Because it is written in the stars that 2016 should be a month of near-constant travel, I am about to hop on yet another plane and soar off to New York, where I will do business, hug people, and oh yeah, appear at New York Comic-Con, the East Coast's Geek Prom.

So where can you find me? Other than staring longingly at the Marvel editorial team, trying to literally will them into hiring me to relaunch the X-Men?

Thursday.

Mira Grant signing, 2pm, Orbit Booth. I don't actually have booth numbers, but it will be listed in the program/exhibitor guide as either "Orbit" or "Hachette Books," and I will gleefully sign things for you. With my actual hand!

Friday.

Shipwreck, 8pm. This is a separately ticketed event, but believe me, you want to attend. Come and see several professional word people wreck a great book--in this case, The Princess Bride. Mara Wilson is our guest reader. This is also the launch for Loose Lips, the first ever Shipwreck collection. I wrote the introduction!

Saturday.

Scream Queens, 2pm, BookCon @ NYCC - 500 W 36th St. It's a Mira Grant panel, which means it's a party in a haunted house while the corn is closing in. Come for the fun, stay because we won't let you leave.

Signing, 3:15pm, BookCon @ NYCC 6th Floor autographing area. We will sign things, and probably not eat you.

Sunday.

Seanan McGuire signing, 2pm, Penguin booth. Again, I do not have booth numbers, but this one should be listed in the program book as "Penguin Random House." Come see me, and I'll congratulate you on surviving the convention!

By this time tomorrow morning, I will be at the San Francisco International Airport, drinking overpriced airport beverages and waiting for my 8am flight to New York. I will have kissed my cats goodbye and walked through the Bay Area house for what will be, in many ways, the last time: when I get back from New York, the house will still be here, but everything I own will be gone, packed up and pulled down and shoved into the moving truck, already making its way up the coast.

From June 3rd to June 28th, I will be on the East Coast, doing business (numbers, numbers, math math math), doing pleasure (people who know how badly I need to be distracted from what's happening in California have made sure I will have many good distractions), doing appearances (I will be at the Manhattan Kinokuniya on June 11th; details are here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1547988148830559/ ), and doing conventions (CrossingsCon, in Newark, New Jersey, with my beloved Mark Oshiro).

Things I will not be doing: mailing stuff. All my stuff will be a) on the West Coast, and b) in a moving truck. Replying to email with anything resembling alacrity. Sleeping much, between "New York in June" and "did I mention people are touching all my stuff and my cats are very far away?". Breathing.

If you're in the New York area, I hope to get a chance to see you this trip (looking at you, The Swarm). If you're not, please be patient with me while I navigate what has been a huge and stressful endeavor, but which seems to be coming, finally, thankfully, to a blessed end.

Next weekend will find me in Dallas, Texas, where I'll be appearing alongside my beloved John Scalzi as Guest of Honor at ConDFW! Updates to the schedule will appear on the website (and may not appear here, depending on my internet access), but here's my basic plan:

Friday.

3:00PM, Madison: "Google Maps is Your Urban Fantasy Guide." Join me, along with Gloria Oliver (M), Paul Black, Sue Sinor, and Bradley H. Sinor, as we talk about finding the perfect location for an urban fantasy story. I know none of these people, and I'll still be adjusting to a new time zone, so this should be fun!

5:00PM, Jefferson: "Reading." Right. Apparently, I'm going to "treat" people with a reading from my work. Given how much I hate readings, this is unlikely to actually happen; show up and see what I do instead!

7:00PM, Jefferson: "Opening Ceremonies!" John Scalzi and I get into a slap fight while the con chair tries in vain to control us.

Saturday.

10:00AM, Jefferson: "Don't Quit Your Day Job!" This is a con that loves its exclamation points. Join me, Marshall Ryan Maresca (M), Kathy Turski, Rachael Acks, Melia Newman, and Sue Sinor as we talk about what actually goes into earning a living in a creative field, and what's necessary to survive until that happens.

12:00PM, The Gallery: Signing. I will just be signing. Things. If there's not a filk dealer, this will also be where I sell CDs out of my backpack.

2:00PM, Jefferson: "Q&A with Seanan McGuire." Someone I have never met is going to ask me questions! Because that never goes poorly for anyone!

4:00PM, Jefferson: "Magic vs Technology II: Exploring Technology in Urban Fantasy." This is part two of a panel where part one happened last year, so I'm going to, I don't know, horn in on the party and maybe take a nap beneath the table? Or build a rocket out of paperclips, I guess. Come see me get confused.

6:00PM, Jackson: "Celebrity Artemis." I get to drive a spaceship. Hopefully I can be the science officer. We'll find out!

Sunday.

12:00PM, Hamilton: "The Wand of Deus Ex Machina." Join me, Kristi Hutson (M), Michael Ashleigh Finn, Paul Black, and Bradley H. Sinor as we talk about that time one of my high school GMs wouldn't let my character have a machete, even though you could totally buy one at the local flea market for five dollars, so he was just being a jerk because I wouldn't go out with him.

2:00PM, Hamilton: "Location, Location, Location: House of Horrors." Join me, Katherine Sanger (M), Michelle Muenzler, Aaron de Orive, and Jeff Dawson as we talk about scary places. Like that awesome abandoned slaughterhouse in Tuscon, AZ, where I made my GoH handler take me before dinner.

3:00PM, Jefferson: "Intelligence is Overrated." Thrill as I probably miss what sounds like a really interesting panel about protagonist psychology to run for the airport!

Will I see you at the con?

New York is exhausting.

I have been running hither and yon for the past two weeks; people keep being surprised that I'm still gone, and sometimes "people" involves me. I just woke up from a nap where I dreamt that Thomas had been here in New York with me this whole time (just Thomas; even my subconscious can't imagine putting Alice recreationally on a plane), and I nearly cried when I opened my eyes, because I just needed my kitty.

But I am having a wonderful time. I went to a cheese and champagne party in my honor (mine! As if I were a cheese and champagne event!), spent two days at DAW lounging and reading and being home, saw Fun Home and Hamilton on Broadway (and lost my shit when I realized that September from Fringe was playing Bruce Bechdel in Fun Home), and did lots of other good things. And I still have almost two weeks and a convention to go.

I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging. I've fallen out of it for a lot of reasons, some good and some bad and some just overwhelmed, but I'm trying. I think I need some balance, and writing things down helps. So expect another post about Fun Home, and one about Hamilton, and one about the life-sized T. Rex at the Times Square Toys R Us, and please remember that I am not home until December 2nd, so communications will continue to be slow and unwieldy, but I am trying, and trying is a lot.

That is all.

...the taxi's not waiting yet (and is also my mother), but in very little time, I will be kissing my cats on their foreheads despite their grumbles and complaints, heading for the airport, and embarking on another adventure. Specifically, an adventure in changing climates and trying not to freeze. Yes: it's once again time for Seanan Goes To New York.

At least it's not February this time.

I have bunches of events while I'm there; so bunches that the best place to find out where I am, when, is by checking the Appearances menu on my website. I try not to steer y'all away from here, since everybody hates to click things these days (so weird to me), but there are too many for me to be sure of not missing one if I try to translate them over. Also, the Appearances page gets updated constantly, and blog posts, well, don't. So if you're in New York, I hope I'll be seeing you soon!

As always, my mother, sister, housemate, and very large dog will all be here while I'm out of town, so the house is not actually primed for robbing. I may be even slower than normal to respond to non-emergency inquiries for at least the next week, while I get used to East Coast time. Thanks for understanding, and rock on New York!

This weekend I'm pleased to be appearing at CONtraflow 5/DeepSouthCon 53, alongside Julie Dillon, Robert Sawyer, and many others—including one variation of my musical swarm: Dr. Mary Crowell, Bill and Brenda Sutton, and more!

My schedule is as follows:

Opening Ceremonies, Friday, 5pm, Event 1
The Scariest Movie I've Ever Seen, Friday, 10pm, Panel Room 2
Saturday Concert, Saturday, 12pm, Event 1
In Conversation..., Saturday, 5pm, Panel Room 4
Speculative Poetry, 8pm, Panel Room 3, Saturday
Good Habits of Successful Writers, 12pm, Event One, Sunday
Writing Urban Fantasy, Sunday, 3pm, Panel Room 4

I don't have panel descriptions, but those seem pretty self-explanatory, and it should be a rousing good time. Plus, New Orleans! Who could ask for anything more?

I hope to see you there!

This time tomorrow, I will not only be at Disney World, I will have been there for three hours. So you'll please excuse me if my current connection to linear reality is, um, not so solid. Nope. Not really. Here are things you'll need to know!

To anyone who wants anything from Seanan between now and May 13th:

I am very, very, very much in need of a break, and that is why I am boarding a big metal sky-bird and soaring off to the House of Mouse, where no one who isn't actually in my party will be able to find me with any reliability. I will have Wifi, and I will have my phone, but I will not be tethered to them as I am in the real world, and I won't be home, which is where things like "the mailing supplies" live. At this time, all giveaway prizes and contracts have been mailed, and there are still about twenty shirts pending (not counting the ones omitted from the original delivery). Two shirts have been returned to me due to address issues. This will all be dealt with when I get back.

Mail sent through my contact forms will go through Kate and Vixy, as always, with a catch: Vixy is going to Disney World with me. So if you're using the www.miragrant.com contact form, please expect delays all around.

To anyone who thinks it might be fun to rob my house:

They say not to tell the internet when you're traveling, because it tempts thieves. I get that. I also get that the nature of my life makes it hard to hide when I do something like "I'm going to drop offline for thirteen days and fill my Twitter feed with pictures of Disney World." So...

Please don't rob me, nebulous internet baddies. I have a housemate, a large dog, and a house-sitter. More, I really don't have anything valuable in the traditional sense; my only real electronics will be in transit with me, and most of my dolls are haunted. Save yourself. Stay away.

To anyone who thinks it's weird for an adult to be this excited about Disney:

I think it's weird how excited adults get about professional sports, but you don't see me coming into their space and harshing their squee. I even let Shawn tell me how the Red Sox are doing every season, despite my total lack of fucks to give. So please don't tell me my passions are strange or immature. I don't care.

Disney time! See you all on the rested, refreshed, wind-blown, sunburnt flip-side!

Here we go again, happy people: tomorrow I shall board a big metal sky-bird and soar away to Colorado, land without air, to serve as faculty for this year's Pike's Peak Writer's Conference.

If you're attending, I very much hope to see you there. If you're not attending, I will be very surprised if I see you there. If you see me there, and I seem a little woozy, it's just the altitude sickness; please don't tell me to drink more water, as I may throw up on you.

Colorado time!

I am pleased to be able to officially announce that I will be Author Guest of Honor at Minicon 51, held over Easter weekend in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Well, "in or around," so it may be just outside Minneapolis. The hotel info will be posted soon. And let's face it, if you're coming from, say, Oregon, it's the same difference. Hence why I usually tell non-Californians "oh, I'm from Berkeley.")

The Artist Guest of Honor is Sara Butcher Burrier, whom the website describes as providing a "lighter" view of Faerie. It's gonna be the all-fae, all-the-time convention! Very exciting. Join us from March 25th to 27th, 2016, to learn more.

I get to go to Izzy's*!

(*Izzy's is my second-favorite ice cream place in the world, second only to Jeni's, which bought my love with their pear sorbet. My trips to Minneapolis/St. Paul are basically defined by ice cream and roast beef.)

10. Seattle is beautiful. I know this, because I am currently in Seattle, at least until Monday (the 30th), when I will fly back to California, have my hair done, do my laundry, sleep, and get on a plane to England. I won't be home for more than a day until April 15th. My accountant is thrilled.

9. Emerald City Comic Con is this weekend! I have posted my schedule. It's very packed and very pretty, and I am super excited about all the good things to come. Whee!

8. Before I left California, Kate and I did a massive post office run, and I mailed another huge batch of domestic shirts, as well as about a third of the remaining international shirts. I will try to send another batch before I leave for the UK (although I can't guarantee it). Also, my mother called to let me know that a box from the shirt shop has shown up, which I presume contains the shirts that weren't printed in the initial delivery. Hooray! I won't be able to sort these until after April 15th, but hopefully this means we can finish fulfillment sooner than later. Thank you all for your patience.

7. Still not writing the X-Men. Give me time.

6. Rolling in the Deep comes out next month! On the seventh, to be exact, and it is fancy. Seriously, this may be the fanciest book I have ever written, at least in terms of awesome production values. What a fancy, fancy book. Also it is filled with murderous mermaids and ill-fated ocean voyages, which are two of my favorite things. Because this is a Subterranean Press book, there's no guarantee it will be coming to a bookstore near you, and it may need to be ordered directly from the publisher.

5. This morning was the San Diego Comic-Con hotel scramble, and it says something about how stressful this is on an annual basis that I was on the Air B&B site shortly after, looking at local condos and thinking "maybe this wouldn't be so bad." I need help, and the con needs a better way of handling hotel assignments.

4. We are getting pedicures today. Because we are fancy ladies.

3. Speaking of fancy ladies, I am seeing so many of my favorite fancy ladies this coming weekend that I can't even express how happy I am. Like, I try, and all the words go away and then the flailing happens and sometimes I just really love my life, okay? Sometimes my life is best.

2. Zombies are love.

1. I will be going to Disney World for the first half of May, so if I seem a little AHHHHHHHHHHHH for the next few weeks, it's because I am literally three conventions and six weeks away from Disney time, and I need Disney time so bad y'all, I need it so bad I can taste it.

What's shiny and new with all of you?

So as I write this I am in Jersey City, New Jersey, preparing to tear down my computer and head for the airport, where a big metal sky-bird will carry me to Chattanooga, Tennessee, land of the Chattanooga choo-choo, endless Cthulhu parodies, and ConNooga, an awesome media convention with the good taste to ask me to be a Guest of Honor!

My schedule for the weekend:

Friday, 4:00 PM, Room 12: Writing Dialog.
Saturday, 1:00 PM, Room 12: Reading, Q/A: Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant.
Saturday, 5:00 PM, Room 12: Diversity in Fiction: What is it, How to do it, and Why.

I will be in the main exhibit hall a great deal of the time, happy to sign things, meet people, and complain bitterly about the cold.

I hope to see some of you there!

Despite some confusion about my flight times, I am packed and ready to depart for New York City tomorrow morning. I have lain in food and litter for the cats, so that they are not forced to kill and eat my mother. I have charged my electronics and synched my iPod and had my sister wash my hair for me, just in case the purple dye sets off the bomb sniffers again. (Seriously. The dye sometimes sounds a false positive on the TSA equipment. So it's best if Youngest Sister washes and blow-dries me the night before I fly, just to be safe.)

I'm sorry I was unable to get the hardship giveaway winners picked and packed before I went; that will happen as soon as I get home. I'll be at ConNooga in a few weeks, and I do hope to see you there. In the meantime, I'll be running around visiting my publishers, seeing my girlfriend, and missing my cats and creepy dolls and bed.

I miss them all already.

Wish me luck.

I had never been to Germany before. But since the convention I was going to be a Special Guest at (Filk Continental) was in Germany, it seemed like a good time to show up.

Tom helpfully drove me to the station near the house, where I got a head shake from the station agent, who disapproved of my (admittedly expensive) "take the Heathrow Express from Paddington" plan. I pointed out that I was a clearly foreign woman with a giant suitcase, and that sometimes we pay to not take stairs. He replied that he would have made different choices with his money, and gave me my ticket. Jerk.

Ahem. The Heathrow Express proved to be a quick, pleasant way to get to the airport, and I highly recommend it. Yes, it was more expensive, but the savings in terms of both time and stress cannot be overstated, even if I did promptly get off at the wrong terminal. (This is a big deal in Heathrow, which is one of the largest airports in the world.) I found my way to the right terminal, and then the right gate, and finally the right seat on the right plane, and all was right with the world.

My flight was short and uneventful, and eventually dropped me in Hannover, where I was collected from the arrivals area by Rika and Rachel. I went to sleep in the car. Then I went to sleep on the couch at Rika's lovely apartment. Then I got up for breakfast with some lovely filkers who live in Rika's apartment complex, and whom I would see a great deal of over the weekend (yay!). They had an assortment of cheeses. YAY CHEESES. And then I went back to sleep for several hours. This would prove to be a good thing later.

The drive from Hannover to the convention, which was being held in a lovely little youth hostel near a castle, was lovely, uneventful, and long enough for me to watch two episodes of Leverage. We got there, got checked in, and I went to poke Vixy with a stick, since I had missed her dreadfully during my "out of time zone" adventures. She felt unwell. I still had my cold meds from when I'd first arrived in England. The circle of cold meds closes, and all is complete.

Sunnie and Betsy were in my room when I came back downstairs, making it our room, and the weekend had officially begun.

First up was dinner with the concom, at a local restaurant that had passed their stress test, but did not so much pass the "twenty people would like to be fed and Seanan is about to pass out from low blood sugar" test. Boo. It took about three hours to eat, and by the end of it, I was a murderbunny. I ate half of Betsy's dinner, which helped. Going to bed also helped...although it would have helped more if I'd been able to sleep. Unfamiliar place + thin walls + thin bed = Seanan begins her three-day ordeal of stumbling through life, dreaming of sensory deprivation chambers. Boo.

The next day was Friday, and kicked off the convention. We rehearsed for our various concerts, attended opening ceremonies (awesome), and opening concerts (even more awesome). I went to bed early, in hopes that I would sleep. I did not. Sigh.

Saturday was my concert, followed by Vixy and Tony's concert. Since we both used Sunnie and Betsy extensively, we were basically solid walls of sound, and everything went amazingly. The whole audience stood up and held hands during "We Are Who We Are" (Vixy and Tony's latest song, which is awesome), causing Vixy to wander around looking stunned and asking if that had really just happened. Hee.

Sunday was workshops, more concerts, and the final request concert, where Steve Macdonald and Katy Droege did "Cold Butcher" at my request, I did "Still Catch the Tide," and Vixy and Tony closed the con with a repeat performance of "We Are Who We Are." The Dead Dog that night was awesome, and I even stayed up for several hours to enjoy open filk before staggering off to bed.

The next day, Steve and I got a ride home from Syb, while Katy drove Vixy and Tony home. We all met up in Hamburg, where we had a lovely steak dinner before crashing at Steve and Katy's place. The next day, Steve got me to the airport to begin my incredibly long journey home.

But that's another story.

I am pleased as punch to report that I will be appearing at the Forbidden Planet super-store in London on Wednesday evening, beginning at 6PM and continuing until they throw us out!

I will be signing whatever people have to hand, although the event is specifically celebrating the release of the first three InCryptid books in their beautiful new UK editions from Corsair Books. There is no charge to attend, although the bookstore would, as always, appreciate it if you bought something. Bookstores are like that.

This is my first big London event, and I really hope to see you there!

All my life, I've known that my mother's people were from Ireland, but apart from one very short stop during a visit to England several years ago, I had never been. The country that shaped my grandparents was a mystery to me. Part of why I was so pleased to be invited to be a Guest of Honor at Shamrokon was the opportunity to see Ireland, and because of that, when James (one of the con chairs) asked if I wanted to stay in Dublin for a week and see a bit of the country, I leapt at the opportunity.

The Monday after the con, I saw Amy off and went to the Porterhouse Central with Wes and Mary for the Dead Dog. We quickly ditched out of there and went first to the bookstore, then to grab a quick bite at The Farm (a local food restaurant) before heading back in. I got to see Charlie, Bill and Brenda, Merav, Terry, and Jon, and a bunch of lovely locals (including one very excited boy who came over to talk Skullduggery Pleasant with me, at length) before James scooped me up for the drive to his home in Drogheda (a small town about forty-five minutes outside the city).

I stayed awake the whole way home, but only barely, and collapsed into bed as soon as we'd finished supper. The next morning, he took me to the grocer's for provisions, and we spent most of the day recovering from the con. Come Wednesday morning, the rest was over. He went to pick up his second houseguest, a very nice woman from Chicago named Leanne, and we basically went straight from unloading her bags to the tombs at Newgrange and Knowth.

Newgrange and Knowth are heritage sites, places where passage tombs still stand. Walking around and into them was like walking into history. Here were these mounds, these great gobs of earth and stone, that were there long before America existed; long before the Christians came to Ireland. We went into the passage tomb at Newgrange, and it was so quiet and still, even full of tourists, that it was more than a little sobering. I wasn't sure how exactly to feel about it. I'm still not. Absolutely gorgeous, and I'm so glad I went.

There were blackberries on the way to the tombs, and sheep in the roads. It was glorious.

Thursday we lounged about. Friday we went into Dublin so I could get souvenirs for my mother, and while we were there, we met up with Brian and Shevy and went to the Leprechaun Museum.

Yes, you read that correctly.

It was a really lovely little museum, with some very engaging storytellers who were happy to enlighten us about the sidhe. Also, there was giant furniture I could climb on, and I appreciated that.

Saturday was Doctor Who and laundry and mailing things and bidding Leanne farewell, as she was leaving early the next day. Sunday was packing and figuring out what needed to happen before I could head for my next stop: Glasgow.

Monday morning, James and I both got up early, and he drove me to the airport before heading to work. I wound up in the longest airline line I've ever been in (hooray for always being two hours early), and then it was off to Scotland. Yay, Scotland!

It was a good trip. I'm glad I went, and would like to go back sometime with friends, so that we can explore all the wonders the country has to offer.

Next up, GLASGOW.

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

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

So much cheese.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next up, IRELAND.

When I realized that I was going to be staying in Europe between Loncon and Eurocon (I mean, I'm staying much longer than that, as witness the fact that I am writing this entry from a kitchen table in Ireland, but that realization came later), I immediately turned to Vixy and went, "Let's go to DISNEYLAND!"

Yessssssssss.

Brooke, who is a genius of travel planning, used Air B&B to find us a glorious Parisian apartment with four bedrooms, disturbing murder art on the walls, a full kitchen, a hot tub, sauna, and steam room, and wifi, all on the ground floor, which meant I had zero obligate stairs. It was perfect. Vixy and I checked in first, on Sunday, to be followed by the rest of our party (Brooke, Amy, and the Crowells) on Monday.

Sunday was the Eurostar, followed by checking in, a wander around our temporary neighborhood, and dinner at an outdoor cafe, where I had a ham and mushroom pizza that had been very generously outfitted with ham. We showered in The Serious Shower, which I think I will dream about for the rest of my life, and planned our adventures to come. I misidentified the train station we'd need to get to Disneyland Paris. This will be important later.

Monday, we decided to take the train to Disneyland Paris and wander around the Disney Village (their equivalent of Downtown Disney) for a few hours, just to get the lay of the land. We were not going to go into Disneyland that day, and indeed, we didn't. Instead, we walked roughly a mile in the wrong direction in our attempts to find the right train station, and when we arrived, we visited all the shops. I traded pins with a bunch of cast members, who viewed my single-minded approach with amusement and bewilderment. Vixy bought things. I did not. A good time was had by all.

When we got home, our housemates were there, and we gloried in the hot tub and not being at a convention. We spend so much of our time traveling to and from cons that sometimes it's nice to just be together, without a program grid dictating what we do and when we do it. Amy was delighted that we had refrained from going into Disneyland Paris without her, meaning that her first time on the Phantom Manor would also be my first time on the Phantom Manor.

Eventually, we slept.

In preparing for this entry, I had time to give a lot of thought to the essential question of whether I wanted to do one big Paris post, or one Paris post and one Disneyland Paris post. The latter won. So here are the Paris pieces:

Tuesday, Amy, Vixy, and I went back to Disneyland Paris, following what I thought was the correct route. It was sort of very wrong, and while we got there just fine, we had a bit of a "tired people navigating places" tiff on the return journey, ending when Amy brilliantly hailed a cab.

Wednesday, Amy went off to see Paris, while Vixy and I finally went to the train station the right way, which was much, much shorter. We also returned home earlier, content and perfectly tired. Vixy and Amy went out with Brooke and the Crowells to have Fancy French Dinner; I stayed home with Simon, the Crowells' teenage son, and had Leftovers and The Internet. Everyone was happy.

Thursday, Vixy, Brooke, and the Crowells went out to a museum, while Amy and I went to the airport. The ladies at the Aer Lingus counter were pleasant, but recommended we call a wheelchair, given the size of the airport. We called a wheelchair. We waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After half an hour, we walked to our gate, since otherwise, we might have missed our flight. We were off and running for Ireland, and our French adventure was finally complete.

When last we left our intrepid heroes, they were arriving at the Aloft, hence to set up base camp for the convention. Hooray! Only...not so much hooray, as my bank had turned my credit card off for fraud after seeing it used at Heathrow Airport and our initial hotel. In England. Where I had told them I would be.

I called the bank and had a borderline hostile conversation, ending when they turned my card back on and I was able to check us into the hotel. Wes and I then went to pick up the wheelchair Amy had booked for me. (My walking difficulties are continuing to improve, but "improving" doesn't mean the same as "better," and we very much wanted to be sure that I would be able to walk both in Paris and at Eurocon the following week.) It turned out that, despite us having put the booking in ultra-early, there were no independent mobility (IE, "big round wheels") chairs left, and I was put into a hospital-style chair that required someone to push me. Not so awesome.

We got me checked in and were off to my first panel, on pseudonyms. While I was there, Wes took the hospital chair back to the mobility desk and got me upgraded to a mobility scooter, on account of I did not have the independent movement I had been promised and no one wanted to have to help me get to the bathrooms. Everybody wins! (Vixy and I did not have a fully handicapped-accessible room, but had decided that parking the scooter in the shower was better than, again, no independence at all.) The panel went well, and we borked off for supper with a lot of my favorite people—Mary and Simon, Talis and Pippa, Brooke and Amy and Vixy and Wes—at the Indian restaurant at the end of the walk. We ran into Wesley Chu on the way back, and a good time was had by all.

That night was I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue, hosted by Lee Harris, and we had a splendid time. It was me and Cat "vs." Paul and Emma, and everyone acquitted themselves handsomely. I was still struggling with the tail end of my cold, and so made plans to tap out if necessary (Heath was ready to be our stunt Seanan), but I was able to get through the whole session, and only coughed so hard I stopped breathing once. Meg was seated in the front row, and was able to interpret my pantomime and get me my cough syrup. Life was very good indeed.

Friday passed in a blur. For my reading, I did half of "We Are All Misfit Toys in the Aftermath of the Velveteen War," and followed it up with an impromptu hallway signing that lasted no shit half an hour, courtesy of my not having an actual signing. (This was not the fault of the convention; I was the one who mis-booked the train tickets.) The queue was remarkably orderly, and crowned by Hisham walking over and offering me Pokemon. I LOVE YOU HISHAM. Pokemon: the way to my heart.

Saturday's panel on girl scientists was excellent, and I basically used Amanda as my guide. "Does this piss Amanda off?" I would ask myself, and then ask the question.

My concert was splendid and the filk track organizers were brilliant when they forced me to accept the big room (I had said I would be perfectly happy with the normal filk concert space). It held three hundred people, and we near to filled it. Dead Sexy was wonderful, as always. (Dead Sexy is the version of my backing band consisting of Bill and Brenda Sutton, Amy McNally, Dr. Mary Crowell, and Michelle Dockrey.) We scrapped "What A Woman's For" at the last minute, due to concerns about my voice and our arrangement, and dropped in "Still Catch the Tide," because it's something we can do without lyric sheets or practice. Talis was in the audience.

She'd never heard us do it live before.

I made Talis cry.

It was a good night, overall, and I am very glad to have been there.

I stayed on Sunday, just long enough for my panel on fan works, and then it was off to the rail station to catch the Eurostar to Paris. Vixy and I "watched" the Hugos over Twitter from our Parisian apartment (the wireless wasn't good enough to stream), and while I was sorry not to be there, Sunil was so happy to be me that I was honestly glad to have mis-booked the train: he glows in all the pictures I've seen, and I am always happy when I can give good experiences to my friends.

Congratulations to all the winners, solidarity to all the losers (of whom I am one), and I'll see you all next year.

Next up: DISNEYLAND.

I flew Virgin Atlantic to the UK, as is my wont: when I can stay within the Virgin family of airlines, I am a happy rabbit. I had a window seat on the Lady Penelope. I also had my housemate's cold, which he had handed off to me as a thoughtful parting gift. (Given the length of the flight, I am sure the people around me also had my housemate's cold by the time we landed. I am so sorry. I thought I was done with the cold, until we got into the air and the cabin pressure said "ha ha have some snot.") Lastly, I had Kate's old iPad, which she has kindly loaned to me for the duration of the trip. Loaded on the iPad, I had all of Leverage and all of Fringe.

I slept a little. I read a few pages of my book. I ate the airline food, which was surprisingly excellent. But most of all, I watched Leverage. Ten and a half hour flights leave a lot of room for television. Big, big thanks to Meg, whose clever little portable charger allowed me to top off the iPad every time it started yearning for a bigger battery. I drained that sucker dry, and I have no regrets.

So before I flew, I had been a sensible girl, and booked a car service to take me and Vixy from Heathrow to our temporary hotel in Crawley (near Gatwick). Only it turns out that we hadn't been that sensible, as Vixy called me before I got to the airport in San Francisco to tell me that she was flying into Gatwick, a fact that we had both forgotten. Oops. I wound up in the car alone, and had a lovely chat with Colin, the driver, about spiders and New Zealand and the wildlife of England. A+ car service, would screw up booking again.

Vixy had already landed by this point, about an hour and a half before me. Her name was not actually on the hotel room, but she had a copy of the Expedia booking, and the front desk let her into the room, where she gloried in the presence of a decent bed. I showed up, and we summoned Amy before having a wander and dinner in the (overpriced, under-qualitied) hotel restaurant. Then we went to bed, and when I woke up the next morning? I had become the plague queen.

Amy went to the Boots and bought a bunch of cold remedies, including a cough syrup which turned out to contain, no shit, chloroform. It tasted funny. (Brooke was quite distressed when I told her about it.) Amy spent the next few days looking dreamy and saying "I chloroformed my girlfriend." Of such simple pleasures is the world made. I, on the other hand, spent the next day in bed, yearning for death. The day after that, my fever had broken, and it was time to decamp for LonCon3.

Wes met us at the train station and carried our bags to the hotel. Wes is a god among men.

Vixy and I were in the Aloft, the hotel nearest to the convention, while everyone else was in the Novatel at the other end of the convention center. Oops. Such is the consequence of lottery booking. And as this takes us to the end of the pre-con travel and the start of the convention, I shall continue later.

England!

Well, here I am updating again to say that I'm leaving. This is becoming something of a habit. (I know exactly why. I didn't travel much for like, four years, so this year has become a whirlwind of going everywhere and seeing everything and trying to do it all without losing my grip on things like deadlines and word counts and TV schedules. It'll settle down soon enough. But right now, it seems like I only update this blog when I'm about to hit the ground running.)

And what a run it's going to be! I'm Guest of Honor at Norwescon next weekend, and will be spending the next week in Seattle rehearsing, writing up, and getting ready. This is a working trip, not a pleasure trip, so if I don't reach out to you going "hey let's hang," please don't take it personally; I need to get my balance before I have to be awesome for a paying audience. But I promise lots of awesome on the other end, even if I'll be wracked with guilt over leaving my cats for this long.

(Alice and Thomas continue well, and exceedingly fluffy. Lilly is getting a bad case of the Olds, and is not doing as great, but she endures, transitioning into that stage of life known as "fueled by hate" among Siamese lovers everywhere.)

I have not been seriously ill since leaving my day job, even though I have seriously exhausted myself several times. I'm not saying that correlation is causation in this case, but I think I can make a good case for the two being connected. Hooray for being out of the plague pit!

More to come.

So I've been in New Jersey/Boston/New York for the last two weeks. (No, those cities are not all smack-dab next to each other on the map; I flew into New York, was driven to New Jersey, was driven from there to Boston for a convention, returned to New Jersey, and have spent the time since commuting between New Jersey and New York for publisher meetings, dinners, lunches, more publisher meetings, and Pippin on Broadway.) According to the Virgin America website, my flight home is still scheduled to depart on-time, and I should be back in California by this afternoon.

I am really, really ready to be home.

I get twitchy and overly tired when I'm traveling for too long, and this is the longest trip I've taken in quite a while—longest in around ten years that hasn't involved a Disney Park in some way. I've been sleeping, but not enough; the sun comes up when I'm not expecting it, and smacks me back into the real world before I'm finished restoring myself to normal operating conditions. Sometimes I've been able to nap, but mostly not, since I've been running myself ragged dealing with the business side of publishing. Well, and seeing Pippin, which I managed to do twice.

This was in some ways a test run for my trip to Europe this fall, and I'm coming away from it very, very glad that I have people who are willing to let me be a bear in their guest rooms for a day or two. While it's going to be a longer time away from home, it should go better, because outside of conventions, I'm going to have less that I must do. Worldcon, Eurocon, Disneyland Paris, and Filk Continental are the only unmovable objects, and they're spaced out enough that I'll be able to move through them with relative ease. I'll just need to hibernate periodically.

I am tired. I miss my cats dreadfully. I need to restore my equilibrium, and that means going back into my hole.

I am going home.

Filk Continental happens in Germany. It happens in a castle. It is one of the only filk cons I have never attended, because it is very far away, and up until recently, I have had very limited vacation time.

It's still far away. But this year, I'm going...and I'm going as their Special Guest! Yes! After a year off, Filk Continental is gloriously returning, with Vixy & Tony as their Guests of Honor, and me as their Special Guest. A German appearance! A fantastic party! A glorious time!

October 3rd through 5th: the website and details are here: http://www.filkcontinental.de/fc/home/index.php.

I'm so excited!

Hey, people of Earth (and parts beyond)! Remember that this coming weekend I will be the Author Guest of Honor at SFContario, appearing with such luminaries as David Kyle and Chandler Davis. I alone lack that essential "davi" construction: come to shore me up, lest I be destroyed.

I'll be doing an awesome concert Friday night, and there will be awesome things throughout the weekend; if you're in the Toronto area, please consider swinging by to get a little awesome on your shoes.

Well, folks, my convention season has started in earnest, and this time tomorrow, I will be on a big metal sky-bird, wending my way to sunny Florida to rejoin my Disney Magic Bitches, along with the Chicago Crew and my Alabama family, at our second home: Disney World. Yes, Disney World, which in the summer plays host to a plethora of lizards, snakes, and local amphibians. It is going to be HOT AND COLD RUNNING FROGS all up in there, let me assure you.

After we get our Disney on, I'll be decamping to OASIS, the annual Orlando Area Science Fiction Society convention, where I am the guest of honor! Woo-hoo! We're still crunching out exactly what my schedule at the con is going to be, so I can't post it for you here, but I can assure you that if you're in the Orlando area, you should swing on by and enjoy the many rapturous delights offered by a con featuring me in my post-Disney high. Seriously, it's like chilling with Delirium as redesigned for Disney's Brief Lives, and you know you want to see that.

While I'm in transit, I will not be entirely offline, but I will be mostly offline, due to the part where I am not going to be checking my email from the Haunted Mansion and I don't know what the internet situation will be at the OASIS hotel. Please expect delays in responses until I get back, and for a week or so after, while we get back up to normal service levels.

ONE SLEEP TO DISNEY.

I cannot wait. I need this so bad, you have no idea.

DISNEY.

I just got back from Jordancon, aka, "an excuse to hang out in Roswell, Georgia with awesome people for four days." I've never been to Georgia in the late spring/early summer before. It was exciting and strange and new, and these are all things that I treasure, regardless of the circumstances surrounding them. Hooray!

Thanks to my uncanny ability to sleep on planes, I don't really remember the flight to Georgia; just getting up ridiculously early to travel to the airport, waking up once in midair to eat my lunch, and then touching down on the other side of the country. I was worried about finding the car that had come to collect me. The car solved this problem by containing Michael Whelan, who waved enthusiastically when he spotted me. Many hugs were had.

I ate dinner with the guests and staff, retreated to my room, watched Glee, wrote, and slept. Friday morning, a very sweet lady named Michelle drove me to breakfast (since my West Coast clock had kept me in bed until the end of East Coast breakfast hours). In the car, she said, "You smell nice. What's your perfume?"

"Old Roswell Cemetery," I said.

It's a funny world.

The con marched on from there. I met awesome people (John Hartness and Delilah Dawson and Alex Bledsoe, oh my). I spent time with people I already knew and adored (Patty and Deborah and Andy and Michael and Audrey and Indigo, hooray). I talked on panels, sang karaoke, critiqued new writers, and bought cupcakes for half the convention. And then I went back to the airport, and came home.

I love my life sometimes. Anything that lets me spend a beautiful weekend in the Georgia summer can't be entirely bad.

I will be appearing at Harvard University's very own Vericon this weekend, along with such luminaries as Tamora "I shaped your childhood and swear like a sailor" Pierce, and N.K. "We were on the Hugo ballot for the first time in the same year and are now bound in blood, ink, and tears" Jemisin. It's going to be awesome! Even if it does require me to fly to Boston first. In the middle of the winter. To where the snow lives.

If you're local to the Boston area, swing on by! Here's my schedule:

Saturday 12:30pm-1:30pm: A panel on constructing identity; how to flesh out different types of characters, as well as writing to an audience that identifies as fans of speculative fiction.
Saturday 2:00pm-3:00pm: A panel on supernatural/nonhuman creatures; how writers create concepts of supernatural creatures or interpret pre-existing myths; additionally, how to write sympathetic nonhuman characters.

I will also be signing on Saturday from 4:30-5:15pm at the Harvard Bookstore, along with some of the other authors. Whole lotta shin, little bit of dig.

I hope to see you there, and I hope you'll bring me Diet Dr Pepper, because the jet lag is going to be brutal on this one. Seriously. You may get to see me having a conversation with the space lobsters, and that's always fun.

Vericon!

Hey, happy people! Guess what?

I'm about to get on a plane bound for Portland, Oregon, that's what, where I will host the Portland installment of the SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series. Starting tonight at 7:00 PM, quote...

"The next Portland event will be held on Monday, October 15 and will be hosted by New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire, accompanied by Jay Lake and M.K. Hobson."

So come out and see three awesome authors, get books signed, and hang out in an awesome venue. Events are free, and we'd all love to see you there.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a plane to catch.

Zoom!

At last it is October, the month I spend the rest of the year yearning for. When it's October, everything is wonderful, even when it's not. When it's not October, I'm wishing that it were October again. There's a reason that Marnie Piper and the Cromwell witches are some of my favorite Disney (semi) icons.

After a weird two-day heatwave, we've settled into sweet fall, with foggy skies and color-changing leaves and everything. The Maine Coons are growing their winter coats, and thumping around the house like the tiny yeti that they secretly are. (Okay, local definition of "tiny." Thomas has hit the size where even I can't pretend that he's anything but massive. It's just that he still has kitten-face, and I fear what this says about his next growth spurt. He's going to eat me.)

The season's first treat has already been mentioned: Feed is still $1.99, and will be for the next two weeks. Yay! We're currently hovering in the Kindle 600s, which isn't bad for a book that's been out for two years. More treats will be forthcoming, once I know what they are. And of course, at the end of the month, When Will You Rise comes out from Subterranean, and that's sort of the ultimate treat. I cannot wait to see this book with my own eyes!

I'm hosting the SFWA Pacific Northwest Readings for this month, and I'm going to Disneyland with my fairy tale girls immediately afterward, so it's going to be a busy October, and that's just fine. I have a lot of work to do and a lot of experience at doing it, so I'm going to rock it.

Welcome to the month of my heart!

10. Tired. So very, very, very, profoundly, mind-warpingly tired. I didn't sleep on the plane today, for a variety of reasons, and have thus effectively been awake for seventeen hours.

9. But I'm still up because I have to work tomorrow, and that means not allowing myself to become stuck on East Coast time.

8. I had a lovely time! I got to spend time with old friends and new ones, and unexpectedly with John Joseph Adams, who sat and read slush in the hotel lobby, like the diligent editor that he sometimes pretends to be.

7. Hugo voting closes tonight. I am trying to distract myself from thinking about this by shopping for the jewelry to wear with my Hugo dress. This is working. Sort of.

6. I'm too tired to write, so I've been processing Machete Squad edits instead. If I'm too tired to understand the sentence as it was originally written, it probably needs work.

5. The cats are ecstatic, and clingy. Like briars that purr.

4. I think I just found my Hugo necklace, and it is judging you.

3. I'm about to get off the internet and go watch TV until it's safe to go to bed, because oh, Great Pumpkin, the tired. It burns.

2. But I thought you might like to know I was alive.

1. Zombies are love.

Well, it's official: as of this past Sunday (when I was a bad monkey, and had abandoned my beloved cats for the dubious comforts of Comic-Con), Thomas Price Lynn Rhymer Taylor McGuire, my blue classic tabby and white male Maine Coon, is two years old. This means he has ceased to be a kitten, and has become an official cat. Not that he seems to have noticed. Most of his time is still spent racing around the house like a loon, collapsing in my arms and purring loudly, and demanding to be fed. With any luck, this is his adult personality, and I have finally fulfilled my childhood dream of having a twenty-pound kitten.

The cats, all three, are still very clingy and unsettled about my recent trip to San Diego, which went on rather longer than any of them wanted it to, and has resulted in my spending my nights beneath roughly eighty pounds of fluff. This is why I am going to be slaughtered in my sleep Sunday night, since I'm leaving work early today and flying straight to Portland. Alas. On the plus side, I intend to have a good time while I'm there, and I'm only gone for three nights this time. Maybe they won't notice.

...no, that's silly. They're going to eat me.

(Portland is not a public event, by the way, which is why it's not listed on my Appearances page. Always check there if you want to know if I'm going somewhere for social and sharable reasons.)

Naturally, I am totally exhausted, which has led to things like poor Vixy getting told all about the Tyrannosaurus leech. (She took it better than Shawn did when I told him about the axolotl.) I've managed to shower, do laundry, and pack a suitcase that's actually cleared for flight, containing no weapons of any kind. This is an accomplishment in my current condition, and I want you all to be very, very proud of me.

San Diego was lovely, and I'm going to keep promising to write a con report right up until too much time has passed and I forget about it. (This fate has claimed so very many trips in recent years. Disney World anyone?) Right now, I'm going to take a few deep breaths and prepare to plunge back into the fray. Because it never, never ends.

See you when I get home!

I don't think it's any secret around here that I've been running at warp speed basically since a month before WorldCon, last year. This has resulted in a general decrease in available content here at my journal, because slowing down enough to type an entry hasn't always been an option. So here are some things I've meant to blog about, and haven't:

1. I went to Disney World for a week, with Vixy and Amy and Brooke and Patty. My mother and sister were there, too, but we sort of had parallel-but-rarely intersecting vacations. This was ideal, as my idea of "fun at Disney" involves pin trading and shows and ice cream and frogs, while theirs involves luaus and smoking and ludicrous plush and more smoking. Our only real point of overlap is roller coasters, and we already had a full car.

2. Also I went to Disneyland for a weekend, with Vixy, my mom, and my sister. See above for the basics.

3. I watched a lot of television, in an extremely non-critical manner. I don't believe that you should shut off your brain completely while consuming entertainment, but sometimes I really just want to be all "you know what? I like what I like," and not be all analytical and thoughtful about it. This stops when somebody blows up a blonde girl.

4. I went to New York for a week and a half, where I saw the Counting Crows (with my agent), Ludo (with a large group of friends, my former editor, and my agent; I have a very full-service agent), and The Devil's Carnival (with several friends, including Tu, who I didn't even realize was on the East Coast until I found her in line).

5. Also there is a permanent haunted house called Times Scare in New York, open 365-days a year. If I lived there, I would wind up asking about a Frequent Dier's card or something, because I would be in there at least once a week, being chased by a man with a chainsaw and giggling unnervingly.

6. I wrote some book club articles for SFX Magazine. The second, which is about The Midwich Cuckoos, is out now. I need to think more about the responses some of the readers have had to the book (not to my article), because they're fascinating to me. But basically? I got paid for my Wyndham and telepaths obsession. Life is good.

7. I went to Maine! I stayed with Cat and Dmitri! I want to move to Maine! I won't, because I'm moving to Washington, but seriously, in another timeline, I have already bought a house on Peaks Island, and I am not sorry. I sort of envy that version of me.

8. An old friend from high school literally showed up on my doorstep. Randomly.

9. I ate six pounds of cherries and I'm not sorry about that either.

10. I am currently behind on word count in several areas, which is why comments are going unanswered for what feels like, to me, an unreasonably long time. But I'm catching up. Slowly. I think.

And those are some of the things I've been too frazzled to blog about.

10. If you read yesterday's post about ebook distribution around the world, you may want to go back and read it again; I made some pretty hefty edits after having a contract discussion with The Agent, and I think it's more accurate now.

9. While I will not say that Joss Whedon is my master now—I remain too critical for that, and still haven't forgiven him for several things—he has made my two favorite theatrical releases of this year, Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers.

8. Although if we don't get another female hero in the sequel, I am going to be one cranky kitty. I knew that would be an issue for me going in; I was not wrong.

7. We're down to three girls on this season of America's Next Top Model, and I don't hate any of them. What? How can this be? I think the world has been intrinsically damaged by the inanity of this season's "US v. UK" concept.

6. You know what's awesome? Disneyland, that's what's awesome. You know what's better? I'm going there in two weeks, with Vixy. Are we now planning to hit every Disney park in the world? Yes. Yes, we are. Next up, Disneyland Paris.

5. Eleven days to Blackout! Who's excited? I'm excited!

4. If you somehow get an early copy, please don't tell me. There's nothing I can do about it, and it'll just raise my blood pressure. But feel free to post a review. Reviews are awesome.

3. You know what makes everything better? Poison dart frickens make everything better. Look at their tiny technicolor deadliness!

2. Jean Grey is still dead.

1. I'm seeing The Devil's Carnival tonight! Yay!

Hope you're all having a great Friday, and are looking forward to an even greater weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Zombies are love.

1. First off, for those of you who may have missed it yesterday, the cover of Ashes of Honor has been posted for your viewing pleasure. Chris McGrath has done it again, and I am totally overjoyed by the ongoing evolution of Toby. (Also by the fact that I am now six books into an urban fantasy series, and the most sexualized my protagonist has been was on the cover to book five, where she had no pants on. She was also a fish at the time. I am overjoyed.)

2. I am home from Emerald City Comic Con! Yay! I am too tired to die, and there's a very good chance that I am going to bed without any supper tonight because I will be herded by the cats (to my doom), but it was a great weekend, I got many, many hugs, and I am now safely back in the Bay Area. Life is good.

3. Welcome to all the new people who got linked here via my post on diversity in fiction! I'm thrilled that you're here, and promise not to be upset when you realize that I'm rarely that intellectual and go off to do something more useful with your time. I hope you enjoy us while you're at the party. We are already enjoying you.

4. Speaking of not being intellectual all the time...If anyone out there is collecting the blind bag My Little Pony figures, I have all of them except for the basic, non-glittery Rainbow Dash. I have many doubles I can trade, including the special edition Twilight Sparkle. Inquire within. Please.

5. Shirt post coming this week.

That is all. Now I must nap.

1. To clarify a point from all the shirt posts: please don't email now asking if your shirt has been mailed. Your shirt has been mailed. I don't know where it is anymore. The post office does what it will do, but as we have not, thus far, had anything vanish while in transit, I am relatively confident that your package will get to you. It can take up to a week within the US, and up to three weeks outside the US. If you are in the US and don't have a shirt by April 15th, or outside the US and don't have a shirt by May 1st, that's when we should become concerned. (That's a lot of time on purpose. I want to give the post office the chance to find things.)

2. Texas was gorgeous, and College Station was amazing. I realize the state's unusual weather meant that it was basically all dressed up for my West Coast eyes—it rained for several weeks before my arrival, so everything was green and covered in wildflowers—but first impressions matter, and my first impression was "This place is gorgeous." Definitely an E-ticket of a state.

3. Midnight Blue-Light Special has been turned in to The Editor, which means I can focus on all the other things that I'm supposed to be writing right now. No, it never ends. Which is also kind of awesome, even if right now, all I want to be working on is InCryptid. Stupid muse and her stupid laser focus. Oh, well.

4. Thanks to trusting the travel gods to see me safely home on Sunday, I managed to upgrade my two flights in coach to a single through flight in first class. Let me tell you, first class is a nice way to fly home. Also, there was free digital cable on the flight, so I watched Jennifer's Body, Zombieland, and Pandorum. Awesome, even more awesome, what the fuck were these people thinking.

5. Also on the topic of first impressions, thanks to this lingering cold, College Station's first impression of me was "scratchy-voiced, foul-mouthed, evil pixie." I can definitely settle for that.

6. Tonight, I do laundry; tomorrow, I pack for Emerald City Comic Con. Because it never really ends once it begins around here. I'm super-excited to see my Seattle family, go to my first ECCC, and hug Amy Mebberson lots and lots. My life is empty if I don't hug an Amy once a month. True fact. And my beloved Amy McNally went home after Consonance.

7. The cats are filled with hate, because the suitcases will not go away. I begin to fear retribution. On the plus side, their "retribution" usually takes the form of sleeping endlessly atop the objects of their annoyance.

8. The new Monster High characters are starting to ship, and my local Toys R Us is once again seeing me two and three times a week as I check in, looking for Rochelle Goyle and the basic Jackson Jekyll (he previously appeared in the beachwear line, Gloom Beach, which means this is the first time he's been available with all his accessories). Luckily, I have a tolerant mother, and tolerant friends.

9. For those of you in the UK, I have a column in this month's issue of SFX Magazine! Or, well, Mira does. I wrote an article about why The Stand is a classic and you should read it. US folks, you'll be able to pick up the issue next month. I'm really pleased with it.

10. Jean Grey is still dead, zombies are love, and the Great Pumpkin watches over us all.

I am home from Conflikt! I got up at 4:08 am this morning in order to catch my commuter flight back to San Francisco, and managed to stay awake long enough to read most of the way through Graveminder by Melissa Marr, after finishing Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear. And this is why Seanans always travel with lots and lots of reading material. Nothing brings on insomnia like having nothing to read.

I'd like to say that it was a good convention, but I'll be honest: I don't know. For me, it was a series of charms strung on a silken cord, and some of them were brilliant, and some of them were bright, and some of them could have used a spot of polish, and very few of them went together in a logical way, because that is what a convention while already exhausted and overworked looks like. I had fun. I am awake enough to be quite sure of that.

But oh, there were amazing things. Talis came, white horse girl all the way across the water, one of the oldest denizens of the Babylon Wood, and she sang "Still Catch the Tide" and "Ten Years" in her concert, and I cried like a very crying thing, as did Vixy. There are very few people in this world who can break my heart like Talis can, or who I love half so much for doing it. And she had her new album! Queen of Spindles, and she put it in my hand like a promise or a prayer, and I listened to it all the way home.

Pin-trading with Jovanie and Anne, and stealing Anne's Companion Cube pillow over and over again. Dinner with Brooke and Judi and Ryan, followed by chocolate books. Lunch with Jennifer. Fringe with Ryan and rooming with Brooke and going to Old Navy (as always). The Suttons, tearing up the stage, and Sunnie's Mama Gitka, and Katie Tinney writing the "Wicked Girls" parody I think I shall everafter love most of them all. And rain, and 7-11, and hugs, and friends, and home. I went home this weekend. I will go back soon.

Perhaps then I will be able to stay.

So this is my charm bracelet of a weekend. It flashes lovely in the light, and I can work the clasp even when I'm tired. Soon I'll go to my bed, and my cats, and my dreams of the wood, but for now, I am still partway on a plane, and I am very very far away from home.

How I want to be right now:

"OH YEAH I AM GOING TO SEATTLE I AM GOING TO ROCK SOME HOUSES AND MELT SOME FACES AND MAYBE IGNITE THE BIOSPHERE WOO!"

How I am right now:

"I need a nap. Or maybe some more caffeine...yeah. Caffeine would probably help. You know. If there are no naps to be had. Can I have that nap instead? Wait, I have to get on a plane? What? Is this optional? Can't I teleport? How about the Jaunt? Is that up and running yet? I promise to let you sedate me..."

So yeah. I am bound for Conflikt, where a) I will have a wonderful time, even as b) I will work my little blonde butt off, toting my laptop from room to room like the Ghost of Deadlines Past. There may be a certain amount of grumbling darkly and threatening to ignite the biosphere. Good times.

The cats did not approve of the reappearance of The Dread Suitcase; Thomas even tried to barricade me in my room this morning. He failed, on account of he may be a bonsai yeti, but I am a human, and hence much larger than he is. But hey, good show him for trying. Lilly just looked despondent, like she had been waiting for this day ever since I returned from Disney World. Sometimes I think Lilly is the smartest of the cats.

I don't know how much internet, if any, I'll have over the weekend; please don't burn down the internet while I'm gone, I'm still using it.

See you in Seattle!

1. I'm currently running an ARC giveaway for Discount Armageddon, and will be choosing a winner via random number generator tomorrow morning. US addresses only for this particular giveaway. I'm leaving the state very shortly, and I don't have any customs forms, so I have to limit the entries if I want to be sure of mailing out the book.

2. Speaking of mailing things...I sent a massive batch of shirts this weekend, and will be preparing another batch to go out at the end of this week. The "I do not have any customs forms, and neither does my local post office" issue means I'm only sending US orders right now, but hopefully they'll have more customs forms soon. The shirt shop finally sent me the last of the shirts, so if your order was skipped before due to me not having your actual shirt, I should now be able to package it. (Yes, this is taking a long time. I can only send what I can hand-deliver, and that sort of complicates things.)

3. Why am I leaving the state? Because I am going to DISNEY WORLD!!!! More specifically, I'm going with my mother, my youngest sister, and vixyish, who has been drafted into the role of "person who keeps Seanan from killing her family." We're meeting up with hsifyppah and sweetmusic_27 in Florida, along with Amy's friend Patty, and then we're going to spend NINE DAYS enjoying the glories of Orlando. I'm the only person in my group of four that's ever been before, and I can't wait.

4. This does mean, however, that I won't be online for over a week. No email, no LJ, nothing but Twitter from my phone. So please don't email me and then get upset if I don't answer. (I mean really, don't do that anyway, I beg of you. I am unable to promise a swift reply for anything sent in my email. I'm even retooling my website in a vain attempt to reduce the amount of email coming my way. Have mercy.)

5. Which brings us to release dates. All books and stories with confirmed release dates that I can say "yes, it comes out on that day" about are listed on my bibliography page. Please check there before you ask me when something is coming out. It's unfair, I know, but I get asked that question so often that it makes me cranky, and I hate being cranky at people who don't deserve it.

6. I am currently trying to either write or revise ALL THE THINGS, and will be doing another inchworm post shortly, because that has turned out to be a distressingly good way of staying on top of things. Thanks, Bear.

7. So The Agent returned her editorial notes on Ashes of Honor, and as always, has proven to be incredibly good at identifying the major structural flaws that all the rest of us mysteriously missed. I'm currently fourteen chapters in on the editorial rewrite, after which the book can go off to The Editor, and I can forget about it for a little while. And by "forget about it," I really mean "start The Chimes at Midnight." I think there's something wrong with the way my brain works.

8. I am now on season four of Criminal Minds. I'm sorry I started watching so late, because damn. I'm also glad I started watching so late, because it means I've had lots to enjoy. Also, Penelope Garcia for the win.

9. Jean Grey is still dead.

10. Happy holidays! Try not to freak out and bludgeon anyone to death with a fruitcake, okay? Because that would be a horrible way to go.

Here we go again: housekeeping and orderliness, with a side-order of trying to put everything in one place so that I can find it again, like, ever. Less regimented than the current projects post, less scheduled than the welcome post, it's what the hell I'm wasting my time doing. Hint: ICE WORMS ARE INVOLVED.

I've been on the phone with various airlines ALL DAY, getting things sorted out. Lilly has started freaking out every time she sees the Virgin America homepage. Whatever happened to cats being colorblind? The way my cats react to certain things, I totally believe they can not only see color, they can read.

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

2012

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

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

Travel:
Fly home from DisneyWorld, January 1, Orlando FL.
Conflikt, January 27-29, Seattle WA.
Consonance, March 2-4, Newark CA.
San Diego International Comic Convention, July 11-14, San Diego CA.
Confluence, July 27-29, Pittsburgh PA.
Chicon (WorldCon 2012), August 30-September 3, Chicago IL.
World Fantasy Convention, November 1-4, Toronto.
Windycon, November 8-11, Chicago IL.

No fixed deadline/being written/unsold:

"Fiber"
"Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea"
"These Antique Fables"
"Pixie Season"
Sparrow Hill Road
"Velveteen vs. the Retroactive Continuity"
"Velveteen Presents Victory Anna vs. All These Stupid Parallel Worlds."
"Velveteen vs. The Uncomfortable Conversation."
"Velveteen vs. The Fright Night Sorority House Massacre Sleepover Camp, Part III."
"One Hell of a Ride"
"Strangers"
"Stings"
"Loch and Key"
"In Sea Salt Tears"
Midnight Blue-Light Special
The Chimes at Midnight
"San Diego 2014"
"Misfit Toys: A Chronicle of the Velveteen War"
Parasitology
Echo
"How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea"

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

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

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

2012

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

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

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

No fixed deadline/being written/unsold:

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

...for the last few days I've been afraid I might drift away.

My bags are, once again, packed to go; my 3:30am alarm has successfully pulled me from warm bed to cold reality. The cats circle like dismayed, fuzzy sharks, demanding to know what I think I'm doing. Surely I can't be thinking of leaving. Why, they would be horribly offended if I were to do something as senseless as that. And they have lots of claws, both individually and as a cumulative entity. LOTS OF CLAWS.

But I am going, because going is part of my job. Going is what enables coming back.

For the next four days, I will be at Conclave, located in scenic Romulus, Michigan. I will enjoy panels. I will sing songs. I will have a wonderful time, and yes, I will hope to see you there. All that stands between me and Michigan is a plane ride. All that stands between me and home (and the ocean of claws) is Michigan.

Here I go again.

...into a fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white.

According to my iPod, I currently have three hundred and eighty-four Counting Crows songs in my pocket. About eighty of these are different versions of the song "Rain King," mixed and mashed and mingled with a dozen other songs, recorded in an unknown number of cities. I have the coveted live concert with the Disney orchestra backing them up, and several different versions of the song "August and Everything After," which has never been officially recorded. In short, I am a nut.

The first time I saw the Counting Crows live, I was in high school, and they were still playing the UC Berkeley campus club on a regular basis. I was smuggled into the bar by a friend. It was love at first sight. Unlike many young loves, this one has never wavered, never faltered, never faded. They are my favorite band. They have been my favorite band since I was fourteen.

Tonight, I am flying to Seattle. Tomorrow, Ryan and I are driving four hours to a winery in the middle of Washington state. And I am going to see the Counting Crows live for the first time in more than two years.

I am excited, I am exhausted, and I am relieved. Seeing the Counting Crows perform is restorative for me, the way that rereading IT or watching Slither is restorative. Only moreso, because I can't control when a concert happens the way I can control putting on a DVD or opening a book.

I will not get any work done tomorrow. Normally, that would stress me out and worry me, but not this time, because I'm getting something a lot more valuable.

I'm getting peace.

I hope you'll have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are and whatever you choose to be doing. I'm going to be on my own private archipelago, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be. Nowhere else in the world.

Having just returned home from Reno, Land of Cigarette Smoke and Strobe Lighting, I am now preparing to board a big metal skybird and soar away on wings of science to scenic Columbus, Ohio, where I will be appearing at Context as their Horror Guest of Honor. Well. Mira will, anyway, and since she doesn't have a legal photo ID, she has to let me come. Ha ha, evil twin. Ha ha.

I am, perhaps, a little less excited about the idea of taking another road trip than I could be; last night, my dreams centered almost entirely on my having forgotten to buy a plane ticket to England, and being forced to run hither and yon in an attempt to make it to the airport before I missed my flight. Parts of the dream actually took place in England, with a strong undercurrent of "if you miss your flight, you won't have been here, and the ensuing paradox will destroy the world." Because I'm not overly inclined to take responsibility for things or anything...

The cats are not entirely happy about seeing the suitcases come out again. And by "not entirely happy," I mean "they have transformed into an unstoppable feline murder squad." If I stop posting and no one knows what happened to me, the cats will have removed all the bits I use to do things other than catering to cats. I will probably deserve it. I will, after all, have left them again. (Thankfully, after this, I have no more long trips away from home until December. A few weekends, but nothing longer than that. This may be what saves my life.)

If you're in the Ohio area, Context is going to be amazing and fun, and I would really love to see you there. I fully intend to be so amped-up on sugar that I can't see my toes for at least twenty-four hours, which is always a good time, for everyone involved. And I can sleep on the plane. Which is a wonderful thing, to be sure.

Here I come, Ohio. And I am demanding frozen treats.

Monday dawned bright and (very, very) early, since DongWon had asked that I be at Orbit at nine a.m. to do some recording. Now, Orbit is located near Grand Central Station, which is very much Properly In Manhattan. I was staying in Jersey City, which is very much not Properly In Manhattan. It is, in fact, in a different state. As a California girl, this causes me a certain amount of existential confusion every time I need to go from one to the other very quickly, since I know, deep down in my soul, that it takes at least eight hours to go from one state to another. Such is the eternal divide between the East and West Coasts.

Since I needed to get to Orbit by nine, I got up at seven. This means that, on some level, I got up at four. There is a reason I occasionally demand love and caffeine from my editors. I am comfortable enough with Manhattan at this point that I was able to get myself to the office with a minimum of trouble (barring a brief "walking the wrong way up 6th Avenue" incident, and really, that could have happened to anyone), which is good, since I was carrying my laptop. Yes, the big orange one. Yes, the one that weighs as much as one of the cats. Why?

Because I was having dinner with The Agent and a few more of her clients that evening, which meant there was no way I was getting back to Jersey City. And if I was going to be at Orbit all day, I was damn well going to get some serious work done.

I beat DongWon to the office by almost twenty minutes, and was detained by security until he arrived. I am never letting him forget this. Never ever ever never. But! He did eventually show up, and we were able to get into the office, finally, where there were greetings and huggings, and presentations of really fancy chocolate (from me to the office, not from the office to me). I had time to inhale one doughnut and drink a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, and then it was off to the recording studio, where a very nice engineer explained how a recording booth worked. Thanks, nice engineer! Nobody had bothered to tell him that I have three studio albums out. Sorry, nice engineer.

My first task: recording the audio book edition of "Apocalypse Scenario." Super-fun! I managed not to get too into it, but wow was I glad to have done voice work before. It was nice and smooth and lovely. I followed it with two different podcast recordings, all done in the same wee room. Everything was professional and well-orchestrated, and before I knew it, it was all over, and I was being settled at the only open desk in the office.

Cue working. Type type type. Type type type. I was supposed to have lunch with some friends who were also in New York for BEA; when they didn't answer their phones, I had lunch with DongWon and Devi (another Orbit editor) instead. We went to a seafood restaurant, where I ate mussels and potatoes and hot fudge sundae, om nom. DongWon had to run before we finished eating, leaving Davi and I to talk about him behind his back. Ha ha, DongWon. Ha, ha.

Back to the office; more working; more whining at my computer. I actually had to borrow copies of Feed and Deadline to use as reference material, since otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to verify the continuity of what I was writing. This is why it's good to write at your publisher's. They'll always have copies of the books you need on hand.

Eventually, the day ended. Poof. And I, being the sensible girl that I am, loaded up my tote bag with my laptop and all the books I had managed to collect over the course of the day and went hieing off to downtown to meet up with The Agent for dinner. She had directed me to a library, in an alley, in an unfamiliar part of the city. I assume this is because she wants to see whether I will survive being eaten by a Grue. I found the library, and felt very smug about it, right until I went inside, went down to the floor where the YA author event I was meeting her at was being held, and discovered that I had, in fact, descended to a very unpleasant and specialized CIRCLE OF HELL.

Seriously. What seemed like several hundred people (and may have been just fifty, I don't know, it was a CIRCLE OF HELL) were crammed into an itty-bitty space, creating an immense amount of heat and noise. And somewhere in all that chaos was my agent. I sought. I strove. I gave up.

Spotting a woman with a Diet Dr Pepper, I begged to know where it had come from, and damn near wept when informed that she had brought it with her. Then I discovered, much to my surprise, that she was actually a book blogger I know through her reviews. And then she took me to the secret cluster of book bloggers hiding from the heat near the elevators. Yay! Much joy and chatter and hugging followed, lasting until The Agent appeared, her new client Claire in tow, to whisk me away to a less hellish locale.

Did I attack the first gas station we passed like it was the Promised Land, coming away with a sack of Diet Dr Pepper? Yes. Yes, I did.

We had dinner at a lovely place near Waverly Place (still no wizards), where we ate bread and cheese and I had fish and eventually went downstairs and was horribly sick due to a fish bone sticking in my throat. Since I had not retained dinner, The Agent bought me a cupcake. Happy times. Claire was awesome, but I was tired, and BEA was the next morning, so I returned to New Jersey and slept. FOREVER.

Next: BEA and DAW. It's acronym day!

Once again, we rewind to late May, when I was in New York City enjoying friends, humidity, publishers, and pigeons. Or, more specifically, we're rewinding to Sunday the 22nd, when I was scheduled to a) go into Manhattan to have brunch with The Agent, b) meet up with Will, and c) have dinner with several of my friends, including Batya, Alex, and the lovely Priscille. Everybody wins!

Foolishly, I thought that in New York, "brunch" meant, well, "brunch," and so expected to return to Jersey City during the day. Yes, yes, laugh at my pain. Anyway...

I rose, showered, dressed, and made my way to Manhattan, following the now-familiar path to the PATH train. I enjoy riding the PATH. It's easy and predictable and not really like riding the subway at all. Finding The Agent on the other end was easy, and we had a lovely, leisurely brunch at Cafeteria. I had a waffle with berries and cream. She had green eggs and ham (pesto is a magical thing). We split lemon pancakes with more berries and cream for dessert. Yes, I have now blogged what I had for breakfast. You have my permission to weep for mankind.

After brunch came the ceremonial Wandering Around Manhattan, wherein I actually did the traditional tourist thing and went shopping in New York. Sure, it was at Old Navy, where I bought half a dozen more tank tops in a variety of rainbow hues, but that counts, right? The Agent turns out to be hysterically funny in Old Navy, by the way, and even pickier about her tank top fit than I am. All hail compatible crazy.

We finished shopping and settled at the local Red Mango frozen yogurt, where The Agent ate yogurt and I didn't, because ew. Will came and got me, because he is awesome, and we bid The Agent what would be the first of many fond farewells. Will and I walked a great deal. I got an artisan Popsicle! Life is good. I also got to see Will's apartment, which was very clean and grownup, as befits a new law school graduate. Totally awesome.

After frozen treats and apartment visits, we made our way to the bus stop, hence to ride to the kosher Indian restaurant where we would be having dinner. Priscille wound up on the same bus, which was AWESOME, and much laughter and happiness accompanied us all the way to food, where we were met by Jon and Merav, Batya and Alex, a surprise Constance, and an extra bonus Jessica. Constance couldn't stay, but there was hugging, and then the rest of us went in to do some serious eating. I had goat. Who's surprised?

Dinner was followed by ambling aimlessly around the city, stopping by Dylan's Candy Bar, and finally drinking sugary things at Starbucks. Jon and Merav had actually driven into Manhattan, and so I was able to get a ride back to Jersey City, where I tumbled into bed, full of goat, happy, and ready to face the week ahead.

Which is good, because the week ahead was about to KICK MY ASS.

Time for our time-delay travelogue, in which I attempt to prove that I am, in fact, still a real person! Yay! So...

Last Saturday, I flew to New York to begin my whirlwind tour of the East Coast and Midwest, as represented by New York, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. Seriously, even considering this particular set of stops probably qualifies me as slightly out of my tree. Actually doing it? Totally insane.

I began in San Francisco, where my mother and youngest sister drove me to the airport. I dressed for success in business class, wearing a bright green tank top and my Scooby-Doo Halloween pajama pants, with my hair in pigtails. I wish I could say this was me making a statement, but in reality, it's just that I travel so much, and the security theater has become such a circus, that I am no longer willing to deal with uncomfortable clothing on top of everything else that air travel entails.

Virgin America (my preferred airline) has recently moved into SFO's newly reopened Terminal 2. This was my first trip to the new terminal. I was dubious, but after five minutes experiencing Terminal 2's charms, I am here to tell you that I, brothers and sisters, am a true believer in Terminal 2. A full-sized supermarket! A wine bar! A burger joint selling Diet Dr Pepper inside security! And a full-sized bookstore, to boot. I have seen the airport promised land, and it is Terminal 2.

I found copies of Feed and the Toby books in the airport bookstore, and signed them, pigtails and orange Halloween pants and all. I believe I am now marked down as one of the bookstore's more surreal author visits.

Thanks to a combination of good luck, good timing, and flying Main Cabin Select, I managed to be the first one on the plane, and nested myself solidly in my lovely exit-row seat, with velociraptor, laptop, sack of DDP, and lots and lots of work to do. As soon as we were off the ground, I commenced to doing just that, working on Blackout, "Rat-Catcher," "Landslide," and reading a manuscript I've been asked to blurb. The flight was smooth, the middle seat was empty, and it was, all in all, lovely...with one notable exception.

The people behind me (and in the row across from theirs, making six in total) seem to have taken Jersey Shore as an etiquette guide. They talked loudly, even shouting across the plane. They argued with the flight attendants. They listened to some sort of media player, again loudly (I could hear it through my headphones) without using headphones of their own. One of them passed gas several times, causing the rest to laugh uproariously. I didn't recline my seat, since I was working; somehow, this wasn't enough room for the person behind me, who kicked me, a lot. Seriously, what were these people, twelve? No, most twelve-year-olds have better manners. It was a real relief to get off the plane and see them nevermore.

Jon and Merav met me at the airport with Subway and DDP, and whisked me away to scenic Jersey City, New Jersey, one of my many homes away from home, where we watched Doctor Who before stumbling to sleep the sleep of the righteous, the just, and the exhausted.

My New York adventure was underway at last.

I am preparing for the grand summer road trip. Home to San Francisco; San Francisco to Manhattan; Manhattan to Milwaukee; Milwaukee to La Crosse; La Cross to Madison; Madison to Chicago; and then home again, home again, jiggety jig. I am very ready to be gone. I am absolutely not ready to be gone. Before I see my home and bed and cats again, I will visit both my publishers, attend my first BEA, visit a high school that's very excited to see me, and attend my first Wiscon. I will see and hug and adore my Merav and my Diana and my Cat—so many hugs. I will do great things and struggle to keep up with my word count, and whether I succeed or not, I will need a nap before I'm done.

I'm nervous. I admit that. And this is all part of the deal, this is part of the promise you make at the crossroads when you sell your fantasies for your dreams. This is part of what it takes to have what I have always said I wanted...and I was right, and I am not sorry. But sometimes I get tired, and I want to stay home with my cats and my books and my dolls.

I want to write full time. I want to live in a little house in Seattle full of cat trees and more books and too many toys, and I want to paint the walls orange without worrying about my housemates not wanting to live inside a pumpkin. And wanting these things means packing my bags and hitting the road again, because life feeds art feeds life.

But sometimes I get tired.

I hope I will see you if you're in New York, or Wisconsin, and if not, I hope I will see you some other time, when I come to wherever you are. I'm always glad to see people, and you can smell my dirt-based perfume and get shown pictures of my cats (conveniently stored in my phone). And this will be a wonderful adventure, because they always are.

I can't wait to get started. I can't wait to come home.

I love the crossroads prayer that is my life.

Welcome to the second, and hopefully final, portion of my not-a-con-report for Arisia. I really did have a wonderful time in Boston, snow and all, and I'm definitely going to be going back. Eventually. After I've had the opportunity to take a nice nap, and maybe watch a whole lot of really, really dumb television. Anyway, here are the summarized highlights (and lowlights), for your amusement and edification.

My candy corn hat! The Agent knows me too, too well, it seems, and when the time came to give me the last piece of my holiday gift, she led me to the dealer's hall and purchased me a felt candy corn hat from one of the local vendors. Yes. I now have a hat that looks like a piece of candy corn. TREMBLE WITH FEAR, MERE MORTALS. I wore this hat to almost every serious panel I had during the weekend, and proclaimed proudly that wearing it provided that I was a professional. I never said what kind of professional.

The Mad Science song circle! I didn't make it to very many filk events this year, sadly, because I was busy with other programming and also wound up spending most of Sunday vilely ill (more on this in a moment). But the Mad Science circle was awesome, and Ben Newman sprung a positively wicked new science parody on me. It was a very cool circle, and I'm so very glad I got to go.

Alice and Josh! My life is better when it contains large quantities of Alice, and since I had to leave my beloved Maine Coon in California, I supplemented diet of Alice with a local fan and acquaintance of mine from this blog. She and her husband took me to dinner, where I ate, unsurprisingly, shepherd's pie, and then she and I sat and talked for like an hour and a half while he ran off to a panel. It was a really nice, relaxing way to spend an evening, and I had a wonderful time. Since they didn't run screaming, I assume they did, too.

Meeting Toni! My friend Toni lives near Boston, and was able to come out to the convention on Saturday, transforming herself from "my Internet-only friend Toni" to "my friend Toni, whom I have met in real life." She brought her husband, who was witty and fun to talk to, and I brought Diana, who was witty and fun to talk to and bought me chicken fingers. There were exchanges of books and hugs, and life was very good. It's nice to have people transform from words on a screen into actual humans. It makes me happy.

The Guest Breakfast! Arisia had a special breakfast event on Sunday, where people could buy tickets to have a special, intimate breakfast with the Guests of Honor and Special Guests. Each of us had a table of our very own. Sadly for me, someone at the next table over was wearing a mango-based perfume, and the breakfast went rapidly from "yum yum, free fruit" to "quietly excusing myself, walking to the bathroom, vomiting copiously, and walking back to my table to resume being entertaining." I would become progressively sicker for most of the day. It was so much fun. My poor roommates had to deal with my basically being a creepy dead girl from a horror movie. How I try their patience.

Cat and Seanan strike back! Cat and I are getting pretty good at our urban fantasy girl version of "An Evening With Kevin Smith." Every time it happens, the crowd gets a little bigger, the questions get a little smoother, and our comfort levels get a little higher, which leads to, you know, more swearing, more craziness, and more references to Lord Byron's penis. It's a victory for everybody! This installment of the Cat-and-Seanan Show was pure hammered awesome, and we only had to decline one question, which is possibly a record. More impressively, I wasn't even able to walk without throwing up an hour before the panel. So this is what I do for love.

Better Off Ted! Diana and Cat introduced me to this show, and Cat's Netflicks account allowed us to wallow in it each night before bed. I now require the box sets. And maybe a meat blob.

Post-antibiotic science fiction gone wild! My final panel was on Monday morning, and was all about post-antibiotic science fiction. It turned into "Seanan defends her thesis on causative agents for the Black Death" for about twenty minutes, which seemed to be fun for everyone, if a little more mentally rigorous than I had wanted to be that early in the morning on the last day of a convention. I recommended not licking things as a way to avoid infection. You're welcome.

Flying home! Actually, the flight was pretty lousy. But my cats made up for it.

See you next time!

I am not going to write an Arisia con report. I'm not good at them under the best of circumstances—they either wind up obscenely long and take six months to finish, turn into a series of comic strips, or make no sense—and these are not the best of circumstances, what with the "two conventions in two weekends" and "under a whole lot of deadlines" parts of our program. So these are the summarized highlights, for your amusement and edification.

Arriving in Boston! Persis picked me up from the airport, because a) Persis loves me, and b) I had made it quite clear that fuck you people, I am not going outside in the snow unless it's to enter a private car. No, I am not a prima donna; I simply refuse to take the bus or other forms of public transit when you have A FOOT OF SNOW on the ground. My sunny California upbringing can't handle the reality shift. I did, in fact, remain entirely inside the hotel until Monday afternoon, when I went outside in the snow, entered a private car, and returned to the airport. So screw you, New England winter; I am not your chew toy.

Hanging out with Rene! My room wasn't ready yet when we got to the hotel, so I wound up sitting with Rene, the Fan Guest of Honor, in the lobby Starbucks for about an hour. Rene was conchair for the Montreal WorldCon, and is a really neat guy. Plus he helped me get my luggage up to my room. Class act, yo.

Cat and Diana! My roommates for the weekend were the lovely Cat "The Crusher" Valente, and the equally lovely Diana "The Destroyer" Fox. They both arrived Friday afternoon, and seriously, it was like spending the entire weekend having an awesome slumber party with awesome people and our own private bathroom. Our hotel room looked like it had been hit by a localized tornado. A tornado of RAW AWESOME. I couldn't have asked for a better time. Plus? They brought me presents. (I also brought them presents. I like to share.)

The Paranormal Romance Weather Report! My first panel of the weekend was on the appeal of paranormal romance and the flirtation with the mainstream. The only panelist I'd met prior to sitting down at the table was Kelley Armstrong, which was sort of neat. We talked for an hour, and it was a lively and engaged discussion, but didn't come with as many book recommendations as people expected...so I used my closing comments to provide a cable-news style weather report on offerings in the urban fantasy and paranormal romance genres. Yes, complete with a "and next, here's John with sports!" closer. It was more fun than it should have been. Seriously.

Shawn! My good friend Shawn lives in Massachusetts, and swears he actually likes New England winters. This is because Shawn is insane. He actually came to the convention to see me! It was awesome. He is a good Shawn, and shall be renowned in song and story.

Shaenon Garrity, big-time star! Shaenon was the Webcomics Guest of Honor, which meant that her adorable mad science illustrations were all over the program book (awesome), and that she had the big box of Skin Horse strips available for people to paw through and purchase. I got one of my favorite strips. And also? A hug.

Ellen and Delia! Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman are a) mad awesome, b) very sweet, and c) just plain cool. They're also involved with the Bordertown revival, about which I will blog more very, very soon. And Ellen? Ellen gave me an ARC of the new Bordertown book, about which I will also blog more very, very soon. So who has an ARC of the new Bordertown book? THAT WOULD BE ME. Dude, the trip was worth it for that alone, I swear.

Having an Irish pub attached to the hotel! One of the two hotel restaurants was an actual Irish pub, with actual Irish pub food. I basically ate shepherd's pie for every "real meal" I had during the weekend, and while that may not have been awesome from a Weight Watchers standpoint, it was pretty damn cool from a "don't flip out and kill everyone in a ten-mile radius" standpoint. You may now thank the Irish pub for saving mankind.

...okay, so even when I'm doing the quick-and-dirty highlights version of a con report, I can't condense it very well. Tune in next time, for more things that were awesome, or at least interesting, since "Seanan has an allergic reaction to some lady's perfume and spends the bulk of Sunday yearning for death" is totally making the list.

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?)