The cage match continues: two enter, one leaves.

Okay, yes, I admit it: I have a lot of deadlines right now, I have a lot of editing that's nibbling at me like a flock of wild ducks, and playing literary cage match is currently my guilty "sometimes it's okay to be crazy-silly" pleasure. Thanks to everyone who's been tolerating my crazy; double thanks to everyone who's been helping me with it. And now, today's cage match updates:

Over in the Fourth Annual BSC Review Tournament, Toby has managed to make it to round three. So far, she's defeated both Butcher's Turn Coat and Brett's The Warded Man...but now she's going up against Juliet Marillier's Heart's Blood, and the race remains too close to call. Rally! Help Toby progress! Especially since yuki_onna's Palimpsest is still swinging (currently against The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V. S. Redick), and there's a wacky bonus comic strip in it for you if we wind up facing off in the final round. Pretty please?

Meanwhile, over in the GIRL FIGHT TONIGHT, Toby has made it to the Elite Eight, and needs only to smack down Hunter from Neverwhere to make a clean sweep of her bracket! Woo! From here, the winner goes up against the winners of other brackets, which means she'd have the opportunity to get beat down by a Discworld girl. You know you want to see that.

Go forth, vote, and keep Toby kicking ass!

In which Seanan is consumed by work.

Ah, Spring in California. When the grass is green, the sky is blue, the birds sing outside your bedroom window at five o'clock in the morning like little feathered assholes, and a young author's mind turns to thoughts of copyedits. And rewrites. And word counts. And deadlines. And did I mention that I'm mildly insane, like, all the time right now?

Right now, I have open on my desktop two short stories ("Through This House," starring Toby and the gang, and "Build A Better..." starring Alice and Thomas and the mice), the current manuscript for Deadline, and the sixth of the Sparrow Hill Road stories ("Last Dance With Mary Jane"). I don't have The Brightest Fell open, but that's because this is a Deadline day. The two alternate, to try to preserve the last thin slivers of my sanity. In addition, I'm working on essays, interviews, other short pieces...

Someone asked me recently why I'm obsessing about Internet cage matches and art cards and bad zombie movies. The answer is simple: because they're silly and harmless and don't actually care whether I have pants on. And I need the break.

I'm about three days out from going into overdrive on Feed, which will consume my life until the page proofs for An Artificial Night arrive. Those will consume my life for a while, and then go away just in time for my editorial revisions on Deadline. And so it goes, and so it goes. So if you're wondering why I seem a little bit, well, shallow right now, it's because the deep end of the pool is filled with sea serpents and other toothy things, and I am enjoying the remainder of my toes.