Happy Halloween, everybody, and Happy New Year's Eve to those of you who share my particular calendar. May the Great Pumpkin smile upon you tonight, bringing you candles which burn brightly, candy that never goes stale, corn mazes as complicated as the twisting choices of the heart, and costumes that are inventive, interesting, and not solely founded on the idea that "slutty" and "spooky" are one and the same.

(Lo, if you choose to be Sexy Red Riding Hood or Smoking Hot Super Grover on this night, I salute you, because you're wearing a costume, and I don't question how other people want to celebrate this night of nights. But if you're doing it because you don't think you have a choice, or because you can't think of anything else, call upon the Great Pumpkin. He's the Squash. He'll hook you up.)

I spent last night with my mother and sister at the Pirates of Emerson Haunted House Park, where we demonstrated that sometimes money can buy happiness, since it was money that got us through the gates, and money that allowed us to spring for Speed Passes, thus bypassing the huge "night before Halloween, let's party at the haunted houses" lines. I also demonstrated my eerie spatial memory by tearing through the corn maze in less than ten minutes, trailed by a cluster of lost-looking thrill-seekers who had been wandering the maze for over an hour before I came through Walking With Purpose. Had I been one of the Children of the Corn trolling for victims, He Who Walks Behind the Rows would have eaten very, very well.

Today, my back is out, and so I'm wearing my Starfleet bathrobe (in Sciences blue) over slouchy jeans and an athletic shirt, representing the few, the proud, the bored Starfleet Academy graduate students. Give me replicator coffee or give me death.

Enjoy this holiday. The walls of the world are thin today, and whether your personal year turns tomorrow or two months from tomorrow, thank you for spending this year here, with me.

Trick or treat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. Zombies are love.

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

My last day in Australia dawned bright and disgustingly early, as I needed to be at the airport while the birds were still trying to figure out what the fuck was up with that big shiny "sun" thing. Jeanne and Mal drove me to the airport, where they dumped* me summarily on the curb and sped off into the sunrise. Jerks.

In I went, to check into my flight. I had made a point of arriving hours and hours early, since I needed an aisle seat. Bad back + seventeen hour flight + middle seat = removed from the plan by the EMTs, because I would no longer have been capable of moving my legs. As it was, by requesting an aisle seat at the absolute rear of the plane, I was able to get what I needed, and nobody had to get hurt. On I went, to security!

Security lines are so much faster, nicer, and less like being trapped in a really fucked-up post-cyberpunk horror movie when they're not controlled by Homeland Security. I'm just saying.

I wandered around the airport for a little while, buying breakfast, soda, and cheesy souvenirs for the people who would mug me at home if I didn't bring them anything, and managed to use up the last of my Australian currency. Then apologetic airport employees chased us all away from our gate, as Homeland Security requirements forced them to comply to American security standards...which, apparently, meant "make everybody mill and get frightened because you won't tell them what's going on." Yay! But eventually, there was a plane.

The actual plane ride was fine. I slept, I read the new Terry Pratchett (I Shall Wear Midnight), I watched a lot of movies, I finished the September Sparrow Hill Road story, I drank more Diet Coke than was strictly good for me. Because this flight was heading for America, land of the free, we were not allowed to congregate near the restrooms or be out of our seat for any "unnecessary" reasons. Like, you know, not becoming one gigantic muscle cramp due to sitting down for seventeen hours. I'm in favor of safety, America, but did it ever occur to you that crippling tourists hurts the economy? I'm just saying.

The plane landed. Ker-thump. And the fun part began.

See, in order to get to my flight from LA to SF, I needed to clear Customs. In order to clear Customs, I needed to clear Immigration. I was on a very tight transfer, so I was very grateful for the existence of citizen and non-citizen lines...until I got there and no one was respecting the damn signs, making all the lines a mixture of people returning, and people coming in. Why was this a problem? This was a problem because all visiting aliens must be photographed and fingerprinted and grilled at length, and this makes processing glacial.

I fidgeted. I squirmed. I tried not to panic. I passed through Immigration, trusting that someone on the other side would know what was going on, since I was exhausted, jet-lagged, and barely staying on my feet. I picked up my suitcases, asked several people where to go, and was pretty much shoved out of the terminal to sink or swim on my own, as was everybody else. A sign outside said to go right; I went right, because I obey signs when exhausted.

Sadly, the sign led to a large and very confusing airport terminal, with lots of lines and contradictory signs and people. I asked a pilot how to get to Gate 31. He pointed. I went. I went, and...there was no Gate 31. So I, exhausted and jet-lagged and not sure where my feet were anymore, started crying.

To the airport security employee whose name I didn't get, who helped a crying blonde girl with pink camo luggage by getting her to the correct security line, to the front of the line, and to her gate five minutes before her plane was supposed to take off: thank you so so very much. I hope you get many good things in this world, because you are all that stopped me from having a massive panic attack in the middle of LAX.

And after all that, of course, my plane was delayed. I sat down at the gate, plugged things in, and called people to let them know I was home, with periodic calls to Mom to update my projected arrival time in San Francisco. Eventually, they let us board.

I do not remember the flight from LA to SF. I passed out as soon as I sat down.

Mom met me at Baggage Claim in San Francisco, and answered the question of whether she'd heard about the Campbell by bringing me balloons and crying all over me. I gave away most of the balloons to small children at the carousel, with Mom's blessing, and then we finally, finally went home.

With a stop at the comic book store on the way. A girl's gotta have her priorities, after all. And that, oh best beloveds, was Australia.

I can't wait to go back.

(*By "dumped" I mean "respectfully off-loaded, and hugged me a great deal, before tearfully leaving." Isn't precise vocabulary fun?)

Now is the time on Sprockets where I take my suitcase, my passport, my train tickets, and my mother, and head to the San Francisco International Airport. From there, we will fly to Los Angeles, and I will spend the weekend as ConChord's Guest of Honor/Westercon's Music Guest of Honor. Yay!

Since I'm about to leave you to your own devices for the entire weekend, I thought I should bribe you to play nicely with, well, the world. Here's Lilly, being...dignified:



The Siamese, ladies and gentlemen. Nature's most dignified feline.

Yeah. Right. Have fun!

Item the first: I have run the random number generator against the latest ARC contest, and saladofdoom is our winner. saladofdoom, you have until Sunday, July 4th, to contact me with your mailing information. (This is longer than I usually give, but I'm about to head for Westercon, so I'm not going to be checking mail reliably for a few days.) I can also just bring your book with me when I come up to Seattle next weekend. Let me know your preference, and it shall be done.

Item the second: Yesterday morning, I saw a single crow sitting on the telephone pole next to the bus stop, watching me. "One for sorrow," I thought, and followed it up with, "But where's the sorrow?" Immediately, a car drove through a puddle that shouldn't have been there, it being, you know, July, and spattered me with lukewarm water. The message is clear: do not taunt the crow oracle, yo. You will not enjoy the results one little bit.

Item the third: The editorial revisions of Late Eclipses are barreling merrily along, and reminding me once again that there's a reason we do multiple passes on these things. So far, I've found an appearing/disappearing jacket, an appearing/disappearing car, a totally misnamed architectural feature, and a chunk of dialog that seriously read like it had been pasted in from another book. Thank the Great Pumpkin for the editorial process.

Item the fourth: My mother came by last night with my sister and her wife in tow. They have once again absconded with a very large sack of books, because I am the family lending library. I treated them to the hysterical spectacle that is Alice trying to get me to give her wet food, because I am a cruel, heartless lending library. (Their favorite part was when I picked her up, and she tried to swim through the air to the bowl.) It was nice to see them, even if it did mean I had to save the second half of this week's Leverage for tonight.

Item the fifth: I am watching the second half of this week's Leverage tonight.

Item the sixth: I should have some very concrete information about Wicked Girls super-soon, and it's really shaping up to be amazing. I love working with Kristoph, and I love all the material on this album. Both of my cover songs have been approved ("Tanglewood Tree" and "Writing Again"), and since I wrote the other fourteen, I'm not particularly concerned. I'm so pleased with this whole process. Life is good.

Item the seventh: My dreams last night featured a tank of lionfish that wanted snuggles, two connected houses in a suburb of San Francisco that managed to look exactly like Concord, buying new luggage, trying to fly to Australia while balancing on a bathroom railing, taking a nap, and a visit to the tiara store. I'm reasonably sure this was a big ol' anxiety dream about Australia and the Campbell Award, but I woke up going "awwwwwwwww, cutest lionfishes ever." This proves that not even my own brain is very good at upsetting me.

What's new with you?

Today was my signing event at the Pleasant Hill Borders. I woke bright and early (too bright, and too early; after waking up at 6:20 AM, I went back to bed for another hour and a half), walked to the grocery store for a fresh fruit breakfast, and came back to the house to shower and watch The West Wing while I prepared myself for the day ahead. Wonder of wonders, Mom wasn't just on time, she was early, and we got on the road with time to spare.

After stopping at a yard sale en route, we reached the Borders, parked, hit the Farmer's Market for several pounds of cherries, and went into the bookstore, where I had a small table dedicated to my use, thoughtfully outfitted with some Sharpies and a few bottles of water. People showed up. I signed things. We chatted. It was very nice, although the sheer size of the stack of books made me feel rather like I was letting down the team, and should have been sneaking ninja-like around the store, sliding paperbacks into purses and making people pay to avoid shoplifting fines.

(One fascinating facet of being a "visiting author" in a bookstore: no one wants to meet your eye, for fear that they'll be forced by guilt to buy your book. Much like a Venus flytrap, I had to adopt a strategy of "ignore them until they're too close to escape." Also, once the bookstore employees stop looking you in the face, it's time to leave.)

We eventually took a break for lunch and errands, running to the Best Buy for a new camera* and then to the Texas BBQ for tasty, tasty lunch. I had BBQ chicken, and we split a blackberry cobbler, to which I can only say HOLY CRAP NOM. After that, it was back to the bookstore for a pleasant hour of reading all their comic books while not actually signing anything. Oh, well.

And then the fun started.

See, when we left the bookstore, the car wouldn't start. Several people ignored Mom's pleas for a jump, leading her to call a friend to come jump us. The battery was essentially a zombie at this point, obeying our commands only so long as we didn't feed it salt...so it was off to Pep Boys to buy a battery. Um, yay? I was so tired I was yawning the whole time, and read several old Women's World magazines, which taught me that a) desserts are good, but b) I shouldn't eat them ever, or I'll be fat and no one will love me, and c) men like sex, presumably after a good dessert that I'm not allowed to eat. Again, um, yay?

Having purchased a new battery, Mom drove me to the comic book store, and I salved my wounded soul with graphic novels. Which I will now read. So if you're wondering where I am? I'm in the back of my house, reading the new X-Babies.

Snikt.

(*Yes, this means kitty pictures soon. You're welcome.)

The other day, I needed to go to the mall to acquire a new bra. This happens periodically. It's a normal thing. I go to the mall for my bras because that's where the Lane Bryant is, and they make the best bras for my particular body type. What's more, I already know which of their bras will work for me and which won't, which takes a lot of the sting out of shopping. I've worked very hard to get to a place in my life where I could say "I need a new bra" and follow it up with "Let's go to the mall," rather than "Let's repair the old one with some safety pins and maybe a strip of duct tape, and I can buy the new one next month." This doesn't mean that I want to spend an hour digging through the racks, looking for the one that's Just Right. I want to know my options, I want to know what I'm buying, and I want to just do it already.

"Isn't this the store that made that ad?" Mom asked.

"Which ad?"

"The one they wouldn't show on TV."

"Oh. Yeah."

For those of you who managed to miss this whole thing, Fox and ABC refused to air a Lane Bryant commercial, saying that it was inappropriate, despite the fact that both networks air commercials for Victoria's Secret. Now, I've seen both commercials, and if you want to talk comparative nudity, well. The new line from Victoria's Secret is actually called "Naked." The Lane Bryant lingerie, on the other hand, covers a lot more, while committing the dual sins of a) being made for plus-sized women, and b) being reasonably attractive. That's obscene! We can't show that to our children, especially not during Dancing With the Stars, a show that features women wearing costumes that are closer to rumor than reality! That would be wrong! That would be...that would...

Wait, what?

Of course, the networks insist that this isn't a comment about Lane Bryant's lingerie being worn by plus-size models, even though, well, it's either that, or a comment on the immorality of wearing bras that come in colors. Rainbow Brite should be ashamed of herself. Meanwhile, over in Victoria's Secret-land, all the models are modestly wearing undies the exact color of their skins, making them look totally nude if you're not paying close attention. Much more modest.

"Why?"

"Because the models were fat, Mom."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"But that doesn't make sense."

"Tell me about it."

The current culture of fat shaming isn't just depressing; it's outright scary. It's dehumanizing. Fat women are "whales" and "cows," not just, I don't know, fat women. Women come in all shapes and sizes! Women are healthy at all shapes and sizes! My youngest sister weighs about fifty pounds more than I do, and she is smoking hot, like a plus-sized Betty Page gone tattoo model. She dresses like she's hot, she walks like she's hot, and you know what? She's hot! She's also healthy, active, smart, and all those other things that some people think "fatties" aren't allowed to be. She looks better at her current weight than I ever would, because she's built that way.

This may be a bit of a shock to some of the folks out there deciding what is and isn't "decent," but not all bodies were created from the same template. If Kate and I were to eat identical things and do identical amounts of exercise for a week, we would not lose identical amounts of weight. If Vixy and I were to each gain ten pounds, they would not distribute themselves in identical places on our bodies. I know people who can gain weight on nothing but broccoli and lean meat, and people who can lose weight on a diet of chocolate bonbons. Fat shaming solves nothing. It doesn't make the world's plus-sized population disappear in a puff of Twinkie-scented smoke; it just makes teenage girls develop eating disorders, grown women lie about their weight, and small children tell their mothers they don't want dinner because they're scared of getting fat.

"That's just stupid."

"I know."

"Those people should cut that out."

Also, on the practical side of things...women are more likely to go out in public, and exercise voluntarily, when they're wearing good bras. This goes double for plus-sized women, who are (surprise, surprise) more likely to have large breasts, and thus need the support and stabilization of a good bra. So if the goal is really making all the fat women into thin women, they should be getting government bra service as an incentive to get out and move around more. Not that exercise is the absolute answer for everyone—that's another can of worms, and goes back to my "not all bodies were created from the same template" point—but hell, it would be a start. Saying "ew, that's indecent" doesn't do anybody any good. Except maybe the viewing public that gets spared the sight of all those "fatties," and well. I'm not so concerned about them in this particular situation.

"I wish they would, Mom."

"Tell them that."

"Okay."

One of my favorite things about Brooke is the way she gets excited about a lot of the same horrible things that I get excited about. I love all my friends, but very few of them respond to "Hey! I found a horrific multi-segmented exoskeletal thing under this rock!" with "Oooh, neat, let me see!" the way that Brooke will. Brooke is awesome.

Since the book release party was Saturday, and Brooke was going to be staying with me all day Sunday, we started talking about California Things We Could Do. Somehow, this led to my announcing that we have foot-long electric yellow slugs available for viewing in Muir Woods. INSTANT RELEVANCE TO BROOKE'S INTERESTS. And this is how my long-suffering mother found herself roped into spending Mother's Day driving out to Muir Woods so that we could go hunting for monopods in the damp redwood forests of Northern California.

Once again, the apple really didn't fall all that far from the tree.

Muir Woods is about a ninety minute drive from my house, and we used the excursion as an opportunity to educate my mother about Canadian music, blasting Moxy Fruvous and Great Big Sea (she was tolerant). She did ask me at one point whether I'd called the park to be sure they were open. I confirmed that I had. Then...

"Well, did you ask if the banana slugs were out?"
"It's not like the park rangers were going to go and check."

There is no banana slug time clock.

Muir Woods was surprisingly crowded when we arrived; apparently, I wasn't the only person who thought celebrating Mother's Day with giant yellow slugs was a good idea. Brooke and I were ready to be thrilled by nature; I started with being thrilled by the chipmunk in the parking lot. SO CUTE. After that, we were thrilled by a Banana Slug Crossing sign, a First Amendment Zone, and the bathroom. Did I mention that we're excitable?

It was misting lightly as we entered Muir Woods: perfect weather for casual hiking and banana slug-hunting. We had barely been inside for five minutes when the first banana slug sighting occurred, with a three-inch yellow guy* waving his eyestalks saucily at us from the clover next to the walkway. Brooke took his picture. Two minutes later, banana slug sighting number two occurred. So here we are, wandering through this cathedral of redwoods, the tallest trees in the world standing sentinel all around us...looking at the ground. I love my friends.

We did stop to gape at redwoods, and Brooke took many, many pictures. Eventually, we turned onto a side trail, where we proceeded to hit the banana slug jackpot, finding a four-inch Pacific banana slug and two seven-inch California banana slugs in quick succession. Yay!

Now, there's an old tradition that, if you disturb a banana slug while in the woods, you have to kiss it before you put it back. I was watching the Pacific banana slug industriously ooze around on my coat sleeve when a family with three little boys walked up, irresistibly drawn to my slimy friend. Not wanting to be responsible for the squishing of every slug in Muir Woods, I told them about kissing slugs, and that I'd have to kiss the slug before I put it back.

They looked at me expectantly.

I kissed the slug. (I admit this only because Brooke was carrying a camera, and hence has proof.) The eldest of the boys also kissed the slug. His mother made sure to get it on camera, and will thus be able to horrify his prom date in a decade or so. That's me, making the future harder since 1978.

We stopped at the park gift shop when we finished slug hunting, and Brooke acquired a glow-in-the-dark Slug Patrol T-shirt, which she chortled over with great glee. Then it was off to the car, and onto what Brooke termed "the roadkill buffet." A deer came bounding in front of our car, causing Mom to shout and point it out to Brooke (because they don't have deer in Canada, apparently). She was so busy shouting and pointing out the deer that she totally missed the fawn that was following its mother across the road. I screamed. Brooke screamed. Mom hit the brakes, missing Bambi by inches. I swear, if she had hit that damn deer, we'd still be up in Muir Woods. Mourning.

We started moving again after the fawn cleared the road. A wild turkey came strutting across the roadway, unconcerned by the large motor vehicle hurtling toward it. Mom stopped for the turkey.

"You have turkeys here, just wandering around," said Brooke, nonplussed. "That's a thing."

Also featured on the roadkill buffet: joggers! Suicidal joggers! Some people really don't want to live to breed. We managed to not kill any of them, and went rolling merrily back toward home, Mom and I bellowing along to the radio, Brooke slowly passing out in the backseat.

Happy Mother's Day!

(*Technically, banana slugs are hermaphroditic. Really, I don't think they care.)

Friday, I was wearing my trench coat, running the space heater, and shivering a lot. Saturday, I walked to the store in my trench coat, and damn near overheated. Yesterday, I wandered around without a coat for the majority of the day, and even ran the air conditioner a bit in the evening. This morning, I put on my denim jacket.

We have had the changing of the coats. Spring has officially sprung.

I find that perfume is also a good indicator of the spring, as all the women on my morning commute begin competing with the newly-blooming flowers by attempting to smother me to death with their artificially floral scents. I like perfume as much as the next girl—my ungodly-large collection of bottles of BPAL testifies to that—but there's a difference between "wearing perfume" and "committing an act of chemical warfare." When I'm breathing through my mouth and turning green, you have crossed that line.

(My latest scent from the BPAL collection, by the way: Giant Squid. The description says it's "cannabis blossom, tonka bean, tobacco, frankincense, galangal, juniper berry, lantana, spiky aloe, green and white teas, and salty sea spray." I just like being able to answer "what's that perfume you're wearing?" with "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" Sometimes I am a simple soul.)

The cats are responding to the spring by attempting to lose their winter coats in one fell swoop, resulting in hairballs of epic proportions springing up on my bedroom rug. Seriously, I brush Alice every day, and I still scraped an entire third cat's-worth of hair off the rug Saturday morning. I dread to think what may happen when I go to Australia for two weeks, since Alice is less willing to let Mom use the feline seam-ripper (ie, "the mat-catching brush") on her flanks and hindquarters. I'm going to come home to a house consisting of nothing but hair.

Amy arrived from Wisconsin yesterday, and brought a cheese hat for my sister-in-law. The world is occasionally very strange, as my mother's insistence on prancing about San Francisco International Airport with a giant wedge of cheese on her head clearly illustrates.

Happy spring!

Point the first: If you're on Twitter, and either don't watch my Twitter feed or haven't checked in yet this morning, do a search for the #FEEDFriday hashtag. Seriously, this is hammered awesome, in addition to being your opportunity to win some free copies of Feed. Which is pretty cool. They make great gifts! Also great doorstops.

Point the second: While you're enjoying your zombie adventure, maybe you should stop off and take a look at http://www.thefeedbook.com/. Don't worry. I'll wait here for your shrieks of ecstatic glee at how insanely awesome that website is. I'm doing the flaily Muppet arms again. Now with an undead flair. Which...is a little disturbing, really.

Point the third: Yes, I have seen today's XKCD. Sometimes I think the cartoonist is peeking through the windows of me and my friends. And then I realize that no, we're just a type. Scared yet?

Point the fourth: I am almost done with my mind-numbingly massive full-sheet comic page explaining the Campbell Awards and expanding on my eligibility. Vixy and Cat Valente play the part of my lovely assistants, thus sparking the statement "The hardest thing I have left to draw is Cat Valente being eaten by zombies." My life, occasionally so difficult.

Point the fifth: I was in the car with my mother yesterday, and commented that I had purchased my tickets to Australia. The following conversation ensued:

Mom: "And you're coming back with a tiara."
Me: "Well, yes, I hope so, but..."
Mom: "You are."
Me: "Okay."
Mom: "I've been praying every night to the tiara gods."
Me: "...there are tiara gods?"
Mom: "There are now."
Me: "What do those even look like?"
Mom: "I don't know. But they're wearing tiaras."

So apparently I have the backing of the tiara gods in the upcoming race for the Campbell. Thanks to my mother for letting me know about this endorsement. Also, and perhaps more importantly, my mother is insane.

I spend a lot of time trying to explain literary rights to my mother, who is trying very gamely to learn all the weirdness of the world of publishing. It probably doesn't help that my understanding in many arenas remains fuzzy, so my explanations involve a lot of waving my hands and going "blah blah blah fishcakes." She takes this with reasonably good grace. I have a good mom.

Right now, I keep trying to explain foreign rights sales. Because you see, right now—during the conveniently timed volcanic ash cloud, oops—the London Book Fair is going on. This is one of the biggest foreign rights sales events in the world. If I want Toby in the United Kingdom and the Masons in Japan, this is very likely where it's going to happen. I am thus, I think understandably, a little twitchy about foreign rights at the moment.

I've had awesome luck with foreign rights, in part because I have an awesome foreign rights agent, who works very hard to get my stuff out there. Toby has been sold in Germany and Russia; the Newsflesh trilogy has been sold in Germany. I'd really like a UK edition of the Toby books, and a French edition of both, but there's no counting on it; I need to sit back and wait to see how things settle out. But oh, how I wants it, my precious. I wants it bad. There's the artistic reason ("I just want more people to be able to enjoy Toby's adventures!"), and then there's the capitalist reason ("I really, really want to go full-time before I catch fire from lack of sleep").

My actual reasons are somewhere in the middle. I genuinely do want my books to be accessible to the entire world...and I really, really want to get up every morning, write for a while, take a walk, write for a while longer, and not have a commute further than bed-to-chair. Foreign sales aren't likely to change the world completely, but as many authors of my acquaintance can tell you, good worldwide positioning can make a huge difference in your end-of-year bottom line. Maybe even a full-time writer (or part-time day job) level of difference.

And this is why I'm crazy this week.

My mother survived her first day at a comic book convention! Well, mostly: she had to leave early because her back was bothering her (although I suspect the real culprit was my little sister's legs, since my little sister doesn't walk, and none of them believed me about the sheer scope of even a small comic con). She bought a chicken hat and wore it with pride. And people wonder why she admits that I'm her daughter.

I lined up for the Esplanade early enough to get really awesome seats for the sneak preview of next week's Fringe (although this did require sitting through an episode of V, and dude, what the hell?). Sunil came and joined me after he finished shopping, and since I had nothing better to do, I stayed and watched Kevin Smith's Q&A with him. Gotta love any man whose response to "How are you?" is "I'm so glad you asked! I had the best fucking sex of my life last night!" followed by a lengthy explanation of how a fleshlight works. Ah, Kevin Smith, if you weren't real, we'd have to invent you.

Now I'm up, packed, and going back for another day.

We're almost done with the current round of the Fourth Annual BSC Review Tournament. So far, Rosemary and Rue has managed to defeat Heart's Blood, The Warded Man, and Turn Coat, but Toby's having a contested battle against catvalente's Palimpsest. Please consider casting your vote to keep Toby in the tournament. It's fun!

One thing I didn't say before, and will say now (because it hadn't come up before): Please play nicely, whether you vote for me or for Cat, and don't say things that will make the other author feel bad. "It took me a while to get into this" or "It just wasn't my thing" are cool. "This author sucks" or "If I wanted to read _______, I would just go read _______" are not cool. Thankfully, no one who's voted for me has said anything like that, but some of the people playing tourney are starting to get personal, and that makes this a hell of a lot less fun. Someone's always sad when there has to be a winner and a loser, but there's being a loser, and then there's being a loser who's been told they suck at the same time.

Girl fight tonight!

I'm off for Wondercon, in sometimes-sunny San Francisco! I have no official programming this year, but will definitely be attending the following (unless I get bored, or find something else to do, or need lunch):

Friday at 4:30, Fringe screening.
Saturday at 12:00, Disney sneak peeks.
Saturday at 1:45, Resident Evil 4 panel.
Saturday at 2:30, the future of the X-Men.
Saturday at 4:00, Trailer Park.
Saturday at 4:30, Kick-Ass presentation.

I have no specific plans for Sunday, and may or may not attend, depending on my word counts. I'll have my mother and my younger sister (and my younger sister's girlfriend) in tow for much of the weekend; if you spot us, feel free to say hey, and get anything you might be carrying signed. There will be shiny new bookmarks on the freebie table. I'll post when we have a time for the cupcake run.

Whee!

Last night when I got home from a trip to Borderlands Books (where I was roundly snuggled and nose-licked by Ripley the Sphynx), I found a box on my front porch. The box, when opened, proved to contain twenty copies of A Local Habitation. Not ARCs—actual, finished books, suitable for fondling, screaming over, and putting on bookshelves. Alice promptly started trying to eat them. Not to be outdone, Lilly promptly started trying to eat the box that they came in. I have emailed my publisher to thank them for the cat toys.

I called my mother, whose usual response to "Mom, I just got _______" is to show up at my house and refuse to leave until she's managed to acquire a copy for herself. "Mom, I got my author's copies of A Local Habitation," I said.

"Wow!"

"So are you coming over?"

"Not tonight."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. (There are plenty of feathers to be had in my house because, again, cats.) "What? Why not?"

"Idol starts in half an hour."

So now we know where I rank in my mother's eyes. Not second, as I always feared, but third, behind Jim Hines and American Idol. As I cannot swear eternal vengeance against American Idol, I'm going to have to swear it against Jim Hines. He has a lot less in the way of professionally-trained security guards and hungry lawyers. I mean, sure, he's got goblins and all, and to this I say, again, cats.

It's a little freaky to be able to look at A Local Habitation and see it all book-shaped and real, with a bar code and a price tag and an ISBN and everything. I don't think it's ever going to get less freaky. Sometimes I still wake up and wonder "did I really sell the books? If I turn on the light, will they really be sitting on the shelf?" Thus far, they always have been, but my dreams have fooled me before. Although I'd like to think that if I'd dreamt the last few years, there would have been more candy corn and semi-appropriate nudity.

Thirteen days. That's all that remains before A Local Habitation is available on store shelves, waiting to be taken down, read, and enjoyed. Hopefully, lots of people will find and adore it, and hopefully, some of them won't have read Rosemary and Rue, creating a beautiful synergy through which many, many copies of both books will be sold. (Crass commercialism? Well, yeah. But I'd like this series to last for a long, long time, so I think this desire makes perfect sense. Anyone who looks noble and says "I don't care if my book sells well, I just care if it's loved" is either independently wealthy, insane, or messing with you.)

Thirteen days. That's all that remains before the second of Toby's stories is out there for anyone to read. That may be the weirdest part of all this. I mean, I'm used to my friends reading drafts and telling me what they did or didn't like, and I'm used to my publishers (all of whom I know) reading things and telling me what to fix, but there's no possible way for me to know every single person who reads my books personally. It just isn't going to happen. So there are all these strangers out there choosing me to tell them stories, and it's just...it's amazing. There was even a four-star review in the new issue of Romantic Times, a glossy, awesome, nationally-published magazine:

"McGuire's second October Daye novel is a gripping, well-paced read. Toby continues to be an enjoyable, if complex and strong-willed protagonist who recognizes no authority but her own. The plot is solid and moves along at a not-quite-breakneck pace. McGuire has more than a few surprises up her sleeve for the reader."

This is all very real, and very wonderful, and Great Pumpkin, I just hope it goes spectacularly, and that I don't catch fire.

Thirteen days. Wow.

So I'm hammering away on the sequel to Feed (which is potentially going to be going through a name change before much longer; watch this space for news), and I have about 13,000 words to go before the book is over. It's a little weird to realize that I'm so close to being finished with the first draft. Feed took me the better part of two years to write...but then, Feed required me to front-load a lot of the research, reading, and world construction that this book is cheerfully benefiting from. Half the work is done for me already.

I guess this means book three will be a cake-walk, huh? Or something like that.

(I find myself planning another trilogy after this one is finished, involving genetically-engineered parasites, mind-control, symbiotic evolution, and lots of other lovely things. The books are called Parasite, Symbiont, and Predator, at least for right now. Because I really needed to be working on more books, right?)

The German editions of Rosemary and Rue showed up today, and they are absolutely gorgeous. The book is called Winterfluch in German, and wow, do they have nice standard paperbacks over there. My mother promptly stole a copy, because that's what my mother does, and I've placed one ceremonially on my expanding shelf o' Things What I Wrote. I'm sure it's semi-cheating to have multiple editions of the same book, but if it has a different cover, I really don't care. It's increasingly amazing to look at the shelf. Stunning, and amazing. I can't wait to add Feed in the US and UK editions.

I'm catching up on NCIS before I head off to bed, to dream of zombies and parasites and cupcakes and blue cats and all those other wonderful things that keep me busy through my days. Hope your week is going wonderfully, and remember, Locus says you need a copy of Rosemary and Rue.

When I was a kid growing up below the poverty line in California, I had a lot of toys that were "the hot new thing" about ten years before they wound up in my grasping little hands. This included the glory of the Creepy Crawlers machine, from Thing Maker. (Modern parents, prepare to be completely and utterly appalled.) It consisted of a small, open-faced grill component capable of baking things at incredibly high temperatures, nine solid metal molds, a metal hook for lifting the hot molds out of the "oven," and a bunch of bottles of liquid sludge called "Plasti-Goop." You plugged the oven in, chose a mold, filled it with multi-colored ooze, and then watched in amazement as heat slowly transformed harmless slime into boiling molten death plastic, and then into cheap quarter-machine plastic bugs, amphibians, and reptiles.

Best. Toy. Ever.

If my mother thought it might be dangerous for me to spend hours sitting on the steps in front of our apartment wearing cut-off shorts and breathing the fumes from a boiling cauldron of molten plastic, she never said anything; really, she probably figured it was cheaper than eating paste or sniffing markers until they dried out (big hobbies with the other kids on my block). Besides, my infinite supply of interestingly-colored plastic creatures meant I only tried to beg for quarters when I wanted gum or a superball, and that was much more reasonable than trying to feed my endless hunger for hideous horror movie props.

I was, I think, nine when my sister (Rachel, the youngest one) wandered innocently out onto the porch, grabbed hold of the cord on my Creepy Crawler machine, and gave it a good yank. The machine promptly flew into the air and stuck to the side of my right calf, at which point I began wailing like a banshee on acid. The machine fell down; the mold didn't. My mother came running out of the apartment and sensibly grabbed my little sister, who was in serious danger of being pitched off the balcony once I finished screaming, and then ran back inside to get some ice. I managed to knock the mold off my leg, leaving an enormous glob of bright orange molten Plasti-Goop behind. More screaming.

Mom came out, and wiped away the plastic; my leg was already starting to blister. I still have the scar, a strawberry-shaped white patch about the size of a man's thumb print on my right calf. It makes an entertaining conversation piece, since "Where did you get that scar?" is rarely answered with "My sister spilled a molten plastic caterpillar mold on my leg."

I miss my Creepy Crawler machine. And if I had it, there's not a parent I know who'd let their children near my house ever again.

This year for her birthday, my mother requested tickets to see the Norton Buffalo tribute concert at the Fox Theater in Oakland. She's been a huge fan of his for longer than I've been alive, and a whole bunch of his friends, musical partners, and former bandmates had put the concert together as a benefit for his family, since Norton left some pretty hefty medical bills when he passed away. This seemed like a fantastic birthday present, since it didn't require any real thought on my part, and I got her tickets. Life was good.

Yesterday morning, Mom came out to Kate and GP's to clean the bathroom. (My friends are gradually starting to hire Mom to do basic housework. This is awesome for everyone involved, as it means Mom has money, and means things wind up glitteringly clean. She's like the 409 Fairy.) Once there, she informed me mournfully that she'd mis-read her tickets, and that she felt like a total idiot—she thought the concert was Saturday, and it was actually Friday that she had tickets for. She was trying to stay cheery, but she was pretty clearly depressed about it.

Enter Craigslist. Within ten minutes, I had a guy in Alameda (about a twenty-minute drive away) who had an extra ticket in hand, and was willing to sell it to me. Kate printed directions for us, and I hauled Mom away to Alameda. She spent most of the drive looking pole-axed and telling me that I didn't have to do this, thus proving that she doesn't always know me very well.

Somehow, we didn't get lost on our way to perform what really looked like a drug deal: we pulled up to the curb, I hopped out of the car, and a man in a parka ran over to me. He handed me a bright green envelope. I checked the contents, handed him cash, got back in the car, and drove away. I am amazed we didn't get pulled over.

(My little sister called while we were on the way into Alameda, very worried about Mom, and wondering if there was anything we could do. I said we were on our way to pick up a ticket right that minute. Nothing I have ever done in my life has made Rachel that happy.)

During the drive back to Kate's, we actually drove through a rainbow. It ended on the freeway; it ended on us. I have never seen anything like it.

Mom picked me up from Kate's last night around midnight, after I got back from Burns Night and she got back from the show. She was glowing. They played for over five hours. She wound up two back from the stage. Her camera is full of pictures. She got a concert poster and a T-shirt.

Best birthday present ever.

Yesterday was my bookday birthday, when Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies] finally hit shelves in stores across the nation. Because we are all mad here, my mother, Amy, and I decided that the best way to celebrate was by taking a trek up the length of California to sign books in every damn bookstore between Concord and Sacramento.

I never said we were sane.

The routine was pretty straightforward. One, find the bookstore. Two, scout the bookstore to see if they had any visible copies of Rosemary and Rue, as this meant we wouldn't be asking anyone to go into the back of the store. Three, find someone who works there, express that I am a local author (for increasingly inaccurate values of "local" as we moved away from Concord), and inquire as to whether I might sign some stock for them. Four, sign stock. Note that nowhere in this progression of events is anything resembling "check ID." By the eighth bookstore, I was seriously tempted to say "Hi, my name is Stephanie Meyer, and I wrote this book..."

The assistant manager at the Barnes and Noble in Albany thanked me for only using my powers for good. She doesn't know me very well.

As we made our way from bookstore to bookstore, we passed through Fairfield, California, home of the Jelly Belly factory. Amy, unwisely, said "I like sugar." My mother took this as a holy mandate demanding that we take the free Jelly Belly factory tour. I don't like jellybeans. I love my mother. I love Amy. I went on the tour. Fear my martyrdom. (Actually, there really wasn't any martyrdom, because Jelly Belly also makes candy corn. Fear me in the candy corn factory.) The Jelly Belly factory was reasonably cool. Amy and I have decided to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool with jelly beans and take people swimming.

The result of all yesterday's labors? Amy has a stomachache, and there is already a "collectible" autographed copy of Rosemary and Rue on eBay for fifteen dollars. Because humanity is awesome that way.

I survived!

I staggered into my house at about half-past eight last night, where I was promptly accosted by angry blue cats who wished me to understand that I Had Sinned, and Must Be Punished. (My punishment consisted primarily of petting the cats, petting the cats some more, and giving Alice a good brushing. Mom had been brushing her in my absence, but Alice wasn't entirely willing to let Mom near her nethers, and as a consequence, there was need for some serious Maine Coon repair before she could really be said to be at her best.) I even managed to partially empty both my suitcases before toppling into the bed like a felled dragon toppling on a poorly-placed knight errant.

The trip home from the convention was reasonably painless. Amanda and Michael delivered Jeanne and I to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and we meandered our way through security and onto the airplane (after a considerable delay, since we were two hours early). I spent most of the flight either dozing fitfully or watching Hannah Montana on the in-flight entertainment system. I should probably have been working on my copy-edits for Feed, but let's face it: there is an event horizon past which all work becomes crap, and I had passed that horizon quite some time previously. Shaun and Georgia should never have a crossover with the cast of Babylon Archer and the Caverns of Ice. I'm just saying.

My mother met me at the airport, and despite horrific traffic on the roads between San Francisco and home, we did not die in a horrible fiery crash. We had dinner at the Wendy's, because we were frankly both too far gone to deal with anything else. (Proof that I was tired: for about half the drive, I was convinced I'd managed to lose my phone. After finding my phone, I lost my credit card. I still can't find my keys.)

Tonight's plan involves taking Toby promo bookmarks to Borderlands Books, along with a stack of the DAW summer samplers, and then going home and getting to work on the heaps and heaps and heaps of stuff that's managed to pile up over the last week. Oh, and another twenty pages of copy-edits for Feed.

My next scheduled nap is in November.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XIII. I will occasionally stop running.

Well, I'm in Seattle, I have my new kitten, and I have my camera. This means that I have a moral obligation to provide a cat photo post, as failure to do so may get me smacked by a variety of people. Since most of you have never "met" Alice before, I'm starting with my earliest photos of her, and moving on from there. Also, as a special treat for all you dog fans (and Jim Hines fans, and fans of my mother), I'm including the first-ever posted pictures of Smudge.

Onward to the adorable!

( Cut because kindness says 'do not force others to look at your cats without actually agreeing to the activity.' Also because there are several graphics here.Collapse )

After a completely uneventful flight -- my in-flight entertainment deck was busted, so I put on my iPod, cued up my "all 'Rain King,' all the time" playlist, which is ninety-plus minutes of versions of the same song, put my head down, and passed out -- I landed safely in Seattle at a little past eleven o'clock last night. I was promptly met by Satyr and Sandi, the editors of Ravens in the Library, as well as good friends of mine, who bore me boldly off to Chez Tinney, hence to be united with my new giant feline companion.

(Alice is, in fact, giant. She's more than doubled in size since the last time I saw her, and may actually be bigger than my mother's new puppy, Smudge. She's also fluffy as hell, and possessed of the world's plumiest tail. I'm afraid there may be truth to my mother's accusation of my desire for a Maine Coon being born partially out of tail withdrawal.)

Today, my plans include "finishing the new Vel story" and "dealing with kitten contracts," as well as a healthy, happy dose of "work on art cards." Life is pretty good. I'll be here in the Pacific Northwest through Sunday, when I'll fly home to begin the laborious process of introducing Lilly and Alice to one another. Since they're both pretty mellow cats with vast amounts of fur, I'm not anticipating much trouble, although you should be anticipating kitten pictures sometime early in the next week.

Oh, and since I seem to have forgotten to announce it -- my mother got a puppy! Her name is Smudge, after jim_hines's fabulous fire spider, and she's gorgeous. She's half Malamute, half Rottweiler, and has those amazing crystal blue Malamute eyes. She was taken from her mother too young, but I've hand-raised kittens, and was able to bully my mother into going to the pet store for puppy formula. (I try not to bully my mother. But when the puppy's too young, we buy it the formula. This is how the game works.) Smudge is doing fabulously, and she's getting bigger by the day. We're introducing her to Lilly a little at a time, since she's likely to accompany my mother when Mom comes over to clean at my place.

So I'm safe, alive, and doing just fine, thanks to the wonderful people at Virgin America and their wonderful flying machines. How's everybody else, out there in the world? I lack deep thoughts today. Give me yours.

(The scene: riding around in the car with Mom, doing errands. Because there are always errands to be done. But as these errands included getting the frame order for my book covers placed, neither of us really minded.)

Mom: So I finished my book.

(She looks sorrowfully towards Goblin War, barely visible in her bag.)

Me: Cool.
Mom: Is he writing another one? I'm going to write him a letter and tell him he has to write another one.
Me: I don't think he's writing another one right now.
Mom: He has to.

(I pause to consider the idea of what my editor -- who is also Jim's editor -- would do to me if my mother went to his house to make him write another Jig novel.)

Me: Well, maybe someday. Mermaid's Madness comes out in October.
Mom: The Jig books were so good. I loved the way [spoilers redacted]. And when I found out he was [spoilers redacted], I just about died. I did not see that coming.
Me: So you liked them.
Mom: Hell, yeah.
Me: Cool.

(More discussion follows. And then:)

Mom: So you're going to meet him while you're in Michigan?
Me: Hope so.
Mom: Tell him Smudge needs to find a Lady Smudge.

(There is a pause as I consider this. Finally...)

Me: It'll be all Charlotte's Web meets Firestarter up in the caves.
Mom: Exactly.

So Jim, your seduction of my mother continues. I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE. In other news, Rosemary and Rue comes out in 164 days. 164 is the smallest number which is the concatenation of squares in two different ways. I really love the word 'concatenate.'

That is all.

I am safely at Jon and Merav's place in Jersey City, where Jon and Aaron are playing LAN Party with me on the kitchen table, preparatory to my handing them my thumb drive, saying 'I trust you,' and walking away to have quiet hysterics in another room. Hopefully, this means they'll be able to recover my data, and I won't have to cry on the plane.

Also, I have a brand new thumb drive from the Best Buy near where I met Diana for lunch on Wednesday. It is soothingly bright orange, and glows when inserted in the computer. Everything should glow when inserted in the computer. It's like a law or something.

They've discovered nineteen new species in Australia (mostly in Western Australia). These range from a spider-eating wasp to some truly horrific-looking new species of spider, as well as an eyeless crustacean thing and something they call a 'pseudoscorpion' due to its lack of a deadly stinger. This proves once again that Australia is awesome.

My visit to the New Jersey Pine Barrens was totally awesome, although I didn't spot the Jersey Devil. (There's always the possibility that he spotted me...) I also didn't spot any deer ticks, so I'm going to call this trip an overall win.

My mother is picking me up at the airport tomorrow, which should be...interesting, considering that she's never been to SFO before, and never tried to collect anyone from the International Arrivals Terminal of any airport. New experiences are good things for everybody, right? I certainly hope that's right, or there's a possibility that I'm never going to be seen again.

My duties have all been discharged; my visit to New York has gone stunningly well; and now we must rinse.

Last night, my mother came over to do the final run-around errands before my trip to New York -- I leave tonight, and get back to California on Sunday. This required going to a surprising number of stores, as Target didn't have pencil cases (K-Mart did), K-Mart didn't have my anti-snap hair goo (JC Penney's did), and nobody seemed to have my kitty litter (we eventually found the correct brand at Safeway). I proposed dinner. She proposed Italian. So I took her to my local hole-in-the-wall Italian cafe, Pasta Primavera, which is one of those incredible little strip-mall joints that looks like it should be full of roaches, and tastes like it's full of Heaven.

Now, I frequently tell people that I come from a carnie family (which I do); this should give you an idea of our general position on 'fancy cuisine.' Kate says my favorite Indian place is the equivalent of In-n-Out Burger, and she's not far wrong. So it was a real treat to watch my mother attempting to navigate her way through the menu, which did not include the word 'spaghetti' anywhere between its covers. Now I know how Kate felt when she was first starting to take me out for Indian.

We eventually wound up with roast asparagus, red peppers, and caprese salad (basil, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese) as a starter, while I had the mixed seafood linguine, and Mom had bowtie pasta with chicken breast in a Gorgonzola sauce. Also, there was bread and salad. Mom had never encountered a) caprese, b) Gorgonzola sauce, or c) a pleasant waiter who kept bringing her more cheese before. So that was fairly awesome. And after she stopped burning her mouth on the pasta -- which was admittedly approximately the temperature of molten rock -- she was really pleased with everything, and that was even more awesome. I really appreciate being able to take my mother out and introduce her to nice things. Especially since our mutual standards are low enough that we both remain pleasantly easy to satisfy.

Mom had never heard of tiramisu before. She looked suspicious when I ordered her one, which is a totally reasonable reaction, given some of the things she's seen me eat. Then she got her first bite of the stuff, and promptly made the 'oh my God why did no one tell me this existed' face. I win at feeding my mother.

She's on the last of the Jig the Goblin books (by Jim Hines, who seems to be her new favorite author -- CURSE YOU, JIM, SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE MY BIGGEST FAN), and is loving them completely. This is the first fantasy she's read for years. I think I can probably control her actions for months by threatening not to get her a copy of The Mermaid's Madness when it comes out. Because manipulating your parents is always good for a laugh.

I have given my mother tiramisu.

All is right with the world.

So jimhines has proven himself to be a class act. How? By sending a copy of The Stepsister Scheme to my mother, that's how. An autographed copy, no less. Since I'm not always sure my mother believes that authors actually exist -- the whole publishing process is arcane to her, which is understandable, since it's arcane to me, too -- this was made of awesome and pie. AWESOME AND PIE.

(Mom: "Is this for me?"
Me: "It has your name in it."
Mom: "Is he mad at me?"
Me: "...logic fail, Mom.")

After giving her the book, we went to Target to pick up my prescriptions for the month. (Yes, I am a grown woman. No, I do not drive. Yes, this sometimes means I ask my mother to run errands with me. No, I don't think this is a problem. I pay for gas, and it gives us an excuse to hang out without needing to find an actual activity that we have in common. Beyond playing with/tormenting the cats, flea markets, and going to Target, we mostly avoid that sort of thing.) As we waited, she asked me where I'd come up with some of the words on my new album.

"Like what?" I asked, all innocence.

"Epidemiolo-whatzit," she said.

Cue my mother getting a fifteen minute class on epidemiology while standing in the pharmacy aisle at the Target. Many people turned faintly green. Somehow, this turned into a vigorous explanation of recessive genes, why white cats are deaf, and why male pattern baldness passes through the female line. More people turned faintly green.

My mother's final verdict:

"I have no idea how I made you."

Neither does anybody else, Mom. Neither does anybody else.

Here's a final reminder, my Pacific Northwest-ian darlings, that this weekend is Conflikt II, the second ever Washington/Pacific Northwest filk convention! It starts today at the Holiday Inn Seattle-Renton, located in scenic Renton, Washington, and I've been imported solely to serve as their Guest of Honor. I even brought an earthquake, for that true California touch. (I then proceeded to sleep through it. Thus proving that I have lived in California for too long.)

This weekend promises chills, thrills, spills, shrills (when the sporanos hit a note from the wrong angle), shills (when the Interfilk auction really gets rolling), trills (from all and sundry), and hopefully a minimum of ills, as I have not scheduled the global pandemic to coincide with the convention. Also, in a rare real-life sighting, my mother is going to be showing up for the con. Bring cameras, and move slowly, she's shy.

If you're wondering what all the fuss is about, or can't afford the entire weekend, I recommend swinging down for the Saturday night extravaganza. My concert is at nine o'clock, and evening memberships are available. Saturday night will also include appearances by Frank Hayes and Marian Call, thus making the entire experience MADE OF PURE WIN. So even if you can't come and share our entire madcap adventure, you should at least swing by for a few hours.

Copies of all three of my albums are available at the con, as are many more truly awesome and spectacular recordings. (I can make recommendations. Usually while bouncing and squeaking. It's fun, and, I am told, slightly unnerving.)

Hope to see you there!

After an exciting evening chasing around San Francisco, visiting the freaky alien demon suede kittyfaces at Borderlands Books, and helping Kate get her glasses to fit right, I returned to the safety of the East Bay...where my mother promptly abducted me off to meet up with my baby sister, the trucker, in Brentwood. In the parking lot of an Office Max.

Did I mention that it was after nine o'clock by that point, and that I hadn't really eaten anything besides a McDonalds ice cream cone since lunch? Oh, and that my new CD finally arrived today -- at least according to the UPS website, as I hadn't yet had visual confirmation?

Yeah, it was a night.

But now I'm home, and I've confirmed the existence of the CDs. Yes! One thousand copies of Red Roses and Dead Things have joined the general clutter of my home. Actually, right now, they're increasing the specific clutter of my bedroom. Not precisely what I'd call optimal, but as it allows me to sign and number the pre-orders (to the degree that I can manage before a formal shipping party), I suppose I'll cope.

It's a damn pretty CD, too. It came out even better looking than I was hoping it would.

So that's my Friday night. Having signed and numbered the first ten CDs, I will now proceed to my bed, where I will probably dream of being crushed to death beneath a hail of disks. Because that's how this works. Good-night, world.

Pause a moment. Consider that. My mother is on Facebook. The land of faces and geeks now contains my crazy-train mom. Which is very much a 'what the fuck?' moment for me. (Also a sort of hysterically awesome one. She's Micki McGuire. Feel free to go over and say howdy. She's unlikely to tell you any embarrassing stories about me that I wouldn't happily tell you myself, but wow will she be perplexed if she starts getting friend requests from people who enjoy her book reviews.)

Yesterday in the Other Change of Hobbit, I was faced with an issue of Locus Magazine which listed -- under the DAW Books section of the 'Upcoming Releases' article -- Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire, coming to shelves in September 2009. So there I am, standing in the store where I've been buying books for most of my life, staring at my name in Locus. Fortunately, the store comes equipped with several cats on which to dry my tears. (I'm going to Borderlands tonight, where they also have cats, but the cats are genetically insufficient tear-dryers, on account of not having any fur.)

Today is January 23rd. Ravens in the Library comes out on February 22nd, and contains stories by several authors with whom I was greatly besotted in high school. That's less than a month from now, and the time between then and today is so full that it's going to be over before I have a chance to think.

The world is getting smaller by the hour. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic.

I went holiday shopping with my mother yesterday. Always an entertaining experience, since she's essentially tireless, shameless, and the only person I know willing to go through the entire bottom-of-the-barrel clearance section at Rasputin's with me. As we were driving to the mall, the following exchange took place. (I started transcribing as we talked, and I take good shorthand, so this really is close to verbatim.)

Mom: "I finished that book you gave me. I really liked it."
Me: "You mean The Stepsister Scheme?"
Mom: "Yeah."
Me: "Good! Did you bring it back?"
Mom: "No, I forgot. I just can't believe a guy wrote it. Is he a little light in the loafers maybe?"

(We pause while I giggle hysterically. Then:)

Me: "No, Jim's married. He has kids."
Mom: "Oh. Well, it was really good. He describes things really well."
Me: "Well, I'll tell him."
Mom: "You tell him your mother gives it a thumbs up. Now he just has to write another one."
Me: "He has. It's called The Mermaid's Madness. It'll probably be out next year."
Mom: "Good! Because I want to know--"

(There is a longer pause while my mother gives opinions on the book that would count as spoilers if they were posted here. Also, because I spent half of her diatribe laughing too hard to write.)

Me: "I'll let him know."
Mom: "I couldn't put it down. It's one of those books you can't put down. I got home at three in the morning and I was reading the damn thing. I was like you in your bed with the flashlight when you were a kid."
Me: "That's awesome."
Mom: "I really liked how he handled--"

(Another long pause while Mom goes on about the book. Also, more laughter.)

Mom: "So I figure people will like it."
Me: "Good."
Mom: "On second thought, maybe you shouldn't tell him I read his book if it's not out yet."
Me: "That's what ARCs are for. They help build word of mouth, and that sells more copies."
Mom: "Oh. Well, I'll tell everybody they should buy it."

There you have it. The Stepsister Scheme: it kept my crazy mother up all night. (Also, she would pause for the rest of the day, say 'Cinderwench,' and just start giggling.)

After a great deal of pointing and clicking, I have managed to reduce my LJ inbox to fifteen items, my Gmail inbox to nothing pending, and my shell mail inbox to sixty-three (which is crazy-good for this particular inbox, you have no idea). This is fantastic, as it means that I can spend tomorrow actually getting things done, rather than doing housekeeping preparatory to getting things done.

I've also cleaning up my 'Fifty Thoughts On Writing' and presented it to my webmaster for eventual posting in the site's Extras section. The idea is to get lots of neat things on the site for people to click on and stare at in a fixed manner, thus leading to repeat visits, thus justifying the amount of effort that goes into the thing. I love my website. I just wish I could wave a hand and make it exist.

In other news, I turned in the edits for my Grants Pass story tonight, and let me tell you, if the editors gave this level of care and kindliness to every story in the anthology -- and I believe they did, they're very good -- this is going to be one kick-ass book. For serious, you so want a copy. It may be difficult to acquire one in the Bay Area, as my mother plans to corner the market, but you should try.

(My mother is adorable sometimes. She says that people should get this book because it's coming out before Rosemary and Rue, and this way when they get me to sign it for them, they'll be able to legitimately say they met me before I was famous. My mother also thinks that Stephen King is going to call me to say 'congratulations,' so I don't credit her much.)

I will now go eat ice cream and watch Sanctuary.

Matt, Michelle and I have a long-standing tradition of passing books around the three of us like red rubber balls during a game of four-square. It started when we were in high school, where we knew what we all liked and didn't have much money to throw around. It's continued into our adult lives, where we still know what we all like, and still don't have much money to throw around. We see each other about once a month, when I take the train up to Sacramento for hanging out and role-playing games. (Yes, I still play with my high school gaming group. No, I don't see a problem with that.)

When I went up to visit in November, I brought Jim Hines's Goblin trilogy* to loan to Matt, and my ARC of The Stepsister Scheme** to loan to Michelle. When I went up this past weekend, Michelle returned The Stepsister Scheme -- she's going to be buying her own copy once it hits the store shelves -- and Matt returned the Goblin books. I began putting things into my bag to take home. Michelle promptly inquired, of the Goblin books, "Are you going to leave those here?"

Hee.

So I left the Goblin books in Sacramento and returned to the Bay Area, where my mother picked me up from the train station and drove me home. Once there, she hung around to chat a bit, and -- as I was unpacking my bags -- caught sight of The Stepsister Scheme. Bet you can guess what happens next, can't you? Good guess. My house is totally devoid of the works of Jim Hines, and I am amused. (My house is also practically devoid of the works of Kelley Armstrong, as Michelle is borrowing everything from Industrial Magic to Living With the Dead, but those had a less entertaining chain of custody.)

(*Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero, and Goblin War, all published by DAW Books, all available now from a retailer near you. Support your local bookstore. Buy more books.)
(**Coming from DAW Books on January 6th, 2009. The day after my birthday!)

* Several people have told me that they used my turkey recipe, either as-written or slightly modified, and that their turkeys went over well. One person even said that their turkey was praised by their entire family as the best turkey ever. Ha! Behold my mastery of poultry and its many potential abuses. No one has yet said anything about using my cranberry sauce recipe, which leads me to believe that no one was willing to risk a recipe that came from me and involved boiling sugar. Wimps.

* Speaking of which, my mother had my cranberry sauce for the first time this year, and revealed that she actually hadn't ever had homemade cranberry sauce before. Wow. So that was an awesome experience to be able to give her, especially since my cranberry sauce is amazing.

* I am now almost a hundred pages into The Brightest Fell, aka, 'October Daye, book five.' I have been rewarded for all my hard work with no fewer than six continuity errors that must now be mowed down like ergot-ridden rye. I like mowing things down. I don't like continuity errors. Let the suffering BEGIN.

* Oh, and on the topic of letting things begin, Bolt -- the new computer-animated film from Disney -- is absolutely fantastic. There are some scenes near the end that may be a little too intense for children under six or so, but on the whole, the movie was fantastic, and layered enough to appeal to all age ranges. I started crying at one point, which is always the sign of an awesome cartoon.

* Facebook continues to be amusing in that daunting 'I fell out of touch with you after high school for a reason, you know' and 'I don't hang out with you after work, why would I want to hang out with you on the Internet' sort of a way. It's also helped me find some people whom I love dearly, but aren't on Livejournal. So you win some, you lose some.

* My new website design should be going live tonight or tomorrow. Watch this space for details.

So tomorrow is Saturday. And more, tomorrow is a Saturday where I have no social plans at all (not only a rare occasion, practically an unheard of one). So...

...my mother is coming over to help me get some pictures on the walls (I have a bad back and I'm not allowed to work the hammer), drive me to look at a cat tree, and keep my stepdad from chopping his own leg off with a machete while he's working in my backyard. (We're a very close family. We're also the sort of family that believes flea marketing and gardening with a machete is a great way to spend a weekend. I love my family.)

...I'm finally going to get my new scanner installed and, hopefully, functional. I managed to clear a space for it in the cupboard right next to my workspace, which means I will no longer need to balance my laptop on my hip while trying to scan standing up. That's sort of scary. It also means I need to get back into the habit of inking while I watch television (I've been slipping lately, largely because it's not like I can scan anything).

...I'm planning to hit Late Eclipses of the Sun with an even bigger hammer, in the hopes that I can actually get some of the lumps out of the damned thing. It just did that thing where I realize that chapter sixteen is actually chapter twelve, and all the events I thought I had nailed down suddenly shift around. This has never failed to result in a better book. It's still a headache while it's happening.

...the Science-Fiction Channel is doing an all-day marathon of bad horror. Guess what my sanity check is going to be?

Have a fabulous weekend, all. I'm going to get some sleep before the hectic starts.

Hello, and welcome to my journal! I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire, and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions that I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis (currently, approximately every two months). It may look familiar; that's because it gets reposted every time the answers change, and to let new people know how we roll around here. (I will make no more Clueless references in this post, I promise.) Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

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

Anyway, here you go:

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

The scene: my cheerfully orange, mildly trashed bedroom, where everybody's favorite perky blonde author is updating her spreadsheet of works in progress. Yes, there's a spreadsheet. With multiple pages, all of which are color-coded according to project status and location. Stop looking at me that way. You'd do it too, if you were juggling this many books.

Enter...my mother.

Mom: "What's that?"
Me: "It's a list of books I'm writing."
Mom: "That's too many."
Me: "I'm not writing them all at once."
Mom: "Your head's going to just blow up."
Me: "I really hope not."
Mom: "You should write this one. I like this one."
Me: "That's the sequel to the sequel to a book I haven't written yet."

There is a pause, during which my mother and I both contemplate the sheer madness of this statement. After a brief explanation of my color coding and what the columns mean, I click over to a different tab to continue updating my data. Sadly, Mom is still standing right behind me. So...

Mom: "What's that?"
Me: "It's a list of short stories."
Mom: "The colors are different."
Me: "Short stories have different stages."
Mom: "What do they mean?"
Me: "Writing, revising, finished, in submission, published."
Mom: "What's this one?"
Me: "That color means it's in submission with a magazine."
Mom: "Well, why don't you have an answer yet?"
Me: "It doesn't work that way."
Mom: "They should answer you."
Me: "Mom, it really doesn't work that way, see the dates? All these dates are within reasonable ranges for the markets in question."
Mom: "Don't they know you're my daughter?"
Me: "I'm sure they'd be scared if they did."
Mom: "I should call these people. I should call them RIGHT NOW."

There is a pause, during which I contemplate my mother calling multiple editors to scold them for taking too long to get back to me. Given her apparent definition of 'too long,' 'too long' means 'two days' (in at least one case).

Me: "Okay, Mom, let's go raid my DVDs until you forget this ever happened."

My mother, terrifying the publishing industry since time was born.

Everyone needs a biggest fan; hopefully, your biggest fan will not be Annie Wilkes, as hobbling is absolutely no fun for anyone but the person doing the hobbling, but still, everyone needs one. This goes for you whether you're an author, an artist, an accountant, or the guy who counts sea urchins for the Australian government. Your biggest fan will pretty much decide that everything you ever do is wonderful, even when they lack the critical capacity to really understand what the hell you're talking about. Your biggest fan will applaud your failures, because they're yours. And your biggest fan will cheerfully agree when you announce that you have the ugliest toes in North America.

Your biggest fan is also going to be the first one waiting to puncture your ego if it starts getting too big, the one who says 'I don't understand this' without saying 'so it sucks,' and the one who tells you to wipe your nose, zip your pants, and go deal with your own messes, because your biggest fan understands that sometimes, you just need smacked upside the head and told to get over yourself. Everyone needs a biggest fan. But I don't.

The position has been filled.

Last night, I spent about two hours shopping with my mother. We shopped for shoes (which I hate doing) and came away with two pairs that manage to be super-cute without a) being super-high, b) revealing my tan line (I walk so much, in such similar shoes, that I have two-tone feet), or c) showcasing my terrifying 'I am a marathon walker who used to take dance classes, has broken each toe at least twice, and has never had a pedicure' toes. We shopped for supplies for my trip. We shopped for picture frames, because she needed to frame one of my comic strips and wanted to be ready to start framing my book covers. We shopped for Tootsie Pops (and were nearly defeated by the candy aisle). We shopped, in general, like an enormously tightly-wound neurotic blonde girl and her deeply placid mother. (Raising me pretty much killed her capacity for panic. 'Look, Mommy, this snake makes a noise!' had ceased to be a distressing statement by the time I was nine. This was largely a matter of self-defense.)

My biggest fan: my mother. And I'm pretty much okay with that.