The GPALPBBFA2016 - Redux!

It happened, y'all. And it can never be undone.

A Dream Realized

Ah, friendly friends. Today is a strange kind of book-birthday. Amazon is apparently out of stock, and there's no resolution for that while both the publisher and the distributor are closed for the holidays. (My author-copies are similarly AWOL, or I would offer up something from that supply.) There is no fanfare on the blogosphere, because holidays, but also because I have been behind on writing guest blogs. At this rate, we may or may not have copies for the party on Saturday - it is in the gods' hands now.

But you know what? It is still a really, really good book-birthday. Dreams of the Eaten is still a damn fine book, given life and shape by damn fine people. My Twitter feed is blowing up with love from all quarters. Saturday is going to be a baller time, no matter what. And more than that... like, today marks the day when the end of the story is officially made real. You can download the e-book right now and put it in your face (and I would love it if you did!) And that can't be undone. It is safe. It exists. Even if the physical copies all get burned up in a warehouse fire. Even if the book tanks and goes out of print. Finally, after 17 years, the whole entire story is written and made available to the world, and if I get hit by a bus today, there will still be a piece of me out there living its own little life - complete and unkillable - and I will have paid my Earthly rent.

I am so proud of this book, y'all - this series, this story-world. And while I reserve the right to collapse back into fits of author-angst the next time I get a shitty depressing royalty statement, please feel free to remind me that I wrote every word of this post and meant it. And that I would never have had such wonderful problems without first having such wonderful people.

Thanks for seeing me through, y'all. It wouldn't mean a thing without you.

ANNOUNCING: The Great Pre-Apocalyptic New Year's Eve Launch Party, Book Bazaar, and Fruitcake Amnesty of 2016!

Y'all. It is only seven days - one magical, fleeting week - until Dreams of the Eaten takes flight into the world. And it is no good having a book launch without a book launch party!

Click to embiggen!

It's going to be a barnstormer of a time, y'all. We got a book-swap table, where you can swap out your old books and pick up some new ones. We got a goodie gulag, where you can bring your leftover holiday treats (and snack on other people's) before you start that Jan 1 diet. (And yes, I'm giving a special prize for the most egregious fruitcake. Give me your worst. I ain't scared.) Most excitingly, we have suckered sweet-talked no less than FIFTEEN local authors into coming out to showcase their freshest, finest work. If you don't leave this party with a full belly and an even fuller bookbag, I will eat my hat.

SO. We're throwing down at the South Irving Public Library. The party starts at 11AM on Saturday, December 31st. Bring your unwanted books, leftover sweets, and all your favorite friends - and be sure to RSVP on Facebook or the official events page  so we can fete and feed you in fine style. Be there or be missed!

Cons, Cake, and Amphibious Cartography

Am I dead?  Is this... is this the afterlife?

Well, if I am, the heavenly gates look an awful lot like the hotel bar at the Heathrow Park Inn, and if I'm not, I should probably post an update.

So I just finished having a ruinously great time at EasterCon in London, where I met up with some of my very favorite people, found some new-favorite people, nominally contributed to the furtherance of SFF literature by mentoring at the writers' workshop, and blew through a month's worth of serotonin in four days.  It was just catastrophically fun.  Anybody want to spot me a couple grand so I can come back for FantasyCon in October?  Anyone?

Well, let's put a bookmark in that.  In the meantime, I am very happy to say that Medicine for the Dead is launching on Thursday here in the UK, and it is already doing great out on the World Wide Web!  Here are some of the online highlights from the past couple of weeks:

Mary Robinette Kowal's My FAVORITE BIT

The fantastic Mary Robinette Kowal has graciously hosted me for a full-on geek-out session at her blog, and this one's all about maps.  This is me nerding out about how we arrived at the inside map for the book, and all the cool epiphanies and neat worldbuilding that that project inspired.  (If you want to know what DIDN'T make the final version, or were wondering what that "Il On Échappe" label means, check this out!)

SFsignal Guest Post: Language Barriers in SFF

Okay, so this is the guest post I was most nervous about writing, and the topic I'm easily the most excited about.  Over at SFsignal, I've got a guest blog about all the awesomesweet stuff you can do with language barriers and translator characters in sci-fi and fantasy, and if you have any interest in that (or are just curious about how a Bulgarian interpreter can help you navigate your next erotic encounter with an alien buffalo-squid), you should definitely go see!

Ally Bishop's Upgrade Your Story Podcast - Episode 64

This was SUCH a fun time, y'all.  If you don't know, Ally is basically the Arch-Magus of Editing and the Supreme Queen of Online Socializing, and we had a total gas talking about the different paths to publication and what I've learned about how to promote and present yourself out in the real world (or at least as close as SFF conventions get to reality).  Definitely, definitely get on board with Ally - she is fun in a can, and the host with the most!

Heartfield Fiction: What I Learned About Writing From Cake

My friend and agency-sibling Kate Heartfield has a fantastic blog series called "Unlikely Influences", and I was so happy when she invited me to contribute. And let me tell you: in raw quantities of of love, fear, toil, and genius, writing is second only to cake. I put the piping bag down a few years ago, but all those sleep-deprived, frosting-smeared nights became retroactively worthwhile when it came time to spend a few thousand hours trying to prove that I had a story worth telling.

IndieReview Behind the Scenes - Weekend Edition!

The thing about Michelle Cornwall-Jordan and Jamie White is that they're basically drift-compatible Jaeger pilots, but for a kickass indie podcast instead of a giant kaiju-destroying robot.  (And they graciously let me in under the fence, even though I'm not technically indie :) )  We had an awesome time chatting about everything from fishmen feeding-frenzies to writing inspiration/advice, ostrich ragout, and oh god, I actually did tell the ketchup packet story.  Sorry, Mom.

GCE: It's 3:10 to Yuma Meets Fantasy

Okay, this last one's not any of my doing, but GeekChicElite put up SUCH an awesome review of Medicine for the Dead that I can't not share it with you.  GCE was where I got my very first review, back when Sixes came out last year: they have been so enthusiastic about the series from day one, and I've been so nervous about whether this second book would live up to the first, and it's just wonderful to see it so well received.

Actually, that goes for all of you guys, too.  Thank so you, so much for the reviews you've written, the Facebook updates you've posted, the books you've bought and the people you've told. Every lasting success is made up of hundreds or thousands of small, singular acts, and I so appreciate you acting on my behalf.

SIXES was like riding a new ride at the theme park. MEDICINE was like riding the same ride but at the front with your hair on fire.

Launch Party 2: Bigger, Badder, Radder

Sorry, guys.  I'm fresh out of words.  Any that I didn't use up myself were burned and blown away.  I blame you for this.

Because y'all were all

and I was like

and then we totally 

And everything after that is a happy, hazy, thoroughly ecstatic blur.

But here's the whole story, lovingly chronicled by people more articulate and sober than I:

(By the way, are you guys following Jenny Hanniver yet?  If not, act now!  She makes hashtags!  She live-tweets!  She lights up a room, does asphalt beat-downs in two-inch heels, and is a vital part of this balanced book-launch!)

Anyway, you get the general idea.  There's good times, great times, and then there's times so amazing you spend the whole drive home second-guessing yourself and thinking about all the little screwups and jackass stuff you said, and this was one of those.  Big, big love to all y'all, whether you were there in body or in spirit.  You KILLED it.


--So for example, if the book is shelved between "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very-Bad Day" and Irvine Welsh's "Porno"...
--I want to read it!

Second Verse, Better Than the First

Well, friends, as I type this, I'm sitting on my couch in my comfortably shabby Hello Kitty PJs, refreshing the Medicine for the Dead Amazon page to see whether it actually goes on sale tonight, and hosting a warm cat in my lap.

In other words: life is pretty swell.

Anyway, I wanted to say, I know that this book launch has been pretty squishy compared to the epic, Internet-spanning grandeur of The Twelve Days of Launchmas. Part of that's because you always go all-out for first books and first babies.  But a lot of it is because I just didn't have it in me this year.

Basically, my brain broke over the winter - or maybe it's been broken for a long time now, and just got to a point where I couldn't compensate for it anymore - and the time I should have spent organizing guest posts and planning a release calendar was largely squandered on irrational crying jags and days and days of wheel-spinning, self-loathing productivity failure.

And I know it's not cool to flash your insecurities at the world, but it's important to me to put that in writing here... because there is already SO MUCH "we don't talk about that in public" material in this industry, and also because the longer I spend in said industry, the more I realize that mental health is a huge, huge issue for writers.  The black dog has bitten my editor.  The brain-hamsters are chasing my friends.  And the longer you spend slogging through the swamps of sadness, the easier it is not to realize that you've already sunk in up to your neck.

Why yes, I AM still traumatized. Thanks, '80s!

So I feel like that's worth saying.  But the reason I say it on this particular day is because for me, today is a celebration of two intimately-related things: putting this book out, and getting my happy back.  I'm proud of myself for working hard on both fronts.  I'm hugely grateful to my husband, my agent, and all my wonderful friends and family who got me through the rough patches.  And I'm really, REALLY excited for you to read this book.

Like... you know, there was a day last year when I was sitting in a dingy strip-mall dressing room, trying to stuff the mutilated remains of my self-esteem into a god-awful bridesmaid's dress* and contemplating my failures... like y'do.  And then my phone dinged: it was an email from one of my best buddies and critique partners, Dan Bensen:

Wow.

That's my critique in a nutshell.  Wow.

So Sixes is a good book. It got published and it'll start your career off right. But THIS book blows Sixes out of the water. It's tight, it's focused, it makes promises and convinces me you'll live up to them. It both continues the story begun in Sixes and begins its own new story, and balances perfectly between fantasy and comprehensibility.

*NB: I bought a different, thoroughly awesome dress. 

And you know - that didn't magically fix my life.  I still had to stop and make a concerted effort to fix my own life.  But ever since then, I've been cruising on a rising tide of enthusiasm from the people who've read Medicine for the Dead - and the biggest difference between this launch and the last one is that I'm not going into it hoping that it's a good book.  I KNOW it is.  And I'm so, so happy to have the chance to share it with you.

Anyway, I won't say too much more about it here - because I DID get my happy back, and I DO now have guest-posts and events scheduled out the wazoo, and you will be hearing plenty of book-talk through the whole month of April.  For now, just know that even if it looks like there hasn't been as much pom-pom shaking this second time around, this is truly a bigger, better, greater day... and that if you ever need help finding your way back to your own greatness, I hope you'll let me know.  Happiness is a mass noun, and two people have more mass than one.

Okay, enough sloppy stuff.  Go buy my book, come to my party, and if you've already got all that licked, kick out the jams with me and Harry Solomon.  Life is GOOD!

Life has been good to me
Got very few complaints so far

Life has been good to me
Hope you're as happy wherever you are!

Launchmas Index

Oh, hi there, Internet.  How are you?

As for me, I'm broadcasting from an Undisclosed Location (okay, not really - I'm in Coneland again).  And I'm still too much in the middle of everything to tell you anything about it, but here in the meantime is a master-list of all of last month's fun extracurriculars.  A huge, huge thanks to every one of these folks who hosted me - I couldn't have asked for a better launch, or more generous launchmates. 

(Quick plug for all you writer-types, BTW: the discounted rate for Perfecting Your Prose ends tomorrow.  Sign up, write on, and get ready to rock out!)


PODCASTS

The Kingdoms of Evil #66 - Creating Cultures

The Kingdoms of Evil #67 - Tradition and Modernity

The Kingdoms of Evil #68 - Clashing Cultures


INTERVIEWS

GeekChicElite

The Author Visits (scroll down)

Beth Cato

My Bookish Ways

The Qwillery


GUEST POSTS / ARTICLES

Upcoming4.me - The Story Behind "One Night in Sixes"

TerribleMinds - Five Things I Learned Writing "One Night in Sixes"

The Author Visits - Book Launch Bingo: Debut Author Edition

Whatever / The Big Idea - Arianne 'Tex' Thompson

Loft.org - Positions of Emphasis: the Rhythm of Killer Prose

Dan Koboldt - Finding the Love in One-Star Reviews

Erin M. Hartshorn - The Freshwater Fishmen of Tucumcari, New Mexico

JK Cheney - Something Strange Happened on the Way to the NYT Bestsellers List


BOOK REVIEWS

The Author Visits

GeekChicElite



OTHER

Contest - The "One Night in Sixes" Hashtag Shenanigans Sweepstakes

Book Launch - Barnstorming the Nobles

The End of Launchmas

It is here!  We made it!  (Actually, we made it four days ago, but it's taken me this long to get my act together.)  Here's the wrap-up:

1.  The #OneNightIn contest has a winner!

I did a random drawing of all the entries posted before midnight CST on Saturday, and here is the winning tweet:

(And my god, if ice cream isn't a reason to blow the speedometer, I am sure I don't know what is.)  Big congrats to Helen, and a big thanks to everyone who entered!

2.  I continue to plaster myself all over the Internet.

...and today, Upcoming4me is kind enough to post my entry in their "The Story Behind" series.  Not going to lie, you guys: The Story Behind "One Night in Sixes" was a tough one to write.  

Even now, I am still just desperately anxious for random people on the Internet to like me, and I feel like the more I write about the tough subjects - especially the historical and more racialicious aspects of the book - the more opportunity I'm giving random people on the Internet to decide that I am Not Very Good - perhaps Actually Quite Terrible.  

Then again, the intellect and judgment that's gone into these posts are the same as what I used to write the book itself, so it's a fair free sample, regardless.

And speaking of free...!

3.  You have 12 hours left to win a free copy of the book!

Kristin over at MyBookishWays is still running an (international!) drawing for not one, but three copies of the book - and there are less than a hundred entries so far! I assume most of you are not hurting for copies of the text (fabulous die-hard supporters that you are), but if you know anyone who could use a handy 100% discount, tell them to scroll to the bottom of this interview and enter before midnight (CST) tonight!

In the meantime, our map is just about done (bar those one or two little fixes, which we'll correct in post-production), and legendary cartographer Gillis Björk deserves all praise and adulation, not only for his phenomenal artistry, but also for his superhuman patience in corresponding with me over the last few months. 

We'll close out the book-previews with one more little snippet:  Elim is pretty sure that going out after dark is a terrible idea, but he's absolutely certain that that red-lit house at the end of the road has Sil somewhere inside - and it's not going to give him back without a fight.

Elim made his tracks quickly, hat down and eyes forward in accordance with the errand-boy's creed: you were less likely to catch a hassling if you conducted yourself as if someone important was expecting you directly. He did not stop to look at the fire-lit festivities up on the roof of the eastern promenade, or listen to the shouting and laughing of the people up there, or smell the rich cedar-sweet aromas of their cooking.

But he couldn't avoid the boarding-house at the end of the road. Stately and sinister and old, the two front windows glowed luminous and alive with red light, its double set of sharp-curving porch steps dug like claws into the foundation, and high up above, lording over the upper story and even over the town itself, the twisted rails of the balcony exalted the house with a black-iron crown.

It was an evil thing, and not only because of its business hours. You could forgive people the need to do their sinning sociably — shoot, you could hardly expect them to make any less of a congregation in dirtying their souls than they did in cleaning them afterwards. No, what made Elim's hairs stand up was that the boarding-house was still here, unburnt and unbastardized, having apparently either out-fouled the conquering native powers, or else struck them one hell of a deal.

And now it had gotten hold of Sil.

That thought alone pushed Elim forward as he climbed the steps and knocked at the mouth of hell.

Barnstorming the Nobles

Well, we did it.  On Saturday, we trooped out to Barnes and Noble and had us a book launch.

And oh my cheese, y'all.  I was NOT prepared.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN.  WHAT IS LIFE.

Like... okay, I used to work in catering.  I know a thing or two about event planning.  So I ordered the refreshments, confirmed logistics with the store's events coordinator (her name is Carol, by the way, and she is FABULOUS), put out invitations, made a Facebook event, strong-armed my friend Brooke into doing a blog writeup about it, added it to my website, harassed all my workshop buddies about it for a month straight, and pulled together a rough sequence of events (little talk, Q&A, prize drawings, signing, done.)

So what I mean to say is that yes, I did expect people to show up.  And yes, I did expect them to be wonderful (because I have amazing taste in people, so it's their general M.O.)  And the small part of my brain not busy suppressing the urge to barf on my shoes expected that it would probably be a pretty fun day.

But man, you guys.  I was not expecting to blow through a hundred books.  I was not expecting to sign for an hour and a half.  I was not expecting to go home and find 50+ Facebook and Twitter alerts. (I definitely wasn't expecting to go out have one of the best meals of my life in a gutted-out gas station restaurant in Watauga, but that's a story for another time.)

And to say that I wasn't expecting my very own official
"One Night in Sixes" night-light would be the understatement
of the century.  Thanks, Denise - you literally light up my life!

Anyway, the short story is: if you were there on Saturday, please know that you are just excruciatingly fabulous.  Thank you so much for making that big-ass drive.  Thank you so much for waiting in that big-ass line.  For you to lay down even more of your time and money and enthusiasm, when you've already given me so much already, is just unbearably kind.

And if you WEREN'T there on Saturday but wished you could have been - seriously, don't even worry about it.  Because A) we totally would have broken the fire code if all y'all had come out, B) I'm actually kinda glad there are still a few people in my life who haven't seen me cry in a bookstore, and C) we're gonna do all this again when Medicine for the Dead comes out in March (and your help will be especially helpful then, cuz y'know the world never gushes as much for your second kid!)  Really, though: it is a special thing to have so many folks in one place at one time - but it is even more special to feel the love pouring in from five time zones simultaneously, and to know that I have more wonderful people in my life than any single bookstore can hold.

And for anyone who's interested in the highlights reel, here is the text of what I said (or meant to say), along with a few more pictures from the happy day.

On the Eleventh Day of Launchmas...

... a Charity Megastar, a Death Writer, and an Apocalyptic Redhead walked into a bar.  And then blogged about me.

And I hate that I'm posting this on Friday afternoon when absolutely no-one is looking, but I just can't not tell you about these three fabulous ladies, all of whom have gone out of their way to sing my praises this week.

Jodi Thompson is not a relative of mine.  And that is a damned shame.  Because, like a cheerful freckled Visa card, she's everywhere you ought to be: writing grants, volunteering for school events, doing charity drives and collections, you name it.  Right now, she's running the DFW Teen Writers Workshop (a phenomenal success-in-progress!) and organizing birthday parties for homeless children at her local church.  Yeah.  Kind of humbles your day-planner, doesn't it?

Anyway, she's a future-megastar you need to keep an eye on, because while you might guess that anyone with a heart that big would likewise write stellar, Grinch-bustingly wonderful protagonists, I've read enough of her work to tell you for a fact that she does.  Check her out at TheJodiThompson.com (and if you like, get squishy with me when you read all the nice things she said about me.)

And if Jodi is sweetness and light, Pamela "The Death Writer" Skjolsvik is a hearty dose of gin and vinegar.  Humble, introverted, and sweetly pessimistic, Pam is one of those rare few people whose friendship has genuinely surprised me.  Like, seriously, y'all.  This lady has worked in a prison.  Interviewed a man on death row, literally days before his execution (and kept up correspondence with his partner ever since.)  Talked with grieving parents, ridden with firefighters, and owned a party bus.  She is realness incarnate.  And while I'm continually amazed that someone with so many notches on her belt wants to be friends with a soft-bellied Shire hobbit like me, I am so glad that she invites me to her death-parties, delighted that she lavished love on me and my little book this week, and SO excited that her memoir, Death Becomes Us, is now being actively shopped for publication.  Go get to know her before she blows up!

Lastly, I don't know if you Texas folks know this, but the Four Redheads of the Apocalypse dwell within our borders - and Rhonda Eudaly is the Reaper Herself.  What you might not know is that she is also a hell of a good time, and will not actually kill you on sight!  I'm so flattered that she decided to spotlight me on her blog today, because not only did we literally just meet like, last weekend, but  by the time we did, I was a dozey space cadet.  But now we are firm DFW buddies, and I'm so looking forward to hanging out and seeing what she does when she's not out harvesting human souls.  Huzzah!

In other news, the map is nearly done - and while Sil is busy playing a high-stakes game, our man Elim is making a risky gamble of his own.

But even after that, even after he had loaded his rifle and snuffed out the lamps and holed himself up in the hayloft to watch the moon rise, there was no getting to sleep. The moon climbed and little fire-lights burned more brightly, not only inside the adobe houses and the back of the eastern promenade, but on top of them as well. Brightest of all were the red and yellow lights of the boarding-house at the end of the road.

Sil would be there; Elim would have guessed it even if he hadn't been told. Whether Sil would come back, on the other hand...
...
Elim leaned forward and drew his knees up, threading his fingers through his hair, and immersed himself in the smell of wood and straw and his own dirty clothes.

He liked hay lofts, generally. They were high and safe and shut-in, and there was none better than the one at home. He'd been used to play in it with Merry and Clem on rainy days. It remained his favorite spot even later, when the girls had grown out of that and he'd played just with Yellow Kelly, the barn cat. At some point, he'd left off playing altogether.

But that was all right. He'd grown up, that was all, and although it hadn't left him much time for play, it meant that he could handle harder things. In his braver moments, he thought he could even face whatever native gods or animal-men or nameless night-striding demons might be waiting for him out there.

Couldn't face Will Halfwick.

That went double for Nillie.

Elim climbed down from the loft.

On the Tenth Day of Launchmas...

... I was monstrously late in posting, because any illusions I had of doing this whole thing in an orderly, professional fashion have long since been set on a fence-post and shot for target practice.

But you know what?  Apparently that's okay, because apparently, some fresh new folks on the Internet have been reading my posts and thinking that I and/or my book sound kind of fun.  I can't even tell you what a relief that is.  I'm still nervous, because not very many people have had a chance to actually sit down and read the book yet (and who knows if it'll live up to the hype?)  But this whole "putting yourself out there" thing has way more intense than I ever imagined it would be, and I am so, so happy that my firstborn word-child might actually make some friends at kindergarten.

Anyway, if you're just now joining us from further corners of the Internet, here are the relevant points:

I have a guest post up at The Author Visits today, called Book Launch Bingo: Debut Author Edition.  It's about what it sounds like - a little reflection on the emotional ups and downs of the whole putting-it-out-there process, and what goes into getting people excited about your book.  I even made a bingo card and everything! 

Also, as a reminder: The Author Visits is also hosting a giveaway for a signed copy of One Night in Sixes.  It's only got about a hundred entries so far, so if you would like to read this book for the low, low price of zero dollars, get your name in the fishbowl ASAP!

Otherwise, the map-colors are coming in nicely, and at that red-lit house at the far side of the island, Sil has found himself a high-end card game, with strange company and an irresistible wager...

The fellow produced an antique silver snap-case, such as one might employ to keep one's finer cigars. Sil half expected that to be his principal offering, but all expectation crumbled as the dandy opened the case to present a multicolored array of gleaming, lustrous fine pearls.

The mother Sil had so casually mentioned to Vuchak had lived in a house of eighteen rooms, supervised a staff of sixteen to twenty, and brought to her marriage a three-hundred-acre estate... and yet she owned just one genuine white-pearl necklace. They would have buried her with it, if it hadn't been auctioned to pay the debt.

And here, now, her last-born accident of a son might very well end the night owning more than she ever had. These were jewels of every size and color — large and small, round and irregular, black and pink and blue and cream — and therein lay all the beauty of that rarest saltwater currency. There was no shaving or counterfeiting that kind of money, no tiresome scratchings or weighings needed to assure the purity of that sort of wealth, and no inflation or devaluation when Nature Herself was the master of the mint.
...
Then the dandy seated himself beside Sil with no end of pleasantness in his expression.

"Well-met, Master — Halfwick, is it? An absolute delight — call me Faro, if you like — and if I haven't said so already, it is so rare that we receive guests of both means and manners. Really, it will be a splendid evening, and I am so much looking forward to seeing these fine horses of yours..."

He smelled of pomade and lily-water and something else under all his beauty-regimen, something that had hardly sooner reached Sil's nose than set it savagely itching, prickling down his throat and into his lungs, informing him with his first stifled reach for the handkerchief that he would be gambling on two fronts with this arrangement here...

... but there was no wiggling out of it without forfeiting his place, no begging off without advertising that he was nothing but a childish amateur out of his depth, and no doubt about whether to excuse himself or how.

Indeed, the only question remaining was what it would be worth to go back to Calvert, having turned his miserable fly-biting herd into so many perfect, shining pearls.

On the Ninth Day of Launchmas...

... well, I'll be honest: I almost didn't MAKE it to the ninth day of Launchmas, because yesterday was so incredible and so overwhelming that I was hard-pressed not to collapse to the floor and prostrate myself, Wayne-and-Garth style.  "I suck!  I'm not worthy!"

Fortunately, there are those who disagree!

First of all, my inordinately talented fellow-author, Beth Cato, graciously interviewed me on her blog - and it was a GREAT time.  Contained within: True Grit, ruminations on the anatomy of a great name, all the fun you can have with a dead skunk, and what is the deal with that Stuckey's out on I-40, anyhow?

(BTW, if you're thinking that you've heard of Beth Cato before, it's probably because she's the author of that one book about war-clerics and airship murders and cheese-eating cat-gremlins - you know, the one you can't possibly wait until September to get your hands on?  It's called The Clockwork Dagger, and the first chapter should tell you everything you need to know about what's going on top of your TBR pile!)

I am also positively gibbering with gratitude, because John Scalzi, He of the Red Shirt, has loaned me the soapbox over on "The Big Idea."  Watch as I recount the metamorphosis of my book from Full of Tropey Stereotypes to Hopefully Not That!  Marvel at the concept of "culture magic" and communal X-Men powers!  Thrill as I hide under the bed from the resulting slew of comments!

And from the Department of Something Totally Different:

My gracious hosts over at Loft.org (a.k.a. Hogwarts for Word-Wizards) kindly solicited me for a blog post - something about the craft of writing or writing techniques, that kind of thing.  What just rolled hot off the press today is called Positions of Emphasis: the Funky Rhythm of Killer Prose - or in other words, how to structure your sentences, paragraphs, scenes, and chapters so that your words have maximum impact.  (And if that sounds good, don't forget that my Loft class, "Perfecting Your Prose", is only six weeks away - and positions of emphasis are just the beginning of the great time we're gonna have!)

In the meantime, the inks on the map are just about done - which is appropriate, because while Elim's looking at the same town as Sil, he's seeing something completely different.

It had used to be a fort, once, and it seemed parts of it still were. Here and there, you could still see the sharpened peaks of the wooden stockade that must have originally run the whole way around. There was proof of at least one rightly-made house too – a big white mansion-sized one – and what looked to be a church-steeple tilting to the east, reaching for the civilization that had abandoned it.
The rest was an adobe abomination, rising at least three stories tall in the southeastern corner like a town-sized termite mound. Its clay fingers snaked all around and through even the wooden walls, as if the logs had to be cemented in place to keep from escaping.

But it was what couldn't be seen that choked the last of Elim's dwindling resolve. As he led his string onto the broad dirt path, he looked in vain for any sign of the farms and barns, the fences or road-markers or even the graves of those Brave settlers who had planted their fields and trees and outbuildings here in the time before. It was as if the earth had plain forgotten them, or resented the inquiry of strangers.

That was only proof of what Elim already knew: the outside world was vast, full of wildness and witchery and things that carried off calves in the night, and God promised no safety to anyone who strayed from the good and orderly home He had provided them.

Elim hardly needed the reminder.

On the Eighth Day of Launchmas...

...my little book went out into the world!

Godspeed, little book!  (and for Christ's sake, Elim, don't look behind you!)

And I can't even talk about what that's like just now - really, I'll just get hopelessly verklempt - but here to help mark the occasion are no less than three fabulous things!

Thing 1:  "Evil" Dan Bensen is back, graciously hosting me for Part 2 of our first epic podcast.  Hear enthusiastic rantings about gender-bending characters and philosophically-fraught alien sexcapades!  Enjoy enlightened discussion of skyscrapers, superbuses, and the Ottoman Empire!  See... Bulgarian Zoidberg?

Thing 2: The dauntlessly cheerful Kristin Centorcelli has undertaken to interview me!  This for me was a surprise and a huge delight, not only because she's so much fun to the square inch, but also because MyBookishWays is one of the coolest book blogs I know.  Go for my cute face, but stay for interviews, book reviews, and giveaways that will broaden your horizons and enhance your TBR pile!

Thing 3: Did I mention that we're doing a Twitter contest?  Check out the One Night in Sixes Hashtag Shenanigans Sweepstakes for your chance to win a $50 gift card!

And maybe it's appropriate that today is the day to display the finished map pencils, because today is also the day that our boy Sil gets his first inside glimpse of Sixes - and it's quite something...!

It was a fascinating place, though.

Hot and headachey as he was, even Sil had to appreciate that much.

As the horse's plodding steps brought Sil further inside the city, he couldn't avoid the grand hotel that dominated the northern end of the island. It was a striking, handsome thing, all elegant white columns and black wrought-iron cresting, clean and stark and somehow immaculately preserved.

The ferryman had called it La Saciadería, a strange word assembled from familiar pieces. The best Ardish would probably be 'the Satisfactory', with a mercantile emphasis on 'factory'. Given how many appetites the place apparently serviced, that sounded about right.

La Saciadería had her opposite much farther down the road, in the ingenious native pueblo rooted in the far end of the island. A full four stories tall at its peak, it spread its free-flowing adobe arms in an organic embrace, a living wall for the southern parts of the island.

As the ferryman had said, this was La Soleada, the Sunny Lady, and it wasn't hard to understand the name. She was home and mother to almost half the local population, who had somehow contrived to make that beige clay sparkle like gold in the searing light. The other tiny details that caught Sil's eye – the paintings, the splashes of color, the dark wooden lines of ladders and the exposed ends of ceiling-beams – testified to the perfect expertise of her architects.

Between these two towering great matrons, the rest of Sixes scattered out in a jumbled compromise of clay and wood and sometimes clay-covered wood, as if the owners wanted to show off their houses' exotic bones for envious neighbors.

Who, for their part, seemed to have retreated inside to wait out the heat of the day, leaving just a few dogs and free-roaming birds to keep the peace. Aside from some turkey-gabbling and the distant cries of an infant, the heavy air hung undisturbed. Sil would be pleased to keep it that way.

The #OneNightIn Sixes Hashtag Shenanigans Sweepstakes

All right, y'all: as of this very minute, I am officially a Published Author.  The book's out.  The guest posts are (mostly) in.  And that means it's time to celebrate!  Grab your Solo cup and 140 of your favorite characters, cuz we're fixing to have us a Twitter party.

The One Night in Sixes Hashtag Shenanigans Sweepstakes

The book, of course, is about a couple of clueless cowboys who go to a weird little border town called Sixes, and end up in a whole heap of trouble. We've all been there.  A crazy night at the bar, missing the last train home, waking up in Vegas to find a tiger in your bathroom - it happens!

So from today (book release day!) until Saturday (launch party - you ARE going, aren't you?), you can enter to win a $50 gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon (your choice) - just by sharing your wildest "one night in" stories.  Like this:

#onenightin Fort Worth, we partied so hard that I slept in my car, then got changed in a QuikTrip bathroom before work the next morning.

#onenightin EverQuest, I stayed up literally all night trying retrieve my corpse.  Freaking Dalnir.

#onenightin Minneapolis, I ate double-fried chicken so good, my arteries actually *crystallized*.

You see the pattern?  These can be literal or figurative, real-world places or not.  The only rules are:

1.  You must use the "#onenightin" Twitter hashtag for your entry to be valid.

2.  You can write as many as you want, but only your first three entries will be eligible for the contest.

3.  The deadline is midnight CST on Saturday, August 2nd.

4.  The winner will be randomly chosen from all valid entries, and announced on Sunday, August 3rd.  The winner will have one week to claim the prize (I'll need your email address to coordinate the logistics.)  If the winner doesn't respond, I'll do a second random drawing and choose a new winner.

5.  This contest is open to players 18 and older, in any country where it's legal. 

So go!  Do it!  Have wild life-changing experiences, and then tweet about them - because if there's one singularly appropriate way to celebrate this book, it's by chronicling some catastrophically memorable moments...!

#onenightin Sixes makes the hard man humble...

On the Seventh Day of Launchmas...

...I have not one, but two fun things to share with you!

First of all, my terrific good buddy and #SFFpit mastermind Dan Koboldt is hosting me over at his blog today.  It's a post called Finding the Love in One-Star Reviews - in which I confess a nasty little pastime of mine, and talk about the peculiar overlap between the people who over-the-moon LOVE your book, and those who flung it across the room in frustration and disgust.

(And like, go for the post, but stay for Dan - as if his own work as a bona-fide one-alignment-shift-from-supervillainy geneticist isn't enough, he's also hosting other experts to help expose and correct common errors in the technical aspects of sci-fi and fantasy, and I can't recommend it enough.  This week's entry is about horses!)

And then!

And THEN.

And then you absolutely must head back over to The Author Visits, because today the first half of my interview is live!  Not going to lie, you guys: I've really enjoyed this whole string of guest posts and interviews so far, but this one is a special favorite of mine: Veena and I talk about the inspiration behind One Night in Sixes, working with a professional linguist (hi Jason!) to create languages for the different people in the book, and somehow I even managed to work in a mention of twitching butt-muscles.  It's immense!

(And while you're there, don't forget to sign up for the giveaway at the bottom of the page - somebody's going to win a signed copy of the book on Saturday, and it just might be you!)

Meanwhile, our man Elim has made it across the river and into native territory - but not unnoticed.

As the last disturbed eddies finally disappeared, a pale face emerged from the river. Its unblinking black eyes watched as the two-colored man first spoke to the horse, and then let it follow him as calm and surely as if he had ensorcelled it.

On the Sixth Day of Launchmas...

...a wild giveaway appeared!  The Author Visits is generously hosting me for a whole week, AND giving away a signed copy of One Night in Sixes to one lucky winner.  So head on over there and hitch up your britches - the contest is only running until Saturday!

As for me, I'm finally home after an AMAZING weekend at ArmadilloCon, where I made more new friends than I can count (which maybe isn't saying much at the moment, cuz I'm REALLY tired.)  What I CAN count is the number of people who came out to my ludicrous 9:00-on-a-Saturday-night reading (which was about 3% reading), because they humored me for the sake of this fun picture here:

LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE.  LOOK AT THEM.

The short story is that it was a hell of a time, and I am hella tired.  I will leave you with map phase six from the phenomenal Gillis Björk, and take my happy self to bed!

And as for Our Heroes, Elim has steeled his resolve: there's no going home without Sil, and no catching Sil without crossing that river.

It was this thinking that ultimately found Elim and Molly standing up to her fore-cannons in that fetid-smelling water.  Minnows and little silvery pupfish darted about her knobby ankles as he tried mightily hard not to think about what kind of furry trout or fishmen might be living down there.

Because the alternative was to give up and go home, to look Will Halfwick straight in the eye and say Well, he was free, white, and seventeen, and I reckoned he could do what he wanted.

Elim turned in the saddle, squeezing an easy creak from the leather. His freshly-unstrung posse had lost no time planting their noses in thick clumps of bluegrass, leaving their tails to fend off gnats and stoneflies. "You-all wait here," he said, fixing a stare at Two-Pie in particular. "Don't make me come catch you when we get back."

Then there was nothing to do but get on with it. "Well, Miz Boone," Elim said at last, "let's go fancy-dancing."

With that, Elim nudged Molly forward, and the two of them moseyed in to make the water's proper acquaintance.

On the Fifth Day of Launchmas...

... I was a panelist at ArmadilloCon!

Had a great time today with "Space Westerns" and "Perfecting Your Locations."  I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if SDCC is the Caesar's Palace of conventions, then ArmadilloCon is Cheers. It's just really great to shift gears over into the slow lane, hang out with some really fun book-people, and spend the weekend with what feels like 200 of my best friends.  I'm in hog heaven.  (BTW, if anybody from AC is reading this right now, come find me at my reading at 9:00 tonight - I'm thinking less reading and more chatting about fantasy, Westerns, fantasy Westerns, and all the fun you can have writing dialect for fishmen.  It'll be grand!)

And you might enjoy this next bit if you went to that Perfecting Your Locations, panel.  Our man Elim has made it to the border - the Etascado River - with all those yearling horses in tow, looking for Sil.  At the moment, he's as long on foreboding as he is short on clues.

It was a toad-colored thing, slow and withered by drought, and went sidewinding through a streambed as wide and dry as a sloughed-off second skin. Elim approached its crusty banks with full respect as he organized his posse for a drink: this here was the end of home – the end of Eaden itself – and that over there was wild country. Elim couldn't have said how far across its fifty-yard girth his right to live ended, and would not be caught leaving so much as a wet boot-print in the sand.

But the land beyond was so exactly like the land before, both stretches of wild autumn savannah as matched and identical as two halves of a ham sandwich, that Elim could understand perfectly how the first white men here had reckoned they had as much right to the one as the other, and helped themselves right to it.  It wasn't until much later, long after they'd made a whole blood tributary out of this tired old water here, that anyone had started talking about borders.

Unfortunately, their most devil-minded descendant seemed to have inherited their slippery ambition. There was no sign of Sil anywhere.

On the Fourth Day of Launchmas....

...my true love gave to me: primo-quality picspam!

The fabulous Erin M. Hartshorn has allowed me to decorate her blog with a photo essay I call The Freshwater Fishmen of Tucumcari, New Mexico.  And y'all, seriously - if you need an editor or just some damn fine fiction, go smell what Erin's cooking over there.  I promise you haven't seen it before!

In the meantime, Sil has made a break for the border, leaving his stunned partner and a dozen horses in his wake.

Elim tightened his hold on Molly's rope, realization dawning brighter with every non-starter that occurred to him. Couldn't leave the herd to go tearing after him: there was no guaranteeing they'd still be here when he got back. Couldn't go tearing after him with the herd; it was as good as inviting a wreck. Couldn't just whip out his rifle and nail the little runt at fifty yards, tempting as that was.

Couldn't show up home again without him.

"Well, shit." Elim's grip slackened along with his outrage. Sil no doubt figured it was a clever plan, and Elim would be the first to admit as much – just as soon as Sil felt he'd made his point well enough to come back and settle down to business.

But Elim and Molly watched in vain as Sil dwindled to a black spot in the distance, and then disappeared. 
...
Elim sighed. "Well, Miz Boone, I expect we'll have to fetch him before he mislays himself."

Molly mouthed her bit, and raised no objections.

So Elim obligingly collected the purse and the papers, assembled his troops, and then set himself astride his big bay mistress to start her out at a sensible jog.

It was an orderly, sustainable gait to use for leading their little posse out of town, a natural choice for any reasoning fellow.

Now, what you'd use to catch up a snotty, arrogant, spoiled son-of-a-bitch, clock him clean off his horse, turn him over your knee, and then heat his frail hide one lick for every mile he'd ridden you out along his damn fool way - that would be a whole different gait.

And Elim felt mightily keen on trying it out before Sil made it to the river.

On the Third Day of Launchmas...

...my true love gave to me: a great excuse to spam you with cover art!

My good buddy J.K. Cheney is having me on for today's edition of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the NYT Bestseller List.   If you've ever wondered why there seem to be three versions of my cover running around on the Internet, here is your chance to unravel the mystery!

In the meantime, the map-work continues apace:

And as the town begins to take shape, so too does Elim's understanding of Sil's intentions...

Sil looked up at Elim. A sleepless night had deepened the shadows under his eyes. "Well, I was just thinking," he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't sell the rest of the horses for you-all, but really it isn't reasonable to take them across the border."

Well, thank God he'd cured himself of that notion. Elim led Molly out behind him. "Right..."

"So," Sil paused to slip the toe of his left boot through the stirrup, "I think the best thing will be to take them back to Boss Calvert and let him decide how to handle it." He hefted himself up and over the saddle. "And as for me personally – I don't think I've had my fill of traveling quite yet. In fact, I rather think a change of climate might do me good."

Elim stared up at Sil. "What."

Sil gave Actor a quarter turn, the reins light and loose in his hand. "I'm going on west."

Elim stiffened. "The hell you are."

But today the warning in his eyes and voice had no effect. Sil leaned forward over the saddle horn, so exactly-despicably like himself. "Well, Elim, the thing is... you can't stop me."

Oh no he didn't!  Tune in tomorrow for the next exciting episode of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Two Idiot Cowboys.

On the Second Day of Launchmas...

...my true love gave to me: an interview at the Qwillery!

(He also voted for Sixes' cover at The Qwillery's July 2014 Debut Author Challenge Cover Wars - and if you were inclined to do likewise, I'd be much obliged!)

In the meantime, here is phase two of the Map of Ages - in which our heroic cartographer, Gillis, has begun transforming my pitiful scribbles into something with order and shape.

And as the town begins to take shape, so too do Sil's intentions...

Sil turned over, closing his eyes to stave off a claustrophobia that had nothing to do with the cramped quarters, and listened to the deep, regular rhythm of Elim's breathing below.

Easy enough for him to snuff the light and pass out. Easy enough for the whole lot of them to spend their lives picking paddocks and pulling weeds and pounding fence-posts, hoarding their pennies and steeping their offspring in bootless piety and backbreaking labor in anticipation of the day when they themselves would be planted with the turnips.

That was all these rustics wanted – that was everything they understood – and any free-thinking soul who lived too long amidst their squalid contentment was going to drown in it like a fish in stagnant water.

Not Sil. Not like this. He belonged back east, back home, where beef came in a tin and fish didn't, where y'all was unheard-of and your grace wasn't, where people bleached their hair and powdered their faces and only hid their talents to avoid embarrassing those poor low-bred souls who hadn't any of their own. It had been twelve long years, but if Sil pressed one ear to the musty pillow and covered the other, just so, he could almost make Elim's faint snoring into the sound of cold salt waves crashing against vast stone walls, and hear sea-birds in the rasping of the crickets.

That world had a place ready and waiting for him – all he had to do was get there.

For that he needed money, enough to pay Calvert's stupid asking-prices and buy a one-way stage ticket with the remainder.

And at the end of the day, it didn't really matter where he got it.