Lilith Saintcrow

All right, my ducks, here’s what’s happening in the month of November.

* I am leaving this Friday to put in an appearance at World Fantasy Convention, in Saratoga Springs, NY. I may be on a few panels, but I’m not sure yet. What I do know for sure is that I’m going to be reading a little bit from the first Jill Kismet book, Night Shift, on Sunday, November 4, at about 10AM. If you’re at the convention, come nurse your hangover with me. I promise to be gentle.

* I am confirmed at the Beaverton Powell’s Local Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authorfest, on Wednesday, November 14th, 7:00pm. That’s Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing. I look forward to seeing maybe one or two of you there?

* Last but not least, I’m going to Orycon this year! Again, I don’t know if I’ll be on any panels and I haven’t been told about any readings. Once I know something more definite I shall definitely let you know.

Between all this and Thanksgiving too, I shall probably be a nervous wreck come December 1. But it’s a good thing–I will (hopefully) meet a few Readers and (definitely) see a few old friends. Travel during the holiday season is going to be a total utter bloody disaster, but well, one bears with what one has to. At least I’m going to be safely home before the real scramble between Thanksgiving and Christmas begins. Though from the Christmas decorations I saw hanging up in a Major Big Chain Store yesterday, I’m beginning to think the marketing peeps want us stressed over Christmas all year long.

My blogging is going to be spotty or nonexistent for a while, since I’m packing and preparing to head out on Friday. I shall try, however, to stay in touch.

So no sooner do I open my mouth about a wiki than Soopa Dude Drosdelnach (from my forum) goes ahead and does all the work.

Congrats, I’m now on Wikipedia!

Holy mother of patootiepants, as the Princess sometimes says.

Wow.

I kind of had to.

So, uh, here I am.

So this morning I had a nightmare. It involved a virus that turned everyone it infected into a semi-vampire, and the infected started hunting the non-infected, for food and fun. We were locked in our house, and the kernel of this dream was me holding the front door against someone who had a key and was trying to get in. The small group of buddies with the guy trying to get in hung back a little, waiting to see what would happen. I held the door and the lock so it wouldn’t move.

They got tired of trying it, and drifted away to find other prey. I was shaking, and went back down the hall. The DHM was sleeping, and I tried to wake him up. “What? They left, didn’t they?” And he went back to sleep.

So I started packing up everything useful and all the food that wouldn’t spoil much in a drive. “What are you doing?” the Princess asked.

“We’re packing everything useful in the car, and we’re going out to ________’s,” I replied grimly. “They have guns.”

Then I woke up. My first thought was, wow, trip anxiety is a bitch, man. My second was, predictably, I could write that. It works. Hm…How would I do that?

That is, I suppose, the curse of being a writer. Nightmares, odd thoughts, all sorts of things get filed under “material.” There’s good material and bad material, but rarely is an experience ever just what it is. Rather, it is to be strip-mined to provide food for characters. All things serve the Muse.

Now that I’ve stopped sweating and shaking, I might want to write that one down. Whew.

In other news, I thought I wanted a Wikipedia entry until I read this. If I wouldn’t even be allowed to delete information that would make it easier to stalk/identity thieve me, and if I wouldn’t even be allowed to correct inaccurate info, I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. Also, there’s enough bad juice floating around out there (people who don’t like my name, or found something wrong with my books) that a wiki just seems…well, a bit like an infection I could do without. It might be mostly benign, but maybe I shouldn’t wish for it.

I’m almost wondering if I should add a wiki to my website, just for reference purposes about each series. I’m sure a few Readers would enjoy that.

Oh, and last night we carved pumpkins. They are appropriately spooooooky. Our sycamore hasn’t really dropped its leaves yet, so we still have a great deal of rustling going on when a breeze wanders by at night. It’s like the whole world conspires on Halloween.

I am still feeling the effects of that nightmare. Wow. Such powerful feelings are nothing to mess with.

Which is why they make good material…

So…all the plans are jelling for WFC. I leave on Friday. I don’t like planes and I’m not ultra-fond of travel, so it’s going to be (wait for it) an ADVENTURE. And we have pumpkin-carving to do before I go. Quel marvelous!

I prefer no adventures, as I have many adventures going on inside my head. But I’ve already committed to this and bought the plane tickies, and I know I’ll enjoy it once I’m there. I’m just nervous about travel. I am really a homeloving little soul. It is no help at all that I have no sense of direction at all and can’t navigate my way out of a wet paper bag. (To make up for this, the Sullen One has a fine sense of direction and is unflappable while navigating.)

So I guess we’ll see how it turns out…

All right, so there are a couple of questions I’ve gotten in the mail lately.

There seems to be some confusion with the timeline in The Devil’s Right Hand. What is the exact timeline?

Well, it goes like this. The original timeline was supposed to be:

Working For The Devil
(5 years)
Dead Man Rising
(2 years)
Devil’s Right Hand
Saint City Sinners
To Hell and Back

However, in reworking the drafts, my editor pointed out that Jace carrying a torch for Danny and Danny carrying a torch for Japh for five years was Just Too Much, and after much thought I agreed. (Thankfully Danny didn’t care.) So, here’s the timeline we ended up with:

WFTD
(10 months-1 year)
DMR
(3-5 yrs)
DRH
SCS
THB

You’ll notice it’s unclear between Dead Man Rising and Devil’s Right Hand because Dante loses track of time in a big way–partly because she doesn’t have a real good grasp on it to begin with, being a psion (you’ll notice how Trina the scheduler runs her life in the first two books) and partly because Japh deliberately removed all traces of time passing. Whether he did it to help her recover or for another reason is still an open question.

Unfortunately, some traces of the old timeline must remain despite the best in copyedits and continuity checks. If that’s the case, my apologies, but publishing is an imperfect business indeed.

When is the next Steelflower book coming out?

It’s in my head, I just haven’t written it yet. Getting three books out under a very, very tight deadline this year was difficult and I didn’t have room for the Incidental Novel at all. Hopefully this upcoming year will change all that.

I can tell you that the next book is tentatively titled Steelflower’s Song and deals with the troupe landing in Antai and discovering people looking for the Skaialan, Redfist. He has revenge to deal on Clan Connaight, and Kaia can do no less than help him. Hee. Hope that helps.

That’s pretty much all I have time for today. I have Halloween candy to buy and some other few items to pick up for the trip. Oh, and I need to get newspapers, because we’re carving pumpkins tonight.

I’m buying the New York Times. Somehow, for a grand punkin-carvin’, the local rag just doesn’t seem right.