It's my day off! And I worked harder than I do sometimes at my day job!

After taking Heather to the train station I came home and did my freelance work, then ran up to work to drop something off, then put gas in the car, and went grocery shopping, and returned home, and did laundry, and made lunch, and cleaned the cat boxes thoroughly, and washed dishes, and baked banana bread (filling the house with the yummy scent of bananananas!), and now it's 3 o'clock and I'm tired!

I'll write a bit of fiction before Heather gets home, though. And the rest is stuff I won't have to do this weekend, so I'll be able to relax more then...

Book stuff! Here are the fabulous blurbs for Blood Engines:

"A fast-paced, thoroughly fun, satisfying read."

--Kelley Armstrong, author of No Humans Involved

"Blood Engines wastes no time: by page three I knew I was reading an urban fantasy unlike any I'd previously encountered. The characters and world are real, immediate, and unapologetically in-your-face, throwing you into a story that trusts you'll keep up with the fast pace without flinching. It charges along with crisp pacing, a fascinating range of secondary characters, and a highly compelling lead in Marla Mason. She may be one of the genre's requisite sharp-tongued females, but her ruthless pragmaticism gives her a completely different feel from her fictional contemporaries. I genuinely look forward to the next book!"

--C.E. Murphy, author of Coyote Dreams

We'll boil that incredibly kind quote down to some sort of pull-quote, but I thought I'd post the whole thing, because, damn, how nice! I heartily recommend the work of both authors, too; they're both doing very cool stuff with the urban fantasy subgenre.

I'll be celebrating International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day on Monday by publishing my story "Pale Dog" online. It's the first piece I published featuring Marla Mason, which appeared in my book Little Gods. And, incidentally, some of the supporting characters from "Pale Dog" make an appearance in book 3, which I'm sorta kinda working on now...

We finished the May issue of A Certain Magazine yesterday. It was a pretty brutal short schedule this month, but the issue is cool, with a special section on horror. Check it out next month. Usually on issue day we have champagne, but this time we did a tasting of half a dozen different Scotches. Good stuff! Even if I am trying hard not to acquire expensive tastes...