Beltane and Buffy

April 30 is my favorite of the eight sabbats. Beltane/May Eve is a harbinger of summer honored with fabulous festivals replete with fires and dancing. The world of Nightshade is steeped in the tradition and history of witchcraft and Wolfsbane draws readers deeper into that world. To celebrate this holiday I'm holding a contest and the winner will receive a Wolfsbane ARC!

Since my last blog post touted the greatness of Buffy I want to have a Beltane Buffy quiz. May is the fifth month of the year, so here are five of my favorite quotes from Buffy. Correctly identify the Buffy character delivered each of the five quotes and you'll be in the running to win the ARC.
1) "What's the matter Watcher? Life flash before your eyes? Cup o' tea, cup o' tea, almost got shagged, cup o' tea?"

2) "Forgiveness makes us human, blah, blah, blah."

3) "Rain of toads. One minute its 'oh no, pop quiz' and now it's rain of toads."

4) "That's beautiful...or taken literally incredibly gross."

5) "Bored now."

Good luck! Entries taken until 12 a.m. May 1.

Please leave your answers in the comments section. This contest is open to international entries!

I'm Melting, I'm Melting!

While I enjoy sunshine, I wasn't built for heatwaves. My skin burns to a lovely tomato red in less than 60 seconds on a hot day. We're in the middle of a doozy right now. A week in the mid to high 90s with heat indexes well over 100 degrees.

This sort of weather renders me listless and spacey. I'm working on a super sekrit Nightshade-related project right now, which I will soon be able to share with you, and I keep forgetting to attach documents or links to emails and correspondence because the heat renders my brain power to about 60% of it's normal function.

I consider fall my favorite season with spring running a close second. Dealing with this extreme heat, and knowing that in six months I'll be blogging about extreme cold (though I prefer the latter), I realize I'm something of a Goldilocks when it comes to weather.

But I swear I'm not just being fussy - I simply don't function right in this heat; it's like my body and mind are on strike, demanding a week at the lake instead of life as usual. The only upside is that hot days brew up awesome thunderstorms on some nights.

How's summer working out for you? And do you have no-fail ways to beat the heat? I'm relying on popsicles and iced coffee.

Some Upcoming Goodness

Today is a happy!

My father in law is visiting us from Germany and it's so wonderful to have him in our home :) My editor LOVES Bloodrose - her stamp of approval and ecstatic praise for the final book of the Nightshade trilogy made me jump for joy.

And more goodness waits on the horizon:

First, tomorrow is the cover shoot for WOLFSBANE. I cannot begin to describe how excited I am for this cover. Once again the phenomenally talented Suza Scalora is photographing, and she's been gracious enough to let us photograph her at work - which means I'll get to do a full cover post on this blog and you'll get the insider's view on how it happens!!
Second, it's nearly August which means it's almost my birthday (whoopee!!) and it's almost time for the debut of the first of the Penguin Five. Next week I'll be hosting Kirsten Miller, author of The Eternal Ones, on this site and I'm so excited to have her. The Eternal Ones is a fantastic book and I'm eager to pick Kirsten's brain about it.
Hope you're all enjoying summer as much as I am!

300!

Hooray!!! 300 blog followers! Amazing!

Thanks so much to everyone who's following - it's wonderful to know you're here and I love your comments :) Welcome to new followers and thanks to followers who've been around since the beginning when all I had was my computer, a manuscript, and big, big dreams.

Starting a blog is a lonely business and it's just marvelous to have been on this writing journey with so many of you!

To celebrate this landmark let's do another giveaway!! Of course I'll send the winner a signed Nightshade ARC and I'll throw in a surprise (something wolfy) for good measure.

This time around I'd like to ask you to help spread the news about Nightshade. We're three months away from publication - which I know will go by fast, but it still seems soooooo long. I cannot wait for October!

To enter the contest tell someone why you're excited about Nightshade and in the comments below let me know who you told. I'll select the winner by random drawing on Tuesday.

Hope you're having a great summer - maybe something like this:

Mabon

It's a day to stop and think about shifting cycles and time - Mabon, the autumn equinox. Today light and dark are in perfect balance, but tomorrow our descent into the long night of winter begins.

Autumn is my favorite season, but it's a challenging and volatile time of year. The quickening of day into night puts life into a frenzied pace, culminating that chaos that is the holiday season - which are never relaxing or restorative in the way it seems they should be.

As much as I know time will seem to speed up, carried by an unseen current that drives summer away, I still love this moment. It's the only time when I can in a space of minutes see the abundance of morning glories that still sing of languid summer and promise its return...


but feel twinges of anticipation at the discovery of pumpkinlings that whisper of harvest's bounty, bonfires, and the comfort of the hearth on chilly winter nights.
Today summer and autumn hold hands and dance, giving the world at chance to witness them in harmony before summer's fades away, still full of light and laughter, while autumn takes our hand to lead us along its darkening forest paths.

London: Without the Fog

I have arrived and am now trying to adjust to typing on the British keyboard in the internet centre of my residence, a keyboard that has just enough keys out of place (including two extra character keys to the right of (;) which makes me type # every time I want to hit Enter. Ahh, acculturation.

The weather is astoundingly good. I spent the afternoon wandering through Covent Garden and actually took my lunch outside a French brasserie where the sun blazed down, making it almost too hot. Something that usually only happens on the sardine-packed Underground.

I've enjoyed bustling along reaquainting myself with the city. I have not gotten lost yet. Yay.

One of my favorite things about this British Isle is how beautifully its inhabitants make use of space. On a sun-washed afternoon like today's, every miniscule green space was filled with friends, families, and couples lounging idly in the grass or sharing a picnic. Even my university flat, which is cheap and cheerful minus the cheerful, has its own private garden.

England and its northern neighbor Scotland have a dearth of space. The two countries have been fighting over this little island for a long, long time. And the Scots know full well that though the highlands are sublime, they are the most hospitable to sheep and not metropolitan centers.

I think the multiude of green nooks, hidden flower beds, and luscious parks that thread through Britain's cities offer perpetual resistance to the press of population of this former empire.

Speaking of evil empires, when I tried to Google something on this computer (it's the hall's computer and not my beloved Mac) it refused to let me go to Google and forced my searches onto Microsofts new "Bing" search engine. Even when I typed in http://www.google.com/ and started the search again, the computer overrode my action and sent me back to Big Brother Bing, with no way to escape.

That was when I got scared.

In Memoriam

David Eddings passed away this week. This author had a profound influence on my own ideas about fantasy and writing.

It was a strange coincidence that I'd just been reading about Eddings' accomplishments in my husband's alumni magazine from Reed College (Eddings graduated in 1954 so needless to say they didn't cross paths on campus). The author recently donated a large sum of money for scholarships at the school and the article mentioned that he was suffering from a severe terminal illness. It was only a few days later that I learned of his passing.


My copies of the Belgariad and Malloreon have been read so many times that the books' spines are in various states of disintegration. Eddings created amazing, believable worlds and characters who were impossible not to love.

When I finished the Mallorean the first time my heart broke because it was like saying goodbye to a collection of intimate friends.

The final words of the text are these: "And so, my children, the time has come to close the book. There will be other days and other stories, but this tale is finished."

As in writing, so in life.

Thank you, David Eddings, for making this world brighter with your wonderful writing. Here are the flowers of my neighborhood in honor of your work.