We think we’ve finally gotten accustomed to having a guest in our house. She rises early and posts while we’re snoozing. Sweet. If only we weren’t conditioned to hit the keyboard before our first drops of caffeine hit the bloodstream, life would be ideal. Besides, we’re sure someone would miss us if we disappeared completely. As the meeting gods are (temporarily) sated, we can return to our normal life of sloth and snark. Not necessarily in that order. We’re sure we have lots and lots of things to say, but first we have to toss out the question that kept

Today is the official release date of The Stone Prince, as well as my birthday. I declare this Gena Day. I have an urge to drive to every bookstore in my state and see where they’ve placed my books, count the books to see how many are there (so I can go back later and see how many have sold), and perhaps act as a Price is Right girl, oohing and ahhing over them. I will, however, resist this urge. I will be a big girl today. I will not obsess. I will not be neurotic. I will be calm

It is said that to get published, you must have an agent. And to get an agent, you must be published. We’ve taken classes where instructors have implied that the only path to publication is through an agent — yet this always seems to be news to the editors we encounter. Yes, like everything else in this business, the rules are completely made up by people who take their individual situations and extrapolate them to the entire universe. And, yes, we do it all the time. That’s merely because we’re always right — it’s only appropriate that we share our

I’m headed out to do a stock signing today. I won’t sit at a table and wait for people to ask me to sign it for them (or ask me where the bathroom is), or anything like that. No, I’ll go to the storage room and sign all the books the bookstore has before they put them on the shelves. (I hope) Now, I’ve never done this before. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to call ahead and say “Hey, is it okay if I visit?” What if this is a no-no? What if they really don’t want me to

If you want the down and dirty truth, I’m obsessed with book rankings. I spend way too much time stalking Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. And what gets me is that the rankings can change by thousands in a matter of minutes (seconds, if you want to be technical). How does that happen? Canceled orders? A mad rush of orders? Aliens abducting everyone who buys my book so their secret society won’t be revealed?? Can you guess what I want to do every time my number jumps?: A) scatter little pieces of my computer all over my office. B) scream, rant, and

We’d like to thank Gena for her time — and remind her that we are the Master now. She must dance to our tune until we tire of toying with her. We will, however, give her a few minutes off to eat. Well, that seemed like enough time to us. Now it’s back to work. First, we’d like to remind Gena that when she told us things in strict confidence, we had our fingers crossed behind our back. Probably, we should have mentioned this earlier, but things get so crazy around here. We bring this up because we’re going to