Comicon, where else can you chat with the Grim Reaper

Friday and Saturday I did panels at the Phoenix Comicon. I've got to say, it was a memorable experience.  Here I am chatting with the Grim Reaper. Turns out that Grim is a fan. Who knew, right? I guess even Death needs a laugh once in awhile.

Here I am with my fairy wings, getting ready for my panel on the fair folk with awesome authors, Janni Lee Simner and Aprilynne Pike.  Great panel and pretty well attended considering  it was at the same time as William Shatner's panel. (It never fails; whenever I teach at a conference, my class falls at the same time as a class I want to go to.)  But this is what made my outfit extra awesome.  Author and jewelry maker Shelia Nielson made me a Chrysanthemum Everstar fairy necklace.  Here is a closer view of it:

And if you're reading this before midnight Sunday night head on over to her blog because she's giving away a really cool mermaid necklace to go with her book Forbidden Sea. (I'm already jealous of whoever wins it.)
http://www.windwaithemermaid.blogspot.com/2012/05/forbidden-sea-mermaid-contest-giveaway.html

Why I hate graduation decorations

Okay, here's the horrible thing about parenting.  You put in 18 years of work, love, and care into your children--nurturing them from the time they were nothing but a lump of cells, and then when your children graduate from high school--Bam!--they leave home. FOREVER.

I see no reason to celebrate this event. I cried for two weeks when my oldest daughter graduated. When my oldest son graduated, I sobbed all day--and I knew he was living at home while he went to college for the first year.

My point is, why do retailers think we need balloons and streamers to remind us of the impending end of childhood?

This is what retailers think I see when I walk into the grocery store:

This is what I actually see:

Yeah, and that in a nutshell (or a piece of cake) is why I hate graduation decorations.

In Which I lose again

It's that special time of year--the time when I lose the Whitney Award to someone else. (This year, to Rob Wells for his book Variant.) As is the tradition (that I started, by the way. I am an experienced loser.) the losers gather after the event to drown their sorrow in cheesecake and to glower.  Personally, I think it's the funnest thing that happens at the Whitneys.

Here I am with the lovely Michele Holmes, Julie Wright, Jenni James, Jessica Day George and Theresa Sneed. A fine class of losers if I do say so myself.

And here's another picture where Melanie Jacobson joined us in the cheesecake circle.  You can see Dan Wells is trying to sneak into the picture--because yes, we are that cool. But he is totally not part of our in crowd. True, he lost his category, but then he went and blew his photo op opportunity by winning best book. Whatever, Dan. Maybe you can join us next year.

In which I hop and give away a fairy godmother

Actually, I'm not hopping--you are. Which is a good thing because frankly I'm too tired.  Inspired Kathy, who put this blog hop together, told me that I'm not allowed to give you long lists of things to do in order to enter my give-away.  However, she didn't say I couldn't require you to walk into your nearest bookstore, grab one of my novels to your bosom and shout, "At long last I'll own a Janette Rallison novel! I can die happy now!"

Yeah, do that.

And also leave a comment telling me a fairy tale you'd like to see in my next fairy godmother book. Once I get done with the four novels I'm working on now (Yes, four. Someone shoot me.)I'll need to figure out where Chrysanthemum Everstar will send the next poor hapless girl she's trying to help.

May the magic ever be in your favor.

Deep thoughts while I wait for Friday

Inspired Kathy just emailed me to remind me that I signed up for a blog-hop giveaway on Friday. At first I was a little reluctant to do a blog hop, as hopping sounds dangerously close to exercising, and I do enough of that wandering around the house trying to find my car keys. (Don't laugh. One day you will be old, too.)

I didn't want to put up some time-consuming and perhaps meaningful post just to rip it down Thursday night. So instead, I will leave you with a few deep thoughts that I'm sure you'll want to ponder until then.


Are entrances automatically entrancing?

Shouldn't 12:00 pm follow 11:00 pm?

If caterpillars turn into butterflies, what turns into margarine-flies?

How did Harry Potter ever find his invisibility cloak once he set it down?

If all books become ebooks, will trees that are no longer being chopped down for paper still not make a sound when they fall in the forest?

Will I be able write an 80,000 word book by Sept. 1?

That is the most questionable question of all . . .