Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain to all!

Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday about the arrival of my author copies. I’m still in major squee mode. I don’t think this is *ever* going to get old.

At least – the book.

Just got my author copies of Blood Bargain. w00t!!!

Photo behind the cut

I stayed home sick today with the evil pre-flu like cold and found out when I woke up that two of my mystery writer pals have died.

Tony Hillerman was an icon of mystery writing. I had the enormous pleasure of corresponding with him and sat with him, his lovely wife, Marie, and daughter Ann at Malice Domestic some years ago. He was a gentle man, a great writer and a person whose curiosity led him to write books I adored. He died over the weekend at age 83.

I first met Elaine Flinn in New York at the Edgar symposium. She was always friendly and outgoing. When my short story was nominated for an Agatha Award, she went out of her way to congratulate me. Elaine succumbed to pneumonia after a long battle with cancer.

They will both be missed.

Lew Ashby = Billy Tallent

Y/N?

Discuss.

Registered and PAID!!

MJ 2009 — here I come…along with Carla.

w00t!!!

It’s no secret to those of you who know me that I am a technophile. If it’s a gadget, electronic and falls into whatever I value as “cool”, it’s likely that I’ll want one. It’s also no secret that I am a pop culture-holic and love TV, movies, books, etc.

One of the brilliant things about current technology is the fact that I can get TV shows via iTunes and other legitimate sources online and watch on my nifty iMac.

The caveat to that is that these files are BIG, as in 1 file is umpteen times larger than the first hard drive I ever had (20 MB…and yes, that makes me old ::g::).

Instead of RAM, (of which I have plenty), storage became an issue. When 250 GB drives weren’t nearly enough, what next?

A couple of years ago, I bought my first Terabyte drive (!!)–and it didn’t break the bank. Today, since my last remaining LaCie drive bit the dust, I bought a replacement: 1 TB Iomega external hard drive: $143.00. Yep, that’ PEANUTS. With Amazon Prime, shipping was free and the drive actually arrived a day ahead of time.

Tera1, as it’s now named, is happily sucking up my iTunes library (all 500GB of it) and will become my primary iTunes drive. Mondo, the other terabyte drive, will become my primary backup drive. LimaMedia, the weenie 500 GB drive holds a conglomeration of files that I share between my iMac Priscilla and Mab, my Macbook air. (Yes, I name my computers and my drives…sue me).

I also have Mozy backup, which, sadly, since Comcast cracks down on 250GB/month transfers and higher, means I can’t do a full backup of all my files. Plus, I’m sure they’re throttling, but that’s a whole other story. On Mozy, I back up all crucial files – copies of all my Kindle ebooks, copies of all my writing files and backups of address books, photos and things that I couldn’t replace.

I also keep a copy of all writing files (current and past) on Priscilla, on Mab and regularly backup to a flash drive which I carry with me.

Am I anal? Yep. Is it overkill to back up so much stuff? I don’t think so. First, it’s totally cheap to buy more drives and second, if something were to happen, I know I can recover my writing, my photos and crucial data.

If I lose iTunes library, I’d be sad, but frankly, eventually I could re-buy everything and manually re-load all the CDs, since I still have those. If I lose my writing files, I know I have several places I can recover from.

I may be insane, but I sleep better at night, knowing my stuff is safe.

On an entirely other note, Mme Editrix posted a copy of the full Blood Bargain cover. Book is due in stores in a couple of weeks.

SciFi Guy created a video salute to the ubiquitous Urban Fantasy covers from tramp stamps to unbuttoned jeans. I’m chuckling, as he included one of my covers in the mix. Hee!

Just a month and half until Blood Bargain hits the shelves! I’ve already been Klausnered. As usual, she gets some of the details wrong. (for values of some that mean “most”). Ah, well, at least I’m in good company. ::g::

Of the amusing & interesting:
Whedonesque reported a photo of James Marsters in a Jayne hat

My boss blogs on the value of your e-mail.

Cleolinda continues to recap True Blood.

I have stopped watching Heroes. Srsly. Season 3? WTF? (to quote Jackie Kessler)

/random

Hope everyone has a fabulous Wednesday!

Too many late nights + Too many people = chickwriter comes home early.

Decided last night after dinner with one of the the gangs that I was too pooped to stick around today for the brunch and the rest of the panels. Got up early, checked out (stupid bill all frakked up) and headed home.

The con was fabulous, as always. Got great hugs from both the Dans (Stashower and Hale) and an unexpected sighting and quick chat with naominovik (who’s hubby Charles was attending) and cmshaw. They’d gone to Poe’s Grave and such and had come to the restaurant for tea. I was having lunch with Patti Ruocco, librarian and fellow fangrrl extraordinaire. It was nice to chat with Naomi and C for a bit.

To continue the crazy name dropping, I did get to hang out with tonilpkelner, Charlaine and the lovely Dana Cameron a bit. Dana’s story in Wolfsbane and Mistletoe is a knockout! She’s created a fascinating world and I hope that she continues to write in it.

My panel went swimmingly. All the panelists were brilliant. I’m so glad I finally got to meet Kat Richardson, whom I admire greatly. Every since Charlaine recommended Kat’s first book, I’ve been hooked. Kat’s a lovely person and I hope to see her at future cons.

I was very pleased to finally hook up with Claire M. Johnson, an online buddy who I’d met briefly at Malice Domestic a couple of years ago. She’s off in China now (having left Saturday a.m.) but we chatted for hours Friday night and had a blast.

Mostly, I spent time the past 4 days socializing and talking about writing, reading and fannish things with my fellow con-goers. I’m beginning to realize that as much as I love the mystery world, the smaller mystery cons seem to be more conducive to my interests. This one was just a bit too overwhelming. I think I shall stick to Malice Domestic and Mayhem in the Midlands for mystery, and World Fantasy for the other side of my genre.

Now, it’s off to watch this week’s Supernatural episode and then probably nap. (As usual, I’ve lost my voice and have a bit of con crud to fight off).

Hope everyone’s been having a great weekend!

ETA: Yay, Connecticut! One more state on board, far too many to go.

Made it yesterday to the hotel okay…after ignoring the directions, because well, you know, *I* knew better. Uhm…not so much. Got lost for about 30 minutes, but managed to make it okay after all.

Lunch with Laura Lippman and then various stuff. Got to hang with Charlaine Harris, Kat Richardson, Donna Andrews, Robin Burcell, and loads of others.

Today is my panel (see title above) at 11:30 and then my official con book signing. Then, I’m free for the rest of the con. Yay!

Hotel is nice, but sadly lacking in WiFi – it’s only in the lobby and our room has very few electrical outlets. Ah well. Can’t have everything.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the con and hope everyone’s having a lovely week!

A VERY happy birthday and best wishes for a fabulous day to two of the best and most brilliant women I know:

shayheyred – quirky, fun, full of the *best* kind of snark and always such a hoot to be around

and

reginagiraffe – quirky, fun, full of the *best* kind of snark and always such a hoot to be around…oh wait, I said that already – but it’s TRUE.

I love you both loads and am sad we see so little of each other.

Have a WONDERFUL day, darlings!