News

Okay, October has been a rough month for me and I am a little behind. So I am asking for everyone’s patience. I really will get to it all, I promise. So what have I been doing?
Orders! We have had lots of orders coming in for shirts and stuff. Seems some of you are getting a jump on Christmas and ordering early. Much appreciated!
Charities. We have donated lots lately. Here’s hoping they bring in lots of bucks for those groups. But that also means my figuring out what we will auction or send to a specific group. Including the USS Enterprise. To all the men and women on the ship, oops almost said boat. We sent you a box with lots of goodies. We know you cannot be with your family during the holidays. But we hope the contents will make it a little easier and the long hours a little more bearable until your tour ends. Thank you Michele F. for asking us to help with that.
Charms! I have designs done and to the production company for every book title in the Anita series. Hope to have them all by the end of November. Still trying to find a good bracelet to hang them all on. But we will offer them as individuals for necklaces.
Also coffee cups. I have a design for Bloody Bones finally I think Laurell will like. So look for that soonest. Also one for Danse Macabe.
Morphing coffee cups. The kind that are black until you fill em with hot liquid and then a design shows up. Working on stuff that will be cool on there.
Micah Shirt. That has gone to the production company also. Black shirt with green leopard eyes and the phrase: “Whatever you need….”
Christmas cards. Okay, if you been out to Cafeshops.com/lkhprem, especially in the Petite Morte section, well we have some wacky or strange ideas for Christmas cards and those designs are up or going up soonest. (For once! A job where my stranger sense of humor and twisted personality is an asset!). So to a former boss, I should say bosses as we went through three in less than six months, who missed the mushroom reference on the outside of my cubicle and didn’t get why all the mushrooms were named after my fellow employees. Thppppttt!
I do not take responsibility for all the designs for Christmas. Laurell is responsible for some of the concepts. You should see the ones we discarded as too strange for even us. But we also have three others in the works.
The fan club Christmas card. Something special this year and I hope you will all enjoy it. But getting my model to where I could get her to sit still long enough for me to photo her has been hard. I agreed that if she would pose for it, I wouldn’t share her name. I hope she doesn’t scream when she sees what I did to it. Maybe I will just mail her one and not take it over personally like I planned. Then again, she knows where I live.
Interviews. We have had a lot of requests for interviews as of late. Especially from the foriegn publishers. We have found the method that works best is for me to ask Laurell the questions, tape the answers and then type it all up. Else Laurell will spend days going over the answers trying to get them perfect so this is the speediest method. Unfortunately I do not type as fast as Laurell talks, so it has meant rewinding a lot.
The upcoming release of Seduced By Moonlight has eaten up time. Trying to arrange two venues, one in St. Louis and the other will be….drum roll….Huntington Beach California. Sorry New York, again we were told New Yorkers do not come out for events. We are going to try and arrange something later in the year in New York if possible. But we did magnets that will be given out and door prizes at least in St. Louis. Since Laurell is not touring this time, we have been trying to come up with promotional ideas. So far they have been shot down as too expensive or impractical. Suggestions are welcome!
Center for the Book November 15th. I have arranged to have it filmed. Hoping we can put it on CD and more folks will get to see and hear Laurell. She is really a great speaker in person. We call it The Traveling Laurell Show. She is funny, witty and will be reading from the next Anita book as well as signing and doing a Q&A.
Marcon in Ohio in May. Laurell will be GOHing.
Juggling around and trying to fit in more of the con and personal appearance requests Laurell recieves for next year and 2005. We wish she could do them all but that is not practical. So we are trying to choose those where she hasn’t been and places she would like to visit.
Research. Looking up dead words. Words that are no longer in use but may still be used by the fey. Worse, is so many words have changed meaning over the years. So while it had one meaning originally, it now has a completely different one so choices have to be made carefully.
Ireland. Yes, I have been researching ancient Ireland. Mostly for where Damien was probably last human. I have probably just about ran through an entire cartridge on the printer printing pages about Ireland for Laurell to peruse. And then going back for more indepth view and history on some areas. And may I just say, Ireland is really cool!
Circus of the Damned will be out in hardback. They didn’t say when, but copyedits needed to be made. Not that I do more than go through and mark the spots that Laurell needs to fix or change. But we hope it gets rid of the YAABI’s.
The disappearing car will be resolved!
And as always there is the mail. I am answering everyone as fast as I can. And the occassional response from Laurell herself requires I type the letter and get it out.
And I forgot to record the changes to the first chapter of Seduced in my rush to get it in the mail. So I gotta get that back to post on the website.
So you can see, I have busy. And I really will get to those pics the Marines (thanks Brynda!) in Egypt sent me of Sigmund there and all the other assorted stuff that is slowly engulfing my desk in a pile of papers. Almost like a slow flow of lava. Lets all hope it doesn’t roll off the edge and bury a dog. Laurell would never forgive me. Though they do bear half the responsibility for ruining my CD Rom drive. I bought another but haven’t had the chance to install it.
Hope everyone has a scary Halloween, or not as suits you.
Darla