It's a Writing Thing

The most brilliant tonilpkelner pointed me to a review of Matters of the Blood (which was just released in mass market paperback) in November's Romantic Times Book Review.

Thanks to the equally wonderful Jan Burke, who sent me a copy of the issue (plus the ARC of her upcoming paranormal, The Messenger).

I scanned the page so I could share the review with you all.

( Image below )

w00t!!

Also in this issue, a fabulous full page ad for Juno books, including my 2 book covers and Carole Nelson Douglas' newest.

Double w00t!!

Off in a few days to Bouchercon in Baltimore.

Matters of the Blood is back up at Fictionwise (e-book format) and since it's been refreshed, they see it as a "new" book - so for a very limited time, it's 15% off. It's multiformat, so you can download any one of a variety of formats, including Sony Reader, PDF, Palm doc, Kindle compatible, etc. If you want to buy a regular trade paperback copy, it's still avaiable at fine bookstores everywhere.


I've just joined fangs_fur_fey, so if you read that comm (and you should!) - sometime this week, you'll see my intro (posted by comm owner Melissa Marr). It's a comm for Urban Fantasy authors, and includes such fabulous people as jackiekessler, jeanne_stein, stacia_kane and the0phrastus (Chris Howard). Stacia's a fellow Juno author (her first book with Juno, Personal Demons, will be out in April), as is Chris. His book, Seaborn, will be out later this year.

The trip to NJ went quite well, despite the usual delays in getting there. Friday night dinner at the fab Italian place near starrcat's house, then Saturday with the girls and a Sunday Marriott burger on the way out. Got home early evening and was able to watch SGA, Friday Night Lights and Ugly Betty.

This weekend = finishing up the next section of Blood Bargain and yay, holiday!!

INSTABOOK REC 1: A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette (truepenny) and Elizabeth Bear (matociquala). I got my copy just before my trip so I took it with. I finished it as we landed in Newark (thanks to the delays, I had several hours). I am insta-fangrrl of this book. You Must Read NOW. (read runpunkrun's review here) - she's so right. Bear called it best ACTW review ever.

INSTABOOK REC 2: Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman (mroctober). It's on the preliminary ballot for the Andre Norton award and deservedly so.

fangrrl squee: < 2 days until TORCHWOOD!

ETA: are you reading Shadow Unit? If not, why not?

I have once again confirmed my belief...no, my conviction, that chickwriter trying to drive in DC is doomed to get lost and end up in some skanky part of town.

( How Chickwriter Avoided Dying on the Streets and Lived to Sign Books )

After surviving the OMG CITY! ordeal (really, I'm not that bad about the city, just when I am dumb and decide to drive when there's perfectly good public transportation) - I get home and voila! Advance Check for Blood Bargain arrived. Yippee!

And then of course, the other set of nightmares...of the good and squeeful kind...

( SGA )

Now, it's off to a hair appointment, then later, another book signing.

SO, DC area peeps - even though this is late notice, if you're around this afternoon, stop by Waldenbooks at Landmark Mall. I'll be there at 1:00 and for a couple of hours.

LandMark Mall/Waldenbooks
5801 Duke St #G304
Alexandria, VA 22304

Have a great Saturday all!!

Dudes, I'm in eBook! (along with 2 other Juno titles)

Juno Books post

Matters on Fictionwise.

Evidently, you can buy in a variety of formats, including PDF. Nifty!

/drive-by posting.

ETA: links fixed

So, Saturday - I had a book signing in Fredericksburg, VA - about 45 miles from where I live.

Not too bad - book signing is at 2:00. I figure I can leave by 12:30 and get there in plenty of time. Not so much.

Even though I'd been warned about I95 South traffic, (and I allowed myself extra time on top of the extra time) - I was still a half hour late. 95 was bumper-to-bumper for the majority of the trip. A 50 minute trip took more than 2 hours. YUCK!

That said, the bookstore made up for it. Although I wasn't doing a reading/signing, but just a signing (where they put a table out in the middle of the store) - I still did pretty well.

One of Charlaine's fans came specifically to meet me, because he'd seen her blurb on my book cover (Thanks, Charlaine!!). Several other stopped to chat, including an adorable 16 year old boy, who writes every chance he gets and wanted to talk about writing. He bought a book, too. :)

Most of the folks that came up to me were guys, and every single one of them bought a book. A few folks were from Texas (a LOT of us in this area, it seems!) I thoroughly enjoyed the signing. The store was incredibly busy - long lines of people buying books; entire *families* in the store, buying, reading, browsing. Chris, the manager, told me that their store was one of the top stores in the region.

I guess folks in and around Fredericksburg, VA read. Yay for them!

The trip back was uneventful, except I made a mistake and took the open HOV lanes - mistake because there is no exit for me, so I took an earlier one (after I realized that) and got lost in Springfield. Thanks to my GPS and a Rite Aid store manager, I blundered my way back to 395. ::g::

When I got home, I found a lovely fan email, which is something that always brings me great joy. I *love* hearing that someone read my book and fell in love with my characters. I'm totally in love with them, so I'm glad that other people are, too. Best author perk, EVER!!

Sunday was utterly a day of rest. I woke up early, watched a movie (Catch & Release) then promptly fell asleep on the recliner, only to wake when a thunderstorm hit. It was so dreary out, I spent a great deal of the day napping.


The nifty news portion of this post:
My wonderful cousin, Jeff Mariotte, was awarded two Scribe awards this weekend at ComicCon.
• Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Original—30 Days of Night: Rumors of
the Undead by Stephen Niles and Jeff Mariotte
• Best Novel Original—Las Vegas: High Stakes by Jeff Mariotte

The awards are given by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. Jeff is a brilliant writer and utterly deserves this recognition. So YAY, Cousin Jeff!!!

I'm Warrenton, Virginia bound for a book signing at Borders...my first solo chain store signing.

I'm meeting the adorable qe2 for lunch at 1:00, then the signing is at 3:00 p.m.

I imagine I'll make it home in time to grab the Series 3 finale of Doctor Who. EEEeee!!

A few more Matters reviews for a lovely restful day.

from Guilt in Black Panties
from Heartstrings Reviews
from BookLoons Reviews

What I'm reading: Just started A Cold Dish, by Craig Johnson, an author I met at Mayhem.  He was a fascinating speaker and I heard nothing but praise for his books, so I bought all three.

Recreation: spent the day watching season 1 Gilmore Girls, a show that I know only sporadically, but now that it's closed canon, I can finally catch up. I'm enjoying it immensely. And wee!Jared: adorable.

Spent a little time clearing out one of the smaller bookshelves and logging books on Library Thing. Still have a ton to go.

Tomorrow, it's day 1 of vacation and day 1 of writing madness.

You know, even though I spend pretty much 7 days a week online, it never ceases to astound me just how quickly time escapes and all of a sudden, it's a week later or so and I've not posted a single word.

Yes, I'm busy at work and well, writing, but still. One would think that all those groovy thoughts that make their way into and out of my head throughout the day could be actually posted, instead of just thinking about posting. Oh well.

From today's listings in Whedonesque
No Bones About It: David Boreanaz Turns 38 Today.
Happy Birthday to our favorite cocksure FBI agent/broody hot vampire!
(needless to say, when I skimmed this headline, I read a certain adjective quite differently...::g::) In any case, happy birthday to David B, who it turns out, went to high school at a school where my mom taught. Of course, it was many years later, as my mom taught there in 1970ish(?).

Some TV show thoughts - non spoilery
Heroes - how can one TV show be so brilliant? So many things happening, so much angst and squeeful occurrences. I'm not at all spoiled for anything, which makes it even better.

Yay for the Supernatural renewal!! I can't say this restores my faith in the PTBs, but I'm happy that we're not losing the boys.

Work is work and things are progressing. Sadly, I'm losing my most senior programmer at the end of the week. We'll survive, but he's a great guy and a fabulous asset to our team.

What's going on in my writing world
I'm off to Mayhem in the Midlands next Thursday, then when I return, I'm taking an ENTIRE WEEK off - to write, to ponder, to rest. I haven't done that in more years than I can remember. Maybe 10? I'm participating in a fabulous panel at Mayhem, called: Vampires Have Feelings Too: Making Fantasy Characters Work
in a Realistic World. My co-panelists are Dean James and Lee Killough, both who write brilliant books.

Matters seems to be doing well in the sales arena. I'm so happy to know that people have spotted it in bookstores across the country. My editor/publisher are in turn, happy with me because I've agreed to produce three more books for them in the same world. Book 2, now officially Blood Bargain, is due to them by November, so I'm cracking a whip on myself. Book 3, tentatively titled Blood & Bones. is due next May. Book 4 is...well, an unknown quantity at this point.

Matters will be released in mass market paperback later this year, which makes me even happier.

June 21, look for me at the American Library Association Convention. I'm staffing the Sisters in Crime booth at 1:00 p.m. Not sure if I'll be doing anything with my publisher that day, but I expect I might be.

June 30, I'll be signing at Borders in Warrenton, VA. More details later.


Of personal computing
Blanche, my lovely iBook has left the nest, and now resides with co-worker E's mom, who received it as a Mother's Day gift. This does not leave me without a laptop, however, because I succumbed to the lure and purchased a brand new MacBook. It's soooo shiny!! I've not figured out a name, though. Any thoughts?

On memes
I totally skipped over the personal canon meme, like an idiot - then yesterday, was reading synecdochic's contribution and realized this was a cool way to get some background info written down for my own characters. I'd love to read a few more, though, so if you've done one, or read one you liked, I'd love a link!

Wow, I feel like I've just done a total brain dump! WHEW.

And it's only Wednesday.

Just got my Edgar Award announcements:

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
Life on Mars – Episode 1, Teleplay by Matthew Graham (BBC America)

The Wire Season 4 picked up an Edgar for Best Television Feature/Mini-Series Teleplay

The Edgar Awards are given by the Mystery Writers of America.

The entire list of nominees and winners

In other news, the book signing at the Olsson's was very nice - if sparsely attended. Evidently, the store's only been open since December. Lovely lovely store and great manager. Sadly, my own books were once again *not* there, but I brought my 8 remaining author copies along.

Sold 2 and left 2 there for sale.

Hopefully, this was a store snafu and isn't a further sign of things to come. That's now TWO Olsson's events where they did not have my book.

Le sigh.

Off to bed now so I can actually go to work in the a.m.

The weather is FABULOUS, finally! Although, I'm working and not exactly able to enjoy it. Still, there is sunshine and it's not cold. :)

I created a Web site for my professional self - via Google Page Creator. Not because I don't know how to code, but because I don't want to have to deal. Google uses a simple interface that makes it easy to make page updates.

I'm working on pointing my domain name there.

I decided to link to my LJ, simply because this is where the more frequent updates and info happen. The site is primarily for static content and info on my appearance schedule.

Unlike many of you, I've not yet seen last night's Supernatural, I'm saving that for Saturday. Still trying to catch up on all my other shows. :)

Why am I not watching tonight, you may ask?

Tonight, dear friends, is one of my most favorite nights of the year: GREAT BIG SEA concert!!!

I'm going with the darling beledibabe, my co-worker J and her hubby (a former co-worker). We have BRILLIANT seats - 2nd row (or 5th if they use the orchestra pit seating). I'm also wearing my Canada, Which I Dig jersey.

In conclusion.