I am currently too sick to die. I picked up a cold in Minnesota, which slammed down on me hard enough and fast enough that I thought it might be strep (it's not strep). I currently have a bone-rattling cough, so much snot in my head that I think my brain may be liquefying, and a general sense of full-body malaise.

This is where you come in.

Please, please, do not prod at me for the next few days unless you have something that absolutely will not wait. Let me rest and recover, because this is slaughtering me, and I have a book release next week, which means I need to rest more than I can say.

Thank you.

All right, y'all: shit's about to get real busy from here on in.

March was the first of four months in a row in which I have a book release. I have a Library Gala tonight, and tomorrow I start traveling. My cats are going to kill and eat me, assuming the stress doesn't get there first. I haven't talked about it much, because I'm not in a place to answer questions yet, but I'm prepping to move from California to Washington, with all the house-selling, house-buying, packing-and-cleaning that entails. (Please, please do not ask me about the move. This topic is actively embargoed, unless you are someone I have brought the topic up with directly.)

As you can guess, I'm a little underwater right now. And so I am asking you for a favor.

You know I love interacting with people: I wouldn't maintain this blog if I didn't. LJ is largely abandoned these days, and it's not like I'd be giving up a huge and thriving community (as I would have done if I'd left LJ ten years ago). I adore comments, and enjoy answering them. But--and this is a pretty big "but" here--I am really, really outnumbered.

So please. If you have a question for me, check my website before you ask it. There are FAQs, which are pretty detailed and self-explanatory. There are landing pages for the individual series. If the answer to your question isn't there, there's a good chance I'd be happy to answer it. But please, please, check the FAQs first.

I understand that we all prefer to get our answers in a "one stop shopping" sort of way. I do it too. But I don't have time to answer the comments that aren't answered on my website and keep answering "what is the release date of _______," "will you be at _______," "why aren't you coming to_______," over and over and over again.

I try to keep the website as up-to-date and informative as possible. So many of your answers are there. Please check there first.

Thank you.

Basically what it says on the tin.

I am about to embark on a huge and terrifying purge of my belongings, in part because I need to have less stuff (because reasons), in part because I need to have more money (because related reasons). One of the things I have a startling supply of is BPAL (Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab) perfume.

Does anyone know, from "I have done it and here's how" experience, how to mail perfume/essential oil within the US? I've found both "it's a hazardous material and you can't" and "it's possible, just hard." Well, I need to know how.

Help?

I hate making posts like this one, so I'm just going to go ahead and get to it. Here we go:

I am not a vending machine. You can't put a quarter in me to get free stuff exactly when you want it. You can't actually put a quarter in me at all. You can give me a quarter--I like quarters--but I am not a coin-operated story dispenser. I am a people.

I give away a lot of free fiction around here, both via my website (InCryptid shorts, Toby Daye shorts) and via this blog (Velveteen stories). In the case of the website shorts, they represent a lot more than just my writing time. I commission (and pay for) the story covers. In order to make the reading experience as easy and pleasant as possible, I have to ask my friend Will to convert the text files to ePub, MOBI, and PDF (which is, by the way, why I tend to shrug when people report typos; they're free, and the conversion is done on a volunteer basis, which means I am not going to ask him to completely reformat a file unless the error is so catastrophically large as to make the story unreadable). Once the stories are prepared, all the uploading and formatting on my website is done by hand, by me.

There is a lot of invisible back-end labor involved with bringing you a free treat. That's part of why I do the tip jars: they don't just justify my making time to write the stories, even if it means I might have to pass on an anthology. They pay for the covers, and for the administrative time I have to take away from writing in order to make sure everything is working correctly.

This is not me gearing up to asking for money, by the way: there was no tip jar in October, in part because one of the stories funded by the last tip jar has not been posted yet. Because even a "prioritized" story has to fit in around all my other publications and commitments, all the release dates I have to promote, all the conventions I have to attend. Because at the end of the day, while I want to tell you these stories as much as you want to hear them, I still have to be able to tell my publishers that they will come first. They pay my bills. They keep my main series going. They have to come before the freebies.

So why am I saying all this?

Because people keep emailing me going "hey when do we get the next free story." And this makes me feel terrible. It makes me feel like a party trick, like a vending machine, like I have no value apart from what I give away for free. I released a novel in November! I had several short stories come out, in several different genres! But when is the next free story. When is the next free story. Why don't we have it yet. Why aren't you doing it.

I understand eagerness. I genuinely do. I understand wanting to know what happens next now. I used to follow Kelley Armstrong's free fiction, back when she posted it regularly on her website; I get frustrated when my favorite fanfic writers don't publish chapters on schedule. But I am so outnumbered, and when all I hear is "why aren't you giving us more," it's really demoralizing. It kills my desire to give things away for free, and it makes it harder to keep working on those stories.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. But please, remember that I am a person, not a vending machine; I am not just here to give things away. And if I'm not posting something new, it's probably because I'm working my ass off at the things that keep the lights on, not because I'm lounging on a beach somewhere. Please have patience.

Thank you.

We are deep into the Thirteen Days of Hogswatch now, which means a new giveaway post is going live every day. Starting tomorrow, a new winners' post will also be going live every day. Fun!

Thus far, all of this year's giveaways have been RNG drawings. This means I am using a random number generator to select the winners, and this is where my request comes in. See, I'm seeing a lot of people replying to other peoples' giveaway entries. I need you to stop doing that. Please. Only top-level comments can win; if a reply to a comment grabs the winning entry, I choose another winner. So if I pick, say, #15 to win, and #15 turns out to be a reply to #14, I don't go down a comment. I hit the RNG again. That means that whoever replied to #14 has just caused the "real" #15 not to win.

I do this for a lot of reasons, the most important being that the sub-comments throw off my count, I start second-guessing, I'm doing this manually, and so it's just easier on my peace of mind to draw again. But it's still not fair to the people leaving the top-level comments. Please, please stop replying to other peoples' giveaway entries.

Also, please remember that when I say "the rules of this giveaway are...," that there is no room for negotiation. If I say "name your favorite fruit" and you comment with "I love fruit!," you actually cannot win, because you didn't follow the rules. This is to filter out the free stuff blogs that send their followers here to harvest prizes, but who don't actually have any investment in the things I'm handing out.

Thank you all. Today's post will go live in a few hours.

Okay, folks:

I am not Amazon.

I do not control what Amazon does, or when they do it.

Please do not tell me when Amazon fails to push an episode of Indexing: Reflections: tell Amazon. They are in a position to help you. I am not.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but...I had literally thirty people tell me when the episode pushed late today, and there was nothing I could do. I have no power here. You, as customers, honestly have more. So please, tell the people who can fix things, and let me live in my candy wonderland where nothing goes wrong.

So.

Apparently, something is wrong with the contact form, in that somewhere along the line (between it and my PA and me), some email is getting eaten. We don't know how, we don't know why, and most importantly, we don't know how much. We only know this is happening at all because I was able to confirm two instances of "I tried to contact you and it didn't go through." (One was resolved by resending with a different return email address. The other, we're not sure.)

Chris is working on a way to make sure this doesn't happen anymore. For right now, giveaways are going to have to be handled in a two-step authentication process, for which I am sorry: specifically, rather than saying "email me," I'm going to be saying "comment here and then email me immediately, so I can tell you if your email is not received." Inconvenient? Yes. Annoying? Yes. The only way I can continue to do giveaways until this problem is resolved? Sadly, yes.

I am deeply sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, especially if you were someone who didn't get a prize because your email was eaten. (Please do not contact me saying "this happened to me a year ago, give me a book." I will believe you. I just don't have the books, or the postage budget, to do anything about it.)

Whee.

Three weeks ago, I was Fan Guest of Honor at Westercon in San Diego. This was a huge privilege, and I am so grateful to the convention for having me. (I am slowly ticking off the Guest of Honorships available to me at Westercon, having been Music Guest of Honor several years ago, when the con was in L.A.)

Two weeks ago, I was back in San Diego as an attending professional at the San Diego International Comic-Con. SDCC is one of the last cons I do "for me," attending because I want to as much as because it's part of my job. It's a big, sprawling, exhausting nightmare of a con, and I love it so.

This past weekend, I was Guest of Honor at Camp Necon in Portsmith, Rhode Island (the only con that involved changing time zones, for which I am deeply grateful). I got home last night, about an hour before midnight.

I.

Am.

Done.

I am not physically as tired as I have been after other adventures, but three weeks of virtually no down time doesn't do good things for my psyche. Right now, I am wiped, I am wasted, I am no longer among the living, and I don't actually get to take a break from things like "the rest of my job." Page proofs must be reviewed; word counts must be made. A book must be edited. Conventions seem like the fun part of what I do, and they are, but they're also the most draining, and I wish I could take a few days to just sleep.

Please don't take this as an invitation to tell me to take care of myself: I am taking care of myself. Part of that is that email responses and the like will be slow for the next week or so, and my social media will be 95% cats and dolls. Please try to use Google or check my FAQs before asking me questions, if you can, just to give me a little more bandwidth, and be patient with me?

I am doing the best I can.

I still have not received mailing addresses for...

desolate_noir
mage_cat

Now, normally, this would result in a "well, you can't get your prizes now," and me either drawing new winners or putting the ARCs back into the prize pool. But at least one of these winners has indicated in so many words that they have submitted their info, which my PA has not received.

So please, if either of you sees this...

1. Go to my website contact form: http://seananmcguire.com/contact.php
2. Fill it out, including an email address where I can reach you with questions.
3. Select "Seanan McGuire" as the destination.
4. Include your full mailing address and LJ name in the body.

I can't do another giveaway until I know that the contact form is not losing mail.

Thank you.

Let's have some good and some bad together, shall we? First, the good. Today's winners of an ARC of A Red-Rose Chain are...

jillheather
desolate_noir
mage_cat

Congratulations! Please send me your mailing address via my website contact form (identifying which of our winners you are, since email addresses don't always give it away) to receive your prize! I must receive your information within twenty-four hours, or the prize is forfeit.

Now, the bad. Or well, the confused.

Look, y'all: rules matter. Sometimes they matter because without them you never get your stuff (see the above about sending your mailing info via my website contact form). Sometimes they matter because they're "filter rules"—IE, "are people paying attention to what I ask, or are they just here for the free stuff?" I've been featured on the "this person is giving away free stuff" blogs a couple of times, usually at Hogswatch, and you know what? It sucks. I love giving things to people who care. I hate giving stuff to people who just want it because it's free, or because they think it has good resale value (both things I have been told by folks who found me via the "free stuff here" lists).

So yeah. If the rules say "you must include the word banana," then you must include the word banana, or you cannot win. If the rules say "name your favorite book in the series," then you must name your favorite book, or you cannot win. There were several entries in this most recent giveaway that could not have won, even if the RNG had chosen them, because they did not follow the (very simple) posted rules. (To be clear, the RNG did not pick any of them, so I didn't have to choose between the rules and breaking someone's heart.)

Please, please, follow the posted rules. For everyone's sake, but especially for your own.

The tip jar closes tomorrow! This is your twenty-four hour "time to get out of the pool" reminder! For those who missed the initial post, basically, this is where I take "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

Please choose "friends and family," not "goods and services," as I have no physical goods to send, and PayPal gets weird (and takes fees) when there are physical goods to send. The tip jar will close tomorrow, and I will post a total.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "The Way Home," aka, "the next generation begins."
If I get $300 or more, I will prioritize finishing and posting "Lay of the Land," aka "Thomas and Alice are awkward cookies."

"Star of New Mexico" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify my perpetually shuffling things around. Thanks so much to everyone who's ever donated in the past; you've done a lot to make my current situation possible.

Thank you!

This seems to be an "every six months or so" thing, which is nice: I don't feel too demanding, but I'm able to keep prioritizing the free shorts in my lists. And so, as promised, I am now taking "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

Please choose "friends and family," not "goods and services," as I have no physical goods to send. The tip jar will remain open from today (Friday, April 10th) through next Friday (April 17th). I will then close it and post a total for what was collected.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "The Way Home," aka, "the next generation begins."
If I get $300 or more, I will prioritize finishing and posting "Lay of the Land," aka "Thomas and Alice are awkward cookies."

"Star of New Mexico" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify my perpetually shuffling things around. Thanks so much to everyone who's ever donated in the past; you've done a lot to make my current situation possible.

Thank you!

ETA: Thank you so much to those who have already chipped in. Please do remember, however, that I am not selling anything; there's nothing to ship. Please choose "friends and family," to avoid both PayPal prodding me about sending your non-existent product, and to keep fees at bay.

I am really excited about this, y'all.

Basically, I have a story in the forthcoming anthology, Genius Loci. Which is very exciting for me! I am very excited. Only I'm a lot more excited by the fact that several of my friends—Carrie, Sunil, among others—have stories in the same book. We're gonna be ToC buddies! Squee!

The Kickstarter is running now.

While the project has already funded, there are still exciting perks to claim, and even more exciting stretch goals to be unlocked. Help us bring the spirit of place home, and blow the roof off.

Squee!

Hello, happy people!

As you may remember, I have been selling leftover Slasher Chicks tank tops. Some people have requested shirts, which have then been pulled from the general stock, and have not used my website contact form (located here: http://seananmcguire.com/contact.php) to send me their mailing addresses.

Y'all, I'm not kidding when I say I need you to submit your address through that form. Yes, even if you gave your address to PayPal. I am not a store. I am one person using a non-graphic interface to package things, and I cannot easily access your mailing information if you don't send it to me via my website. The longer you leave your shirts in the "going away" pile, the more chance there is that they get misplaced and I have to give you a refund. Which, if you chose "paying for goods and services," means it costs me two dollars (roughly), and you don't get your stuff. Please. Pretty please with a cherry on top. If you're waiting for a tank top from me, and you have not already sent your contact info via the website, please send it.

(If you have already sent your info, you're golden. I'm just mailing a ton of stuff right now. The contact form has never been found to lose mail.)

Now, if you're waiting for a T-shirt, that's a different ball of wax. That was a group effort, with Kate and Deborah doing a lot of heavy lifting, and everything has a mailing address. It's just that "everything" was over two hundred packages (well over), and it's the week before Christmas. My post office has asked me, politely, not to come back with anything that's not incredibly urgent until after the holiday, because their lines are wrapping around the building, and I am a roadblock. All shirts are packed, are addressed, and are going out.

If your shirt was missing when we packed (a very small number), you have already received an email from me. All people with missing shirts have acknowledged that email, so you didn't miss it. Your shirt is coming, it just needs time to travel through a physical universe that is having major storms and major holidays at the same time.

In summation: if you requested a tank top, please, please help me empty out the box of shirts I pulled to meet requests (you can still pay if you haven't already; check the LJ post for instructions, and remember to choose "money to friends"); if you requested a T-shirt, please, please be patient. They're coming.

Katharine Kerr is a nice lady, a fellow DAWthor, and a really great storyteller. She needs our help.

I started the first draft of this post with some personal stuff, and then realized it didn't matter; this is a nice lady who tells great stories, and needs us, maybe now more than ever. Take a look.

http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/help-author-katharine-kerr-care-for-her-husband-howard/278370

Thank you.

Reminder the first: If you have requested/purchased a tank top from me, I need two things from you. I need payment, following the instructions in my reply to your comment (please, please send it "friends and family," so I can actually afford to ship), and I need you to use my website contact form to send me your mailing address. Putting your mailing address into PayPal does not actually help me. I have a stack of shirts waiting to be mailed, and their information is not in my inbox, my PA's inbox, or my spam filter.

Please, please, help me get you the things you pay for, and if you haven't paid for them, please either pay or tell me you've changed your mind, so that I can release them back into the general stock.

Reminder the second: If you wanted to order signed or personalized books from Borderlands Books in San Francisco, I'm going there on Friday, around five o'clock in the afternoon, to sign whatever's on order. I can't guarantee that I'll get there again before the end of the year, so this is your one shot to get that signed book that will make you a hero in your best friend's eyes!

Please remember that I do not take requests for "send me a book and I'll sign it." Those always pick up around the holidays, and well. I'm just not good enough at going to the post office for things that are not "oh sweet Great Pumpkin get all these boxes out of my living room" to be reliable. Going through Borderlands is the one way to be sure.

And that is all for tonight.

10. It's December! That is...terrifying and amazing and lots of other things, but mostly, it's a huge relief, because I don't have anywhere to go for the rest of the year. Oh, I have a lot of local commitments, parties and appearances and a doll meet-up, but nothing that requires travel. I get to sleep in my own bed, snuggle my cats, and clean my house for an entire month. I am ridiculously excited about this.

9. A lot of folks are doing their holiday shopping right now, which is swell! I posted the holiday book buying reminder yesterday. You can also contact Mysterious Galaxy, in San Diego, for signed copies of Out of Tune, and for copies of Dead But Not Forgotten signed by Charlaine Harris, Toni Kelner, and a bunch of the authors (myself included). Support independent bookstores this holiday season.

8. Or maybe you're buying stuff from me, posters and T-shirts and the like. If you are, please use the PayPal option for sending money to friends and family. There are a few reasons for this. First off, I am still not a store: I am literally pricing things to cover cost of item + cost of postage. Having huge whacks of money vanish into PayPal fees makes this a loss, and means I have to start charging more to be able to afford to ship things. Secondly, you know how I always say "please send me your shipping info via this other channel"? I have found that people who chose "goods and services" are more likely to ignore that request, because they've already provided a shipping address, and if I were a store, I'd be able to access that data. Not a store. Cannot access easily. Please don't.

7. The new Pokemon game is not making me as happy as I wanted it to. I am sure I will enjoy the post-game, where it's apparently LEGENDARYPALOOZA, but I am not enjoying my Pokemon journey, and that makes me sad.

6. Thomas, who has always been an asshole, has taken his assholing to new heights in his glee that I am home. Lots of purring, lots of cuddling, lots of knocking things off shelves to demonstrate that he is still the boss of all he surveys. Thomas is going to be mittens if he doesn't cut this shit out.

5. I will be doing the Thirteen Days of Hogswatch again this year, beginning on December 12th and continuing until December 24th. The introductory post will go up on December 11th. The prizes, drawing times, response times, and requirements for each day are not negotiable; if I say "I must hear from you by X time for you to win," and you think you might not be able to check your email on, say, Christmas, I am very sorry, but I do mean it. I can't have people claiming prizes weeks after the drawing. I'm just not set up for that. But hey, I am giving away so much stuff.

4. I missed the October tip jar, which means we're running out of prioritized free fiction. I don't want to open a tip jar in December (holidays), but I may go ahead and do it in January. (Or we may have to pay for all the bodywork on Mom's car, in which case, I will not only open the tip jar, I will dance on freeways if that's what it takes.)

3. Oh, yeah: some asshole hit Mom's car on Thanksgiving night. The damage isn't massive, but she was parked at the time, and we didn't see it happen. Now we need to get the bodywork done to fix the dent on the side of her car, before rust sets in and everything gets buckets more expensive. Whee. (Yes, she has insurance, but the deductible is huge, especially if we can't produce another driver.)

2. I'm going to see The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County on Friday! I'm so excited!

1. Jean Grey is not dead right now and it's making me cranky.

That's my list. What's new with you?

PA the First (Kate) informs me that she has sent over all the mail submitted via the contact form.

I am missing the shipping info for several tank tops.

Y'all, if you have purchased a tank top from me, I really, truly, genuinely need you to go to my contact form, located here:

http://seananmcguire.com/contact.php

...and use it to send me a) your mailing address, and b) the handle associated with your request, as noted on my reply to your initial comment. I can't reliably get address info from PayPal, on account of not being a store and not using a graphic browser for that email address. Please. I can't send your stuff until you tell me where to send it, and I want these shirts to go away.

Please.

When I say "these are the rules for a giveaway," what I mean is "these are the rules for a giveaway," not "some of these rules are negotiable or can be ignored." If you do not follow the rules exactly as stated, you will not be eligible to win.

When I say "please use my contact form," what I mean is "please use my contact form." Not "please dig up a personal email that you have for me from some point in the past." Not "please use the contact form at miragrant.com." If I meant either of those things, I would say so. They would look like "you can only win if you already know how to reach me ha ha" and "please use the contact form at miragrant.com," respectively. If you do not use my contact form, at the seananmcguire.com website, you will not be eligible to receive your prize.

Sometimes the rules by which I live my life may seem fiddly or arbitrary, but there are always reasons. Please, if you want to receive something free from me, follow the rules which I have set for that reward.

Thank you.

I try not to post about Kickstarters too much. I'm a short fiction addict, both as a reader and a writer, and if I started posting about every anthology KS that came along, y'all would start pelting me with rocks in fairly short order. I do not like being pelted with rocks. It hurts.

That being said, sometimes there's a need. I'd like to tell you about Ghostwood Books. A small press with five years of experience, they're looking to fund an entire year of amazing new fiction through the crowd-funding platform. Self-serving memo: they asked me to be in one of their anthologies. Even more self-serving memo: that's the only one of their books that I would be involved with, meaning I would get to read the rest.

They have sixty-eight hours to hit their goal, and they're less than halfway there. Please, take a look. Something just might catch your fancy.

The Winter Long comes out on Tuesday, to my terror and delight, and the early reviews are beginning to filter in.

Whatchamacallit reviews has posted a review of The Winter Long, and says, "The first thing I have to say about Seanan McGuire is that her October Daye series gets better with each book. While I've liked each book, I've found that with each successive book in the series the overall series and each book got better, to the point that now when a new book in the series comes out I have to immediately go buy a copy and often finish it that day."

Also: "McGuire has done something I've seen only a precious few other authors do successfully, turn their entire world upside down. That's what The Winter Long is, it's a complete reversal from everything readers and fans of the series have known from the first book in the series. This is the turning point and while McGuire has built upon changes created from previous books in the series, she executed a perfect shift for the others leaving readers utterly unable to control their collective jaws from dropping."

Ta-da!

My Bookish Ways has posted a review of The Winter Long, and says, "Seanan McGuire mentions in her acknowledgements that this is the book that all others led up to, that everything she's done until now was for the sake of getting here. Indeed. What she manages to do is make it very clear how intricate Toby's story is, and the richness of Toby's world is a thing of genius. And don't worry, while The Winter Long clears up a TON of stuff, it’s made clear that Toby's story is far from over. This is a good thing. The Winter Long is a testament to McGuire's ability to take so many threads and pull them together into a harrowing, and believable tapestry, and it's all Toby’s own. While there's plenty of action, this is one of the most introspective books in the bunch, and of course, another great book in the Toby-verse."

Now that the reviews are out of the way, I have two requests. I promise they're small.

The first is to please remember how stressful and upsetting I find it when people put books out for sale early. The Winter Long comes out on Tuesday. While you are absolutely welcome to buy it if you find it before then, and may not have a choice (some retailers ship early), I am begging you, please don't tell me. My chances of making the New York Times list, which is still a big deal in finding out whether a series will continue, ride on that first Tuesday to Tuesday window. So if you can refrain from buying until the book is officially out, please do, and if you can't, please, for the love of the Great Pumpkin, don't tell me you got the book early.

The second is to please wait until I open the official discussion post before you begin your book discussion. I'll be in Scotland at the time, so it should be open very early indeed on the 2nd. But just in case something goes wrong, please don't start discussing here, or elsewhere on this blog. Spoilers are a big, big thing with this particular book.

It's almost here!

I am dealing with some shit right now. Some of you probably already know about the shit; others may be hearing that shit has happened for the first time. I will talk about the shit more, here, soon. It's just that LJ is an innately long-form medium, which means I've been putting off bringing the shit here until I can think about it reasonably. Know that I am coping, I am not alone, and I will explain myself better before much longer. But that is not what this post is about.

Because I have been very busy recently, and because I am known to be dealing with shit, I'm getting more and more "do not reply to this" messages, and "no answer needed" emails. And this is...this is not good. This is incredibly stressful and upsetting and has started sending me into panic spirals when I go to answer my email.

Look: no one can say "reply amnesty" except for me. If I say it, I am telling my brain "okay, you can rest." If you say it, to me, what you're telling my brain is a lovely combination of "I do not want you" and "I do not think you can handle your own responsibilities." This is because my brain is a jerk sometimes, and does not want me to be happy. This is an outgrowth of my OCD. I generally handle it pretty well, but right now, I'm getting a lot of "please do not reply" messages from people expressing sympathy or solidarity, and it's doing horrible things to my mental health.

I am not a fast correspondent. I do not answer everything instantly. I am not capable of keeping up with everything, all the time. But I do my best. I try to endure. Please don't tell me to stop talking to you.

My heart can't take it.

It's almost time for the San Diego International Comic Convention, and you know what that means: I am busier than a chicken with a field full of caterpillars to devour, and it's time for me to tell you where to find me. Since otherwise, well...it does not bear thinking of.

Wednesday.

Preview night begins with a bang, and I'll be there the whole time! I am going to be in a wheelchair again, for the duration of this convention, because otherwise I won't survive. I'll have some fun prizes for the first few people to find me during the con. I also have a request: namely, I did not successfully get this year's Monster High two-pack during the pre-sale, and I am not going to be terribly mobile (see again, wheelchair).

If you find yourself in the Mattel line, and if you feel like picking up a two-pack (or two, since I like to unbox one and keep one mint-in-box) for me, I will gladly pay you back. Note that I am making this request because I don't want to pay scalper prices: I'm happy to negotiate some signed books, or mailing you some CDs after the con, but I really am hoping to find a kind soul who's already going through the line and will grab them for me at cost. Don't worry about being Kind Soul #2: I will totally buy as many two-packs as people bring me, because I have nieces and friends who collect.

Bring on...

Thursday.

Orbit booth signing, 11:00am. I/Mira Grant will be signing at the Orbit booth at 11:00am! I don't know what they'll be giving away vs. what they'll be selling, but I will also sign books you bring with you. Big fun!

When Magic & Myth Meet Main Street, 3:00pm. Join me, Amber Benson, Jim Butcher, Richard Kadrey, Thomas Sniegoski, and Greg van Eekhout as we discuss urban fantasy and why it's AWESOME. Room 25ABC, to be followed by a signing in the Autographing Area.

Friday.

Penguin booth signing, 11:00am. I'll be signing at the Penguin Booth, along with some other awesome authors, and you should totally come. There may be cool surprises...

Saturday.

The Art of Fear, 2:30pm. It's time to get creepy. Join me, G. Michael Hopf, Katherine Howe, April Genevieve Tucholke, Brenna Yovanoff, and James Rollins as we talk about what scares us, and what should scare you. Room 8, to be followed by a signing in the Autographing Area.

California Browncoats booth signing, 11:00am. One last signing to finish out the weekend and make everybody's morning a little more terrifying.

Mind you, all this assumes that we're going to survive the Rising; events may be canceled at any time as zombies eat us all.

Even as a zombie, I will still want those dolls.

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!

LJ Messenger.

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

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

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

Slasher Chicks shirts.

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

Old ARCs.

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

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

Media stuff.

Surprisingly good: the movie Big Ass Spider.

Also surprisingly good: Girl Meets World.

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

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

This is not an anti-piracy post. I want to get that out there right up front. I am anti-piracy, but I don't really want to argue the situation right now, and I understand that it's complicated and all that. So this is not an anti-piracy post.

So here's the thing.

As is always the case when a new book is released, the illegal downloads for Sparrow Hill Road are popping up like mushrooms after the rain. They seem to be quite healthy, too. Swell; hopefully that means sales will be good. It definitely means that people are reporting them to me, because that's part of the circle of piracy. Which also means that some...other...links are getting reported to me.

Including the downloads for the original Edge of Propinquity stories.

I am aware that some people, on seeing me type that, will go "oh yay I can read them." And I am begging you: please don't. Please do not download these stories. Please do not save these stories. If you have them as historical artifacts, well, I can't stop you from doing that, but I would be much happier if you deleted them.

"Silly author, not understanding that the internet is forever!" No, I understand completely that the internet is forever. There's nothing in those stories that I'm ashamed of. The bulk of them have been preserved in the new volume, cleaned up and edited and improved by additional material. I'm not trying to hide anything. But those stories are out of canon, and I've been fielding emails and comments for the last two weeks about "but this contradicts..." or "but this story that isn't collected here says...". They've picked up in volume in the last two days.

So this isn't an anti-piracy post: it's a "please stop downloading what is essentially an early draft, and is out of canon, and is making me tear my hair out" post. You're not missing anything good by leaving it alone. You're just missing a lot of confusion about what year Rose actually died. And you're missing out on Mary and Amy entirely.

Really.

This seems to be an "every six months or so" thing, which is nice: I don't feel too demanding, but I'm able to keep prioritizing the free shorts in my lists. And so, as promised, I am now taking "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

Since I opened this tip jar on a Wednesday, I will leave it open until next Tuesday, when I will close it and post a total for what was collected.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "IM," aka, "let's check in on Artie."
If I get $300 or more, I will prioritize finishing and posting "Bury Me In Satin," aka "there's something about Mary."

"Oh Pretty Bird" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify my perpetually shuffling things around. Thanks so much to everyone who's ever donated in the past; you've done a lot to make my current situation possible.

Thank you!

So there is some awesome stuff going on in the Kickstarter realm, some of which is relevant to my interests in the sense that, well, I'm involved.

First off, we keep hearing about "women destroying science fiction", but what does that really mean? Well, the crew at Lightspeed Magazine really want to find out. We've long since blown our original goal out of the water, but if we can shake up a little bit more, women can also destroy horror. I really, really want to destroy horror. It would be awesome. So check it out!

If you want a little more information, check out this fantastic interview with Christie Yant, who will be editing this special issue. And to get you a little more interested, here's a quote from the interview:

"I have a story in hand from Seanan McGuire (and she seemed only slightly disappointed that I was merely asking her to write a story, and not actually acquire demolition materials)."

So yes, I will be destroying science fiction. Check it out.

Less destructively but still awesomely, the Kickstarter for Streets of Shadows is open now. This urban fantasy noir anthology should be a lot of fun, and I've already finished my story, so I'm naturally eager for it to fund. Check it out!

And that's today's Kickstarter news.

When I posted about depression, I said that I was giving myself comment amnesty; I said that I might not (probably would not) read the comments.

Since then, people have contacted me via email (when they had it), via my old email (which I rarely check), via my contact form, via Facebook, and via my Tumblr, to give me their phone numbers, to tell me not to hurt myself (which I did not threaten to do), to provide crisis hotlines, to make suggestions about medication (which I did not solicit), and in one case, to threaten to report me to the police as a suicide risk if I did not update my blog immediately to show that I was still alive.

Please. Stop. "Comment amnesty" did not mean "work harder to make sure that your words, your well wishes, your specific need to engage with my depression will be heard." I try to keep open dialogs on this blog, and I usually appreciate communication, but right now, this contact is intrusive, and upsetting, and seems to prioritize the needs of the contacting person above mine. Please. Stop.

This is why I do not talk when I am sad.

10. For some reason, people have been sending me Livejournal messages a lot recently. You are totally welcome to do this, but please be aware that I may take months to answer, even years, as they are a lower priority than messages which come in through my website contact form. If you want to contact me for any reason, your best channel is my website, which has a lovely and easy-to-use contact form. These emails go to my PA, who answers some questions herself and forwards the rest on to me. Where they appear in my inbox, impossible to ignore. Where they get answered.

9. Seriously, just use the contact form. I don't really answer messages received through any other channel in any sort of a reasonable time (and I don't answer Facebook messages at all).

8. I am making cioppino tomorrow night! I am so excited about that! Except...

7. ...I'm making it for me and Olivia to eat while we watch "The Quarterback" and cry. I know Glee is a frequently terrible show, but I am genuinely saddened by Cory's death, and this is going to be emotionally devastating.

6. The tip jar is remaining open until tomorrow morning, largely because I forgot to post this reminder yesterday. Thanks to everyone who's chipped in so far, and to everyone who hasn't, too, because sometimes life says "not this time." Y'all are awesome.

5. So awesome, in fact, that I am compelled to make sure you've seen the incredible videos on SymboGen.net. Seriously, this is some of the best marketing ever, and it's for my book. I am overcome with squee.

4. The field of Alice's fucks lies fallow, and I support this.

3. Carrie: The Musical is really fantastic. If you're in the Bay Area, I recommend the Ray of Light production, now playing in San Francisco. If you're not, look around; there are a lot of productions going right now, due to the rights opening up.

2. Zombies are love.

1. HAPPY OCTOBER HALLOWEEN IS COMING.

I am now taking "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

I will leave the tip jar open until next Wednesday, the 9th, when I will close it and post a total for what was collected.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "We Both Go Down Together," aka, "Alice actually arrives."
If I get $300 or more, I will add "Ghosts of Bourbon Street" to the inchworm list, which means it gets scheduled and everything.

"We Both Go Down Together" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify shuffling things around.

Thank you!

All right: here's the skinny.

The Hugo Awards are given annually at the World Science Fiction Convention, which moves around the world (although statistically, it mostly moves around North America, and it's always exciting when it actually goes somewhere else) according to the votes of the membership. These awards represent the best of the science fiction and fantasy world, or at least the best things that a) attract the right kind of attention ("Hugo bait"), b) get enough votes to be nominated, and c) get enough votes to win. (Sometimes I wish we called the award "So You Think You Can SF/F," said "most popular," and let Cat Deeley host the award show.) Items b) and c) are not always the same thing, because of the migratory nature of Worldcon; a book that is vastly popular with the residents of San Francisco, California, may not win when it's voted on in Volgograd, Russia, even though it made the ballot.

The Hugos are both nominated for and voted on by the members of the World Science Fiction Convention, attending or supporting (this is an important distinction, and we'll be coming back to it). This means that if, say, you can't fly to Russia, but you really want to have a say in the Hugos, you can buy a Supporting Membership for a reduced rate, and still cast your ballot into the uncaring wind. Historically over the last ten years, Supporting Memberships have generally been between $40 and $60, and this revenue is important to the operation of the Worldcon. But it's still a lot of money. I know there were years when I did not pay for voting rights, because I couldn't afford it. There have been some suggestions in recent years that we institute a "Voting Membership" tier, where you pay less, don't get any of the physical perks (like the program book), but do get voting rights.

There are some people who really don't like that idea. Follow the link to see Cheryl Morgan's beautiful deconstruction of the proposal to forbid Voting Memberships from ever becoming a thing, but here is the bit that spoke most honestly to me:

"Without cheaper supporting memberships, it might seem that Hugo voting cannot get any cheaper, but that’s not the case. There is nothing in the WSFS Constitution that would prevent a Worldcon from adopting a new class of membership: a Voting Membership. It would carry with it no rights other than voting in the Hugos, and would therefore be pure profit for the Worldcon. If it was priced suitably, it could result in a significant additional source of income, as well as increasing participation in Hugo voting.

The purpose of this new motion is to prevent Worldcons from ever creating this sort of membership.

"That is, its purpose is to prevent the 'Wrong Sort of Fan' from participating in the Hugos: young people, poor people, people from countries where $60 is a huge amount of money, and so on.

"The commentary on the motion is a piece of ridiculous sophistry. A membership is a membership. There is no reason why creating a new type of membership would be a 'distortion,' unless you have the sort of mindset that holds that allowing people who are poorer than you to vote is a 'distortion.'

This motion is an attempt by people who already have voting privileges to prevent those privileges from being extended to others."

But that's not all the fun that's happening right now. There is also a motion to do away with the Best Fanzine, Best Fan Writer, and Best Fan Artist categories. John Scalzi has beaten this suggestion with a stick to see what would fall out; what fell out was a bunch of wasps. Because look.

I started organizing conventions when I was fourteen. I have worked every level, from grunt to chairperson. I have stayed awake for three days solid to help people have a good time. I have elevated masochism to an art form, and I enjoyed it, because I am a fan. Fans are the lifeblood of this community, and one of the things I have always loved and respected about the Hugos is the way that they recognize people for their fannish accomplishments. Yes, they're all creative fannish accomplishments, because the Hugos are a creative award, but they are still being held up with the greats of our genre, as greats of our genre, for being fans. If that is not one of the most devastatingly inspiring notions ever, I don't know what is.

Jim Hines winning Best Fan Writer last year did not in any way reduce the honor of Betsy Wolheim winning for Best Editor (Long Form). If anything, it elevated them both, because here is our industry saying "we need you both to survive." Mark Oshiro's nomination for Best Fan Writer this year did not in any way reduce the honor of my being nominated in several professional writing categories—and whether we win or lose, we will always have shared a ballot, we will always have this in common. We are of the same community. We elevate each other.

Please, if you are attending this year's Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas, join me and others at the WSFS Business Meeting to help us vote these measures down. The first will be Friday morning at 10am.

We have the power to keep this from happening. It's not the power of Grayskull, but I still think it's pretty damn neat.

Let's keep these awards for everybody.

ETA: Here's a great historical perspective on the "Fan Hugo" argument, from Chuq Von Rospach.

So from time to time, I get involved with Kickstarter anthologies. You've probably noticed this by now; it's a reasonably harmless pastime, after all, and one which can result in lots of lovely fiction (since being an anthology automatically means you rate a space on the rolling list, and once you're on the rolling list, you actually get written). This time is no different. Presenting...

Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens, a Kickstarter of men, machines, and unspeakable horrors from beyond the veil of stars.

The premise is simple: aliens arrive on the Planet Earth for their scheduled invasion, and find themselves confronted with a fully-functional steampunk society (which really was not a part of the original plan). Fourteen authors of various backgrounds and who work in diverse genres, will be presenting their own viewpoints on this titanic bout. My own story, "Lady Antheia's Guide to Horticultural Warfare," is planned and plotted and ready to explode into riotous overgrowth. There's only one thing missing, and that's you, dear readers. Our alien war machines need blood, and—I mean, our Kickstarter needs backers if we're going to reach the lofty goal that allows all these thrilling tales to be composed and put out into the world.

So check out our Kickstarter. Consider the Lady Antheia, and how much she'd like the opportunity to meet you. Consider my last alien invasion story, "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On," and ask yourself, just how ridiculous is Seanan willing to get for the cause?

There's only one way to find out.

Guys guys guys guys!

The Kickstarter for Skin Horse, volume 4, is now live! What's more, the fools who run this comic book—you know, the ones who let me write the introduction for volume 3—have grown extra foolish, and allowed me to write an original Skin Horse story for the book! YES! I AM BECOME BONUS STORY!

The story, titled "For Always," is about Black Ops Foster Care, and it's short and sweet and awesome, and I am super excited. You should check out the Kickstarter and totally back it, because maybe there will be super secret stretch goals...

(Also yes, I will be at the tiki party. In case that matters.)

As mentioned in this post, I have been running a "tip jar" all week for the short fiction that I give away on my website. I'll be closing the tip jar tonight, so this is the last call.

A few answers to things people have asked me:

1. No, I am not holding anything finished hostage. This is just a way of moving things up onto the "paid work" list, which gets them finished and posted faster.

1b. ...on the other hand, I will still be pacing stories. So I'm not going to post a new short the day after a book comes out, just for the sake of my own sanity. That's why I'm not promising hard delivery dates.

2. Yes, you can "tip" me any time, but it won't go into the "tip jar total," which is what I'm basing my schedule off of. You can also wait until I decide to do this again (probably in six months or so).

3. Yes, this particular tip jar is for InCryptid stories only. If I open a jar for another series, it will be clearly marked as such.

3b. No, you can't tell me what series to take tips for next.

If you had been meaning to tip, or wanted to tip before the jar closed tonight, you can PayPal to delirium@xocolatl.com. I promise that is really my account, despite the weirdness of the email address and spelling.

Thanks to everyone who's donated so far, and I will post both a total collected and a "what I am committing to" after the tip jar closes.

I am now taking "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

I will leave the tip jar open until Friday, when I will close it and post a total for what was collected.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "Sweet Poison Wine," aka, "the honeymoon story."
If I get $300 or more, I will add "The First Fall" to the inchworm list, which means it gets scheduled and everything.

"Sweet Poison Wine" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify shuffling things around.

Thank you!

It's Oz day! It's Oz day! Oz Reimagined is available now from a bookstore or online retailer near you. I am over the moon, because Oz is the fairyland of my childhood, Oz is where I always wanted to wake up (when I didn't want to go to Gallifrey; my real ideal would have been a pair of silver slippers and a trip to the University of Gallifrey to become the first rainbow-riding Time Lady), and now I am a part of Oz. And that's genuinely amazing.

There are fifteen stories in this book; all are available to buy as Kindle singles, which is an interesting experiment that I've never been involved with before. According to Amazon's webpage for my story, "Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust," some of them may also be available for Amazon Prime members to borrow for free. I haven't read the full anthology yet, but I trust a lot of these authors, and I have faith that it will pass my "must contain three stories worth keeping on my shelves" benchmark.

Now I just want to address something that I've seen crop up in several reviews, because I seriously and genuinely do not want anyone buying this book under false pretenses: this is not an Oz sequel. This is not an homage filled with loving continuations of the canonical Oz. These are stories reimagining Oz, much like Syfy's Tin Man, or the fantastical ongoing comic, Namesake. They are not for children. The book even says so on the cover. Picking this up because you want a children's book will do you a disservice, and may cause you to have Vegemite issues with some otherwise fine pieces of writing.

My story is an urban fantasy. Dorothy has grown up and is living with Polychrome, in a committed lesbian relationship. Is this because I wanted to stain someone else's childhood? No. It's because when I was a little girl, I genuinely believed that Dorothy and Ozma were going to be married someday, and could support that claim with examples from the text. Maybe I was projecting, but that was the memory I went back to when it came time to write my story: my earnest belief that Dorothy was, well, a "friend of Dorothy," and would never marry a man, whether she grew up or no. People get hurt in my story. People die. And I am not the only one who approached the kind of themes in my Oz story that I approach in my day-to-day writing.

Please, pick up this book if it sounds interesting. I'm incredibly excited about it, and I hope you'll love it, just like I hope that the general "you" will love everything I write. But don't pick it up for your ten-year-old and then look astonished when they ask you to explain something you'd been hoping to put off until later.

Oz!

This has been coming up a lot lately, and in the interests of my not snapping inappropriately at anyone, I figured it was time to make this post again. So...

Please. Please, I am begging you, please don't ask "when can we read X" or "does this mean you'll be writing more about Y." If I haven't told you, I can't tell you.

My schedule for the next six months is tight enough that I've been cancelling dinner dates and social outings left and right, and I didn't have that many of them to start with. And that doesn't include more Velveteen, more Rose, or more anything else that I haven't already announced publicly, on this blog.

I love having an involved, active community here that I can talk to, learn from, and listen to. And I do appreciate knowing what you want to see more of. But if something is happening, confirmed, and at a point where I can say "this is happening," then I will say it without prompting. Asking about it over and over again in comments and email just makes me tired and sad and grumpy, and unfortunately, I'm only human: the 200th time I'm asked something, I will snap, which especially sucks if this was your first entry into the conversation.

So please. Don't ask me these questions. I can't answer them, so you won't get any satisfaction, but you will make me sad.

And that sucks.

...and, you know, a whole lot of other characters. I am pleased to announce the Kickstarter for Glitter and Madness, an anthology about the "secret nightlife of the 20th century." Raves and roller derby, drugs and debauchery, nightclubs and naughtiness, it's all there, including a brand-new InCryptid novella, "Bad Dream Girl," about Antimony Price and her time with the Slasher Chicks roller derby team. (The other three teams in her league are the Concussion Stand, the Block Busters, and the Stunt Troubles. They're movie-themed. Can you tell I enjoyed myself?)

The Kickstarter is here, packed with lots of lovely goodies:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnklima/glitter-and-madness-the-speculative-nightclub-anth

But wait! There's more! One of the pledge levels gets you a copy of "Bad Dream Girl" as soon as the anthology funds, which means bam, in your inbox, more Price girl goodness. It's a $50 pledge, which isn't for everyone (obviously), but if this story would be enough to motivate you to pick up the anthology, or if the theme and list of AWESOME AUTHORS would be enough, take a look at the tiers, pick your poison, and help us turn the lights on at the club.

Because seriously, any anthology that gives me an excuse to introduce you properly to Antimony, who is quite possibly my favorite of the Price siblings, is a-okay by me.

Roller derby!

So it's the holidays; I have multiple books due, and I'm blocking out my time for 2013 in regards to conventions, short story commitments, and taking time to breathe; my cats still need to be snuggled occasionally so that they'll keep letting me get out of bed. So I am offering this fervent plea to the universe:

Please, please, before you ask me questions, either here or via my website contact form, go to my website (www.seananmcguire.com) and check the Bibliography and/or FAQ pages.

Need to know when something is being published, if something is being published in the next few months, or whether something has already been published? There's a Bibliography for that (http://seananmcguire.com/other.php). It's updated with works up for four months out.

Have a question about a possible typo or error, or where I'm going to be, or who Jane is in "Wicked Girls"? There are multiple FAQs, specializing in different types of question. Please check to see whether I have already provided an answer before asking.

I love talking to people, I love answering comments, but when I've already answered the same question thirty times, I just get frustrated and tired.

Please.

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

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

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

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

Ladies and gentlemen of the 2012 World Science Fiction Convention membership...have you remembered to cast your vote for this year's Hugo Awards? Because if you haven't, you're sort of running out of time; July 31st is your last day to vote.

I am reasonably sure that each and every person on that ballot wants to win. I am no different. But almost as much as I want to win, I want to know that if I lose, it will be because every possible voter looked at the works up for consideration, looked at their ballot, and made their choice fairly and well. I want you all to vote. I want to lose because I lost, not because there was a sale at Ben and Jerry's and we all got rightfully distracted because dude, ice cream.

Please. If you are eligible to vote, it has never been easier to get a clear view of the entire ballot. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Hugo committee, we have an electronic voting package that is a bibliophile's dream; you can read and consider absolutely everything that's asking for your vote. And if you're not a member yet, but were thinking about it, you can still register with full voting rights if you do it soon.

And because I really love this quote, I am once again quoting Cat Valente. Specifically: "A final note: you do not have to go to Worldcon to nominate and vote for the Hugos. You can buy a supporting membership for $50 and get that perk. I realize $50 is a lot to express an opinion, but every year we hear complaints about the ballot and every year I hope that my generation will vote a little more, because the Hugos are kind of a bellwether for the field, and I want new crackly risktaking goodness in there, too. Since I have no control over the price of the supporting membership all I can say is—give it a thought, if you have the scratch."

Make this year's Hugo winners the ones you think deserve those shiny rocket ships.

Vote.

...cmsieg! If I do not receive an email from you by 9:30 PST tonight, I will choose a new winner for the early copy of Blackout!

Please email me. :(

Voting for the 2012 Hugo Awards is now open for all Attending and Supporting members of the 2012 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCon 7. ChiCon will be held this August in Chicago, Illinois, where attendees will be able to see such wonders as me tending bar for Barfleet, Amy fiddling for everyone in the known universe, and Cat and I in full-on flustered fairy tale princess mode. Super-fun!

Now, if you're not going to WorldCon, you may wonder why this is relevant to your interests. I have two words for you: voter packet.

All Supporting Members receive, in addition to Hugo voting rights, a copy of the Hugo voter packet. This includes all the nominated works for the year. Novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, graphic stories, and yes, related works (so this year, they had to figure out how to include MP3s of an entire filk album—I am a living complication). Strictly speaking, this is well over a $50 value. I mean, the Related Works category alone would probably cost you around $80 if you bought all the physical media, and that doesn't go into the fiction categories at all. So you save a lot, while getting a neat little packet containing electronic copies of what the community thought was best about the previous year. And oh, I forgot to mention there's also samples of the Fan Writer nominees, and art, and and and and...

And here's the thing. I can't pretend that I don't have a vested interest in this year's Hugos: I said last year that no one accepts a nomination when they don't want to win, and I meant that sincerely and without embarassment. It's even worse this year, when I'm on the ballot four times and terrified of losing four times. I want to win. But even more, if I'm going to lose, I want to lose fairly. I want to lose because the community spoke, and what they said was "this one over here should be the victor." That means people need to vote.

Every year, when the Hugo ballot is announced, some people say "these things, these things are wrong." Then, after the votes are counted, some people say "these wins, these losses, they are also wrong." But the only way to change the wrongness is to participate. That means nominating, and that means casting your vote. It's never been easier, and it's never been more...balanced, for lack of a better word. $50 isn't peanuts. There have been years where I wouldn't have been able to afford that. On the other hand, you get a lot of bang for your bucks, and you get to be a part of shaping our community's history. And if you register now, you may even have time to read everything before the deadline!

If you can afford a Supporting Membership, I highly recommend it. It's a fair value, and it lets you participate. Everybody loves participation, right?

This ends today's public service announcement.

Dear Great Pumpkin;

I hope you have been well since the last time I wrote you, and that you have enjoyed both the harvest and the planting which follows. You have never been far from my thoughts, and I have not wavered in my faith. Since our last correspondence, I have not started any fights for the sake of fighting, or allowed myself to be swayed from my beliefs for the sake of keeping the peace. I have loved my friends and tolerated my enemies. I have shared my baked goods freely and without resentment. I have not brought about the end of all flesh, nor have I lured the unwary into a corn maze and left them there to feed the crops. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not talked about parasites at the dinner table. Much. So obviously, I have been quite well-behaved, especially considering my nature.

Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:

* A smooth and successful release for Blackout, with books shipping when they're meant to ship, stores putting them out when they're supposed to put them out, and reviews that are accurate, insightful, and capable of steering people who will enjoy my book to read it, while warning those who will not enjoy my book gently away. Please, Great Pumpkin, show mercy on your loving Pumpkin Princess of the West, and let it all be wonderful. I'm not asking you to make it easy, Great Pumpkin, but I'm asking you to make it good. This is the end of the trilogy, and the end of an era I have loved very much. Let it be good.

* Please let me finish the current draft of Parasitology in time, and with a minimum of eleventh-hour plot twists and unexpected complications. I'm not asking for none—I've met me—but I'm asking that they remain controllable and manageable, especially as I move into the third act and start blowing shit up with wanton abandon. I am so very nervous about this book, because it will be the first non-Newsflesh Mira Grant project, and I want it to be amazing.

* And when that is done, o Prince of Patches, I ask that you help me to find my way into the depths of The Chimes at Midnight without that changing-genres stumble; let Toby and her world open their arms and welcome me home, that I might transcribe the story that is already making my fingertips ache. There is so much that I want to do in this book, and only so many pages for me to do it in. Please help me find my way, and help me tell this story. It needs telling.

* I thank you once again for my cats, Great Pumpkin, who are everything I could ever ask for in feline companions. Alice is huge, puffy, and utterly without dignity. Lilly is sleek, smug, and satisfied with herself. Thomas is playful, expanding rapidly, and too smart for his own good. I have never been happier with the cats who share my life than I am with this trio, who delight me in all ways. Please, Great Pumpkin, keep them healthy, keep them happy, and keep them exactly as they are.

* I guess you probably know what I really want this year, Great Pumpkin; what the ultimate tricky treat would be. I have been nominated for four Hugo Awards, and while I am not greedy, and will not ask you for all of them, it would mean so much to me if I could win just one. If I could come home with a shiny rocket in my bag. Okay, maybe I am a little greedy: if you could see fit to shine your holy candle on both the Best Novel and Best Related Works categories, those would mean the world. I came very close to winning last year. This year, not only will I be sitting in the audience hoping so hard, I'll be doing it with Amy and Vixy and Cat and oh so many people I love oh so very much in attendance. Please, Great Pumpkin, please. And should you see fit to grant my prayers, I will thank you in any speeches I have to give (you know I'm good for it, I did it last time).

I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.

PS: While you're at it, can you please turn your graces on Echo? I think I'm finally ready to write this story. I just need to find the door...

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

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

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

And that, for the moment, is all.

A long, long time ago—literally twenty years ago, when the world was a different place, and I was a different person—I met a man named Mike. Mike would go on to become very important in my life. He told me stories; he listened to me when I told him stories; he was one of the first people to read the adventures of a beat-up half-fae detective girl and say "There's potential here." Mike helped me a lot as a writer, because he listened to me when I wasn't good enough for many people to be listening to.

Also, he and his wife took me to Disney World for the very first time ever, and I'd love him forever for that alone. Dude gave me the Tower of Terror for my birthday. How could I not adore him? Anyway...

Mike is currently running a Kickstarter project to help fund an anthology project that's very dear to him, both as an editor and as a human being, titled Scheherazade's Facade. To quote the Kickstarter page:

"History, literature and mythology are replete with stories of those who, for one reason or another, disguise themselves as the opposite gender, or are transformed into that which they are not. Whether it's for love, ambition, or self-preservation, whether it's to challenge the status quo or simply to embrace their true nature, whether it's done willingly or thrust upon them, there will always be those who cross-dress and blur the lines between genders. Scheherazade's Facade takes its inspiration from those themes. From Bugs Bunny's dress-wearing shenanigans, to Mulan's impersonation of her father, from Tamora Pierce's Alanna of Trebond, to M*A*S*H's Klinger, this collection's antecedents are everywhere."

If you'd like a little more information, his full writeup is here.

I don't normally point people at Kickstarters, because there are just so damn many of them that I think are awesome that you'd be "uh, what?" at me over. I'm even planning one of my own, to reprint Stars Fall Home. But this is a good cause by a good friend, with clear goals and results. It's worth taking a look, and if you think this is a book that should be, maybe you could help a fella out a little.

Thanks for reading.

...or at least, dealing with person with OCD.

It's no secret around here that I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; I manage it on a daily basis, and I do a pretty good job. It's why I can accomplish as much as I do, given how little time I have. But it does mean that some things are non-negotiable for me, even as I politely tell people that they don't have to do them.

One of those things is responding to comments.

Sometimes, when I get overwhelmed, kind and concerned and loving people try to grant me comment amnesty. "You don't have to answer this." BUT I DO. I answer comments because I have to answer comments, or I literally cannot forget that I have left them unanswered. It may take me a long time. I may answer so far in the future that you've forgotten commenting. But unless I was the one who said "comment amnesty" (and sometimes not even then), I can't leave the majority of comments unacknowledged.

(This came about, ironically, because someone got very very very angry at me for not answering comments, and left me with a terror of being screamed at again.)

So please, don't tell me I don't have to answer you. That will just stress me out more, and move answering your comment to tell you that I do so have to answer higher up my priority list.

This has been another day of Seanan, living with OCD. Have a cookie.

ETA: Because I apparently wasn't clear: I love comments. I enjoy answering them. What stresses me out is other people trying to declare comment amnesty on my behalf. I can't process that, and so it just makes me unaccountably tense and unpleasant. So please, comment as normal. Just don't try to tell me I don't have to answer you, 'cause really, I do.

All right: here's the thing. Discount Armageddon is officially released March 6th. That's the date we've been talking about for months, that's the date you should be able to obtain the book, that's the date when sales begin counting against my first week numbers. Any books which escape into the wild before then count against my overall sales, but do not count for that all-important first week. Also, because I am number-based OCD, any books which escape into the wild before then make me feel sick, cry hysterically, and basically become non-functional with stress. It's THE BEST THING.

As of midnight Monday/the very beginning of Tuesday, Amazon has been shipping copies of Discount Armageddon. Consequentially, Barnes & Noble is doing the same thing. I haven't been saying anything because DAW is trying frantically to fix it, and I didn't want to drive sales to the sites which have chosen to release my book early. (I don't blame B&N for reacting when they saw that the book was on sale; they're a business, after all. But it's not helping my stress level any.) Please, please, do not buy my book early. I know it's hard. I know that the urge to have the shiny thing now is strong within us. I've ordered dolls from Japan and Australia, and DVD sets from Canada and the UK, for just this reason. But those things were legitimately released in the regions where I was ordering them, and Discount Armageddon has not been legitimately released anywhere at all. Please wait until March 6th. Don't punish independent bookstores, and local brick and mortar stores, for some computer's hard-to-fix mistake. Please. I am literally begging you here.

It doesn't help that so much of a book's success is measured by their first week. I've basically thrown up every time I thought about my week one numbers (including just now), because these early sales could mean the difference between a series and an accidental duology. It's unlikely—DAW is very loyal, and they stand by me—but it could happen, and I am very much worst-case-scenario girl when I'm this flipped out. So please. Do not buy early. Wait until March 6th.

And then there are the ebooks.

Both Amazon and B&N have put the physical edition of Discount Armageddon on sale, but are still holding the electronic edition for the actual release date. People who receive their physical books early are reaping the benefits of a fortuitous, author-breaking error. People who have to wait for their electronic books are not being denied anything; they're doing what was supposed to happen in the first place. This has not stopped the exciting emails from rolling in. They mostly stopped after the first day, but on that first day, I was called...

( A lot of bad things are behind this cut. If you don't want to see, just go with 'I was called a lot of bad things.'Collapse )

See, apparently, the ebooks are being withheld because I, personally, am trying to force everyone to buy my preferred format (physical). So sexual threats and relentless abuse are totally acceptable, because it just shows me the error of my ways.

I have nothing to do with the books being available early. I wish they weren't.

I have no control over whether the electronic editions are available early. I'm glad they're not, but it's not because I'm a greedy bitch; it's because I don't want any editions available early.

I am literally sick with stress, and this is not in any way helping. Please, don't buy my books before their actual release date. Please, don't place an order with a site which is offering my books before their actual release date. Please, don't call me horrible names because you can't have what you want the second that you want it.

Please.

(Because it must be said...comment amnesty. I'm already crying hard enough.)

Hey! Want to read Discount Armageddon a little early and help a good cause at the same time? Well, DAW has kindly donated an ARC of Discount Armageddon to con_or_bust, and you can bid on it right now.

What is Con or Bust? Well, in the words of its administrator, "Con or Bust is a fund that
helps fans of color/non-white fans attend SFF cons and that is administered by the Carl Brandon Society, a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction. Con or Bust isn't a scholarship and isn't limited by geography, type of con-goer, or con (it was established to send people to WisCon, but has since broadened its efforts); its goal is simply to help fans of color go to SFF cons and be their own awesome selves."

Increasing diversity is awesome, and it's something we should encourage as much as possible. All the better if you can get some fun reading material at the same time, right? You can find the listing for Discount Armageddon right over here, and bidding is open through February 25th.

Help a cool charity, and get a book for yourself at the same time. Everybody wins!