Happy Samhain!

Happy Samhain, everyone! Tonight I will lift a glass of wine in honor of my friends, my family, and those who have passed on. I will set out a place at dinner for the spirits of my loved ones, and invite them in to join us at our table. I'll do a long ritual with candles, incense, and herbs, where I give thanks for the good harvest this year, speak with the dead, do divinations for the coming year, and cast out what bad habits and weaknesses I can.
Samhain is one of the two times of the year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, which is why it is for communing with the dead and divining the future. In the myth cycle of the god and the goddess, this is when the god dies and the goddess mourns for him, but knows he will be reborn again at Yule. so it's a serious holiday, but not too serious. There will be pumpkin pie, and wine, and good conversation. And I can't wait.
Blessed be!

my honey bear is half full

Strangely, I have a cough. I don't feel ill in any other way. The cough has been present for three days or so, now, and I am already tired of it. Yes, before you ask, I am drinking loads of tea with honey in it, and taking my vitamin C.
Anyway. Slowly making progress on editing my novel and sending it out to readers for some outside input. I took on some freelance again recently, after doing the mother of all copyediting projects in September, so there's that. More money is good. And one of the projects is something I've been excitedly waiting for.
Samhain is right around the corner, all of a sudden! I need to sit down and have a good think about how I'd like to celebrate it this year. (I don't know if you all remember, but last year, my partner-in-crime and I fell asleep on the couch for several hours just after dinner, which sort of knocked out any ritual we were going to manage that evening!)
One book, quickly: 56) Kraken by China Mieville. Quirky, British, sort-of-surreal urban fantasy. But distinctly not what you think when you hear the phrase "urban fantasy." I don't want to say any more, for fear of spoilers when I may be giving this to someone as a holiday gift, so I'll just say that it's wildly different and interesting, and definitely worth reading.
There are other books percolating in the back of my brain. I managed to ignore them while writing the first draft of my YA superhero novel, but now they're creeping up into my forebrain again, whispering to me their stories. Can't I just take a few months off to go live in a remote location and write them all? Sigh. Soon enough, I suppose.
And now, back to the work, as there is far too much of it for me to shirk any more this afternoon.

more, more, more

That's the way life feels right now. There's just more, more, more of everything than I'd like there to be. I really just want to hide at home and at coffee shops fro a few days and zing through editing my novel. Oh, well.
Anyway. Lots to cover, not a lot of time.
On Sunday October 3rd I did in fact go to see Neil Gaiman in conversation with Dana Goodyear. He was brilliant, all humble and droll and creative, in a lovely British accent. He spoke about how some of his books originated, and some of what he saw when road-tripping around America to research American Gods, and writing a Doctor Who episode, and screened his eight-and-a-half-minute silent film for the audience, which has never been seen in America (outside a few illegal posts on Youtube, that is). I felt absolutely inspired by the end of it, both to seriously get down to business with my writing and to go on a road trip!
Two days later I went to a New York Review of Science Fiction reading to see Catherynne Valente and Seanan Mcguire. This was also amazing. Cat and Seanan felt like two sides of a coin, to me, two opposite approaches to life that somehow mesh and meld into a beautiful camaraderie between them. They're both good readers, with good sense of humor, and I really need to read more of their books.
This last weekend, October 9 and 10, I went to New York Comic Con. NYCC is surreal and overwhelming and just loads of fun. Two whole days of comic books and video games and too many Poison Ivys and lots of storm troopers and books and steampunk jewelry and inside jokes and costumes. Pretty great. I bought some comics, got some free comics, and bought some art, but mostly I spent my money on perfume. That's right. Perfume. Because, for the first time ever, I was at an event that Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab was also at. I was in heaven! I've adored their perfume for a while now, but it's so hit-or-miss to order from the website based on description. Here, I could smell anything I wanted to! I overloaded. I sniffed perfume for a good hour. It was fabulous. If you're curious, I bought Door for me, and Sunbird for my sister. And got loads of free samples for spending my hard-earned pennies on their wares. Seriously, I think that made my month!
Nearly time to head home, so I'd best get to the books . . .
53) Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente. Beautiful, lush, imaginative. Her writing just blows me away. I wish I could be half the writer she is. I need the rest of her novels. All of you, if you have ANY appreciation at all for a good fantasy novel, run to the nearest bookstore and pick this up. It's brilliant. Great characters, intricate world-building, and the language is some of the most interesting I've seen for some time.
54) Duff by Kody Keplinger. I'll be honest: I didn't have high expectations for this book. Young debut author, high-school material. It's not my usual thing, really. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find myself voraciously sucking this one down. It's a lot of fun! The characters are believable. The author, young though she may be, has a good sense of who she's writing about and who she's writing for. If you like YA stuff, this is definitely recommended.
55) The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Having not read any of his books for adults (I know, I know!) I didn't have an opinion at all going into Zafon's first YA book. I enjoyed this. Good structure, good characters, good level of creepiness. I would recommend it to YA readers. But for me, I don't think it's a keeper. Mostly because I don't think I'll reread it. But it's a fun read!
And with that, it's time for my weekend to officially begin. Happy autumn, everybody!

Friday restlessness

I don't know about you all, but autumn makes me restless. It's just starting to set in; the warm weather staved it off for a while, but it's starting to undeniably get cooler out. Leaves are changing, storms are blowing through the city, there's a different feel to the air. It just makes me feel . . . well, I'm not even sure how to explain it. Like I don't belong anywhere, but I belong everywhere at once. Like there's a brilliant adventure waiting somewhere if I hop on a train and just go. Like there's too much and too little time all at once.
Anyway. One book to share, really quickly. 52) Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire. I loved this gritty urban fantasy. If that's your scene, check it out! Apparently there are two more books out about the main character, October Daye. I need to get them. She's easy to empathize with, and believable. And I will admit, I totally didn't guess who the bad guy was until shortly before the big reveal. But you know, sometimes I don't want to guess. I'd rather be surprised. Anyway, great book. Definitely a keeper!
A couple strange dreams lately. One was several nights ago: I was staying in a huge swanky hotel, and I was some sort of investigator. I was prowling around through other people's rooms, looking through their stuff. In one room I found the dead body of a man in a business suit, only to realize that it was made of wax. Then I decided I needed to figure out why the death of this guy was faked, and by who, and who he was, etc. So I kept poking around. (I feel like there was something in here about a cat following me around. At some point there was also something about a huge staircase leading up tot he floors of rooms from the lobby.) Then I was outside, leaving I think, and this horse-drawn open cart pulled up, with two gypsy/circus folk in it, a man and a woman. She could tell the future, but didn't want to. I think she used a bowl of clear water or a mirror to do it. Maybe cards, as well? Hmm. Last night, I dreamed I was living in a big house that had a bunch of ghosts living in it. They were my family, who were all dead. Sibling spats, etc., like you expect when an extended family lives together. Anyway, these other ghosts showed up to try to press my family into servitude. I was hiding from them but trying not to leave or starve or anything. They saw me at the last, but I managed to lock them outside of the house so they couldn't get me. (I think there was a bit with a pb&j sandwich, and a particular sibling fight, under the spruce tree outside the front door. . . .)
This weekend is looking a little busy, but in a good way. After work today, going shopping with my friend K, then heading home to tidy up my radio play episodes and send them to the grand poobah of that project. Tomorrow morning is at-home stuff, then yoga at 10 am, then writing. Then grocery shopping, and then a new friend is coming over for the evening, hurray! Sunday I'm going to see Neil Gaiman speak at the New Yorker Festival, and I am so excited for that. It's going to be great. I may stand in line for him to sign something for me, for the first time ever. After that there's a Stone Brewery event.
And with that, it's time to get ready to jet. Have a good weekend, everyone!