I saw Tiffany last night! I went with kaitiana and my friend Annie, and it was super fun.

The eight-year-old in me is thrilled, although the twenty-eight year old found the nightclub super tedious and was disappointed that for $20 I had to stand around for three hours before Tiffany took the stage, and pay $4 for a bottle of water. I am a grouchy old lady! I wish she'd gone on before 1 a.m.!

The crowd at the nightclub was -- despite the girls grinding on each other to dance mixes of "Stand Back" and "Send Me An Angel" and "Beat It" -- overwhelmingly hetero. Which I found surprising. Maybe Debbie Gibson brings out the fags and Tiffany brings out all the girls who were six years old when her first album dropped?

The remix of "Beat It" that the DJ played really reminded me of the Fall Out Boy cover.



On one hand, I feel like "Beat It" did not need to be covered. On the other hand, I really dig Fall Out Boy, and I really dig their cover! (I also like this acoustic version they did at a radio station.)

(Plus, it is really clear that these dudes think the song is awesome and just wanted to fool around with it, like, thirteen-year-olds playing blink-182 songs really badly on cheap guitars they got for their birthdays.)




In other news, news that has nothing to do with me, Jo is still running a contest giving away free books, and reannon is looking for your reaction to The Dark Knight.

I am a little appalled by you guys. Only a few people told me they'd be downloading that Doctor Who documentary, but more than thirty people actually downloaded it. (What, you think I can't check a stats page?) So I've taken the documentary down. See if i ever do anything for you guys again!

While on the subject of things *I* am not doing: Jozelle Dyer is running some kind of raffle for free books. All you have to do is answer a couple of questions, and she enters you into the drawing.

Tonight is a big night! My super secret project wraps up, Psych comes back for its third season, and I am going to see 80s mall-pop queen Tiffany at a nightclub in St. Charles. There is a dress code. I have never attended a show with a dress code before!

Last night was a big night, too: I finished the Rose-warmers!

Well, I have finished watching The Exorcist. I was not scared at all, not even vaguely creeped out. SADFACE. I can see how it would have been kind of shocking for the time period, not scary! You know what I want to know, though? What is the fetish the cop has for priests? The cop kept putting his arm around the priests and asking them out to the movies and lunch. Where is the fanfic about that?! That's what I want to know!

*profanes all over the place*

Really it just made me want to watch Stigmata, because Stigmata clearly stole a bunch of stuff -- or are we calling it homage? Haha. -- but I enjoyed it a lot more. Not to mention Patricia Arquette and Gabriel Byrne. Hello.

Really I am posting to say: The right hand of my armwarmers is finished. I freaking love it. I modified the pattern a little -- I did an entire extra diamond repeat so that the hand would be longer, and I cabled the sides every five rows instead of every three. I wish I knew a little more about how to shape garments, because my wrists are smaller than my arms, and my hand is bigger than my wrist; I could have used a decrease row or two to shape the wrists. But ultimately I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Tonight is Knit Night at my local yarn shop, and I'll start the left armwarmer then, I guess, if I don't get too impatient and start it at lunch instead!

I am watching The Exorcist. I keep having to start and stop, so after 24 hours of watching, I am still only about an hour into it. But, you guys, it is not scary! I am disappointed. I was expecting to be a little creeped out, at the very least. But this is no Stigmata (even though it's pretty clear to me that Stigmata was heavily influenced by this movie).

Is it based on a book? The Exorcist, I mean, not Stigmata. Stigmata is clearly based on the question: What would be super hot and a little creepy?

Haha.


(ETA: Yes it is! The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. I am told in the comments that it is not even a bad book! Stay tuned as I wrangle a copy for free and live blog as I read it.)


Other stuff: My friend Jonathon used to complain that I never smiled in photographs. I smile a lot now. Maybe it's the difference between 18 and 28? Maybe not, because there are a lot of people my age who still don't smile in photographs. I am thinking about this because I took a series of pictures showing off my pomp, and I am smiling in almost every single one.

(I mean, I was going for a pomp, but I think what I ended up with is Long Island Mall Rat. Hah.)

You know what else? I am almost finished with the first Rose Tyler arm warmer. I am finished with the thumb gusset! It is on scrap yarn! All I have to do is a few more rows of the hand (I am making mine longer than the pattern calls for), and then finish the thumb, and I am done with the first one! I don't know why I am in such a rush to get these done -- it's ridiculous, it's the summertime! I can't wear them! But I want to finish them, and then maybe make pairs for all my Doctor Who-watching friends.

Hey! Look! New icon! Do you guys know about my history with cameras? I love them. This is a directory full of pictures from when I was much younger and had a webcam that I abused mercilessly. And my new MacBook came with a webcam built in. Oh, the fun I am having!

Anyway. Can we talk about Doctor Who 2x13? Okay, technically it is 28x13, but who's counting really?

I know you are probably expecting some kind of serious meta, but I don't have any. I watch that episode (along with 2x12, of course!) once every few months, and cry every single time. That is basically my entire commentary. It makes me cry.

I think it might be the best season-end of new Who that there is. Certainly 3x13 sucked (and not just because I hate Martha), and do we have to talk about 4x13? I mean, seriously, do we even have to bring that up? It makes me want to punch someone.

Feel free to discuss in comments, or link me to your meta, though, because I am interested! I just don't have anything interesting to say. You know how that sort of thing goes.

So. 2x13. What I notice every time is that Rose is wearing wrist-warmers. I am normally not a fan of wrist warmers -- often mislabeled irritatingly as fingerless gloves -- but I really like these. And guess what! There is a pattern on the internet for knitting them!

I bought some Malabrigo yarn in Plum Blossom (the closest color Knitorious had to what Rose is wearing, which I think is more rupestre, really), and I have been knitting my own!

Here is a picture. I've changed the pattern a little -- I started on Wednesday following the pattern exactly, which meant doing a 3x3 cable every third row. But I really did not like the way the cables pulled at the yarn horizontally (even though it's really more accurate, if you look at the way the sides of Rose's wristwarmers pull), so I frogged the thing, and redesigned the cables to be every fifth row. I like this a lot better! (You can see the slightly cabling better in this picture.)

It's too bad that it's, oh, summertime, and wearing wool wristwarmers -- well, I am making mine kind of long, so they will be armwarmers! -- is kind of ridiculous. Totally ridiculous.

Probably I will shove them in a drawer and forget about them, and when winter comes around I'll not be able to find them. But who cares about that?

Oh! Also, I'm not sure if any of you are interested, but I uploaded a documentary on Doctor Who to this directory. It is 700mb, so I ask that (1.) you do not download it unless you really want it, and (2.) you leave a comment here letting me know that you've downloaded it so that I can keep track of my bandwidth usage.

Hi, folks! Today is my birthday, and I have spent it lying around and knitting, and napping, and listening to music, and watching the ABC Family Channel or whatever it's called, because they're having a Harry Potter marathon (hence the napping!).

I also spent some time calling my family to congratulate them on various things. For example: on this day 28 years ago, my mom became a mother! My father became a father! My aunts became aunts and my uncles became uncles! My grandparents became grandparents! I was the very first baby in my generation, and they all love me a lot, so I am super lucky. I get on pretty well with the majority of my family, which, I am told, is rare. The members of my family with whom I do not get on, I just refuse to see. Apparently this is also rare -- people enjoy torturing themselves by visiting hated relatives. I refuse to do this. Why bother with people who don't like me?

(I have this rule called The Rule of Awesome, and it states that in order for a relationship to work, I must think the other person is awesome and the other person must think that I am awesome. So far this rule has not let me down.)

Anyway, here's what I want to tell you about: Around 11 a.m. my doorbell rang. I scrambled into clothing and answered the door. It was a stranger, a man holding a giant potted plant. Now, I knew it had to be from someone who knows me really well, because most people don't know that I loathe and despise cut flowers, especially as gifts. (Here! Let me gift upon you death!) I signed for the flowers.

Then he motioned to someone in his truck and out popped a man dressed as Elvis! He was wearing a nylon bodysuit in white. It had fringe covered in neon pony beads. His sunglasses were aviators, and, I have to say, they really made the outfit. He was not wearing blue suede shoes, which was disappointing.

The nylon made me think he was a stripper, and he said, "Do you want to do this right here?" and I was petrified that he was a stripper -- but then I realized that he had a guitar. He sang "All Shook Up"!! There was leering, and strange gyrations, and weird guitar jiggling. I assume all of these things are imitations of strange things Elvis once did.

You guys, an Elvis impersonator sang to me for my birthday on my porch, in front of my neighbors and the post lady and god and everyone! All thanks to gl0ry_gl0ry and erratic0101! They have strange and twisted minds, and boy did that make my day.

Good morning! I have been awake since around 4:30 a.m., and I am almost ready for a nap.

I've decided to go with buying a MacBook. For the money, it had been freaking work, that is all I am saying. This week, the luck I've had with technology... I just can't even, you guys. I just cannot even handle it. I don't have a working laptop, I don't have a working cell phone, and I can't convince my cats that my cups of Diet Coke are not to be played with. And a guy I really like said a bunch of stupid shit in public that has made me not like him anymore. It's been a really tough tough week.

To cheer myself up, I indulged in some retail therapy: Force of Nature by Suzanne Brockmann

You guys must think I'm pretty spoiled, or pretty crazy, because I am always talking about how much books cost. But honestly, when I worked in publishing full time, I never paid for a book. Not in maybe five years or so. That's the number one perk of being in the industry: you never pay for a book. So when I started paying for books again, it became even more imperative that the books be really fantastic.

Most of the time I buy books at the grocery store or Target or the drug store. That means I almost never get any kind of discount off the $7.99 or $8.99 cover price. Sure, because I work in media still, I can write the books off on my taxes -- but it's still my money being laid down. I'd rather have books than groceries, and while $8.99 doesn't buy a lot of groceries, it's still a choice between a book or, I don't know, a couple of slices of pizza. $8.99 also buys yarn with which I can make socks, or a couple of minutes of air conditioning, or 189th of a new computer.

I don't want a lot from books. If I'm not the editor, my standards are slightly different. I want to be entertained. I want to be moved. I want to think. If I am not the editor, I don't have to set my personal feelings aside. I don't have to think about the levels of "good": publishable, saleable, popular

I get to have personal opinions and I get to be offended and I get to be upset when books disappoint me on a level of quality, morality, whatever I decide is important to me on a single day.

Basically, I get to be a reader, and only a reader.

Most of that up there doesn't have anything to do with Force of Nature. But I'm about halfway through it, and I'm wishing I could have my $7.99 back. Sure, it's awesome that there are gay characters in the book. It's sad that I completely expected them to be fucking miserable, because there can't be gay characters in a book that's not targeted at gay readers who aren't miserable. It's like some kind of law. They've got to be unhappy -- or they've got to be flaming queens, everyone's favorite stereotype.

What I wasn't expecting was a boring damn female character who I don't give a damn about. And the more I get to know about her, the less I give a damn. She's got low self-esteem: she thinks she is fat and ugly. Then, no! It's not fat: it's muscle, because she used to build things. Then: it's not fat or muscle, because she fits into a dress that is slit up the side and laces up the back.

Let me tell you something: As a fat girl, I would never fit into a dress that has laces up the back. Seriously. Not to mention (but I'm going to) that we live in a culture that reveres the thin and reviles the not-thin -- so no matter how good a rubenesque woman looks in a strappy dress, the paparazzi would rip her to shreds, and there's no way "people" would believe that a movie star would ditch his supposed girlfriend to chase her around.

And then! Then we find out that all of the men around her (who are all incredibly protective of her) think that she's gorgeous enough that a movie star would dump his girlfriend to go out with her and the press would completely understand.

Really? Really?

And then! You'd think that would be enough to convince us that she's the perfect woman. But no: then she's taken, by the FBI, to a firing range, where she demonstrates that she can think well under pressure, multitask, and even though she's never held a gun before, she has perfect aim, better than the majority of FBI recruits.

Really? Seriously?

That's the point I'm at in the novel. If I had to, in order to save my life or get you to adopt a puppy, I could probably tell you the basic plot of the book -- but it's confusing, and halfway to making no sense at all, and I don't really care. What I'm concerned about right now is that this Mary Sue seems to be the focus point of the book, and I can't stand her.

(The book gets points, though, for having real actual gay sex on page 273. Because gay people have gay sex, and too often that's just glossed over. So I don't want my $7.99 back, because I support gay sex. But I'm still annoyed about the heroine.)

You guys, have you read a book that you really liked in the last few weeks? Because I am desperate here. Give me something, throw me a bone, I just want a nice popcorn read. Maybe something about the end of the world, if you're feeling generous.

This morning a friend of mine sent me this Washington Post book review. Am I alone in finding it ridiculously cruel and completely unneccessary?

For the record, I know plenty of people who use the word "indeed" in casual conversation.


In other news, I hit the Warped Tour yesterday with my friend Annie, and I took some pictures of people. The fashion was amazing. We left early (before the shenanigans) because we're old and fragile and couldn't take the sun. Despite hourly applications of SPF 50, both she and I were left with sunburns. :( :( :( SADFACE. I did get to see Cobra Starship, though, which is worth all manner of pain and strife! Fangs up!


And in other other news, my laptop has died, and I'm at the end of my patience with this freaking nonsense. This is the second Gateway in two years that's died (the first one broke right after the warranty expired; this one had only the smallest warranty because I was totally busted when I bought it, and it was refurbished anyway). Seriously: NO. PATIENCE. I am considering going back to the evil Apple corporation. How do you guys feel about the Macbook? One of my friends knows a reseller who will get me one, with two years of Applecare, for $300 less than mac.com's price. Good deal, or should I be wary of going back to OSX?

Hey, guys. Here is the other half of the interview I did with Ryland Blackinton from Cobra Starship and This Is Ivy League. It is awesome; we talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Well, livejournal, my insane project has been given a two week extension. Which is good, because there's still 2/3 of it left to do! I spent this last week on my couch instead of working. You know what? My ceiling is not that interesting. Who knew?

Today I went out for lunch with sucktastic, and then to Target, where I bought a bathing suit. This is my first bathing suit since 1997. Seriously, can you believe that? It's cute, right? It makes me look all curvaceous!

(I also bought an orange toilet seat cover. Not because I was in dire need of a toilet seat cover, but because it is irresistably orange.)

(I also, this morning, did that meme about what's in my handbag. What's in your handbag?)

Here's the problem: While at Target I went through the book section and could not find one single book to read. Not one. What the hell is going on? Usually summertime is a wellspring of crazy beach books and sometimes even some really good psychological thrillers. This summer there's practically nothing.

Recently I read Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott. It's extremely dark, about a girl who is kept a captive by a crazy guy. She is sent to find him another girl to keep captive, to replace her, because she's too old. Like I said: dark. It is not my favorite thing she's ever written, even though I dig the darkness, because it feels unfinished to me. But if there were more added to it, it would become a completely different book, so I understand why she stopped where she did. I just found it frustrating. Recommended, though, for adults and precocious teenagers. I mean, if they watch Criminal Minds (and if I were 15, I would be all about that show; heck, I'm 27 and I'm all about that show!)...

But my favorite Elizabeth Scott book by far is Stealing Heaven. Ignore the cover--it has nothing to do with the book. The book is about a girl whose mother is a con, and she's a con, and they're in a beach town running cons and stealing things, and it is Elizabeth's best book by far. The characterization and the plot both come together perfectly. Two thumbs up, read it twice, and would recommend for anyone above the age of, like, maybe 10. Okay, a precocious 10. There's a sweet romance in it that maybe a 10 year old would find yucky. Or would pretend to find yucky while secretly finding it adorable. I think it depends on the 10 year old.

While on my way home from New York City, I read a bunch of books because my flight was all misbehaving. One of the books was Up Close and Dangerous by Linda Howard. It was decent, but not worth $7.99. I mean, it read kind of like the old Harlequins she used to write, which is not a bad thing at all, but there was ultimately no meat to it, and I really could have just reread a Mackenzie book, you know? Or Shades of Twilight. Damn, I love that book. It is possibly my favorite Linda Howard novel, running neck and neck with the best time travel romance ever written: Son of the Morning

Now there is a book worth its $7.99.

In the midst of what is currently the most crazy project I've ever worked on, hands down, as well as a whirlwind trip to New York where several times eating cake trumped everything else, I interviewed the lead guitarist of Cobra Starship, my current favorite band, for the local paper.

In which we discuss my mom, pop music, and fanny packs.

Is anyone else going to the St. Louis Warped Tour date this year? It's July 1st. I'll be there with Annie, my favorite DJ and music journalist all wrapped up in a curly-haired package. If you'll be around, you should come find us and say hello.

You guys! A couple of months ago, I suggested to Heather Osborn that an excellent promotional item for the Tor Romance list would be Tor Romance M&Ms -- and now they exist! They taste just like M&Ms too. Mmmm delicious.

Hi, LiveJournal! Today I got a new tattoo on my back. It is huge and gorgeous. If you click "All Sizes" and check out the "original" size, you can see all the shading and detailing that my tattooist did.

If you're ever looking to get a tattoo in St. Louis, I really recommend hitting CheapTRX and getting tattooed by Mark Skipper. Dude is freaking amazing -- he drew that on my back. No stencil, no nothing. Just sat down with a marker and a pen and drew it out, then tattooed it!

In other news, tomorrow I am off to New York City for ten days. I'm going to be in and out of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Connecticut, and New Jersey, but I will definitely be at Angels & Kings Tuesday night (the 17th) from 8:30 PM until at least 9:30 PM, if anyone wants to stop in and say hello.

Today I was on the phone with dianafox, and I was talking -- okay, let me be honest. I was blowing off some steam about editing, and how sometimes it is frustrating.

A lot of the time when I am editing someone's manuscript, or writing an evalulation, I find myself saying the same things over and over again, asking everyone the same questions. A lot of manuscripts have the same problems. Some of them are badly written. Some of them are well written. No matter what, they have the same overall problems.

Here are the three questions I ask the most. Hopefully this will help some of you re-evaluate what you're writing.

1.) Can you tighten this? This sentence means that there is too much stuff happening on the page that doesn't move forward either plot or character development. For example, two characters on the telephone talking about when and where they are going to meet for supper. Instead of three pages of back and forth ("I'd like to get some pizza"; "Sure, pizza sounds great"; "Yeah, I think I want a diet Coke too"; "I want some Sprite, for sure!"), there can be one sentence:

Samantha was in the mood for pizza so she called the one person she knew would always be down for some pizza and beer: Jack. He agreed to meet her at the local pizza shop downtown, which was perfect, because that way she could pick up her damn dry cleaning already.

Okay, I'm not a writer. But you get the gist. Instead of three pages, there's a paragraph.

If it's super important that the reader know that Samantha loves diet Coke while Jack loves Sprite, there is surely a more succinct way of conveying that information.


2.) What story are you really telling? This is pretty self-explanatory. A lot of the time, people get caught up in exposition, world-building, character development. Writers get sidetracked within their own worlds. This is totally understandable -- especially if you love the world in which you are writing. Whether your story takes place in the fantasy land of Star'k'teno, or Duluth, you're building a world for the characters (and readers) to inhabit, and it's easy to get so involved in talking about the world and the characters that you forget to write the book.

It's also easy to get sidetracked by secondary and tertiary plots and characters. What this sentence basically tells you is that you need more focus. You need to decide what your book is about and write that. Fleshing it out once it's written (so that it doesn't read like a 300 page synopsis!) is definitely okay. So is fleshing it out as you go -- as long as you don't get distracted from your goal.

(On the other hand, sometimes a distraction leads you to a brand new place where you can tell brand new stories! That is excellent, but there has to be a balance.)


3.) Who is your audience really? Yeah, sure, writers write for themselves. Good for you! Write whatever you want!

But when you're looking to get published, you're not just writing for yourself anymore. Now you are writing for the public. You are writing for other people. That means that other people need to understand what you're writing, need to somehow grok the information you're putting out there. Even Borges knew he was writing for an audience.

You have to pick your audience. Are you writing for the sf/f crowd? Romance? Mystery? Western? Each genre has its own conventions, and the readers like those conventions. They also like seeing the conventions turn upside-down and squished together! But if you're going to do that, it must be done skillfully and on purpose, because the sales force is still going to have to tell Borders which section your book should be stocked in. It is important to be mindful of conventions. Romance novels have happy endings. Westerns have tough men who often have hearts of gold.

For more on this, read my (free!) article: "Genre as a Marketing Category" for it is (hopefully) edifying.


...So those are my top three questions. Do y'all have any questions about this?

Tonight is a knitting night at my LYS (that's Local Yarn Store for those of you not in the know!), and, because it's 90+ degress in my apartment, I just had to turn on the oven and bake a giant box of cinnamon rolls to bring with me. Yum. Don't you wish you came to knit night? Hee.

It is 96F in my apartment, according to the thermometer. I know that my cats look like jungle creatures, but they really prefer the air conditioner. I'm still waiting for my landlord to get back to me on when the handyman is going to come around to install it. You'd think this would be something dealt with ASAP when it's 87F outside, but no! I have been waiting for days.

Whilst waiting, I am reading An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender. I was expecting a novel about a crazy girl with OCD, and instead I've got something bordering on magical realism. It's not bad, but it's not what I wanted, and I keep getting annoyed with it and putting it down. I don't think I'm going to finish it (so check my bookmooch some time in the next few weeks if you want it).

In the last few weeks, I read two Val McDermid books. The first was Report for Murder, which I read for a bad reason: the protagonist is a socialist lesbian journalist. I figured I would love it. But no -- it's just a mystery novel. It's a halfway decent mystery novel, but still just a mystery novel.

The second Val McDermid book I read was A Place of Execution. It was touted to me as a psychological thriller/murder mystery. Well. There was nothing very thrilling about it, but the murder mystery part was great. I knew there was a twist in the novel thanks to the cover copy, so I knew to look for the twist, so I figured out what the twist was way before I was supposed to. Thanks, cover copy! How irritating.

I finished the book standing against the wall, in between Motion City Soundtrack and Panic at the Disco on Friday, which was a lovely way to pass the time, since teenage girls don't make for very interesting people-watching.

Okay, I admit it, I put the book down right at the point of reveal, because Doug's cover of "Dance, Dance" by Fall Out Boy was being played, and that is a video that makes me really happy. Of course, you can watch the video yourself, and then decide whether or not you want to read the book. If the video makes you happy, then you should read the book, because me putting the book down to watch the video won't be a deterrent. See how that works?

While we're on the subject of videos, gl0ry_gl0ry was here for a while, and I made her watch the My Chemical Romance documentary Life on the Murder Scene (which I recommend, if you like My Chem), and then, of course, I had to show her a bunch of My Chem videos. We both cried through "The Ghost of You", and I've been having nightmares about it ever since. It is super powerful.

(I also played her my favorite My Chem song, which is, in fact, definitely in my top five favorite songs of all time: "Vampires Will Never Hurt You"

This is the song with the lyric that is being tattooed on my left arm when I visit shiratic in DC in July: and you must keep your soul like a secret in your throat.)

Of course, the best thing I've seen on YouTube in the last few weeks (besides Gabe Saporta brushing his teeth and Cobra Starship covering "Billie Jean") is: some Justin Timberlake video set to "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice. Ohhhh yeah. Too cold, too cold.

I don't know what y'all are up to, but gl0ry_gl0ry is catnapping on my couch, and erratic0101 is playing Guitar Hero 3 (we went into Target for a fan! I don't know what happened!), and I am glorying in a warm, lazy Sunday.

In other news, Friday night I went to see Motion City Soundtrack and Panic at the Disco, and covered the event for the local paper's music blog.

gl0ry_gl0ry is here! Yesterday, as soon as she hit St. Louis, we went to IHOP (her favorite), and then hit the yarn store so that I can make her knee socks that look similar to mine, and then right afterwards, we went to the tattoo shop! That's how we roll. Haha.

The picture I posted yesterday was of her actually being tattooed; this is a picture of the tattoo. It is so gorgeous; I am amazed that Mark listened to her talk for ten minutes, and then leaned against the counter and sketched that. Incredible.

We also attempted to bake bread, but forgot to bake it last night. So it rose all night, spilled over the top of the baking tin, and then didn't bake all the way through this morning. But that's okay because we're going to make up for it by making cinnamon rolls tonight.

Soon I will also have an erratic0101 -- then the pancake mafia will be complete once again, even if only for a weekend.


In other news, I haven't read a novel for fun in what feels like a really long time, so my project for the weekend, besides knitting knee socks, and making the arm warmer to match this one, is to read Abaddon by Elizabeth Donald. She's pretty damn awesome, so I'm looking forward to it. You guys should all read it too, and then we can all talk about it. Like a book group, but better.

Hello, folks! Guess what! This week, if you sign up for the newsletter at Tor.com, you receive a free e-copy of Touch of Evil by Cathy Clamp & C. T. Adams. It's the first book in the Thrall series, which is about the vampire hunter Katie Reilly. This is full on urban fantasy, with a romantic twist. This is one of my favorite books that I've ever edited -- I absolutely love it.

But don't take my word for how good it is. Here's what Booklist says about the title:

Adams and Clamp are adept at incorporating riveting plot twists into this fully imagined world, and they don't stint on the romance that builds between the sexy and oh-so-sweet Tom and the Laura Croft-like Kate, making this an outstanding paranormal romance.

Nice, right? Go forth and download!

I know this is really nerdy and weird, but sometimes The Ghost Whisperer scares the crap out of me. Does anyone else watch this show? I love Jennifer Love Hewitt a lot, which is why I started watching, but now I love the show itself too. I love to watch it at, like, three in the morning. Seriously, it scares me. It's awesome.