You’ll notice that the title is in passive voice so no one actually is implicated in the doing.

1. I have to write a bio for my husband for a con. He’s going to be on a panel about being married to writers. I plan to lie. Totally and completely.
2. I need to go through and delete buy links for some of the books and put in some explanations about when and how things will be available. For instance, The path books are currently unavailable new or in ebook. However, the ebooks will be coming back soon with new covers (from Open Road Media). After that, I will hopefully put together the print versions and have them available.
3. I have to fully learn InDesign for laying out print books. I’m making progress
4. I can’t begin to tell you what I need to do in my yard and around my house. I keep plugging away.
5. I need to finish reading this book that I have and want to read.
6. I need to brush the dogs and trim nails.
7. I need to show you the new cover for Whisper of Shadows! It’s so pretty. It is up for preorder for ebook form now. The print book will be available soon, I think on the release day, April 22nd.

Click this link to my Amazon giveaway and you could win a copy of The Incubus Job.

Who am I kidding? Of course it is. But anyhow, I was supposed to be working on a story today, which I did a little, but I needed to put together an image to advertise The Incubus Job. It needed to be of a certain proportion and I wanted something to catch attention, as it will be in amongst many others.

I haven’t used Photoshop in forever, and when I did use it, I wasn’t particularly good at it (as in, almost lacking all skills). It is not an intuitive sort of program, either. It does, however, let me play at being an artist and also lets me manipulate images and text, so I decided to dig in. Here’s the image I ended up with:

The first thing I did was create the background. I did that using an interesting brush that kind of randomly splotted, and then used a bunch of colors. Specifically, I used purple, red, yellow, and pink. You’ll notice that none of those colors appear in the background. I’ll explain. After dabbing all the colors in, though not entirely covering the background, I took the smudge tool and started smudging. I tried to go at a diagonal, from bottom left to upper right on a slant. I moved the colors both down and up so that the pattern distributed in a way that I liked. Once I was done, I moved on (it still wasn’t blue yet).

I then put in a layer with the cover and managed to figure out how to tilt it, and then I figured out how to make a bevel on it and a glow around it. I arranged those in a way that I liked (lots of options for doing both), and then moved on to the text. I tried out a bunch of fonts and didn’t like most of them. I finally opted for this one, which is a little like the cover font. I managed to make it have a gradient from white to yellow, but I really don’t know how. I was trying to do some different things. I also had to figure out the text, which I finally came up with, though now I wish there were fewer ‘expecteds’ in there.

I figured I was pretty happy, but then managed to look at another one that was much better. More polished looking. I decided that I would at least try to put a lighter color box around the text. It’s at this point that I clicked a button and turned the background blue. I don’t know what I did exactly. But I liked the blue, so I kept it. I managed to insert a layer with the box underneath the text. I colored the box a light blue, and overlayed on the background, it looks like the above.

I then saved and closed out and in doing so, managed to flatten the images instead of keeping a .png which would still have the layers. So I can’t modify this. I’d have to recreate it. What I wish I could do is go back in and make a border around the text box, I’d also like to round the edges of the whole thing.

I think I need to play more with photoshop in general, but also to try to create some advertising materials. Maybe even play a little with some digital art. That could be fun.

I use an older version of photoshop, and can’t afford to upgrade to the monthly fee. I hope I can figure this one out in more depth.

This is oh so cool and now I can make the announcement:

Have you read Faith Hunter‘s Rogue Mage series? If not, you should. It is an amazing trilogy. Except . . . There’s news. The trilogy is getting some extras and I get to be part of it!!!

I want to report on all the things, but my memory is slippery and fuzzy. So some highlights. I had breakfast with Jeannette Cheney, Ilona and Gordon Andrews this morning. That was a lot of fun. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Ilona and Gordon and so it was nice to get caught up. Yesterday I had breakfast with Jill Smith, the woman who reviews my books for RT. She was awesome. So neat to get to meet her in person and actually get acquainted. I had a late lunch with Patty and Mike Briggs today, again, it was so nice to catch up. I’ve missed seeing them and they are as wonderful as ever. All of the above–good people.

Had a fabulous panel today. Met Nicole Peeler, who was captain, and then Chloe Neill was moderator. Other panelists were Jeanne Stein, Samantha Sommersby, Patty Briggs, Richelle Mead, and Diana Rowland. We had a good time. After, I got to talk to some fans and then I had the best moment ever. A gentleman approached Patty and he was so overcome, he got teary. He was such a fan. So I took a picture of them together and tried not to get all weepy myself.

I’ve talked to a lot of different writers, here, and it’s so fascinating to see how romance writers approach cons, and publishing, and promotion. It’s so very different from my experiences in a lot of ways. Jeannette did another post on swag, with more pictures. Let me tell you, there’s an amazing amount. And odd stuff. You could come home with a suitcase or more of just free stuff. I’m boggled. I haven’t done as many of the fan events as I’d have liked, but I did help set up the Mad Hatter tea party, and then I stayed to play and watch. It was a lot of fun and I really was wowed. I wonder if I could get a few authors to want to do something like it at an sf con.

One thing I want to mention is the pattern on the rugs in the hallways on the room levels. It’s a gray carpet, with, what appears to be, a river of pee running through the whole thing. I’ve been meaning to take pictures. I will attempt to remember this. But it is now and forever going to be, the river of pee.

I had a fun panel yesterday with Jenna Black, Carol Nelson Douglas, Patricia (Pooks) Burroughs, and a lifesize cutout of Severus Snape. And I got to meet my Samhain editor, Latoya Smith, who is totally amazing. I also cheated on my dogs with another corgi. I needed some puppy love and it was a corgi. What could I do?

I’ve spent some time in the bar drinking fuzzy navels (don’t judge!) and screwdrivers. I tried a beer that was way too hoppy for me. And bitter.

Tomorrow is the big signing. I’m told this will be a huge event. I can’t wait to see what it will be like really. I hope that I’ll see a few fans.

I haven’t taken nearly enough pictures. I always forget to do that.

I’m sure I have more to report, but my head is stuffed so full of experiences I can hardly sort it out. Oh! But I walked by the JFK memorial and took some pictures. I saw the grassy knoll and the Texas Book Depository building. It seems so close together.

That’s about all I’ve got for now. Having a good time. Hope you all are, too.

I am so eager to hear how people are responding to Edge of Dreams. I want to talk about it, but I’m afraid of spoilers. I’ve chewed my nails to the quick and Costco is having a sale on double caramel Magnum bars, which has only partially settled me down. I’ve only (or already!) got 4 reviews on Amazon and this makes me nervous that everybody is either thinking, meh, don’t feel like reading that any time soon, or everybody hates it and doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. Obviously the world is terribly concerned about my feelings. Give me another Magnum Bar.

So in honor of my total anxiety, what snippet from the yet nameless book three, written today. Bear with the roughness and the mispellings and poor grammar and all that.

“Looks like Savannah Morrell knows him better than you do,” I taunted, though there wasn’t much to feel triumphant about. After all, Touray had been captured by his Tyet enemy, and Morrell wasn’t exactly known to be Glinda, the good witch. She was more the psychotic witch from the land of We Are So Fucked. The only thing that was going to keep Touray alive was the fact that he had some of the Kensington artifacts, and she wanted them.

Edge of Dreams has officially been born. I’m totally excited and yet absolutely panicked that nobody will like it. So pretty much, all is normal.

I have been thinking about what I should talk about on the day of book birth. You know, in childbirth, people just coo over the baby and don’t expect much from the mom. I can’t really set out party favors and streamers and serve cake. That’s seems sort of rude when nobody is nearby to attend. That leaves me to just babble on in interesting and hopefully entertaining ways to possibly whet your appetite.

I’m thinking I want to talk to you about Diamond City and what makes it special. First of all, it’s built on a prehistoric volcanic caldera. It’s such an old and deep volcano, that there are diamonds inside it. I love that setting. Just the idea of an enormous treasure place. Maybe it’s the fact that I love rocks and I want to learn to rockhound my own. I go scouring estate sales and riverbeds and the coast looking for treasures. So Diamond City is dear to my heart. I wish I had a place like that that was full of such treasure to dig in.

Under the caldera are ley lines of great power. I love the way magic becomes organic to the place. Some are given magic talents and some aren’t. What’s fun is how silly some of the talents are. I haven’t thought of all of them yet, but some are very limited. I should have you give me some ideas on useless magical talents. Anybody? Like maybe speeding up broccoli cooking on the stove? Or the ability to summon slugs.

We learn some cool stuff in this book about the area, that would be terrifically spoilerific, so I’ll not talk about those. I like the way there’s a diamond dole. That everybody makes a base amount from the diamond mines–sort of like the way people get money from oil in Alaska. It helps people in Diamond City afford to live there, for one. And also keeps people happier living there.

I’ve figured out some new stuff for the third book, or maybe the fourth, that I can’t mention here, but are really cool things about the Tyet factions and how that works. I’ll be looking at the larger world beyond Diamond City, and maybe even traveling to some other places.

There’s a lot of wealth in Diamond City–from diamonds, from illegal activities, and from legal activities. I love the idea of digging into a society that has a lot of money, some have magic, some don’t, and yet people aren’t necessarily happy. There’s so much fear and corruption in the culture that it’s impossible to ever feel truly safe. That’s a truth of many people all over the world historically and in the present, and I wanted to explore that.

I wanted mystery and that noir feel of the world. I may not be a hugely noirish storyteller, but the world has some of that shape and color. It’s got that kind of dirt and edginess.

I like romance. On top of that, I think people are driven by those sorts of feelings to do many things. Jealousy, lust, love, pride–all those sorts of things. So there’s romance. It’s not easy, and there will probably be more (I’m not sure between which characters yet and I’m not sure when, but again, romance/sex is a part of life).

I’m also digging into Riley’s past and you’re going to get to meet some more of her family. I’m not going to say anymore than that yet.

Diamond City has great beauty and great ugliness and a lot of secrets. These are things I plan to keep exploring.

Tick tick tick . . . It’s almost April 15th . . . taxes are due and Edge of Dreams arrives!!!!  You can now preorder the print book, and you can read the first chapter here on my website. Just click through the Diamond City Magic tab and scroll down to read an excerpt. Or . . . I could save you all that trouble and just give you the link. LINK.

I’ve been trying to figure out things to blog about. My editor wants me to encourage reviews, particularly on Amazon. There’s a method to that madness, because the more I get, the more likely they can talk Amazon into doing a specific promotion. So I would love for you to review and spread the word and go forth and help me conquer. It doesn’t help that I haven’t really prepared anything for promotion. The stuff with my son has monopolized me, and the work on book three, which is coming along well and I’m enjoying a lot. Between that stuff, mom stuff, and generally keeping my head afloat, I confess I’m a little bit panicked about the launch of this book. I so want people to read it and enjoy it. I know it sounds crazy, but one thing I want is for it to get more reviews on Amazon than Trace of Magic. Like that’s actually any measure of anything. But I’ve never had a second book do better than a first and I don’t even know if it’s possible.

It’s writer neurosis. It’s like a bubbling hot acid mix of 16 year old hormones, PMS, that terror you get when your plane is crashing, and the feeling of riding a roller coaster, all rolled into one and magnified by about 30. That. Right there. Get me some chocolate, chai, and alchohol STAT!!!

I cleaned my kitchen in an effort to make myself feel better. It did not work. My stomach is literally in knots. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced this on a launch before.

Okay, I’m going to shut up now and read something. Or snuggle a dog, because . . . fuzz therapy, as my son calls it.

Had a fabulous weekend of few responsibilities, lots of laughter, and general fun. I saw tons of people, met new ones, and f-bombed my way through the weekend. It was that sort of a weekend. I spent most of my time in the bar. I slept precious little, however, thanks to fun and talking and a less than comfortable bed. Came home and napped and am about to climb into bed again. I had meant to get some work done this weekend, but didn’t do any. Tomorrow I take the boy up to Seattle for a consultation and maybe tests. I have no idea. no idea how long we’ll be there or what. It’s play it by ear.

Dogs missed me. Have been clingy since I’ve been home. Feel bad I’m abandoning them tomorrow again.

I’d like to say more interesting things at this point, but really, my brain is total mush. So I’m going to bed. I will check in as I can.

So first, this. You can win a copy of Edge of Dreams from Goodreads! Enter now. Contest is closed.

In other news, I sort of fell off my bike and hurt my wrist on Friday. It’s feeling better, but it was stupid. I’m working on building up stamina to do hills on my bike, since I live on hills and that’s the only way to functionally ride my bike is if I can manage to pedal up inclines. I did the sort of fall off upon arriving back in my own driveway, because I’m an idiot.

I will be at Norwescon. Did I mention that? No panels. Just hanging out, so let me know if you want to get together.

I will be taking my son to Seattle to the children’s hospital the week after in the hopes they will be able to actually treat him. We consult first, and then hopefully they can do other things within a day or so.

In the meantime, I’m writing, trying to squeeze reading in, trying to clean the house and organize and etc.