less general questions, like "where did you get that icon?" and "hey, didn't I see you last Tuesday at the Gwar concert?" But there's been some confusion lately, stemming from people asking questions and then getting them answered eight ways, by eight different folks. I'm just trying to make it all a little less bewildering. As if that's possible.)

Thank my brave volunteer staffers, and do not throw things at them. They bite.

Let me tell you about Rose Marshall—
Might be the last thing you’ll ever see.
They say some stories will never die,
Well, she died back in fifty-three,
Kept her prom night date with the cemetery.

—"Pretty Little Dead Girl."

"Have you ever heard the story of the woman at the diner?"

—Rose Marshall, "Good Girls Go to Heaven."

Sparrow Hill Road is finished now. Twelve stories, twelve stops along a single stretch of highway. We didn't blow a tire or take any unexpected detours along the way, and that's good. And now here we are, and it's time to get out and stretch our legs, at least for a little while. The first part of the story's done.

I knew when I agreed to do Sparrow Hill that it was going to be a one-year commitment. Not only was I not sure how much of the story I'd be able to get through in a year—there was a very real chance that I'd finish the setting completely, leaving nothing untold—but I knew that 2011 would be extremely busy, which would make agreeing to a two-year tenure suicidal for me, and dangerous for Jennifer. A year looked just about perfect. That didn't stop it from being nerve-wracking at times. A few of the stories were turned in just as the ragged edge of my deadline was approaching, and the schedule I was on didn't really give me time to say "you know what? This story needs to be benched, let's do something else." But I never missed a deadline, and I never turned in a story I thought was bad. I can look back on the year with a sort of smug pride. I did that. I turned in one complete narrative a month, every month, for a year. And now I'm finished.

If you know me through filk, you may have met Rose as far back as 2004, when I wrote the song "Pretty Little Dead Girl," although most people didn't "meet" her until I was the OVFF Toastmistress in 2005, and did the song, along with my Rosettes, in a bright pink prom dress on the convention's main stage. I went on to write a bunch of songs about Rose, showing different sides of her story. I always knew I wanted to write the "what really happened" version, eventually, but it seemed too complex for lyrics.

Then Jennifer asked if I wanted to be one of the 2010 Universe Authors, and everything started falling together.

Sparrow Hill Road was challenging, exciting, and complicated in a way that neither novels nor short stories tend to be complicated. It was, essentially, my Green Mile: a serial novel told in strange installments. And like The Green Mile, I'm planning to revise it, turn it into a coherent whole, and see about finding a publisher. But that's going to need to wait a little while.

My big, big thanks go to Jennifer, for being the best editor I could have had on this crazy project; Amber, for taking amazing pictures; Torrey, for being Rose Marshall (and doing a bang-up job of it); Vixy, Amy, Brooke, Kate, Rebecca, and others, for editorial, copy-edits, and letting me talk things through with them; and Phil, always Phil, without whom none of this would have happened.

It was a good ride. It's over now, and there were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys I sent away, but it was a good ride.

Thank you for taking it with me.

Back in mid-September, Borderlands Books in San Francisco played host to the third Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show, assembled to celebrate the release of the third (yes, already) October Daye book, An Artificial Night. Yay! I love Borderlands, I love the Circus, and I love book release parties, so this was like a whole casserole baked entirely out of pixie dust and joy. PIXIE DUST AND JOY.

We began with me, Amy, Brooke, Ryan, and Mia at my house, getting ready for the day ahead of us. This largely consisted of "putting on clothes" and "packing the event kit," a large orange plastic box that carries all the non-perishables needed for a big book party (raffle tickets, raffle prizes, bookmarks, paper plates, pens for signing stuff, occasionally one or more of the cats if we don't seal it fast enough). Ryan and Mia drove off with Amy. Mom picked the rest of us up, along with my youngest sister* and her girlfriend, and we drove to San Francisco, only stopping off to buy classy, classy cake from the warehouse store.

We got to the bookstore hours early, and stowed our stuff in the bookstore before scattering to find food. Amy, Brooke, and I would up going to a tacqueria down the street, which fed us delicious Mexican food, and kept Brooke from killing and eating us all. I ate a chicken burrito, nom, and we walked back to the bookstore to find a Kate sitting outside, reading a book, and the rest of the descending Circus waiting inside. Hooray! CIRCUS TIME! The entire Circus was wearing orange and black and green. ORANGE GIRLS OF THE WORLD, UNITE. Seriously, it was MAD AWESOME.

The night was divided into five distinct activities: music; raffle drawings; cake; reading; Q&A. We had breaks between activities, so people could mill, visit, use the bathroom, and shop (being as we were in a very large, enticing bookstore and all).

MUSIC: Musicians from everywhere! Alphabetically by instrument, we had Brooke Lunderville on banjo, Betsy Tinney on cello, Amy McNally on fiddle, SJ Tucker on guitar and vocals, Michelle "Vixy" Dockrey on vocals, and me on occasional "flustered author is flustered" vocals. (We did close with "Wicked Girls," so that's all right.)

RAFFLE: You got one ticket for showing up, one ticket for a purchase from the cafe, and one ticket for a purchase at the bookstore, for a maximum of three tickets per person. The drawing included everything from books to pendants to toys, and was fun, as always, with the usual amount of fuss and cheering for the winners. Buckets of fun.

CAKE: We had two cakes, and no cake cutting device. So Alan, glorious Alan, cut the cake with a gladius. I love having events at Borderlands. I love it SO DAMN HARD.

READING: Because I didn't want to read from the third Toby book, I read "Lost" from Ravens in the Library. When I started the story, the store had three copies left in stock. When I finished it, they had...zero. Literally, I started to say "I think this may be the last one," and Jude signaled that no, it had been sold while I was reading. Super-fun! Also, I made Vixy cry. Flawless victory.

Q&A: The Q&A was, as always, insane. You should come to one sometime.

During the milling sections, people talked, bought books, bought pendants, and bought copies of Sooj's new album, Mischief. (We wound up selling out of that, too.) Many books were sold, many hugs were given, and at the end of the night, we bid the bookstore a fond farewell and went down the street to Fritz, where we ate fries and mussels and crepes, and were joyful.

Everybody loves a night at the circus. Don't you?

(*The one who looks like a zaftig gothic Betty Page.)c

While I was in New York the week before last, I did a lot of traveling via the PATH Train, a fairly simplistic transit system whose entire purpose is to get people from Jersey City to Manhattan, and vice-versa. This is normal for me. I am an old hand at riding the PATH, and no longer become in any way distressed about it.

Only the thing is, on Sundays, the PATH bounces through Hoboken on its way from Jersey City to Manhattan. This is a very jerky, bumpy, throw-you-around-y section of track, since it's not part of the everyday commute. Also on Sundays, they run fewer trains, resulting in a greater density of people on each individual train.

Can you guess what's coming next? I bet you can guess what's coming next.

Sunday, Kate and I got on the PATH to head into the city to have lunch with The Agent and another of her clients, followed by dinner with Betsy (Wollheim, not Tinney; it would have been a clever trick to somehow have dinner with my Seattle Maine Coon breeder whilst in New York). The train was very full when we got on; we had to stand. I got whiter and whiter as the train moved, trying desperately to keep from crying.

When I started screaming every time the car jerked to one side or another, some nice people let me have their seat. Thank you, nice people. I took my emergency pain killers and cried. "Take more painkillers and cry" was pretty much the mantra of the day, which would otherwise have been absolutely lovely. Because Betsy is a golden goddess who shall be renowned in song and story, she even drove us back to Jersey City after dinner. I have sent her a thank-you card.

My back has been out ever since. It's getting better, slowly, but it's been long enough since I had a flare-up this bad that, well, I'm being sort of a wimp about it. I cry a lot. I've been to the doctor for more painkillers, and I'm trying to schedule a spinal epidural, but right now? Right now, I just cry a lot. Part of me is glad that I'm missing OVFF and World Fantasy and my Alabama corn maze, because I am in SO MUCH PAIN right now that I wouldn't really enjoy them anyway.

So if I seem a little curt, or a little out of it, that's because I am either in extreme pain, or legally stoned to prevent the extreme pain from being a problem. Show mercy, I beg of thee. And please, Great Pumpkin, let this be over soon.

Last night was all about me and Cat Valente and the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art, home of the New York Science Fiction Review series of readings. Because, you know, when you import yourself a couple of fairy tale girls, the only thing to do is stick them in front of a large crowd and wait for the fun to begin.

But the fun has to begin at the beginning...

My flight got in right on time, which was a small blessing, since I wasn't really sleeping very well. Mind you, the fact that I was able to sleep at all made me a lucky girl. I had actually upgraded my ticket to Main Cabin Select, as that was the only way to get out of being crammed into a middle seat for five hours in the air. I turned out to be the only person in my row, and was able to pull the "belt yourself into the middle seat, curl up like a pillbug, and sleep" trick. Blessed empty seats, how I adore thee. But there were screaming babies on the plane, and there was turbulence, and it was not a restful night.

Jon and Merav collected me from the airport, and—after dropping Merav at work—Jon drove me home...where Kate was already waiting on the front stoop. Whoops. We went inside. I plugged in my laptop to make sure nothing was on fire, and the phone calls began, making it quite clear that a nap was not in my future. Well, fine, be that way, universe. After showering and changing my clothes, we were off, to meet The Agent in lovely downtown Manhattan, and eat lunch. Because without sleep and without food, I was going to murder someone.

(Incidentally, this was the first time The Agent got to meet Kate. They got along. So when they destroy your puny planet, don't worry. I'm sure they'll make you a nicer new one before long.)

Lunch was challah French toast and mussels, at least for me. Om nom. From there, we went to a lovely tea house The Agent knew about, where she and Kate drank lovely tea, and I passed out on a love seat. Eventually, The Agent went off to do something else, and Kate stole my headphones, while I...passed out on the love seat again. But then! A Cat Valente came and joined our party! Hooray! Kate and Cat sat and chatted while I achieved that nebulous state known as "wakefulness," and we set out for the venue. With one of those "only in New York" stops along the way, to buy hand-crafted artisan popsicles. No, seriously. I mean it.

We ate our popsicles, giggled a lot, and walked onward, to the SoHo Gallery of Digital Art...and into our very own fairy tale. The walls were covered in our books, our faces, our everything, and it was incredible. It was like a dream. I squeaked. We stared in awe. And then, because we needed our fairy tale faces in this fairy tale place, we ran off to change our clothes, Cat into a mad awesome tailored suit, me into a bright orange skirt and green top. And then the flood began.

We were both a little worried, in that abstract author way, that no one would show up. It turns out that what we should have been worried about was violating fire code, as the room wound up so packed that we ran out of chairs, then ran out of wall, and finally, ran out of places to stand. Wow. Everyone from DAW came—I got to meet Saladin!—and so did most of my New York friends, along with people like K. Tempest Bradford and Ellen Kushner and Teri Windling OH MY GOD I MET TERI WINDLING.

Ahem.

Cat read an absolutely gorgeous piece from The Habitation of the Blessed. I read "Laughter at the Academy: Field Studies in the Development of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder." Everyone sighed and swooned at Cat's reading; everyone laughed in the appropriate places at mine. I got to shout "IGNITE THE BIOSPHERE!" in a room full of people who'd actually come to hear me do just that. It was magical.

In the Q&A afterward, someone asked us if we'd ever considered doing a photo shoot as Snow White and Rose Red.

And Cat and I laughed.

I have arrived safely in New York.

I have arrived safely in New Jersey.

I have arrived safely at Jon and Merav's house, where I have a bed, and a shower, and Internet access, and Kate.

I will now take a shower, put on clothes, and get ready to head for tonight's reading at the New York Review of Science Fiction. If you're local, you should totally come. It's going to be a blast.

New York!

I am going to Australia.

I am going to Australia, and I have been nominated for the Campbell Award.

Because I am going to Australia, and I have been nominated for the Campbell Award, I am attending the Hugos.

Because I am attending the Hugos, I needed a dress.

Originally, I was having a dress made, but time got away from us, and now this year's fabulous pumpkin patch of a dress will be next year's fabulous pumpkin patch of a dress (which gives me something to look forward to in Reno). I wound up in the unexpected, somewhat awkward position of needing to find a formal dress at basically the last minute. Oh, and did I mention that I have a wacky build and wear a size 16-18 right now? SUPER-FUN.

Thanks to a fantastic crew (Kate, HappyCat, Jeanne) and a fantastic saleswoman at the Walnut Creek Nordstrom's, we found me a dress. Floor-length, one-shoulder, teal and peacock, Grecian-cut...seriously, I put this thing on, and I am suddenly both thirty pounds lighter and thirteen feet tall. It is A DRESS OF MAGIC.

Because I have a dress, I needed shoes and jewelry.

Due to the cut of the dress, a bracelet was mandated; no necklace, which eliminates most of my jewelry collection (I'm planning to carry a Chimera Fancies pendant in my strapless bra, because I am a superstitious bunny). I found a lovely blue and silver swirl bracelet, and ordered a pair of beautiful blue glass earrings from Beckett's Etsy store. My shoes are two-inch tarnished silver heels with a sling-back.

Because I have shoes, I need a pedicure. Because I have a formal dress, I need a haircut.

Being a girl is difficult, yo. But it's all going to be worth it. My little sister (#2, the gothic Betty Page) spent yesterday working out my makeup, and Cat and I are going to have our hair done before the Hugos. I will look like a princess. A weird blue princess who may have a chainsaw somewhere under there, but still, they don't depose you for that.

I am going to Australia, where I will wear my dress. To the Hugos, where my name is on the printed material.

Wow.

That is all.

I have finally managed to stagger home from Marcon, where I had a wonderful time as their Music Guest of Honor, only to get stranded overnight in Chicago (more on this later). As is the standing tradition around here, I now present my concert set list, including annotation and lyric links, because that's what makes it useful.

The Marcon list, with arrangement notes, was as follows:

1. "Counting Crows." (Seanan, vocals; Tom Smith, guitar; Amy McNally, fiddle.)
2. "The Ghost of Lilly Kane." (Seanan, vocals; Dr. Mary Crowell, piano.)
3. "Another Mad Science Love Song." (Seanan, Tom, vocals; Tom, guitar; Mary, Amy, minions.)
4. "What A Woman's For." (Seanan, Mary, Amy, vocals; Mary, piano.)
5. "Missing Part." (Seanan, vocals; Tom, guitar; Amy, fiddle.)
6. "The Black Death." (Seanan, vocals; Tom, guitar; Amy, Mary, eager students.)
7. "Silent Hill." (Seanan, vocals; Mary, piano.)
8. "Dear Gina." (Seanan, Mary, vocals; Mary, piano.)
9. "In the Foam." (Seanan, vocals.)
10. "Mother of the Crows." (Seanan, vocals; Mary, piano; Amy, fiddle.)
11. "Still Catch the Tide." (Seanan, Judi Miller, vocals; Mary, piano; Amy, fiddle.) Talis Kimberley cover.
12. "My Story Is Not Done." (Seanan, vocals; Mary, piano; Amy, fiddle; everybody, last chorus vocals.)
13. "Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves." (Seanan, vocals; Mary, piano; Amy, fiddle.)

The bridge for "Wicked Girls" was...

"Now Debbie's a pirate, and Vixy's run off with the fairies.
Diana keeps careful account of the treasure she buries,
Kate poses riddles, and Mary plays tricks,
While Amy calls music from wires and sticks,
And the rules that we live by are simple and clear..."

This was the first time I was able to perform with Tom Smith on stage, and I was honored and delighted by Mary's willingness to pitch in and do rather more piano than she had originally agreed to. This was also the first time I got to sing with Judi, and have an entire concert set signed by her. The way she signs "Wicked Girls" is...magic. It's just magic.

As always: "Still Catch the Tide" is on Stars Fall Home. "The Black Death," "What A Woman's For," "Another Mad Science Love Song," "Dear Gina," and "Silent Hill" are on Red Roses and Dead Things. "Counting Crows," "The Ghost of Lilly Kane," "Mother of the Crows," "My Story Is Not Done," and "Wicked Girls" will be on Wicked Girls.

This was a great set; thanks to everyone who was there, to Marcon for having me, and to Kate, for running the merchandise table with grace and aplomb.

See you next con!

First up, I'm going to be speaking at CoyoteCon this coming Saturday night; schedule details are here. I'm appearing as part of an author conversation, alongside Lucy Snyder, and I'm very excited. Best of all, since this is a virtual conference, I can do it while wearing my jack-o-lantern sleep pants and snuggling my kitties. It's much easier to be professional and authorial when I get to wear pumpkin pants and get kitty snuggles. I'm just saying.

Next weekend, I'm going a bit further afield, and while I could probably do it in my pajamas if I really wanted to, kitty snuggles are not an option. I'm Filk Guest of Honor at Marcon in scenic Columbus, Ohio. I'll be performing in concert with Tom Smith, Dr. Mary Crowell, and the ever-fabulous Amy McNally, and Judi Miller will be signing (so if you've ever wanted to see her do "Wicked Girls," you should really show up). The convention is Friday, May 28th through Sunday, May 30th, and I'm super excited.

I'll post my schedule for the con sometime next week. And oh! I'm bringing Kate as my official handler, so if you've been dying to meet her, again, you should really show up. I have no scheduled bookstore events while in Ohio, but I've met me, and I'm likely to sign any stock that presents itself; I'll try to put up a list of which stores I visit, just in case you can't make the convention, but can make the drive.

This is my first Marcon, and I'd really like to make it amazing. Yes, it does mean I'll be missing BayCon; I'm planning to miss BayCon next year, too, as I'm probably attending Wiscon. The times, they are a'changing.

Marcon!

Once again, my big list o' holidays* says that today is a holiday that is very important to me, and makes a big impact on my life. Maybe not as big an impact as Virus Appreciation Day (October 3rd), which I celebrate every year by not unleashing the pandemic, or Cuckoo Warning Day (June 21st), which is best celebrated by evolving parasitic wasps into telepathic humanoids, but still, it's important to me.

Today is Australia Day.

So today we celebrate the existence of Australia, the continent which proves that evolution did a lot of drugs when it was young. Today we celebrate the fact that Australia is full of things that want to make us all die, the fact that Australia is frequently on fire, and the fact that Australia essentially hates humanity. Specific things to celebrate about Australia include venomous snakes, spiders the size of dinner plates, marsupials, really interesting money, the koala (which will totally rip your face off if you poke it), and the cone snail, which is the size of a man's thumb and can kill you extremely dead. This is why you do not fuck around with the native wildlife of Australia.

Tonight I will celebrate by going to Kate's house to eat tasty Indian food and tell her things she never wanted to know about the many ways in which Australia can render you extremely deceased. There will be expository hand-gestures, and possibly even diagrams. Kate puts up with a lot from me, really. And later this year, I'll belatedly celebrate Australia Day by actually going to Melbourne, Australia, for the glory of WorldCon.

Thank you for existing, Australia! Today is your day. Your venomous, deadly, kicking-your-ass, being eaten by koalas day.

Hooray Australia!

(*I have a list containing a holiday for every single day of the year. Some days have more than one holiday listed. The world needs more excuses for a party.)

Recently, I picked up a book that looked interesting. It hit many of my "sweet spots" for plot, description, and cover blurbs from people I trust. The cover didn't do it any favors, featuring, as it did, a generic Urban Fantasy Hot Girl standing in a Playboy circa-1984 pose, but I've enjoyed books with way worse covers. I entered the text in good faith.

By page two, I was ready to fling the book across the room. Why? Because the author had chosen to scramble the spelling of a common-to-the-genre word in a way that made it look not only pretentious, but difficult to read. This is a personal bug-a-boo of mine, since I really do feel that spelling was standardized for a reason, and while I managed to soldier through, it colored my ability to sink into the text for several chapters.

(As an aside, seriously: not all words become more interesting and mysterious when spelled with a vestigial "y." The worst example I've ever seen was in a YA series full of "mermyds," and the fact that I made it through all three volumes is a testament to the power of raw stubborn.)

One reader of Rosemary and Rue posted a lengthy, positive review, more than half of which was taken up by complaints about the pronunciation guide. Specifically, I didn't write down the correct pronunciation of "Kitsune." It's a fair cop—if you pronounce the word as written in the pronunciation guide, you'll be saying it wrong—and it's been corrected for A Local Habitation, but it was, for this person, as bad as if I'd spelled Toby's name "Aughtcober" and then claimed it was pronounced just like the month. Bug-a-boos for all!

Kate recently delivered a long and eloquent diatribe on "back cover buzz-word bingo," which I really wish I'd had a video camera running for, because it was awesome. The summation is that she watches the back covers of books for certain "buzz-words," and, if the book works up to a magical bingo score, she doesn't read it. I do something similar with bad horror movies, since there are specific buzz-words that mean "soft core porn" and "gratuitous torture," and those really aren't what I'm watching the movie to see.

So what are your bug-a-boos? Terribly twisted spelling? Pronunciations that you don't agree with? Buzz-words oozing off the back cover and getting all over your shoes? How about heroines with ruby hair and emerald eyes who aren't appearing in an Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld fanfic epic? Inquiring blondes want to know!

Well, I survived the weekend, with the assistance of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show that descended upon my house and made my book release parties extra awesome. I'll be posting detailed recaps of the parties later, after I've finished catching up on all the sleep I didn't get over the course of the weekend. (Seriously, right now, my idea of a recap is something like "and then I ate candy corn, and then I signed some books, and look, a bunny," which leaves out rather a lot of important details.)

My cats also survived the weekend, which was rather more in question, since Lilly doesn't like having large crowds between her and me, and Alice is still young enough to get impressively over-stimulated. Lilly spent the first night of the invasion (when we had Betsy in my room, Mia and Ryan in the spare room, and Amy, Brooke, and I in the back room) sleeping on my chest and growling in the back of her throat, Just In Case someone decided to try slitting my throat in the night. When no one attacked me, she moved on to pissy Siamese stage two, Shunning The Human, and provided a great deal of amusement, since she shuns about as well as I drive (and I don't drive). Alice did me the immense favor of being well-behaved and fluffy in front of Betsy, who bred her, and who needed to see her being happy, healthy, and fluffy.

Today has been pretty cool so far. Everybody seems to be getting home safely (always a concern, if you happen to be me), and my house is gradually returning to normal. Since it's Tuesday, I'll be going to Kate's tonight, to eat tasty Indian food, sleep in the basement, and resume my normal existence. I'm very excited by this fact. I like things that are normal (normal to me, anyway). I'm also going to be swinging through the Other Change of Hobbit to see whether they need any additional stock signed, and to confirm the dates for the rescheduled book release party. More information as it becomes available.

Chicks Dig Time Lords is now available for pre-order! Here's a link to the Amazon page. The brain-child of the lovely taraoshea, Chicks Dig Time Lords is a book of essays about being female in Doctor Who fandom, and what the show has meant to more than a few generations of Gallifrey Girls. It was co-edited by rarelylynne. I really loved being a part of this project, and I'm super-excited about it. Doctor Who has been one of my favorite shows since I was three years old. You can get your own copy of Chicks Dig Time Lords on March 15th, 2010—two weeks after you can get your own copy of A Local Habitation!

I'm exhausted, but I seem to be over the horrible plague that hit me just before book release, which is a wonderful thing (as yes, I did fear a relapse). This weekend, I get to hang out with a huge, merry crew over at the Bohnhoff place, and then head into Berkeley to do the Solano Stroll. And oh, right, it's time to get to work on finishing Blackout.

Welcome to fall. Now the work begins.

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

2. Fourteen days. Just saying.

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

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

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

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

7. I want a nap.

How's by you?

I, Seanan McGuire, am intending to be writing books, stories, and other bits of fiction for the foreseeable future. Because I am a reasonably nice person (except when I'm not) who likes not being lynched (except when I do), I have decided to make the following promises. They're sort of the other side of my personal resolutions (see also "Flowers, Chocolates, and Promises You Don't Intend to Keep"), only they're a little more geared toward stuff I won't do because I don't want to be an asshole.

I. If something is part of a series, I will say that it is part of a series. I won't stealthily trick you into picking up a book and then spring a cliffhanger on you. I won't promise that stand-alone books will never develop sequels, but I promise that as soon as I know, I'll get the information out there. (Kate will tell you I don't write stand-alone books. Kate is sadly probably right.)

II. If I discover that a book has been packaged in a way that does not clearly indicate that something is part of a series, I will make doubly sure to include series information in a prominent place on my website, because a little typing now is a lot more fun than a lot of getting yelled at later.

III. I will do my absolute best to end every book in a way which makes it perfectly okay to say "right, done now." If this isn't possible, for whatever reason, I will only end a book on a cliffhanger or unresolved note when I can provide a guaranteed publication date for the sequel.

IV. I will not change genres in the middle of an ongoing series just because I've decided that I really want to be writing steampunk horror instead of urban fantasy and don't want to go through the work of starting something new. (Actually, I always want to go through the work of starting something new. Still, it's nice to be upfront.)

V. If I get tired of a series, I will bring it to a reasonable and satisfying conclusion, rather than continuing to beat the dead horse for another eighteen volumes out of inertia.

VI. I will keep my FAQs up-to-date and accessible, thus making it a little less annoying when I become completely overwhelmed and answer ninety percent of the questions I receive with "it's in the FAQs." (This should also give me time to answer the remaining ten percent in English, not Typo. Typo is a strange and difficult language, and I've never really mastered it.)

VII. I will continue to put myself through rigorous and vicious editorial, because the editing process is fun. Also because if I stop allowing myself to be edited, Vixy and Brooke will come for me in the night. They will come for me in the night with very sharp sticks, and they will edit me.

VIII. I will not answer fair and reasoned critique with "oh yeah? Why don't you come over here and say it to my face, punk?" For one thing, some people might, and those are usually the people that are bigger than I am.

IX. I will not rewrite my work to meet unfair and unreasoned critique. Not everyone is going to like me. I will attempt to be at peace with that. When I am not at peace with that, I will attempt to do something other than "hide under the bed and hope they go away."

X. I will not answer "you killed my favorite character" with "it sucks to be you, doesn't it?" I also won't resurrect anybody whose resurrection was not already planned. No, not even if you cry.

XI. If you say "Bob is my favorite character," and then we have a big fight, I will not take it out on Bob. That isn't fair to Bob. It isn't fair to my plot, either. But damn, I'll probably be tempted.

XII. I will not write a book just for the purpose of "creating real literature" and "finally being taken seriously as an author." I take horror movies, My Little Ponies, and street pennies seriously. I thus must assume that some people will take me seriously no matter what I do, and since they don't require me to wear a powder blue pantsuit and go on Oprah, they're the ones that matter.

XIII. I will remember that I am Christopher Walken, and enjoy every minute of it.

Item the first: at least four—yes, four, which is a number higher than two, so yay—reviewers/bookstores have received their ARCs of Rosemary and Rue, along with the snazzy watercolor cards that Alice so helpfully "helped" me finish. Thank you, Alice. Thank you so very, very much. (As an Alice-related sub-item, my puffy Halloween ball of trouble turned twenty weeks old yesterday, and celebrated her failure to get sucked into the vacuum cleaner by falling off the cat tree. Again. Maine Coons, unlike boa constrictors, have gravity.)

Item the second: Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon will not be attending BayCon this year, due to being really, really sick. Nobody's dying, I don't have all the details, and also, I didn't do it. If I were going to start the pandemic, there are other people I'd target first, and I'd have published my cackling manifesto by now. "Yay, swine flu!" does not count as a cackling manifesto, it counts as a really weird idea of what constitutes entertainment.

Item the third: speaking of entertainment, Kate and I watched the season finales for two of our season-pass shows last night—America's Next Top Model and Fringe. (Never let it be said that I am ashamed of my taste in anything.) One of the girls on this season of ANTM was totally a Toby-universe Daoine Sidhe, I swear. Real people aren't supposed to have ElfQuest eyes, but she somehow managed to pull it off. I will miss you, freaky alien-elf-eyed girl! Although I won't miss the nightmares you gave me about Toby tracking me down with a pair of pliers and a smile!

Item the fourth: So You Think You Can Dance returns to television tomorrow night. In supposedly unrelated news, I'm getting ready to get back to work on Discount Armageddon. Hmmmm...

Item the fifth: Dawn Metcalf to the white courtesy phone, dawn_metcalf to the white courtesy phone. It has now been forty-eight hours, and I still don't have a mailing address for you. If I don't hear from you within the next twenty-four hours, I will be choosing a new winner for the signed cover flat of Rosemary and Rue. In actually related news, the poetry contest to win an ARC of Rosemary and Rue is still going. Please drop by and vote, if you haven't already.

Item the sixth: I am still the Rain King.

Last night -- following our regular Thursday dinner of Tasty Indian Food (tm) and the ceremonial watching of the season premiere of cycle twelve of America's Next Top Model -- Kate and I began discussing the current state of Late Eclipses of the Sun, which is to say, spread out across my laptop like a patient etherized upon a table. I'm doing heavy, heavy surgery on this book, which is making it steadily better, smoother, and more compelling, but is still getting blood all over everything.

(If you're wondering, and don't feel like going digging, Late Eclipses of the Sun is the fourth Toby book. The first, Rosemary and Rue, is the one that's coming out September first [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies]. The second is A Local Habitation, and the third is An Artificial Night; they've both been turned in to my editor at DAW. The second trilogy starts with Late Eclipses, and then runs The Brightest Fell and Ashes of Honor. What, me plan ahead?)

In an effort to explain what was happening in Late Eclipses, I basically ran down what had already changed, what was planned to change, and what needed to happen in book five, since book four sort of sets a lot of that up. This wound up turning into a review of the events planned for books four through six, with notes on what had changed. It was sort of fascinating, in an abstract sort of a way, because a lot of what I do in terms of series outlining is best defined as pebbles in ponds. I create ponds -- these are the overall stories, the things I want to have happen when everything is said and done. I get a pile of pebbles -- the characters, specific situations, and little complications. And then I stand on the shore, throwing rocks at the water, and watching where the ripples go. Thing is, the pebbles keep getting bigger, and the patterns of the water are very rarely what I would have initially expected. Plus, sometimes I change my mind. It's all very quantum.

To be quite clear, I really do know where I'm going, and I always know where the ending is, what's happening, and why. It's just that the details of the journey change, and that makes me very, very happy. I like to be surprised by my characters! I like to know that the things they do have a purpose, and seeing the moments where everything shifts really keeps me engaged. Sure, I could try to yank everything back on-track to get so some pre-determined 'perfect scene,' but what would be the fun in that?

Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out across the sky...

So I keep meaning to say deep and meaningful things ("I got carnivorous plants for Valentine's Day!" "No, really -- one of my sundews is eating moths already, like a wee sticky Audrey II."), or at least report on the progress that I've been making on The Mourning Edition ("Epileptic miniature bulldogs are the pet everyone's going to be screaming for this season."), but all I really seem to manage is vague grumbling noises, accompanied by the distracted waving of hands. I am wiped out.

Why am I wiped out? Well, let's see. Today, I...

* Carted THREE BOXES OF TRASH out of my house, which entailed, of course, initially generating three boxes of trash. Admittedly, it was made easier by the presence of several water-damaged shipping boxes (one of which originally contained the aforementioned carnivorous plants), since I didn't have to scrounge to generate box-shaped piles of trash, but still.

* Went shopping with Kate, who managed to convince me -- through cunning application of the Weather Channel, which insists that it gets cold on the East Coast -- that I needed some wool trousers. So we went to the mall. For wool trousers. To wear in New York, in March. Well, I have wool trousers now. Also green corduroys, a very nice 'statement piece' blouse, two new bras, and a double-breasted kelly-green coat. Behold, for now I wear the human pants. I hate shopping so hard.

* Did my Richard Simmons workout tape for the first time in months and months. Look: I'm one of those people who starts every day with an energy bar that has somehow been turned up to two hundred percent of safe storage. If I don't walk a mile before breakfast, I get twitchy. For a long time, I was controlling my natural desire to fidget with DDR and Richard Simmons. Only it turns out that I have three severely herniated disks in my lower back, and they're not so hot on all that high-impact stuff. So anyway, after a lot of healing time, a lot of pills, an MRI, and some PT, I'm finally trying to get back into a certain amount of actual exercise. It makes me paradoxically less tired. Only not today, since today, my body is very confused, and hence yelling at me.

So on that seriously more-productive-than-it-looks note, I'm going to close this down and take myself to bed, to sleep the sleep of the good, the just, and the just plain tuckered. I'll be interesting again tomorrow, I promise.

Since I fly to Seattle tomorrow -- because, of course, every good California girl who gets cold when someone says the words 'wind-chill factor' should absolutely fly from her nice, temperate state into an ongoing blizzard for the holidays -- I've been spending a great deal of my time and attention getting ready for this exciting holiday adventure. It's always a holiday adventure when you combine me, Vixy, Tony, access to art supplies, access to Rock Band, and a lot of free time. And that doesn't even go into our actual plans for the ten days that I'm going to be up in their neck of the woods. Highlights include...

* A trip to Powell's, the City of Books! Where I will once again demonstrate that I have absolutely no common sense when it comes to judging the number of books I actually need vs. the number of books my house can actually hold. I swear, I need a dedicated library. Which means I need to move out of earthquake country, since otherwise, there's a tragic Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction-related death in my future.

* A trip to Voodoo Doughnut, the pastry shop of doom, destruction, and a nice vanilla glaze! Seriously, I've never been to this place, but the descriptions (and photographs) on their website are scaaaaaary. They have Captain Crunch doughnuts. They have literal voodoo doll doughnuts. They do not currently have the NyQuil doughnuts, and that's probably a good thing, because I would totally feel compelled to eat one, and then I'd sleep until New Years.

* Musical rehearsal with the Garcias! Alisa and Luis Garcia are two of the sweetest, most incredibly awesome people I know. They're also crazy-good musicians with three fantastic kids and a really cute dog. Honestly, only their lack of broadband Internet keeps their lives from resembling a glimpse into Geek Heaven. Tony, Vixy, and I are going to pile into their guest house and get our musical badassitude on. (I have, once again, designed a concert set of almost entirely new material. My friends will kill me one of these days.)

* A meet-up with Team Seattle! I have no real clue what this means, beyond 'I finally get to meet Mark 'oh, what's this, I seem to have written a supernatural romance starring a zombie before you could, how did that happen, ha ha' Henry in the presumably living flesh,' but I'm anticipating a lot of wacky antics, and maybe a repeatable anecdote or two. (Given that I can find repeatable anecdotes in making toast, my odds are good.)

...and, of course, the house concert on January 3rd, wherein Vixy, Tony, and I will be bringing down the house and raising the roof at the same time. We're like magicians. Magicians of rock. There may also be a little roll in there. Rock, roll, all that good stuff. I may even be able to convince Tony that he wants to perform 'Sycamore Tree' in public.

So anyway, preparations have been ongoing for the past few weeks, gathering speed like a snowball running down a hill in a Warner Brothers cartoon. I've managed to mostly finish packing, assuming Lilly didn't slaughter my suitcase last night while I was at Kate's, and the total cleansing of my room* has helped to confirm the divide between 'what I need' vs. 'what I have.' Today's to-do list is all little things, like 'buy Luna bars,' 'pick up comics,' and 'print your tickets.' This is in contrast to last week's to-do lists, which still included items like 'where the hell is the bedroom floor?' and 'enslave the Martians.'

The inclusion of a house concert in the holiday plans meant the inclusion of dress-up clothes in my traveling wardrobe, since Vixy and I both tend to wear pretty dresses when we perform. The inclusion of dress-up clothes meant a sudden up-tick in my personal grooming. And that's why last night, prior to having tasty Indian food and watching The Usual Suspects with Kate, I went to the Harmony Beauty Salon -- our torture chamber of choice -- and had my legs waxed. Ever had your legs waxed? It's exciting new adventure in the realms of pain and exfoliation, since the wax also removes several layers of dead skin from whatever it touches. Also, the wax is green, and looks suspiciously like the mutagent from the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Mutation could be just around the corner! Which makes me feel better about the whole process.

Pain. Because without it, how would we really know that it's the holiday season?

(*Seriously. It's totally clean. I took pictures as soon as I was finished, because otherwise, nobody would ever believe me that I had managed to get it to that state. A photo tour of my bedroom, coming soon to a theater near you.)

"Why do you have that look on your face?"
"My head is full of bees, and the turtle cannot help me."
"...huh?"
"Ignore me, I have the dumb."
"Will do.

(Actual conversation with an actual human. Names omitted to protect the innocent, but I bet you can guess which one was me.)

So I am made of fuss and flail today, which basically means I'm totally unfocused and just want to go back to bed. As this is tragically not an option, I'm guzzling Diet Dr Pepper like a stretch SUV guzzles premium unleaded, and praying that dinosaurs attack San Francisco, forcing an evacuation and allowing me to, yes, go back to bed. Plus, people would probably get eaten by dinosaurs, and that always puts me in a better mood. (The 'always' in the following sentence may not apply when I'm the one getting eaten by dinosaurs, as I have yet to really enjoy any of the various reptile bites I've received, but hey. Maybe it's different when it's a velociraptor.)

Kate informed me this morning that we are now living in the future, as she has all these cool technological capabilities that seemed totally outside the realm of possibility* even ten years ago. I agreed that this was probably true, but the fact is that I'm currently living a little bit in the past, which probably accounts for some of my internal bees. See, a year ago, I hadn't...

* ...finished Newsflesh.
* ...finished Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues.
* ...even thought of the InCryptid books.
* ...rebooted Rosemary and Rue, and hence the entire Toby universe.
* ...signed with an agent.
* ...sold a book.
* ...gone to New York to visit a major publishing house. Especially not one where I belonged.

Basically? I'm not ready for the future that actually exists, because I'm living in the future that I dreamed about when I was nine years old. I have a bright orange bedroom. All my bedding is a) orange, b) green, or c) Halloween themed -- hell, one of my pillowcases is bright orange and covered in little white ghosts that glow in the dark. Brightly enough that I can use them as a nightlight, no less, which is really convenient for the hour or so after I first go to bed. I have a Siamese that is so ideal to my conception of The Perfect Cat that I may as well have designed her in a genetics lab. Horror movies are popular again. I can stay up as late as I want (even if I'm almost always in bed by nine-thirty). There's good stuff on TV, and my stepdad never turns off the movie when the scary parts make me hide under my sleeping bag. I'm sorry, but I'm quite prepared to sign up for the future that's happening to everybody else. I'm still enjoying the one where having an orange ceramic octopus and a plush velociraptor creates an ideal world.

In other news, I've started receiving edits on the first three chapters of The Brightest Fell, thus proving that my personal reality show is continuing to pull good ratings. ("Well, Barbara, they're in their fifth season, with countless spin-offs, and still going strong...") Recording for Red Roses and Dead Things is totally done, and my cover art is so awesome it makes me want to scream. Safeway has two-liter bottles of Diet Dr Pepper at buy three, get three free. And my head remains full of bees.

Bleah.

(*You think I'm kidding? Go back and read some of the really classic whizz-bang-pow science fiction from the 1950s to the 1970s, back when it was all jut-jawed heroes, pneumatic blondes, and phallic rocketships. Did they have Tivo, text messaging, downloadable libraries, terabytes of data-storage in an easily handled medium, reality television, blogging, or distributed informational hyperspace models? No. They had plastic spacesuits and freeze-dried ice cream. The world has changed so much, on such a mundane level, that we totally forget just how far into the future we actually are.)

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

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

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

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

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

I attempted logic:

"They have grass on this show."

I should not attempt to use logic against Kate:

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

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

Mantis: still in my bathroom. He has relocated his tiny insectivore self to the roll of paper towels, where he has a higher vantage from which to snatch unsuspecting flies out of the air and devour their tiny brainless bodies. He's very yellow, and too small for my camera (which is actually Rey's camera, and not terribly high-tech) to be very happy about trying to focus on him. Which is a pity, 'cause he's pretty.

The mantis will probably be going to live in Kate and GP's garden tonight, where, as Kate puts it, 'he will grow fat and strong in the Bird of Paradise.' As they currently have no mantids, and I have an entire home-grown colony, this is probably fair, but I'm still going to miss him.

Lycanthropy: still finished. I was a little worried when I woke up this morning that I'd discover my belief that the book was done to be some sort of perverse, wicked hallucination, brought about by inhaling too many Sharpie fumes, but no, the book is really done. This draft of the book, anyway. Now I get to start doing the heavy lifting of revision and correction...but since you can't revise or correct until a book is finished, I'm really not finding myself all that concerned.

Although...



...just sayin'.

Lilly would like my attention now, and as I do not believe in thwarting Siamese when avoidable, I'll be back later.

The Toby Daye books are urban fantasy with a hefty dose of traditional folklore, all mixed up with fairy tales, fables, and as many folksongs as I thought might be a good idea. It's mythology soup, and it's an awesome universe to play around in, because I can attack things from so many angles. My main character, Toby, has two half-Siamese cats named Cagney and Lacey, and a rose goblin named Spike. Spike is roughly the same size as the cats, gender neutral, and covered in thorns that make it sound like a small percussion instrument when it rattles them at people. I like Spike. Spike is lovely. Spike is constantly underfoot, but Spike is lovely.

Since I started working on this series, 'one day we'll have plush rose goblins!' has basically been the rallying cry of my proofreaders and sounding boards. (Well, that, and 'Seanan, go to sleep, it's four in the morning and I have to work tomorrow.') Something about an animate rose bush that wants to share your pillow just seems to appeal to people. I have no idea why.

The lovely Kate has been experimenting with crocheting a rose goblin. So far, her best attempt has actually turned into an Ood (from the current series of Doctor Who). Being the enormous fangirl that I am, this doesn't make me love it any less. The Ood now lives atop my desk, at least until I can get it some glossy black eyes and maybe a little plastic brain to tote about on its little crochet chain.

Upon returning to my home the other day, I found a large, unexpected box waiting on my bed. I eyed it warily. While I have never received a box that actually contained a) explosives, b) smallpox, or c) a live squid, I know my friends, and a certain degree of wariness is simply a function of wanting to live a long and successful life. The box didn't tick, slither, or explode. I decided to open it. And inside, I found...

...a large floral-print rag doll cat, covered in irregular lace 'spikes,' with bright green shoe button eyes. I stared. The 'cat' stared back, that being what shoe button eyes do. And then I started to shriek. ELUCREH MADE ME A ROSE GOBLIN!!!! Yes! My first plush rose goblin has been achieved, and it is awesome and large and currently sitting atop my dresser, staring at things. It's very good at staring at things. It doesn't have a name yet, but it definitely has a piercing stare.

This is so cool.

Well, as I noted last week, my upcoming trip to New York and its business requirements have resulted in the realization that I Need Some Grownup Clothes. (Now, just to clear up a small misconception here: I do actually wear clothes on a fairly regular basis. I am not a big fan of wandering around unclothed. It's just that mostly, I'm a fan of T-shirts, tank tops, jeans, cut-offs, and corsetry. None of these are really what we'd call 'business-appropriate clothing.' Not unless I decided to get a job as the new receptionist for the Suicide Girls, and there, I lack sufficient piercings.) Not only do I Need Some Grownup Clothes, but I Need Some Grownup Clothes That Can Be Worn In New York In The Summer. New York summer is a very different sort of beastie than California summer, both in terms of fashion rules and, y'know, the part where it is ELEVENTY BILLION DEGREES AND HUMID. And yet we're the coast where you can practically get away with the formal bikini. Something is very wrong here, folks.

Luckily for me -- and by extension, for everybody else, since my madness tends to be contagious -- I have a Kate. Kate is originally from the East Coast. Kate understands the laws of fashion. And Kate understands that I am, in fact, an anthropologist from some slightly skewed parallel dimension, here to research your strange Earth customs, and thus really don't comprehend at all why I can't wear an orange and green patchwork pinstriped jacket in a business setting. Or why it's bad to go to a business meeting looking like a Batman villain. After watching me stumble through two stores with the shell-shocked expression of a Disney Princess thrust into a real-girl world, she took mercy and agreed to take me to the mall.

Most horrifying thing I have ever heard Kate say, just before we made the approach to the Sun Valley Mall: "Oh, doing the mall properly takes about eight hours."

(I am not a shopper. I am, in fact, a seek-and-destroyer. I can browse in book stores and comic book shops and the like, but just about everything else, I want to go in, grab what's needed, and get the hell out of dodge. The idea of spending eight hours in a mall is incomprehensible to me.)

We started in Sears, largely because that was where the door was, and quickly determined that there was no point trying more things on until we'd bought me a new bra. Kate's mission in life is to get all women into bras that actually fit. She has a rant. It's a really good rant, but I'm not as good at giving it as she is, so I'll just say 'we left Sears and went to Victoria's Secret.' All hail the Vicky's semi-annual sale. Further, all hail the way the really nifty colored bras always seem to wind up in the discount bin. Who has a neon-pumpkin-orange bra? Well, now, that would be me. Who is absolutely overjoyed about this fact? Again, me. Sometimes it's really good to be the sort of person who takes pleasure in the little things. Like orange lingerie.

Kate required food, so we relocated to another level of the mall, which turned out to be awesome, because the very first store we went into after feeding her was also the last one we visited on an actual mission. YES. We found me THE PERFECT OUTFIT. To be specific, we found me...

* A black pinstripe short-sleeved fitted suit jacket.
* Matching knee-length formal shorts.
* Also, the matching knee-length pencil skirt.
* Two different variations on the lace-embellished orange tank top.

Yes. We found a suit that is so formal and so classic and so cute at the same time that I can actually get away with accessorizing in orange. Also, the whole thing is super-cute; I put it on and I've instantly lost thirty pounds. It's amazing. I now fully understand the value of the fitted suit. Having shorts and a skirt means that I can decide day-of what I want to deal with wearing, and having two tank tops gives a second range of options, since they're embellished differently.

I still need to find shoes and appropriate jewelry; this is why I am now searching for something in an orange patent kitten heel. Which is a sentence I never thought I'd write. For jewelry, I'm on the market for something enthrallingly green, and have a few places to go looking. (I'm hoping I can wear my 'witch of ripe apple' pendant, but it's going to need earrings to balance it, as it's large.) I was actually looking at shoes on eBay. At last, Kate has triumphed. At last, I embrace the native costume of my adopted world.

Also, I am mad hot in this suit. So there.

Kate is attempting to get me ready for New York City. This involves, tragically enough, Dressing Like A Human. Now, my wardrobe consists of three basic modes: 'I own more T-shirts than any single woman ever needs,' 'the zombie apocalypse is coming, and I plan to have front row seating,' and 'Marilyn Munster asks me for fashion tips.' I have been assured that none of these is actually suitable for a New York business setting, even when your business is publishing and the people you're dealing with are used to the fact that they work with authors.

Yesterday's trip was an exercise in the word 'no.' From Kate, I got 'no, you can't wear that, it's synthetic'; 'no, you can't wear that, it has no sleeves'; 'no, you can't wear that, it makes you look like a barge.' From me, we got 'no, I won't wear that'; 'no, I will not wear that either'; 'no, I don't want to wear a jacket'; 'no, I refuse to wear heels when I don't know how much walking I'm going to do.'

It is honestly a miracle that both of us walked away from yesterday alive.

(This makes it sound much more unpleasant than it was. Kate is very patient with my ignorance of many aspects of living like a grownup, and I'm generally willing to take correction, as long as the rules make sense. The issue here is that the rules of the fashion world don't make sense, and there are a whole lot of them. I swear, I'm just going to wind up wearing my Marilyn Munster-meets-Elle Woods pink dress, curling my hair, and singing 'I Am So Much Better Than Before' on a street corner somewhere until somebody makes me stop.)

We're planning to hit the mall on Sunday, which will hopefully end with something other than Kate dragging me off to food because I look like I'm about to gnaw my own leg off. At the hip. New York draws closer, and they don't let you fly naked!