Scarlet Letters

Dragoncon Schedule! (tentative, naturally) Friday TBA photo shoot Saturday 11:30 a.m. Reading, University Room 3 p.m. Signing, Borders kiosk, Exhibition Hall Sunday 2:30 p.m. "Wait Until Dark," creepy panel with Sherrilyn Kenyon and Laurell K. Hamilton 8:30 p.m. "Memento Mori," ghost panel Monday 11:30 a.m. Signing This does not include panels that I will attend but not speak, or other events. I haven't even looked at the publishers' party list yet... If you're looking to buy ABADDON from me at the con, catch up with me either at the Borders signing or the Monday signing. I think Borders may offer the book throughout the con, but I'm not sure. Also, we only have one box, so when they're gone, you're SOL until the book hits bookstores!

All right, folks. Here we go. ABADDON is now available in trade paperback. And for a bargain price, folks: six bucks. Best of all, Cerridwen is fast-shipping a box directly to my hotel in Atlanta, so I will have books on hand! Kudos to Cerridwen, and to Borders, which is setting up a quickie premiere signing on Saturday! So how can you get your paws on this brilliant piece of fiction? • Buy it at Dragoncon! Advantages: You get it right away, you get it signed and you help pay my hotel bill! Disadvantages: NONE! I urge you - nay, beg you - to buy it at the Borders signing Saturday or at my autograph session on Monday, but I should have books on hand at all my panels as well. My full schedule will be posted shortly, here and at the Literary Underworld. • Buy it at a later signing or convention! Advantages: You get it signed, and I feel less like a moron. Ain't nothing worse than the two-hour hell of a signing in which no one shows up. I really like this option if for no other reason...

Finally, I am in the swamp. I don't know why this one is going so hard. Today I took a bit of time to go back and do a few revisions on the beginning. I don't usually do that - rough draft is rough draft, fix it later - but a few problems are nagging at me. For one thing, Kancethedrus and Tam were turning into carbon copies of each other. When I am essentially flipping a coin to decide who will say X line, I'm in trouble. I decided to smarten Kance up a bit, cutting his first line, which was essentially making him out to be Mongo the Dunce. He stays clumsy, though - that endears him to me, that and his crush on Alesia. Tam, however, is giving me fits. In the last day or so, I read an excellent blog post about creating a hero. I've gone back 500 entries on my reading list and I can't find it. But the basic upshot was, quite often you have a hero whose only recommending characteristic is that the author says he's a hero. All the other characters say he's a her...