Though I may be shaped like a hobbit, I’m not actually one…however, since my birthday approaches (Saturday!), I’ve decided to follow hobbit custom and give out presents to my fans/friends.

Comment below (or on my LiveJournal) on what you’d like to see happen to any of my characters (or how you envision the future) and you’ll be entered to win one of the following: (your choice)

A copy of MATTERS OF THE BLOOD
A copy of BLOOD BARGAIN
A copy of BLOOD KIN
A copy of BLOOD HEAT (hot off the presses on 10/26/10)

Contest will run through September 15, 2010. Winners will be chosen via random drawing.

Other cool news

:
For those of of you who follow my non-fiction work, I am pleased as all get out to announce: Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them. Edited by the same wonderful team who brought you Chicks Who Dig Time Lords, Lynn M. Thomas and Deb Stanish. My essay: “I am Joss Whedon’s Bitch” is included in the anthology, along with essays by such fabulous writers as: Elizabeth Bear, Sharon Shinn, Jeanne Stein, Emma Bull, Nancy Holder and many more.

Whedonistas will be out March 2011 via Mad Norwegian Press, but is available for preorder now. Amazon B&N. The book is not yet listed at Indiebound, but I’m sure it will be shortly.

Hope all my US and Canadian buddies have a fabulous Labor/Labour Day weekend!! Please make sure to tell all your friends about the contest.

There be loads of spoilers, so don’t click unless you’ve watched (or don’t mind spoilage).

So, here I am with no excuses, just a bunch of random items that I found fun, amusing, awesome or just worthy of a look.

Best Rolling Stone cover EVER. (But I agree with Jaye’s sentiment that we can remove Sookie and add Alcide in the middle…yum!)

Hipmunk – a new way to do a travel search. I love the Gannt chart. Love the way you can sort the various trips. By agony, anyone?

A WordPress plugin update seems to have eaten, munged or otherwise destroyed code that produced some of my site pages. I fussed with it last night, but this is WAY above my not-so-l33t coding skills. I can pretty much troubleshoot ColdFusion and some .net, but .php + WordPress, not so mmuch. I’m going to have to take this to an expert.

Summer is nearly over, thank all the powers that be. DC area keeps getting hit with record-breaking weather events. I’m truly ready for Mother Nature to stop pissing on us. I mean, what did this town ever–oh wait, never mind. Uhm, just remember Nature, regular people live here, too, *not* just politicians!

The sister and I are already planning next year’s vacation. We won’t be going until sometime in early fall, probably September/October, but part of the fun is the planning. We’re going to Scotland!! Instead of hotels, we want to rent a cottage or something like that as our base of operations (somewhere in the countryside) and then drive/train to other sites. Top of our list: whisky tasting tours, Loch Ness and Orkney (for the standing stones). If any of you folks have suggestions, please pass them along. We love historical sites most of all! Oh, and we’re definitely taking the Jacobite steam train from Ft. William.

I’m going to do my best to blog more often and more regularly, but won’t make any promises. I will be doing at least some sort of giveaway nearer the BLOOD HEAT release day (October 26, mark your calendars!), so keep an eye out.

Also, look for my guest blog at the Lipstick Chronicles on August 29, where I muse about homonyms.

Wishing everyone a good end-of-summer!

From Kit Marlowe

Kit Marlowe came via Homeward Trails Animal Rescue, a local (DC, MD, VA) rescue agency. I found Kit (then named Darius) via Petfinder.com. He is a joy! Mellow, quiet, with a loving demeanor, Kit arrived Sunday at 11:00 a.m. and immediately made himself at home. Within a few minutes, he was up on the couch next to me while I worked on the laptop.

I think he’s going to like it here.

Now, it will go to the Supremes and perhaps the US will join much of the rest of the 1st world nations.

History in the making, people. Real history. I’m glad this is happening in my lifetime.

So without further ado, I present to you the highlights version of Comic-Con as told by my camera:

SDCC 2010

(The sister is posting her own pics to the album, but for now, these are all mine).

Cheerio!

We spent a lot of time at Comic-Con toodling through the exhibit hall (a.k.a. trade show), either looking for items or just looking at stuff.

More celebrity sightings:
– Malcolm McDowell (scored a great signed Clockwork Orange poster)
– Ron Glass
– Ron Perlman
– Danny Devito
– Guillermo Del Toro
– More Stan Lee

Had a LOVELY convo with Mark Sheppard, plus got 2 autographed pics and a pic of him with me. (on sis’s camera, will need to get it from her).

My panel and signings went great! Today we all spent the day being fannish – staking out our place in Ballroom 20 for Smallville, Supernatural, Glee & Sons of Anarchy. I am happy to report that Jensen & Jared are just as pretty and amazingly funny in RL as on the show.

Misha Collins is absolutely gorgeous! I accidentally stalked followed him down through the convention center on Saturday as I was trying to make it over to the Simon & Schuster booth. Once I realized it was Misha, I just kept going in the same general direction. ::g::

Didn’t see any of the True Blood cast, except from afar (Sam Trammell and Nelsan Ellis only). Nor did I get to see the Merlin panel, BUT…

Tonight, after a lovely dinner at Bencotto in Little Italy, we called a driver who’d taken us around on Friday night. He’d squired around the Merlin folks earlier in the day–had just gotten back from dropping them at LAX. I SAT IN COLIN MORGAN’S BUTT PRINT!!!!

Yes, I am a crazy fangrrl. Indeed!

Anyhow, more real con reports after I get home and get pics transferred. Comic-Con was a blast!! Most especially for getting to meet great folks like my roomie, Rob Thurman and the ever wonderful Tanya Huff. I love meeting fellow writers!

Tomorrow: early day starting with breakfast and then travel home. Please pray to the travel gods on my behalf. Folks today had lots of trouble getting home. I’m already not scheduled to make it until 9:50 p.m., so would rather have an uneventful trip, please!

So far:
– rooming with Rob Thurman (yes, she’s a woman)
– seen/met Felicia Day
– met the great folks from Simon & Schuster (except for Jen, who still remains elusive!)
– gotten my Mysterious Galaxy first fix
– seen Stan Lee, Seth Green, Morgan Spurlock
– Had drinks with Tanya Huff (EEEee!), Les Klinger
– Did a panel & signing with amazing folks, following by a signing. The every wonderful Charlaine Harris made a point to come see us and say hello. I am SOOOO lucky to have such amazing friends.
– Dinner @ Samantha Sommersby’s place (yum!), hanging out with Kat Richardson, SJ Day, Les Klinger, Jeanne Stein, JF Lewis and others.

Today:
– brunch with Texas buddy from WAAY back (like HS/College way back) Lillian Butler
– then it’s a free for all. Sis, BIL and I will probably hit the trade show floor for a bit. I still want to go by the Fox booth to see if they have any cool Glee merchandise. I’ve already scored some fun small items including exclusive Supernatural SDCC tshirt and some great stuff from Little Vampires/Weregeeks.

Yes, I’m having a blast.
Yes, I’m exhausted.
Yes, it’s beyond crowded.
Yes, I am riding a fangrrl high!!!

Evidently, today is when the cool hall costumes start to come out. We’ve already seen some really fabulous Dr. Horribles and a few other great efforts.

I’m totally having the world’s biggest geekgasm – between the amazing writers, the great booths, the fabulous fans…who could ask for more?

I’ll attempt to post later on in the day or tomorrow, depending on signal and such.

A writer friend once marvelled at a statement I made: that one day, I wanted as long a line at our local Borders as Laurell Hamilton has when she visits. She seemed surprised that I’d say that. I was surprised at her surprise. Why not dream big? Why not aim high? If you don’t shoot for the stars, you may just end up at Starbucks instead–not a bad place for a cuppa, but certainly not the NYT bestseller list.

Sure, there’s a heck of a lot of work involved in this dream. I’ve got to write books that people want to read. I’ve got to network and market and get my name out there. But you know, it’s totally doable. I’ve already achieved so many of my dreams–this year alone, several wonderful things fell into my lap. Why not the rest?

It’s not luck, really, it’s a matter of being out there, being a part of the writing community, befriending people and keeping up the quality of your work. It can be done. So if you’re out there, dreaming of seeing your name on a bestseller list, of appearing at Comic-Con or Thrillerfest or any other event, I say go for it! You have nothing to lose. Work hard, write well and target your goals. It can definitely happen!

For those of you going to be at Comic-Con, here’s my official appearance schedule:

Thursday, July 22 | 3:00 PM | Room 25ABC
Kiss Them or Kill Them? Conflict Management for the Creatures Among Us
Urban fantasy and paranormal romance authors discuss when to kill the monster, date the monster…or both and in what order.
Authors include J. F. Lewis (ReVamped), Maria Lima (Blood Lines series), Adrian Phoenix (the Maker’s Song series), Kat Richardson (the Greywalker novels), Diana Rowland (Kara Gillian — Detective and Demon Summoner series), Samantha Sommersby (the Forbidden Series), Anton Strout (the Simon Canderous urban fantasy series), Linda Thomas-Sundstrom (Wolf Moons series), and Rob Thurman (author of the Cal Leandros Novels and The Trickster Novels). Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy.

4:00 PM: Signing in AA, table AA2

Saturday, July 24 | Noon
Signing @ Mysterious Galaxy Booth #1119
sponsored by Pocket Books

Other than that, I’ll be geeking out with the rest of the gang plus spending a lot of my down time in the pro room, working. (I’m on deadline!)

For those of you interested in what else I’ll be doing while I’m there, I’ll post my Comic-Con panel viewing list within the next couple of days–which means, I’ve scoured the schedule, consulted with my sis (who is going with me) and we’ve pooled our interests. Don’t know how many of the panels I’ll make it to, but there are definitely some that are *must-see* on my list.