Wrapping Up 2014

I have been truly blessed this year. No shit. I didn't realize how blessed I had been until I sat down to make a list of the fourteen best and worst moments of my 2014 and I could not come up with fourteen "worst" moments...or fourteen truly bad moments, for that matter. As the sun sets on another year I can say honestly that this has been the best year I've had in a very long time. Of course there were bumps in the road and there were bad days and there were bouts of depression and problems with my body and all of that crap that is, at least for me, life, but when I consider where I was last year and where I am right now I know that following my gut has seriously paid off in 2014. 
The biggest example of this was my idea to move in with my boyfriend two months after we met/got together. Even now I cannot believe we made it through the bumps in our road with the little bit of history we had when we got in that fucking car together. lmao I spent something like a week and a half with my boyfriend at his dad's last year. He was trying to find work in my disaster of a home town at the time and he was having no luck but he was doing odd jobs while he was looking and one day while I was waiting for him to get back after one such work day I missed him like hell. I remember thinking 'What the hell am I going to do when I go home if a few hours apart has me missing him like this?' I was really surprised by the whole thing. Yes, I knew I was in love with him already but I have always been a firm believer in the idea that time spent apart is good and that moving too fast is really really bad. He came home that day and I put it out of my head until I went home and I realized I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't stand the days (sometimes a whole week...god forbid) apart with him down in Circleville and me up here in Columbus. I texted him (classy, I know) with this crazy fucking idea about moving into my mother's basement while he looked for work expecting him to reply that it was a terrible idea and it would be best to wait. Instead, he told me it sounded great. A week later we were moving our few possessions into the basement of my Mommy Dearest. For months we went through the financial bullshit that comes along with two people starting over and one being unable to work. I took alot of my shit out on him because each time we were broke I felt like it was completely my fault for not being able to work and I was so sure that he felt the same way...that's an issue we still have. He doesn't feel that way. He has never done anything but praise me in all my housewifely glory and I believe he feels that way but I am not the type of person that was mentally made to stay at home and wait for someone else to bring home the bacon so sometimes my bullshit makes me neurotic and a real pain in the ass. He's amazing in his ability to take it all in stride (and in his million and one abilities besides). Now that we have our home, the money thing is sometimes worse and sometimes better. Money all around is like that at times. But we're still here, together, weathering out whatever storms happen to blow on by. We make one hell of a team for the most part. And even though it was probably the biggest impulsive move I've ever made, moving in together and getting our place were numbers one and two on my personal list of the best things about this year.
Another gut feeling I'm glad I went with this year was the idea to self-publish again. That give-away last week? Altogether I gave away around six hundred (six-fucking-hundred) copies. Beauty and the Beast made up the bulk of it but that didn't matter to me. I am sure that the great literary heroes of our time would think nothing of that number but to me it was HUGE! If I can give away that many copies I know I can sell that many. Getting the feedback I've been getting on goodreads has been great as well. The constructive criticism and the compliments have been equally helpful and hearing people say that they would like to read the series has inspired me to actually get off my ass with the Rapunzel re-write. I'm actually enjoying it and it's been a trip to see where the story is going now that I know how to shut up and listen while the story and the characters take the lead. I was not so skilled at that when I was fifteen writing it the first time around. If I had been, I wouldn't be going through the re-write. lol But overall I am more optimistic about my literary future than I have been in a long time. 
My gut told me 2014 would be good to me, that twenty-seven would be good to me, and it was right. So one thing I promise myself is that I will go with my instincts more in 2015. Sometimes it takes feeling like you have little left to loose before you have the balls to do that and sometime in 2013 I finally reached that point, I suppose. 
This year was really good for books and music too. Anne Rice's return to Lestat was awesome (my amazing boyfriend got the book for me as an anniversary present last month...Prince Charming indeed...) as was Stephen King's sequel to the Shinning (Dr. Sleep), Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking, everything Neil Gaiman, getting into older books by Starhawk for the first time, finding really great books thanks to my friends on goodreads (like You...amazing/creepy/twisted Book Winner of 2014 for me), and many others that kept me entertained this year. New albums by Stevie Nicks and Seether, new singles by Marilyn Manson, and being turned on to new (for me) bands like Fever Ray and Daughter (both amazing to write to) all kept my ears engaged. All of the great entertainment was of course tempered by loss like the death of Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, and Mickey Rooney. Then there were the personal triumphs and devastation I've read or heard from my friends all year including a number of births and nearly as many losses. I was very lucky this year. My family is still intact. After years of losing people one right after the other, I am grateful for every single year we have without a death. This makes the eleventh such year. Like I said...I've been blessed. 
Usually I start a year off with promises I make myself. This year I really don't have anything specific I want to focus on. I just want to keep getting better as a woman, as a writer, as a witch, as a person. I hope 2015 is more peaceful for the country and I promise not to intentionally add to ALL of the turmoil while also promising that I won't turn my back on a chance to stand up for injustices I see in the world around me. I just want the best...for you and yours, for me and mine, for the country, the continent, and the world. I promise to do what I can to make that dream a reality. But I am completely at a loss for promises that detail such a promise. lol
I know I said it in the last post but I am saying it again in case you missed it. I hope that 2015 brings all of you everything you need and so much more. I wish you all good health, prosperity, love, and happy days ahead of you. And I hope that everyday, whether it is good or bad, you find at least one reason to smile. :)

Some of my favorites of 2014:

Stevie Nicks- Lady (From 24 Carat Gold...and the whole album is amazing. )

Seether-Words as Weapons (From Isolate and Medicate...also amazing)

Marilyn Manson-Third Day of a Seven Day Binge (from the upcoming new album which drops next month....NEW MANSON!!! Do I need to say more?)

Fever Ray-If I had a Heart (I know it came out before this year but I've just now gotten into the band and while everyone knows this song... 

is actually the one I like the best and write the most to....)

Daughter-If You Leave (full album): And speaking of writing....this is my current writing buddy. I assume that will last as long as the part I am currently working on before it's back to Fever Ray and then who knows?  


I know I had favorite shows and movies this year as well but, me being me, I can't think of any....well...That's not totally true. There was Archer. Again, not a new show but new to me and it was probably my new favorite show of 2014. But movies? Nope. Still drawing a blank....

At any rate....

Holiday Give-Away and Catching Up

Happy Holidays to everyone, regardless of what you are celebrating this December (and happy December to you if you celebrate nothing this time of year). I want to start off by telling you all about my give away and then we can catch up on everything that's new since the last time (it's only been about four months...what could possibly be new? lmao). From December 21st-25th, both Castles Made of Sand and Beauty and the Beast are completely free. I wanted to do this for the entire month so I could cover ALL of the holidays celebrated in December but Amazon will only let me do it for five days every three months. One day when I'm as rich as Oprah, I'll get you all something super cool for the holidays but until then...please accept my grown-up version of a macaroni picture ("Look, mom, I made it myself...."). hahaha
The link to Castles:
http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Made-Sand-Keair-Snyder-ebook/dp/B006K1YN2E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418323633&sr=8-2&keywords=keair+snyder 
The link to Beauty and the Beast:
http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Beast-Vampire-Fairy-Tales-ebook/dp/B00K425LCG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418323633&sr=8-1&keywords=keair+snyder 

On to other news....
How are you all handling the holidays so far? Are you stressed as hell? I've been working through Silver Ravenwolf's Great Release Challenge (it's been a December tradition since around 2011 for me) and it always helps me ease that stress. I am also still working The Greystone Path as a seeker and that provides me with plenty of opportunity to release stress. Some things are going great while others are not so great but that, in a nutshell, is life. And even with the gritty parts, I can still see a major improvement in my life compared with last year at this time. So, overall, I have no complaints. I am looking forward to Yule and, while I am dreading New Years Eve (like I do every year...I hate endings), I am looking forward to the New Year. Next October I graduate with my Masters in Science (of psychology) and as long as I can grit my teeth and bear it for ten months more, I am promising myself that I'm done with school after that and from that point on, my time will be dedicated to writing full time. I am hoping that promise will get me through every day between now and then that I grit my teeth and say, "There is no reason to do this anymore and all I want to do is quit!" If I knew how to quit things, honestly, I would be writing full time now. As it stands....ten...more...months. hahaha  
I hope all of you have a beautiful December. I hope that there was something about 2014 that made you smile. I hope that your losses were few and that the pain from those losses heals quickly. I hope that you saw some piece of a dream realized. I hope that, overall, you are better off right now than you were this time last year. And if you are not, if things went terribly bad this year and you are just ready to put 2014 behind you, I hope that you see light at the end of the tunnel soon, that the distress becomes an opportunity for something better, and that 2015 brings you blessings, good health, love, joy, and hope. If you have that, in a way, you have everything. Just keep smiling. :)

The Death of Robin Williams and Depression

Two days ago we lost the greatest comedian and one of the greatest people I believe I will see in this lifetime. I saw the news on yahoo, right there on the front page, and before I saw the cause of his death at all, I was heartsick. Then I read that it was probably suicide and that he probably killed himself because of depression and my heart sank. My first thought was that it seemed a cruel joke that someone who brought joy to so many lives could not find a shred of happiness left to hold onto at the end. But I know the drill. Because I, like millions of others scattered throughout this amazing planet of ours, suffer from depression. For me it is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, probably inherited from my amazing grandmother. Along with her attitude and her soft heart where anything soft and cuddly is concerned, I also inherited her despair and her occasional feelings of hopelessness, the ability to be there for everyone but myself, and, thankfully, her ability to hang on despite that. So while Robin's death and the cause and the fact that it occurred by his own hand is still a terrible tragedy to me and I still wish he had reached out to someone, anyone, that night instead of taking his own life, I know why he didn't. I know he felt that despair, that hopelessness, and the isolation that comes with it, as if there isn't a single soul in the entire world who could possibly understand why you are sitting there thinking of taking your own life when it appears to them that nothing is wrong. The truth about depression is that nothing has to be wrong the way everyone else defines it. Hell, the day need only end in Y to have you there, sitting on the floor, thinking about how much better everyone would be if you were gone...
I debated on whether to write about this. I thought that perhaps it would be best if I just focused on all the laughs and the work and the way that he touched so many lives. But everyone else seems to be discussing it. And I do try to keep it real on this blog. So it seems like the ultimate act of my pride to refuse to talk about it. The fact is, in addition to feeling completely isolated when the worst of the depression comes, I do not talk about how I feel as a rule because of my pride. I've told myself all my life that strength is keeping your mouth shut about your problems and dealing with them yourself, be they physical or mental. So when I have a bad day...a really bad day...I smile and I say I am fine and I wait until I am alone to cry and then I go back out to those who love me and I continue to smile, continue to say I'm fine, until I am fine again. I also crack jokes, sometimes about the most inappropriate things, terrible things that have happened in my life. Why? Because if you can't laugh about it how the hell will you get through it, right? 
A lot of Robin's stand-up comedy was full of jokes like that, jokes about his divorces and his alcoholism and other fucked up things that happened throughout his life. I have no doubt that there were probably times when jokes like that saved him from hurting himself in the past. His work may have saved his life many times before because I know that no one thinks of suicide once, does it, and has done with it. Suicide is something that sticks in your mind, you hold the image tight, you know how you would do it and where you could do it so you won't be an imposition to your family, you think about what it might feel like to have the life slipping from you....but I, personally, never think about what it would feel like to stand on the other side and realize I had just fucked up in a BIG way. Then again, I never intend to do it. But I do think about it. On the worst of the days with Crohn's, when the worst of the pain is slamming through my body and I am telling myself I cannot take one more fucking moment of it, I close my eyes and....
"It was in the bathroom, with the kitchen knife, and the moron with the slit wrists in the tub did it...." Like some incredibly morbid game of Clue.
I nearly tried it once. I was eleven years old. It was about three years before I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression, and it was one of the worst times of my life. I had this piece of glass and I still carry the scar on my arm where I tried it out to see if it was sharp enough to cut through the vein in my wrist. It wasn't. So I got up to search for something sharper, found a knife, and sat on the edge of my twin bed to finish the job. That's when my baby sister, two years old at the time, walked in with her eyes wide asking me why I was bleeding from the shallow cut I made moments before. That snapped me back into reality. Realizing this precious baby could have come in on her sister bleeding to death made me realize I was being a damned fool....and that afternoon made me believe I had lost my fucking mind.
It took me two years to recover from that bought of depression, mostly because I was too young to tell myself that everything, no matter how hopeless it seems, is temporary. One day you look back on the worst times of your life, those times that seemed like they would destroy you, and as long as you don't kill yourself you will have the chance to smile and tell yourself, "Look. I made it. I got through it." My life mottos became 'This too shall pass' and 'Keep on keeping on'. I still chant them in my head over and over like a mantra on the bad days. And that whole 'everything is temporary' thing worked well for about a decade. Until Crohn's and its buddy epilepsy joined the Rheumatoid Arthritis and the uterine/ovarian problems I have that may make it impossible for me to ever have a child....All of these things....so painful, so degenerative, and so very very permanent. Nothing isolates more than the pit of depression and nothing shoves you in that pit more than physical pain 24/7 and the total loss of your quality of life in your 20's. So again, I had to find something to tell myself to keep me from getting the kitchen knives out to test which one might cut through vein. I had to fight even harder with music and meditation and anything I could tell myself to make me go on another day against the depression. And I am still fighting. All the fucking time. But you know what? I'm still here. I have every odd stacked against me but I am still here. Not because I'm stronger or wiser or better, somehow, than Robin Williams and the millions more who have taken their lives, but simply because I have to see what is around every single corner. I am the person who will finish a book that sucks half-way through it because I have to know how it ends. That is why I am still alive. Seems pretty silly, huh? But it's true. I'll be damned if I kill myself the day before my life would have changed drastically for the best and any day could be that day soooo.....
I keep seeing comments from people pleading with those who suffer from depression to talk about it. Maybe some will. Look. It worked on me. But if you are close to someone with depression, I am pleading with you to see the differences in them when the despair comes. Notice the differences in when they are actually fine and when they lie to you saying they are fine. Because when your friend or your loved one is at his/her worst, she/he is feeling like there is no one on earth that will understand, no one else that ever felt this way, and no way to explain it. And when he/she is truly suicidal? You won't know until it's too late. It isn't easy to try to explain to a "normal" person that you woke up feeling like you would be better off dead and, what's more, that everyone else would be better off too because the typical response for that is "Why? What's wrong?" and we have no answer for that. So don't wait for someone you love to tell you that he or she is depressed or suicidal. Don't wait for answers we don't have. Notice the changes and just be there. Show the people you love that no matter what the depression is saying, it will get better, at least for a little while. It's always darkest before the dawn. And it is possible to make it through the night.
As for Robin Williams, I hope he is feeling peace today. I hope the memory of that beautiful man who tried so hard to make the world happy lasts forever. And I hope that if he taught the world nothing else, he taught us all how to laugh through the pain until the dawn comes again. He will be so missed...

Giveaway for Castles Made of Sand

In honor of the forty-fifth anniversary of Woodstock, I am giving the book away from August 15th through the 17th. There is a description for the book on amazon, of course, and I also have an entire blog that has stuff related to the book like music, parts of the story, etc. So, if you are interested,  the link to the book is http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Made-Sand-Keair-Snyder-ebook/dp/B006K1YN2E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1407870469&sr=8-2&keywords=keair+snyder
And the link to the blog is http://castlesmadeofsandthenextstep.blogspot.com/ but keep in mind that it has been ages since I've done anything with that blog and it was worked on probably fifteen edits ago. haha 
Also, Castles and Beauty and the Beast are both enrolled in the book lending program so if you have subscribed to that, it is always free for you. :)

Lughnasadh/Lammas

Today is Lughnasadh or Lammas depending on what you prefer to call it. It is the first of three harvest festivals and it kicks off a month that I personally dread year after year. I have, however, come to see the purpose in the "curse" of August, as I call it. Looking back, it is clear that the things that have gone wrong during that month in the past have all related to the things that I needed to change or cast off. And that makes sense with the energy of this Sabbat as well. Today is a day to think about your life, to reflect on what has grown and what has come into your life that you wanted since spring, and to think about the things that you need to discard or let go of. It is not an easy ride, this letting go, but with me, I know that if I don't do it myself, August will do it for me in a very messy way.....
 Lughnasadh is one of the Cross Quarter Sabbats that was celebrated by the Ancient Celts. It was a Harvest Festival, one of the fire festivals, and it was a celebration of the God Lugh. Lugh is a harvest God, as one might assume given the nature of this Sabbat, and he was also known as the Master of Skills for his mastery in things like Black Smith work. He is a very talented God and, like all Celtic Deities (or at least all that I know of) he was Tuatha de Dannan, at least partially (his mother was Formoian but in the battle between the two races, he stood and fought with the Tuatha). Traditionally, this Sabbat was a celebration of the harvest of grain. 
Scott Cunningham, in his book'Book of Shadows' described Lughnasadh like this:
"Lughnasadh is the time of the first harvest when the plants of spring wither and drop their fruits or seeds for our use as well as to ensure future crops. Mystically, so too does the God lose His strength as the sun rises farther in the south each day and the nights grow longer. The Goddess watches in sorrow and joy as she realizes that the God is dying and yet lives inside Her as Her child. Lughnasadh, also known as August Eve, Feast of Bread, Harvest Home, and Lammas, wasn't always observed on this day. It originally coincided with the first reapings. As summer passes, Wiccans remember its warmth and bounty in this food we eat. Every meal is an act of attunement with nature and we are reminded that nothing in the universe is constant."
The correspondents for this Sabbat come from 'Season of Witchery' by Ellen Dugan:
Theme: First harvest, goal setting, creativity
Energy: Relaxation, reflection
Deities: Lugh, Rosemerta
Colors: Gold, yellow, green, golden brown
Crystals and stones: Ruby, malachite, blood stone, rutilated quartz (?)
Herbs: Rosemary, hyssop, artemisis, wheat, sage, lavender, thyme
Flowers: Asters, late summer roses, coneflowers, sunflowers, brown-eyed-susans, wild butterfly weed
Scents: Rose, orange, geranium, sage
Decorations: Sunflowers, dried wheat, corn, fresh fruit
Foods: zucchini, green peppers, tomatoes, squash, sweet corn, wheat, blackberries, barely, breads

Anyone who has read my previous posts knows the drill when it comes to the way that I write out the outline of the ritual I perform for the Sabbats. If you have not read any of my previous posts on Sabbats, I begin with Silver Ravenwolf's Incantation from her book 'Solitary Witch' and then I go straight into the ritual from Edain McCoy's book 'Sabbats'. These sources have been invaluable to me in the construction of my own rituals.
                                             Lughnasadh Ritual Outline
Incantation:
"The King and Queen are wed at last while summer's kiss turns fields and grass/The harvest gold and garden gifts find sacrifices on earthen lips./ Witches gather hand and hand/Power raised along the band/Vortex spiral in its quest/force to form I manifest!/ Bonfires, dancing circle round, fruits and produce from the ground/ Offer up a feast of praise while shadows lengthen in the maze/Witches gather hand in hand/ Power raised along the band/ Vortex spiral in its quest/force to form I manifest!/ August sun turns all to bronze, golden children singing songs/ Fireflies flutter in the dusk touching all with faery dust/Witches gather hand in hand/Power raised along the band/Vortex spiral in its quest/Force to form, I manifest!/Dark Lord melts into the night, taking with him summer's light/Merging wishes, law, and might; removing evil from our sight./Witches gather hand in hand/Power raised along the band/Vortex spiral in its quest/force to form I manifest!"
For this ritual you'll need a loaf of bread and a Corn Dolly.
Cast the circle and call quarters. Say:
"Blessed be the season of Lughnasadh,time of the first harvest, time of the earth's bounty born. The womb of the Goddess is open and out spills the grain that sustains us."
Take the bread from the altar and say:
"Many blessings I have been given. I count them now by this bread of the grain of Mother Earth."
Name all the things you are thankful for one by one. With each thing you name, break off a piece of bread and eat it. When you are finished doing this say:
"Thank you, Great Mother. I ask of you humbly that you accept my offering of this bread. May it be used to feed your loved ones in nature."
Put the bread aside so that, when you are finished with your ritual, you can place it outside as a libation (offering) to the faeries and the animals. Take the Grain Dolly from the alter and hold it in your arms like a baby.
"This child of nature is the promise of the Deities fulfilled, the fruit of the union of the Great Mother and her consort, the Grain God. Blessed be the God whose seed plants that life. Blessed be the grain of the earth."
Replace the Dolly on the altar. If you are outdoors and it's night, star-gaze. When you are finished, close the circle and say:
"The circle is open, but never broken.

I understand that many of you may not have a Corn Dolly just lying around. I see no reason why you couldn't substitute it with an ear of corn or something along those lines.  The thing about these Solitary rituals is that they can be modified to fit individual needs. As I said, this is only an outline of the way that I perform the ritual. I hope that this first harvest blesses all of you and I wish you all luck with discarding or letting go of those things that just aren't working for you anymore. That is the hardest part about this Sabbat and this month but it can also be a positive step in your life. :)
                                                    Blessed Lughnasadh!

Summer Solstice Markdown on Beauty and the Beast

With Summer Solstice approaching I thought it was a good time to set up my first sale on Beauty and the Beast. So I enrolled it in this amazon thing called a countdown deal where you have a sale for a period of three days or so and you start with the lowest price you want to sell it for. Gradually the price goes back to normal until the sale ends. I am not sure what the discount price will be on June 21st and 22nd but I set the sale price for the 20th to 99 cents. On the 23rd, it goes back to $3.00. It's a good time to pick up the book if you've thought about it before. It's also a good time to show my appreciation for anyone that gives the book a chance and for the Deities that guided me toward writing in the first place. Cheesy, I know, but you all know I have my moments. lol 

It has been a very crazy week full of all kinds of ups and downs and now that things are starting to stabilize somewhat, I'm working quite a bit on rewriting Rapunzel. I finished the first part that I wanted to work on but I know I can make the writing better throughout the whole book so, even though I really don't wanna, it seems foolish not to rewrite it all. Maybe when I've finished that, Sleeping Beauty will start flowing without me forcing each part I write. I can't wait for that. I can't wait to enter Kila's world. She is such a cool character even though she is the one I never wanted to write. I mean, a vampire witch? That could turn out so cliched on so many levels. But I won't let it. For starters, she's a real witch. She had to learn, to train, to unlock the secrets just like the rest of us witches. She is no Samantha from Bewitched, that's for sure. But in her way, she's much more powerful than the fictional over the top witches we usually see in fantasy stories. And here I am rambling...

Anyway, mark your calenders for the promotion and wish me luck with this rewrite. Also, wish me luck with creating the best vampire witch in fiction. Ya know, as soon as Rapunzel is all spruced up and ready to go out....hahaha

Anne Rice's Return to Lestat and Michael Jackson's Hologram

If there are two artists I love, it's Anne Rice and Michael Jackson. I've been meaning to blog about Anne Rice's return to her vampires for...ohhh...about two months now (since the night she announced the upcoming book on her facebook page) and I've wanted to say something about the hologram performance on the Billboard Music Awards since I saw the clip of it on youtube last week. I also promised a return to normal on this blog in the last post. So here I am, killing three birds with one stone, metaphorically speaking...
To explain how excited I was when I saw Anne's post in March about the release of The Prince Lestat in October, I need to go back to 2002 or 2003 when she announced that she was releasing Blood Canticle and it would be the last book in the Vampire Chronicles...Ever. Those of us that love her vampires were very upset but those of us that would stand by her work regardless of the subject stayed loyal to her even as we tried to imagine a world where a new book featuring Lestat would never exist. Am I being dramatic about this? Probably. But it was one hell of a shocking announcement none the less. I got the book and I read it cover to cover, feeling a bit sad knowing it was the end. Then, as I read the end of the book, I felt like Anne wasn't so sure that it would be her last. If she had been sure, the ending would have been final. She would have found a way to wrap it all up to where no sequel could be possible and anyone who has read Blood Canticle knows that this wasn't the case at all. It was wide open for something more and that gave me hope that maybe, one day, Anne would again go back to her world of vampires. One has to remember that at the time she said she was ending the series, her husband had recently passed away and Lestat was based on Stan so it made perfect sense that she would need time before she was able to return to the fictional representation of her husband. Over a decade I waited... I read about Christ, a hit man on a mission from God, and werewolves. I enjoyed all of it. But I missed Lestat as many of her fans did. Then, at last, months after asking us cryptic questions about our love of Lestat on her facebook page, she told us what we all wanted to hear...The Brat Prince was returning. I almost wish she had waited a few months to announce it. The anticipation is already killing me. But I have no doubt it will be worth it. And how delightful that the book is dropping in my favorite month, three days before my favorite holiday. 
I have read the information available on the book so far. I know that the Talamasca is making a return and that the vampires, for reasons I probably won't understand until I read it, want Lestat to lead them. There is much I have forgotten about the last three books or so in the series so far. Some of the Vampire Chronicles I've read so many times I have them memorized but those later ones I read only once over a decade ago. So I am reading them again to make sure I know what's going on when I read the new book. That's been fun in itself. Right now I'm reading Merrick. I forgot how good that book was, though Lestat was no more than a shadow in the novel. Unfortunately all the crap I have going on right now makes little time for reading so I can't devote entire days to it the way I did when I read it at fourteen. I wish I could. I get lost reading it when I set time aside but I always do with Anne. At any rate, Prince Lestat is already available for pre-order on amazon.com. Ten dollars has been knocked off the list price:

I do not watch music awards. The last time I watched an award's show it was the Grammy's in 2004, I think, when Melissa Etheridge performed for the first time since she went into remission and she did her bad ass tribute to Janis Joplin. Even then, I watched only because there was no youtube and I couldn't miss seeing one of my favorite singers pay homage to my beloved Janis. So last week, when I got on facebook briefly and I saw what appeared to be a newly released Michael Jackson song, I clicked on it having no idea that I was about to see a hologram of the King of Pop performing before a live audience nearly five years after his death. Yes, I suppose you miss some shit when you refuse to watch award shows. Anyone that has read my previous post about my love of Michael knows that this love runs deep so when I saw "him" appear on the stage, I got a little teary-eyed thinking, 'I like the song but this is horrible!' It was too soon, for one thing. When I saw the Tupac hologram sixteen years had passed since his death and it still disturbed me. But Tupac did not have a young daughter that just tried to take her life a year ago because she cannot handle her father's death. He didn't have two sons that are still trying to figure out how to live without the man that raised them alone. If I was upset by what I was watching, what must Michael's kids think? I think the hologram was a perfect example of the fact that we, as a society, do not see celebrities as human beings. We do not think of the people that know them and love them, of how they hurt when that celebrity is gone, we think only of ways to be entertained. I stand by my initial reaction. I like the song. It's actually really good. But the way it was presented was horrible. I hope his kids missed it. I hope his family realizes that, while they are trying to milk each dime from Michael's death, they are supposed to be making life bearable for the kids he left behind. Signing off on live performances by their dead father is probably not a good way to accomplish that. Michael was known for recording many songs that he never put on an album which is where this song came from. The family probably has enough material to release many albums in the years to come. I don't think that is disrespectful to his kids or his legacy. They should stick to that if they are worried about money for themselves or for the kids. Either way, I think it was wrong. That is just my opinion, of course. Maybe Michael himself is somewhere disagreeing with everyone that shares my opinion. He was all about entertaining, after all.