Scarlet Letters

In a couple of days I'll flap my wings and fly to ye olde Dragoncon, where I will be staying off-site for the first time and desperately hoping it is not a colossal error. I will be rooming with the marvelous Jay Smith of HG World fame, and with luck he will not turn out to be a serial killer. I will have fewer costume changes than usual, due to the aforementioned off-site lodgings, so don't be expecting the ballgowns this year. Besides, I'm not sure Jay knows how to lace a corset. I'll be hanging out with my charming editor Sean Taylor, with the usual assortment of Atlantean miscreants, and probably will not meet Keith DeCandido for the seventeenth time. Do try to find me at my autograph session or reading. For starters, I'll have books to sell. But even if you're not buying and I've signed everything you own up to and including your right arm, come see me! Free chocolate! And if you know me online, please introduce yourself! For that matter, if you...

As seen on Twitter, in the original order. The reasons I hate my bloody printer, with which I have been locked in mortal combat for going on two years now, I think. No. 1: It cannot find my wireless network, and NEVER HAS. This has persisted despite two different residences, a new modem and new router. I should rephrase: it can see the network, but it cannot complete a connection with it. Ever. No matter what my good friends on the Kodak helpline try. No. 2: New ink cartridges allow color printing for about four sheets, then it all turns to hell. I installed new cartridges tonight so we could print the Boy's images for his new project. By the time we got to the third sheet, the Cardinal logo was yellow. It has completely lost the ability to calibrate its colors despite a recalibration this afternoon. No. 3: It has the exact same problems as the original printer, which took months of hell before they replaced it. Some of you lived and suffered through my increasingly-hysteri...

This just in: Hunger Games Trilogy Outsells Harry Potter ! ABC, Washington Post, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News... everyone's excited for Katniss Everdeen. Here's the catch: It's misleading as hell. And it's being repeated all over the 'net. Sure, the Hunger Games trilogy has outsold the Harry Potter books... on Amazon. Supposedly. Contrary to popular belief, there are millions of books sold every year from booksellers other than Amazon. Yes, they exist. Online and off. Want proof? As of June 2011, the most recent figures I could find, Harry Potter books had sold about 450 million copies . The numbers Scholastic released this month for The Hunger Games trilogy declare about 50 million copies , print and digital. In other words, about one-ninth what Harry Potter has sold. That's nothing to sneeze at, and it's worth pointing out that Hunger Games is only three books published in four years with one movie, while the boy wizard ha...

Me: You've got this whole Javier Bardem look going on today, it's nice. Him: Who? Me: Javier Bardem. He's an actor. *finds picture on cell* This guy. Him: I look nothing like him. Me: You do too. *finds Jeffrey Dean Morgan* Actually you look even more like him. Him: Okay, you've shown me that one before. Me: Yeah. I'd cast him to play you in the inevitable TV-movie about us. Him: ... no. Me: What, don't you think we'd make a fun TV-movie? Maybe Lifetime? Him: No. Me: HBO? Skinimax! Bamp chicka bamp bamp. Him: *facepalm* Me: Sci-Fi channel? Him: Now you're talking. I spared him the follow-up question of who he'd cast to play me. Some things are just too cruel to do to a man.

I was reading something wedding-related - of course, it's my new hobby - and came across an interesting quote. Of course now I cannot find it, but it was the editor of Bride magazine and he said in an interview that at no other time in her life is a woman as valuable to marketers than she is when she is planning her wedding. Believe it or not, this column is not (entirely) going to be about weddings. It has stuck with me for days, despite my inability to find the exact quote, because it doesn't make sense to me. Oh sure, I've noticed it. From the moment I wrote my name on some sheet identifying myself as "bride," I have been deluged with offers. They're in the mailbox and inbox, they are soooo friendly and happy to see me. The come-ons are constant. Photographers, videographers, florists, planners, hotels, restaurants, venues, caterers, dress shops, tea rooms, photo booth rentals, bakers, travel agents (yes, they still exist)... everyone wants the money w...