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I have an extensive collection of nametags and hairnets.

I don't actually have an extensive collection of nametags and hairnets, but I love that joke from Wayne's World, because it was one of the ones I didn't get until way, way after I had first seen it.

I do however, have a nametag from this weekend job I've been holding on to in an effort to, I don't know, maintain a routine? But I think it's time I gave up that ghost and take some time off to hammer around on this computer a bit. Wait, does that sound like I'm sexually assaulting my computer? Well maybe I am. Don't judge me.

Anyway, thanks to all of the awesome folk who helped me share the cover for Mortal Gods this month. You're the best. I will draw ARC winners as soon as I have them in my grubby paws and know how many extra I can give away. The pub date got moved from September to October 14th, but I still expect them soonish.

Dylan and I depart soon for vacation in Paris, and when we return, we're moving house, so the blog will be quiet (ha, I say that like it's a rare occurrence) while we get settled. I detest moving. I try to keep from accumulating too much crap, but it turns out that crap is really sneaky. And I hate the idea of having a house, because I'm going to have to fill it with crap, and what's going to happen the next time I have to move house? Death, that's what. I miss the days when Americans lived in tipis and followed the buffalo. Mobility, man. That's the ticket.

Anybody watching Resurrection? I had the book gifted to me and like an idiot left it in a car on tour, but I started watching during this week's free watchathon and I enjoy it. I think. TV has so much to live up to post-True Detective. It's a real high water mark. Pre-True Detective, I was more forgiving.

On the writing front, for anyone following along, I finished the short story for the SLASHER GIRLS & MONSTER BOYS anthology and had the joy of reading April Genevieve Tucholke's contribution, "Trick the Willows". You guys are going to love it. And you only have to wait until 2015.

Secret Project C is in turnaround, re: a dying duck in a freezing pond, I'll see if I can thaw him out later, but I think I only wrote him for myself. Meanwhile, Secret Project 3B is full steam ahead after a scrap and dismantle. Hopefully more deets soon. But maybe not.

Now, time to go get the mail before it gets dark and I get hit by a car.

Oh yeah, I updated the Sticky Post with some events and pre-order links for Mortal Gods, if you are so inclined 🙂

Help Share the MORTAL GODS Cover and be entered to win an ARC! (Details below.)

Well, the Mortal Gods cover is here, and I asked Twitter if some bloggers would be kind enough to help me share it, and wowza, there are many kind bloggers out there. If you are also a kind blogger, email me at kendareblake@yahoo.com to feature the cover on your blog and you will also be entered to win an ARC. I was going to give away 3, but based on the generous response I'm going to up that number. To…I don't know yet, I can't remember how many I requested.

If you are not a blogger, and would like to enter also, no problem! I'll post the cover to Facebook, and here on the blog, and on the Antigoddess Facebook page, and if you share it on your wall, I'll enter you! Or if you post it anywhere on any social media, let me know, and I'll enter you!

Here's the official stuff:

Bloggers: after you email me, I'll respond with an image of the cover, and some guidelines that aren't guidelines, basically that you can share the cover in whatever way you want within the next month, and you will be entered. If you'd like me to do something special for the reveal, like a mini interview or I don't know…a dance or something, well, I will not do a dance. I don't want to blind people right before they're supposed to see a cover. But I'm glad to do short interviews or commentary or whatnot.

Let's say that April 1st is the cutoff day, so I have a date to draw winners. Also because it is Tybalt's birthday. Also, Tyrion Cattister's birthday, because we don't know his exact day, but it's around the same time, and I draw the line at TWO cat parties.

In case this isn't obvious, (and it should be obvious) YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST. Thank you. I really hope you like the cover, but more importantly, I hope you like what's, you know, under it. Behind it. Between it?

ANTIGODDESS paperback cover!

They're here! The fancy schmancy new clothes the Goddess War books will be wearing! Okay, so it's just the first one, the paperback cover for ANTIGODDESS:

antigoddess-cmp-tpb-5

Thoughts? I like the way the owl in the nearest branch is staring at Athena. I like to imagine he is saying, "Yeah, thems my feathers. Comin outcha ya throat. And your ribs. Andja eye-balls." Because I like to imagine he has the same voice as the CPR instructor from Family Guy.

I also enjoy how the "G" seems to have gone right on ahead and stabbed somebody. Which is what a true G would do.

Back yesterday from Florida and a lovely school visit with extremely talented and thoughtful students. My howdy, they know how to do some mean charades in Delray Beach.

Slice of non-writing life: my beloved car, affectionately named 'Spot' was sitting in a mall parking lot the other day minding his own business, when someone jumped the curb and smashed into him, killing him instantly. Spot, you will be missed. Thank goodness that his car buddies, a small plastic Moose named "Goat", and a hand-painted wooden snail named "Frank N. Furter" were not harmed, or I would have been forced to rage out on the lovely gentleman who was not obeying traffic laws.

I'm kidding. Don't road rage on anyone, obviously. That shit is dangerous.

Also unrelated: read an article while waiting at the airport about how some dude wrote an article saying girls with short hair were damaged. Deranged. Abrasive. Because long hair is obviously attractive to men and a girl who would chop off those sexytimes locks is clearly not in the right state of mind.

That article seemed like linkbait, but still, to the guy who may or may not really feel this way, there are lots of mature responses. But this is mine:

How bout you shut your stupid face, guy who doesn't know about the hundred or so reasons someone will do something to their hair!

Besides, if we're going to question hair choices, why not start with the rat tail? Offensive to rats? Or just turtlenecks? Discuss.

Gettin Crap Done. Or Gettin Crapped On. It’s all in how fast you say it.

Yeah, so sometimes now the blog titles will be nonsense. Sometimes movie quotes, sometimes nonsense. Very rarely, they will be related to whatever the actual post is. I'm going to try to make this about getting crap done. We'll see if I can also make it about getting crapped on.

Anyway, this week I'm getting crap done. Booking parking for my school visit to Florida next Tuesday. Contracts into the mail for the Cavalcade of Authors Workshop in March where I will be talking about something horror-ific. Checking deadlines and planning the writing schedule for the duration of the winter.

I need to write my story "On the I-5" for the excellent Slasher Girls & Monster Boys anthology put together by the excellent April Tucholke. That'll get done soon. I sent off some flap copy samples for MORTAL GODS (formerly Aristeia, Antigoddess 2). And this week, I'm finishing a book. An unsold book, let's call it Unsold C. But it will be done, so I'm calling it a book, even though it may never actually be a real book. Eff it. Of course, if Unsold C refuses to finish this week, it might need to be put aside, because I also have to put together a synopsis and sample chapters for, oh, let's call it, Unsold 3B.

I. Hate. Synopses.

Say it with me. Or better yet, roar it with me, and we'll stand together at the edge of a cliff and then kick the synopses off of it Sparta style.

The odd thing about synopses is they can be comprised of almost total BS. Pure, unadulterated, pulled from your hinder, absinthe-fantasy BS. So at least there's that.

I'd like to turn this blog into more of a writing diary, but I fear it would suck the time out of the actual writing. I might do it anyway.

Also, Fickle Fish Films has renewed the option on Anna Dressed in Blood. Early even! I couldn't be more thrilled. Before you ask, though everything is moving along, there's no real news. But I did see this very nice quote from Stephenie Meyer on the Fickle Fish website:

“From the moment I started reading this book, I knew it would be a beautiful story to tell cinematically,” explained Stephenie Meyer. “It’s scary, romantic, and grips you from start to finish. Audiences are going to fall in love with ‘Anna’.”

Isn't that nice? Genuinely nice. And also, Nice, in the way that Muppet gangster rats say it. Nice. Very nice.

I was unable to bring this entry around to getting crapped on, and for that, I apologize.

I have some gifts for you they’re up in my bum….(not really. It’s the Family Guy Drummer Boy)

I should've chosen a Thanksgiving-themed title. But there've been so many Xmas carols spouting about that I've had the Family Guy version of the Little Drummer Boy stuck in my head for days. So I used it, in the hopes it'll go away now and I'll stop randomly singing it at inappropriate times.

Returned from the lovely ALAN Workshop and NCTE conference in Boston this week, where I met some fantastic teachers. One even gave me chocolate covered macadamia nuts. It was a fun, scary time, and I may have taken a rather disturbing and unfortunate photobooth picture with my editor Mel Frain and Kristen Simmons, author of ARTICLE 5, in the Prudential Tower. Considering trying to crop it and turn it into an author photo.

On the subject of excellent teachers, got an email from a teacher in Kansas, who recently paired Anna Dressed in Blood with Beowulf to teach the classics. I'm honored she was paired with Beowulf, and hearing how the students responded to Anna and the classic novels was wonderful. This semester they're pairing Girl of Nightmares with Dante's Inferno, and I look forward to video chatting with them soon. I don't say it enough but teachers, particularly English and writing teachers, are kickass. Innovative, invested educators better the worlds of their students, and by extension the world at large. Thanks. Most sincerely. FYI to any teachers who may be reading: if you would like an author to visit, I do video chats for free, schedule permitting.

And now, a small list of stuff that needs to get done over the next few months.

-finish edits on Antigoddess 2. I'm already behind. And as I turn the corner, I spy something that still needs doing.
-finish a draft of New Project 1, currently hanging patiently at 35k. Send draft to agent, prepare for the worst.
-start a draft of New Project B, which is threading itself together in the background. Aim to finish by what? Next fall?
-write a short story for a bitchin' anthology I can't talk about yet. But the story will be road and revenge. Girls and knives.

That's the larger stuff. Day to day time tends to get allotted to emails, setting up donations and giveaways, workshops (oh yeah, crap I need to come up with a workshop for March), and getting drawn in by clever tweets and such. Sometimes these things are fast. Other times they require more legwork, like tracking through royalty statements on the trail of foreign translation deals because, while awesome, they are friggin squiggly little buggers to keep straight. Or maybe it was just that I was relying on an old paper ledger system like some kind of turn of the century banker by candlelight keeping warm off the flame of one lump of coal.

Hmm. It's a mystery.

My Eyeballs Could’ve Been Sucked From Their Sockets.

Saw GRAVITY this weekend. And wow. All the wows you've heard are true. Wowza. Wowie wow wow wow. Also, space really blows.

Before seeing Gravity, I don't think I ever fully appreciated how much I like George Clooney. But I do. And from now on will refer to him as The Cloonster. I've always thought he looked like Buzz Lightyear (hence the quote for today's entry) and seeing him in that space suit was like seeing a Space Ranger in real life.

the real buzz Buzz Lightyear

Don't you tell me there's no resemblance.

Anyhoo, I'm back from the Antigoddess tour. Thanks to everyone who came out and hung with me on the road. It was a thrill to meet everyone, and many for the second or third time! There were many, many highlights, including this weird amuse bouche foie gras thing in Naperville, IL, and a stupendous hometown party put on by my parents. And then to cap it off, Anna was at New York Comic Con:

Once Cas let her out of that house, that chick started traveling.

Everyone who entered the Antigoddess Thank You Contest, THANK YOU. Because of you, the book is headed for a second printing already. Winners of prizes have been selected and notified, and prizes have started being mailed.

Got to spend some time in NY with my editor, and she informed me of some Goddess War series news:

Antigoddess will get a special new paperback cover. And ARISTEIA will get a new title. Though we loved it, it was decided that not enough people knew what it meant. So we're working up something else which I'll post soon. I sort of figured that would happen, but it was cool to call it Aristeia for a little while at least.

While I was away, Tyrion Cattister got fat. Well, he got more fat. And Tybalt nutted up and regained control of the house. The kitten reign of tyranny has ended!

A few book recommendations, as I slacked off on writing and did some reading: OF BEAST AND BEAUTY by Stacy Jay, and HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE by Diana Wynne Jones. Both entirely magical. Also, holy crap the Walking Dead looks like it's going to be good this season.

Last thing, since I haven't posted it on the blog yet: have you seen the ANTIGODDESS Trailer? Directed by Tucker Capps? He is most excellent.

ANTIGODDESS is here! And so is the Antigoddess Release Thank You Contest Type Thing.

During a week like this, you might think my house was filled with shouting and flailing, sort of like this:

But in reality, all my flailing looks more like this:

Mmm. All the delicious flailing.

But, that aside, it's here! Antigoddess is here! And I want to thank you, for giving it a try. So here's a contest type giveaway thing for folks who buy the book.

I'm calling it a contest instead of a giveaway because I don't know how winners will be decided. Some will be by random draw, others may be voted on by select judges. This is a ramshackle contest, people, because that's how I run my life. I don't even know for sure, what all the prizes will be. But here are a few I do know for sure.

– Reserved ARCs of ARISTEIA (Antigoddess 2). Three of them. Way way advance, way way reserved. For three different entrants. As soon as I get em, you'll have em.

– Signed bookplates and feather bookmarks. I don't know how many of these. Until I run out of stamps, I guess.

-Some kind of tasty food type prize, which will be determined based on the winner's personal preferences.

-Miscellaneous swag

-My undying gratitude

-I will put your pet (complete pet, with personality traits, appearance and name) into a book, or you can determine the name/appearance of a human character. *

1 Grand Prize

One ARISTEIA ARC, signed feather bookmark and doodled bookplate for your
copy of ANTIGODDESS, tasty food prize, undying gratitude, and the pet/character
design choice. Also, perhaps some weird knicknack. You don't know what I'm
putting in here, is what I'm saying.

*I cannot guarantee that any future book with this pet or character will actually be published (though it won't be for lack of trying!), and you will have to give express written permission to use the name/likeness and/or your pet's name and likeness.

How to enter:

You have to buy Antigoddess to enter. I'm not asking for receipts, because I believe in the honor system and your word is your bond.

Just comment here and tell me you bought it, or got it for your birthday, or someone bought it for you. (If my publisher, Tor, bought it for you, I'm so sorry, that totally doesn't count. Unless they bought it for your birthday.)

You can also tweet me @KendareBlake. Comment at the Antigoddess Facebook page, or my own page if we're friends, why not?

Fun entries, because come on, I need cheer while on the road:

I love fun entries. I love creativity. And readers are crazy creative. So. If you do fan art, if you have funny comments, if you tell me who your favorite character is and why, if you write a poem, if there's some weird thing you've always wanted to do with a book and it isn't illegal…

Or you can send me a selfie or a funny photo of yourself and/or the book, like this one that Ash took:**

Hey, take it easy. Antigoddess can't breathe.

If you have already contacted me about your preorder, you are already entered in this contest. Automatically. But if you want to take a weird selfie of you and the book, maybe having a romantic dinner, or propped up in front of a garden gnome, I won't stop you.

Enter by tweet @KendareBlake, email kendareblake@yahoo.com, comment here, comment anywhere, pretty much just contact me. I try to make it as easy as possible. If I could make it easier, I would, because this contest is a thank you, to YOU, excellent, most loved reader.

**by sending me photos, you are consenting to the possibility that I may plaster them all over the blog, or retweet them, or just treasure them forever, like the creeper I am.

Wow, this is a long fricken post. But now I get serious. I don't often get serious, but here goes. THANK YOU. Thank you for giving Antigoddess a shot, for allowing it into your world of reading, I hope you love it, I hope you escape for awhile into a place of dying gods, I hope it passes the time for you in waiting rooms and while avoiding work and/or homework. Thank you so much.

UPDATED: I forgot to mention this contest is open until I get back from the road trip on October 15th! Sorry! Should have said that.

Twelve Days to Book Release.

No movie quote today. Not next week either. I'll get back to them, but for now I'm going plainspeak.

Antigoddess comes out in twelve days. Right about now is the part where I feel like I should be doing more than whatever it is I'm doing. It's hard to sit back, and let go, and understand that right about now is when it's all out of my hands. Right about now, all I can do is not flip out, and thank people for giving Antigoddess a try.

Or, I could summon favors from the dark demon gods of Nor.

Hmm. Perhaps later.

On the 9th or the 10th, when Antigoddess actually comes out, I'm going to post a contest type thank you thing. The prizes will be three advance (way WAY advance) reservations for ARCs of ARISTEIA (Goddess War #2), and feather bookmarks, and some kind of treat, and I'll name a character after you or a friend, and/or I'll put your pet in a book.

I don't know what the entry rules will be, but rest assured it will be something that will give me great joy while I'm on the road. I'm selfish like that.

Now I'm off to hide for another 12 days. Luckily, there's been a lot of stuff lately that's good distraction from pre-release anxiety. Like the Bat-Fleck. What the fuck, Chuck? I don't care if Matt Damon endorses you, I shall cross my arms and scowl until I'm sitting in the theater and hear the first strains of your gritty Bat voice. Then I'll probably forget about the whole thing. Because you can't be worse than Clooney.

I love Clooney, but he was the least Batmanny of all of the Batmen. And that includes Adam West.

There was also that Miley Cyrus on the VMA's thing, which I guess was distracting, but now I keep seeing that face she made everywhere. And close ups of her butt.

Oh yeah, I finally saw one thing in the previews for INSIDIOUS 2 that actually looks interesting: the part where Patrick Wilson has a lamp and the guy says there's someone in front of him saying "He's got your baby! He's got your baby!" This thing at the 2 minute mark. But they already fooled me into seeing INSIDIOUS based on one cool thing from the trailer:

This red thing. What is that thing? I want it.

So nice try, Insidious 2. But I can only be fooled once or twice or more.

Unless I am wrong, I am never wrong.

That line is from The Princess Bride, spoken by Prince Humperdink. Every time I watch that movie, I find a new line to love. Or a new bit of performance to treasure. Or just a new view of Carey Elwes. Whatever.

So, I returned from Comic Con, and it was fun, panel was great, signing was great, and it was a spectacle, and though I have pictures, I'm only going to post this one, because, Bronies.

If you are a true Brony, a guy who likes My Little Pony because My Little Pony is awesome, I salute you, and you are awesome, and call me anytime. However, if you are a Brony, in that you are a guy who wants to bone ponies, kindly back the hell out of my blog, please and thank you. Sadly, I don't think things like this "Equestria Girls" are helping. They look a whole lot like the offspring of a My Little Pony and one of those boner Bronies I was just talking about.

Anyway, Dylan's in Mongolia, where I hope he's enjoying some fine Yak milk, and I'm here trying to write while at the same time having to pluck Tyrion Cattister off of a screaming Tybalt every five minutes. War is Hell. Kittens are Hell. Kittens are War.

I've updated the Sticky Post with Antigoddess tour dates. I really hope to see some of you on the road. I.e., dear god, please come hang out with me.

Shortly before Antigoddess comes out (on September 10th! I hope you'll give it a whirl!) there will be a trailer. From what I understand it's going to be a cool trailer, live action, they spent days shooting in the desert and I liked the script when I read it. I'm excited, I love book trailers. Remember the one for The Diviners? That was bitchin.

Oh, on the subject of bitchin, there were two excellent covers revealed recently by my Tor sisters Mindee Arnett and Kristen Simmons that you should see:

How excellent are these? I haven't read either, mind you, (a fact about which I am bitter) but I loved the Nightmare Affair, and both Article 5 and Breaking Point. Mindee showed me an earlier version of the Dilemma cover and it was a cool green. But I love the blue, and it will look mighty fine on the shelf. Maybe they'll save the green for #3.

That's about it for now. I'll be in a writing cave for the next few weeks, working on something new and still too young to be talked about (but it's not another Cas book, believe me if it was another Cas book I would spill those beans.)

A new catson! And ANTIGODDESS ARC giveaway with swag! (Ends Friday, July 12th.)

So this is a long and rambling giveaway post. I should probably break it out into more than one, but being the infrequent blogger I am, this is how it goes. First off, we had a minor freak out last week when we thought Tybalt was losing weight. There were several possible explanations for this (having his fangs removed, a recent food change, stress) however, I immediately assumed he was dying the horrible death of the dead. After much obsessing, and a knee-jerk vet appointment he never made it to, we determined the likely culprit was all of the above, plus being lonely after losing his cat brother, Mojo Jojo this winter. The solution? A new catson. Everyone, meet Tyrion Cattister:

Originally, we were told he was a girl, so his name was Cersei Cattister. But then we brought him home and I noticed, well…nuts. I said, "better change his name to Tyrion." And Dylan said, "Those aren't nuts; she's a girl." And I said, "Listen, I think I know cat testicles when I see them." And then neither one of us knew what to do with that statement. Tyrion and Tybalt (we didn't do the "T-Y" matching thing on purpose) are getting along famously, after some fangless hissing. And I become skeptical that Tybalt was ever losing weight in the first place, because that kitten makes him look enormous, and his fat ass is putting my legs to sleep as I type this.

The one thing you can be sure of with a name like Tyrion Cattister, I'll never put him in a book. Which leads me to hint at another contest I'm running at the time of ANTIGODDESS' release. I'm running out of pets to put in books, is what I'm saying. I'm going to need to mine yours. It will be the "can I put your pet in my books?" contest.

But for now, let's segue into THIS contest: an ANTIGODDESS ARC with signed feather bookmark!

There are 2 ARCs up for grabs. I had three, but someone had a reading-related tragedy, and I was moved to help. So these are the last 2 I've got.

NOT SO FAST THOUGH!

First, you have to listen to my history lesson to find out how to comment. Why? Because, I'm a jerk, that's why.

In Antigoddess, there is a lot of allusion to the Trojan War. It's one of my favorite subjects, and the three goddesses at the heart of the story factor in pretty large in The Goddess War. Just in case you're unfamiliar with how the Trojan War started, here's a quick refresher:

One day, the gods were hanging around on Olympus, doing whatever the frick they do when they're not wreaking havoc or boning each other, and the goddess Discord (who nobody liked to hang out with because…well, discord is unpleasant) tossed a golden apple at them with a tag marked "To the Fairest."

For whatever reason (fruit shortage?) all the goddesses went Belieber crazy over the apple, until it came down to a final three: Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite. But how do you determine the fairest goddess of all?

Easy. You make a mortal teenage boy judge them like cows. I guess.

This unlucky chap was Prince Paris of Troy, who you are probably familiar with because of the famous story of Helen of Troy, or because of Orlando Bloom's butt cheeks in the film, Troy. Unfortunately for Paris, instead of allowing him to judge them fairly for their…er…fairness…each goddess offered a bribe.

Athena promised him he would become a great hero, and have great glory on the battlefield.

Hera promised him riches, and a vast kingdom.

Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful woman in the world.

He chose the hot chick, and as a result, pissed off Hera and Athena, and they pretty much ruined his life and the lives of his whole family. Killed his dad, had Achilles murder his brother Hector, sister Cassandra taken as a slave and murdered later (though she was sort of screwed already…as outlined in Antigoddess). Troy fell, chaos reigned, Aphrodite made the apple into one super-sized and very heavy earring…

SO, HERE'S HOW TO ENTER! Put yourself in Paris' place. Who would you choose, if you were offered the bribes? Why? Would you choose Athena's offer? It would be way cool to be a hero, to have a great destiny and kickass adventures. What kind of hero would you be?

Would you choose Hera's riches and power? Maybe spend your days Kardashian-ing it up poolside?

Would you choose the most beautiful girl, or boy? Snag yourself a…a…man, I'm out of touch. Who passes for hot these days?

This giveaway is international, and you can enter for multiple entries: comment below, comment on the ANTIGODDESS Facebook entry, Tweet the contest mentioning @KendareBlake, or comment at the GoodReads mirror post. I'll draw two random winners next Friday, July 12th. Good luck, and I look forward to your answers 🙂