And a full two weeks sooner than I expected. Good times!

If you’re heading to your comic shop for your weekly haul, please show BLUE and I a little love. Next week: COMIC BOOK TATTOO.

Speaking of which, got my CBT signing schedule for San Diego. If you’re at the show and want to get your book signed, there will be creators at the Image table around the clock. If you’d like me to sign your book, I’ll be there at these times:

Wednesday night @ 7 pm (with James Owen!)
Thursday @ 2 pm (with G. Willow Wilson & David Mack)
Friday @ 1 pm (with Lea Hernandez & Neil Kleid)
Saturday @ 4 pm (with David Mack & Dame Darcy)
Sunday @ high noon (with cover artist Jason Levesque & Ivan Brandon)

Feels like I have a lot to tell you today, and yet, my head is empty. Here’s something fun: earlier in the week, Leland gave a mini lesson over on the First Second blog.

Personally, I want to see more Bill Rattlecane. Have I ever mentioned my never-ending trouble naming characters? Leland never seems to have any trouble naming characters. I did, however, recently find some help from Social Security on the issue:

SSA Popular Baby Name Thingamabobby

The cool thing about this? Up to 500 of the most popular names, all the way back to 1879.

The 292th most popular boy’s name in 1888 (one of my favorite years) is Leland.

(I’ll stop now.)

Let me know what you think of BLUE!

Nipped these from Sami’s blog (click to see them bigger):

Can I just say that pens and art supplies make me go all weak in the knees? Marrying an artist was a good move.

Also want to point you in the direction of Comic Blog Tattoo, which shall feature stories and artistic thoughts from creators of COMIC BOOK TATTOO. First up is Rantz, talking about “The Waitress.” I was so impressed with his script when I got to take a peek at the beginning of the project… I can’t wait to see the finished story.

This just in my in-box from Ellen Datlow via GothamLit:

The Hosts of KGB Fantastic Fiction will raffle off donations from
well-known authors, editors, artists, and agents to help support the
reading series. Event takes place from July 14th, 2008 through July
28th, 2008. Raffle tickets will be $1 each and can be purchased from
http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org.

Looks like a pretty cool haul! Here’s a partial listing of the prizes available:

Partial List of Prizes (a full list is available at the website)
• Story in a bottle by Michael Swanwick
• Tuckerization (your name in a story) by Lucius Shepard
• Tuckerization by Elizabeth Hand
• Tuckerization by Jeffrey Ford
• Pen & Ink drawing of an animal-your choice- by Gahan Wilson
• Original art for a George R. R. Martin novel by Tom Canty
• John Picacio signed print of art for Michael Moorcock novel
• Naomi Novik signed TEMERAIRE first edition
• Your very own wormhole from physicist Michio Kaku
• Peter Straub– a short excerpt, in various drafts, of a short story,
titled “Mallon the Guru,” deleted from his novel in progress
• Holly Black signed advance copy of GOOD NEIGHBORS
• Original art by Terri Windling
• Carol Emshwiller signed manuscript of THE ABOMINABLE CHILD’S TALE
• Complete set of back issues and lifetime subscription to PARADOX
MAGAZINE
• Critique of a short story by Ellen Datlow
• Critique of a short story by Gardner Dozois
• Critique of a short story by Nancy Kress
• Two year subscription to SYBIL’S GARAGE MAGAZINE
• Ray Bradbury limited edition worth $900
• And dozens more prizes on the website…

Terri’s and Tom Canty’s original art? Ray Bradbury limited edition? And a wormhole, by cracky. Doesn’t get much better than your very own wormhole.

The Fantastic Fiction reading series is terrific and deserves massive support, so, y’know, go forth on the 14th and drop a few shekels for a good cause and a wink from Lady Luck!

My BLUE comps have arrived! Totally wasn’t expecting that. I guess that means the book is shipping soon. Huzzah!

Yeah, I know it’s been quiet around here lately. I’ve had my head down finishing up a short story for Drilon and working on the development of my next few marketing classes (which shall be announced tomorrow in my newsletter for metaphysical & holistic practitioners). And then there’s San Diego to get ready for…

Wish NYC wasn’t so bleepin’ hot right now!

Did I mention that my BLUE comps have arrived?

Man, I can’t thank Dirk Deppey enough for hipping me to The Horrors Of It All, which might be my new favorite blog. Old skool horror comics I’d probably never read any other way, because while I love the old skool horror comics, I am not obsessive enough to be a real Collector, aside from a buncha Warren mags found on eBay and some DC SHOWCASE volumes. The former doesn’t really count and the latter feels like cheating.

(On the other hand, I do have the 3 volumes of TOMB OF DRACULA kicking around here somewhere, which - let’s be honest - is more than anyone needs, really.)

Anyway. ‘Twas a week of Toth at the house of Horrors Of It All, so check it out.

1. I’ll be on a panel at San Diego with Tori Amos, David Mack, Ted McKeever, and the lovely Kelly Sue.

2. I’ll be really happy when this week is over.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Rantz has pictures of an advance copy of COMIC BOOK TATTOO. Go look.

Ok, three things.

Today’s my birthday. Huzzah! And I’m working. (Boo?)

Before you boo, I must note that it feels like my birthday has already come and gone. We had our first-ever get-together this weekend, wherein many friends stopped by, including a few wonderful pals I haven’t seen in a long while: Michael, my friend from my Manhattan DA office days (talk about kickin’ it old school - this was pre-Wicca), Evan from the grad school days, and Lynne from running around after rock stars days… oh my, but those were the days.

And Miss brought a pie! Nick brought me a CAKE! How cool is that?

But the hits just keep on coming:

That’s me with Terri Windling and the fabulous Lisa Stock. Terri has been in town and we actually got some time to catch up… all too short, alas, but blissful. Ellen Datlow has a great set of pictures from Terri & her partner Howard’s KGB reading here (including one of me that came out well, if I do say so myself).

Speaking of grad school, I feel compelled to note that in the pre-party cleaning of house, I finally tossed the very last of my old notes and text books. All that’s left is the piece of paper. Wild.

Kevin, Miss and I got into a conversation at dim sum about storytelling, in which I freely admitted what I have never kept a secret: that I am draconian narrative… mistress: harsh, brutal, unapologetic, unforgiving. Don’t ask me to spend hours of my life with you and give me no payoff. Other people may be okay with that, but I am most certainly not; there’s nothing else I can think of that’ll get you on my storytelling shite-list faster than lack of an ending.

I’m so passionate about this that I can’t seem to talk about it without resorting to profanity (my apologies) and foaming at the mouth, which is kind of embarrassing. So imagine my delight when, surreptitiously, I find this bit of gentle wisdom while researching my next WEIRD TALES interview:

“But there’s comfort. There are always more good stories, and now and then there are great stories. They come along if you wait for them. And here’s something I believe in my heart: No story can be great without closure. There must be closure, because it’s the human condition. And since that’s how it is, I’ll be in line with my money in my hand on July 21.”

Thank you, Stephen King. I will try to channel you the next time this subject comes up.

(In other news, the Scryptic column wherein I ranted about same is 3 years old, almost exactly to the day. The soothsayer in me is desperately looking for some meaning here somewhere.)

(”Soothsayer” is not the right word, but neither me nor Mr. O.E.D. can think of the right thing right now. We know it’s out there.)

A couple of random questions I’ll put to ye right now:

1. How much fat is in an avocado? I was indifferent until about 15 minutes ago.

2. Will GoDaddy ever stop sending me email and calling me on the telephone to give the the heads up on that crappy domain I’m intentionally allowing to expire?!?

Yes, I’m a little punchy right now.

Terri is in town this week. Hooray!

… this is what I’d write about.

First things first: there’s a brief new interview with yours truly over at Talking With Tim (the Tim in question being the lovely Tim O’Shea).

Second, when you go to your local comics shop this week, be sure to pick up a copy of Comic Shop News, because there’s a big article on The Chemistry Set and NO FORMULA in it. (How cool is this?)

MoCCA was hawt. And hot. We had a great, if stifling, time. Loved the way Vertigo handed out Minx ARC’s like candy - I picked up the forthcoming books from Mr. Wood, Mariko Tamaki (writer of Skim, another book I’ve been looking forward to; so happy I got to purchase it from her directly), and Miss Cecil & Jim Rugg (I do wish Jim would make an appearance at one of these things - feels like it’s been ages since we’ve seen him). And I ran into Charles Fetherolf - huzzah! - who doesn’t seem to be all that ticked off that he’s still waiting for a story from me (must! finish! Drilon’s!)

Topped off the con proper with a lovely chat with Brett from Top Shelf about how cool Sami is, then off to ACME with some kids for dinner. Did you know that Kevin has one of Bernie Krigstein’s drawing tables? Neither did we.

The best part of MoCCA, of course, was getting to meet Lynda Barry for Lady Bee. That’s a story in and of itself. In the meantime, check out the pictures here:

The book says “Wish you were here!”. Indeed, indeed.

What else? Led my first ever teleseminar (class by telephone) yesterday and survived! Next one is in a week. Whew.

Solid article on urban fantasy here - thank you, Matt Staggs. Matt keeps tabs on the “bookosphere” so we don’t have to - his daily roundups have quickly become invaluable. Thank you, Matt!

On the houseplants tip, my avocado seed didn’t really work all that well. And the herbs in the planter died while I was off at The System. But enough with the bad news. In the plus column, the tomato plans my mother sent in the mail (yes, really!) are thriving:

On Sunday morning, Leland discovered that yet another l’il bottle tree had pushed himself up over the edge:

By the end of the day, his first little leaves had unfolded and he was standing up straight as an arrow. Guess that desert sun we’ve had going in Brooklyn for the past several days is good for somethin’.

We now have three bottle trees. Sweet.

Back to work now…