Halloween Giveaway and Contest!

Okay. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, because it's creepy, packed with supernatural goodness, and involves staying up late. In honor of Halloween, we're having a Halloween short fiction contest over at the Merry Sisters of Fate. It's a great opportunity to stretch your fictional muscles, show off your literary prowess, and maybe snag the grand prize.

The prompt is simply "Halloween" (be creative, dammit), and we'd prefer the word limit to between 600-2000, and the deadline is midnight on October 31st. Link back to the entry in Merry Sisters of Fate and we Sisters will commiserate over a pot of bubbling brains and other Halloween goodies to decide which one pleases us most. There is only one prize, but oh, what a prize, m'dears:

- a copy of the upcoming An Infinite Thread, the first Merry Sisters of Fate anthology, which features the best of the Sisters so far as well as three anthology-exclusive short stories, all packed with the supernatural, blood, and angst, as the Sisters' stories tend to be.

- a signed copy of Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception, and a CD with three of my songs that were inspired by Lament.

- a Merry Sisters of Fate t-shirt (or a homicidal faeries T, your pick).

Oh, I am dazzled by the beauty of our prize. You guys up for it? What's to lose?

Three Pieces of Art I Hope to See at the Met

That's the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, by the way. I'm revoltingly excited to be going to New York City for the first time next month. It's really real! I've booked the flight and the hotel so it must be actually happening. Barring natural disasters like the sort that happened in that really bad Dennis Quaid movie.

I'm really excited to see what NYC looks like in real life, instead of through the filter of movies and books. Does everyone really wear really expensive clothing? Are there really a million-jillion people on every sidewalk? Is the Cash Cab really driving around waiting to pick up clueless contestants? And does the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man lie in wait beneath the city?

I get to meet my editors from Scholastic, find the biggest pastry shop I can, and of course, visit the Met. Already I've been on the website and I'm fantasizing about seeing these three pieces in particular.

1. "The Horse Fair" by Rosa Bonheur. Okay, this is a no-brainer, right? Maggie = horse artist. The Horse Fair = one of the more famous horse paintings alive. Er, in existence. I want to see it in person

2. "Young Woman with a Water Pitcher" by Vermeer. I have grown up seeing this image in all my art history books; the first time I saw it was a bad black and white image in an old art history book in grade school

3. "Breton Brother & Sister" by Bouguereau -- or anything by Bouguereau. I have a feeling that if I see this dude's stuff in person, I will fall passionately in love with him, as I am in love with John Singer Sargent already.

I also am looking forward to seeing the Early Gothic Hall, because I'm a sucker for medieval art and stained glass of all sorts. Okay, 'fess up -- what paintings are you guys dying to see in real life?

Art Paid for by Werewolves

So, when I got my advance check for Lament, I bought a mattress, now known as the mattress paid for by faeries. When I got my advance check for Ballad, I paid the rent. It was hugely exciting. I made popcorn and we all watched as we signed the rent check.

Okay, not really.

Well, we did pay the rent. But not the popcorn bit. I'm not a big popcorn fan, actually.

So, here's how I'm rewarding myself now that I have my first check for Shiver. Art! As an artist, I've never been able to afford a big piece of art. I debated for a long time about whether to buy this gorgeous print of Oana Lauric's "Dal Duomo" or a blacked-out Stratocaster. I really wanted an electric guitar, but I also really wanted to buy a piece of art.

I'm not good with decisions, so I decided not to decide for a long time. Well, I mean, for a long time I didn't make a decision. Was that gramatically clear? Anyway, then the economy made up my mind for me. It's going to be a long, cold winter for small businesses, and when push comes to shove, the gallery I'm getting Oana's art from (Chasen Galleries) is going to appreciate my business more than Fender. So, sniff. My little black guitar will have to wait.

Now, admire. Isn't it pretty-pretty? Thanks to Oana for giving me permission to show it here. She does gorgeous work and it was hard to decide (again, not good with decision, much angst involved) which one to go with. Look at the website, you'll see what I mean.

Oh, and if any of y'all are wondering why Lament isn't in your local Border's or B/N, it's because they're both stocking it on the last Tuesday of the month because they both have it listed as a general October release. Thank you, box stores, for making my release parties horridly early! A pox on both of you. Oh wait, sales are already down. I take the pox back.

And those of you who have read Lament and want another faerie fix before Ballad, my short for Merry Sisters of Fate today takes place in the same world as Lament and Ballad but occurs between the two of them.

So do you guys think I made the right decision? Not about taking the pox back. About the art vs. guitar.

Tuesday Musings

So, first of all, my interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith is up over at Cynsations. And I have to take a moment to fangirl squee because this is like coming full circle for me. I read Cynsations when I was doing my market research and to excitedly peruse the successful stories to publication, and now I'M on there. I was so thrilled when she blurbed LAMENT and then when she asked for an interivew, I just died. Yes, I have been undead for years.

In other news, I'm getting acquainted with my new editor at Flux, Brian Farrey. Andrew Karre handed over the reins of the imprint to him on October 1st, and Brian has inherited all his crazy stable of authors, myself included.

I've not actually met Brian in real life, or seen a photo, or spoken with him on the phone, which possibly explains why now, every time I get an e-mail from him, I associate him strongly with Brian the dog from Family Guy. I just see "Brian Farrey" and automatically, I hear Brian the dog voice over for the contents of the e-mail. And they . . . kinda talk the same way. Sorry, editor Brian. If it makes you feel any better, Brian on Family Guy is the brains of the operation.

This is how I picture my budding relationship with editor Brian. I'm of course Stewie in the picture at right (how could it be anything but that way? Evil genius in need of medication? Hellooooo . . . )

In other news, I'm so behind on following up on comments on the blog. Thanks everyone for commenting and I'm going to try to attack that with my slow dial up later today.

Whoopee!!

Me, this morning (runs upstairs to jump on sleeping husband's chest): Wake up! I got a starred review in Publisher's Weekly!

Him (sleepily, with more enthusiasm than I would expect from someone who'd been sleeping two seconds before): That's great!

Me: (random squealing and racing around the bed)

Him: wait, what just happened again?

Starred review, baby! I love Mondays!

Okay, I don't really, but I love this Monday.

Three Tips on Finding Time

"The Letter H" - ink on paper
copyright 2008 Maggie Stiefvater
illustration for upcoming Merry Sisters of Fate anthology.

Today was scary for me. Every once and a while, I dye my hair a shade lighter. As I get older (approaching a crusty and crotchety 27), I have gone from summer-kissed light brunette to dark-haired, pale and undercooked.*

*I typed this "undercookied" at first, which is probably a Freudian slip as I just pulled some out of the oven but haven't eaten any yet

Anyway, today I dyed my hair. I got a new sort that said it only took ten minutes to work. So I put it down and came downstairs to catch up on some blog posts, and then realized that almost twenty minutes had gone by.

Whoops.

Cue Maggie galloping upstairs to hastily rinse it out. There was a patchy moment when my hair looked slightly skunklike, but I think it's become a nice light albeit-not-naturally-occuring-in-nature shade. Sort of blonde-brown-orange-red-green-something. Pleasant, though. Actually, now that I think about it, it's sort of cookie-dough colored.

So. Anyway. Three tips. I know I've done a ton of posts on time management, but most of them are extremely long and unwieldy. I got an email from Rose that made me think that maybe a three tips on snatching a few more minutes here and there might be useful. So here they are.

1. Like with like. Clump all your housekeeping chores with other housekeeping. Your town errands with other town errands. Your chihuahua wrangling with other chihuahua wrangling. It's easy to waste time doing errands and chores as you see them -- picking up one stray toy leads to folding laundry that's right next to the toy leads to loading the dishwasher leads to changing the sheets, etc.

Am I telling you to not do housework?

Yes.

Kidding.

No.

I'm telling you to think about making one or two days a week your housework days, and then just do mild tidying in between. If you've got to make a shopping trip, group it with other like chores. Cut out the back and forth as much as possible.

2. Make your to-do list shorter. Lots of people tell me they make to-do lists and then never get to the bottom of them. Well, #$%^, there's no satisfaction in that. Moreover, if you keep making a list that you'll never get to the end of, eventually the list will be meaningless. If it helps, make a list for the day, then another for the week, then the month, etc.. If you get done with your day's list, you can attack the week's list instead. But trust me, you'll be a lot more productive if you think you can actually cross everything off.

3. Turn off the internet. No, really, right now. I'm distracting you. Get to work.

Confessions of a Buffy Virgin

So, as I mentioned earlier on my LJ, I was until last month a Buffy-virgin.

Buffy-virgin. noun. A person who has never seen an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, thus causing her to miss thousands of Buffy references throughout her entire life. The last straw will be when her editor who doesn't even own a TV makes a Buffy reference.

I broke down. I got the first season on Netflix and I have now lost my Buffy-cherry. And it's, um, sort of addictive. Like -- it's so campy, but I can't stop watching. Some of the episodes were so bad we were laughing for all the wrong reasons, but we just kept . . . watching.

I'm a little perturbed that the vampires have pretty faces and ugly faces (or in the case of Jessie, weird-ass faces and ugly faces). And the master sounds like he needs some Krispy Kremes. If I'd been several decades without Krispy Kreme donuts and sweet tea, I'd be calling for the blood of teenagers and clawing my way towards the surface as well.

So. Some thoughts from the resident virgin.

Buffy: what is up with this chick's wardrobe? One episode, I can see through her cleavage to her belly-button and the next one, she's dressed like a homeless person. Just as I'm wondering where her shopping cart is, she dresses up for a date and comes out looking like a she's a Hellmouth real estate agent.

Willow: First of all, it's kind of creepy how, in real life, Alyson Hannigan never ages. She looks exactly the same now as when she was a newly minted Buffy-character, leading me to believe that she's undead and that her casting in a show called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is meant to be ironic. She is the supposed-to-be-unpopular-and-geeky-yet-much-cuter-than-99%-of-living-girls character on the show, which is okay, because, this one time, at band camp . . .

Xander: Somebody needs to shoot this boy in the butt with a clue gun. He follows Buffy around Season One like a lost, sick puppy, clearly not seeing that the main character never hooks up with the comic relief. And after that episode in the hyena exhibit, he's dead to me. Do you hear that, Xander? You're dead to me for your laughable music-filled *sexybeast* attempts. Leave the *smolder*ing to Angel.

Giles: Oh, Giles. Thank you for having a British accent. It makes you sound so clevah and makes your obsession with demon-filled books and not with underage teenagers all believable. Does Giles ever go home? I think he lives in the library.

Angel: Angel's chief purpose on the show at this point seems to be to show up in dimly lit places so that he can be half-lit, all the better for him to *smolder*. Buffy goes to the club. Angel shows up. *smolders*. Buffy goes to an alley. Angel shows up. *smolders*. Buffy goes to her bedroom. Angel shows up. *smolderswithtongue* And yet, I put up with all this *smolder*ing because Angel is an angstpuppy and I love to feed and pet and cuddle angstpuppies.

So, verdict?

Yeah. I just got Season Two.

Three Tips on Thinking Like an Art Buyer

So my tips for this week revolve around thinking like an art buyer to better market your work. I used to try to get into this mindset all the time when I was first starting out, but now I can really get into the art buying mindset because I'm about to be an art buyer. Yep, I'm making my first major art purchase, and I think it's going to be Oana Lauric -- I would dearly love a print of her Dal Duomo.

Anyway, the lovely and wonderful owner of Chasen Galleries (who represents me), Andrew Chasen (who brought me flowers at my book launch!!) let me into the gallery to look around after Lament's book launch party. It was like seeing it with brand new Maggie-goggles, because this time, I was looking as a buyer. It was great! Anyway, it taught me a lot . . . and made me wish I'd done it earlier.

So, here are three tips on how to think like an art buyer.

1) Visit a gallery and look around as if you had $1K in your pocket. Then $2K. Then $3K. What is going through your head when you look at the pieces? If you're like me, this is what:

• That is friggin' gorgeous. Um, but can you imagine what my neighbors would say when they came over and saw it hanging over the couch?
• Holy smokes that piece is gigantic. I'd have to build another bedroom for it.
• Why am I paying $3K for something the size of my dog?
• That much red would keep me up at night.
• If I got that tall skinny one, I'd really need another tall skinny one to match.
• I could look at that one all day long and all night long and all day long and all night and . . . that's the one.

2) Google thyself. Or rather, imagine what people would be googling if they were looking for your art. For me, my goal was to show up near the top of searches like "maggie stiefvater," "maggie steifvater" (always add the most common misspellings of your name into your website's keywords), "maggie horse portraits" (because sometimes people will meet me and not remember my last name), "jack russell terrier portraits," and "virginia colored pencil art." And make your google presence show your concentration. A year ago, the first page of my google results was art-related. I'm pretty sure now it's dominated by my writing. Make sure yours isn't dominated by some hijink you pulled off in college while wearing a chicken costume.

3) Surf your website like a buyer. Can you figure out where to get your art? How to pay? How much the pieces are? Or do you have to e-mail for every bit of information and arm-wrestle a confusing navigation menu to find out where you're from. Objectivity is a brilliant thing. Borrow or steal it when you can manage.

Launches and All That Rot

Soooo I'm about to get ready to head down to my launch party in Richmond, VA at Creatures N' Crooks bookstore and I've been getting e-mails all day from folks who are planning on being there. And it just occurred to me what this means:

I have to be entertaining.

Fairly ominous. My husband says "you just talked to 400 kids in one day on Monday. How is it this is bothering you?" But this is different. I had a white board when I was talking to the kids. The ability to use those dry erase markers just makes everything better.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be posting about my Buffy-virgin experiences. And this afternoon, I'll just leave you with a linkie to my Friday fiction (which is oh so seasonal) over at Merry Sisters of Fate.

Here's to hoping I'm alive tomorrow.