It’s been a busy few weeks and it’s bound to get busier as Mr. Wonderful and I leave tomorrow for the Rocky Mountains for some holiday cheer with family. We’ll be stopping in Denver briefly, then driving eight hours to Farmington, New Mexico, where my in-laws recently moved. Farmington is a bigger coal mining town than the last one. It actually has an airport! Speaking of coal mining – does anyone have recommendations on good coal mining romance novels? (accident-free ones please!)

Photo left: Mr. Wonderful and I showing off the Pike Place Market to visiting family. We heart Seattle!

All I want for Christmas…
I’ve been reading a lot of romantic suspense in November and December, gobbling up most of Suzanne Brockmann’s backlist and enjoying Roxanne St. Claire’s Bullet Catcher series. My suitcase is packed for the holidays with the last few CDs of Brockmann’s INTO THE FIRE and the DEATH ANGEL audiobook by Linda Howard (good for long car rides!). Additionally, I’ve stuffed a number of Harlequin Romantic Suspense and Silhouette Nocturne books in my bag, because I think I might want to target the Nocturne line with my latest paranormal manuscript. I’m also bringing NETHERWOOD by Michele Lang and a victorian paranormal by Emma Holly. Oh! There’s nothing like books for the holidays! Fa-la-la!!

Everyday Heroes
The best contestant in the Seattle Gingerbread Village was a multistory house featuring firefighters, policemen, medics and other professions that save lives every day. The Village raises money for Juvenile Diabetes and is on display at the Seattle Sheraton from now until January 4, 2009. Entries are designed and built by local architecture firms, though this year “Everyday Heroes” was the only entry displaying architectural creativity. We visited the village last weekend when Mr. Wonderful’s brother was in town visiting.

SNOPACALYPSE!
Though every holiday season in Sea-town is packed with festive events, this one’s been exceptionally eventful due to the Seattle Snopacalypse. With a few inches of winter white that would be laughed at anywhere else, the city has closed down. It would be fun, except the holiday race my running buddy and I had been training for was cancelled the morning of the event (after repeated emails stating “don’t worry about the snow – the race is still on!”). Psych! We looked cute in our costumes anyway, and spread Christmas cheer around Greenlake that morning in lieu of running 12Ks through downtown Kirkland. Next year we’ll probably sign up for the Jingle Bell Run instead, which did not fall victim to the weather.

Presents for Me?
For Christmas Mr. Wonderful gave me a gift certificate for a professionally designed website by Will Design for Chocolate, a designer that specializes in author sites (including Brenda Novak’s site). Stay tuned for a new look sometime after February. Ideas?

Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday. May you find peace and joy in the coming year!

Katie MacAlister, another wonderful SEATTLE author, has long been one of my favorite reads for her spunky characters and lol humor. One of my first romance novels was her book Men in Kilts and her Aisling Grey, Guardian, series is awesome. I adore Jim, the demon newfoundland.

KATIECON 2009? MAYBE…

Recently, some of the lovely folk over on the message forum have been talking about arranging a Minion Meet/Get-Together/mini KatieCon in the Seattle environs, since they know I am a shy little hermit who doesn’t travel much.

I started thinking about that, and after talking to my darling agent Michelle, we decided that rather than have just a couple of hours over a tea, we’d like to do a day-long event. The event would be held in the meeting room of a hotel, with one meal catered by the hotel (they do a great job with food). We’d also likely have some amusements–Michelle wants poker with prizes being exchanged for chips, rather than money (don’t ask Michelle about her Puzzle Pirates poker addiction–it’s just too, too shameful)–and probably a Q&A session with us both, books to be signed, a raffle benefitting a local charity, giveaways, etc.

This would not be a conference in the sense of workshops, agent appointments, etc. It would instead be a gathering of people who wanted to get together for a day to talk about dragons and Dark Ones, scarf down some delicious food, and generally have a good time.

Originally we were thinking of this fall for the KatieCon, but after consulting with Michelle, we feel April or May of next year would be better. Since attendance will be limited to keep me sane, I’d like to hear from those of you who would be interested in coming. There would be no charge for the event other than your travel and lodging expenses (if applicable), etc., and would likely be held on a Saturday. I have a May 2009 book, so it might be fun to have the event in the middle to end of April, so I could pass out early copies of the book.

If you are interested in coming to the Seattle area (the hotel where I’d have the event is actually in Bellevue, which is right next to Seattle) for this get-together, please drop me an e-mail (katie@katiemacalister.com) with:

• A vote for a Saturday in April 2009
• A vote for a Saturday in May 2009
• A vote for some other time

Once I see how many people are really interested in attending, then I will be able to make some decisions about dates, attendance limit, etc. Questions and comments are also welcome, so let me know what you think about the whole idea!

Best,

Katie

Did someone say Puzzle Pirates??? Funniest book ever (if you’ve played Puzzle Pirates)- Blow Me Down. I’ll be there, taking pictures and notes for you poor souls who don’t live in the most beautiful place in the world, the Pacific Northwest.

If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading Katie (I’ve read all but 2 of her books!), may I strongly suggest you read You Slay Me, the first book in the Aisling Grey, Guardian series.

I’ve been reading From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Robert Olen Butler, and his description of writers as artists is so inspiring I have to share part of it with you:

You must… have the highest aspirations for yourselves as writers-the desire to create works of fiction that will endure, that reflect and articulate the deepest truth about the human condition…. Art does not come from ideas. Art does not come from the mind. Art comes from the place where you dream. Art comes from your unconscious; it comes from the white-hot center of you. (p10-13)

Today I attended the Pioneer Square Art Walk for the first time (I know, I don’t get out much!) to see my aunt and uncle’s art studio in the 300 South Washington Street Artist Lofts. One of the artists in the building, Barbara Noonan, asked me to sit for her because she liked my hat and she gave me the picture she drew. Below photos, clockwise left to right: Me sitting for Barbara, me and Barbara with the portrait, The portrait of me by Barbara, and Shirley Temple by my uncle John Brady.

My aunt and uncle are in the studio twelve hours a day seven days a week painting. I wish I could make myself write that much! Ariel Brady (below left) is currently working on Foo Fighters and Johnny O. Brady (below right) is painting women actresses from the golden age of cinema. John also runs the Seattle Figure Drawing Meet Up Group.

Yesterday will go down in history with the opening of the Seattle South Lake Union Trolley, the first streetcar line in 25 years. Buy your tee shirt here or visit Kapow Coffee in South Lake Union when you ride. Solving all the cities transportation woes, the S.L.U.T. connects Paul Allentown with Westlake Mall, cutting what would be a half-hour walk into a 10 minute ride in this a high commute area. During December the streetcar is free: making the Seattle S.L.U.T. a Cheap Trick. It was a smooth ride with full carriages as Seattlites flocked to try the new toy. Your intrepid reporter and sometime city planner Ciaralira was there in the trenches to take the maiden voyage and report back to her eager fans.

Great things about the S.L.U.T.:

It was free. It was clean. It didn’t smell like a bus, but like a new car. A barbershop quartet serenaded me at the South Lake Union Park stop. Starbucks gave me a free sample peppermint hot chocolate at the end of my ride. Some salon gave me a goodie bag at the end of my ride in the other direction. I got free stickers.

Not-So-Great things about the S.L.U.T.:

There will never be a time when I will need to travel between Allentown and Westlake. It gets stuck in traffic too. The real traffic tangles- I-5, the 520 floating bridge, Ballard- will be completely unaffected by the S.L.U.T.

IF the city were to put in trolley lines all over, connecting the major commuter routes and especially the high density areas that it has created with commercial hubs, then…well then Seattle could really be considered a first class city, not a frontier town of highly-caffeinated computer nerds. There used to be streetcar lines all over the city and many of the streets are still extra-wide to accommodate them. Currently the city has no funding plans for further development. Separately, the city of Shoreline is putting in Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along Aurora Blvd (aka highway 99) and King County Executive Ron Sims has promised to put in BRT lines through the county connecting poor neglected Ballard, which voters approved in the last election. Sound Transit is still building it’s single light rail line from Northgate to the airport, with plans to connect the University of Washington eventually.

Let’s not even mention the Monorail. (Shown passing the S.L.U.T. overhead at left.)

What makes mass transit effective? It needs to be Reliable – to get commuters where they want to go when they want to get there. It needs to be Affordable – cheaper than taking a car. It needs to be Efficient – to get commuters there faster than taking a car. Why would a person take mass transit if driving a car can get you there in half the time? Studies have shown that commuters are unwilling to make multiple transfers on multiple different forms of transportation. This is the problem. The state, the county, the city of Seattle and the surrounding cities need to work TOGETHER for ONE, EFFICIENT, RELIABLE, and AFFORDABLE system.

But, hey, I gave up saving the world through smart planning. I’m left to make snarky comments, sing jesting songs, and enjoy my time riding the Seattle S.L.U.T.

Early this morning, braving the cold and a few lazy snowflakes, thousands of hearty Seattlites descended on downtown Seattle to participate in the 2007 Arthritis Foundation Jingle Bell 5K Run & Walk. Santa led the race in a yellow sports car (he’s a twenty-first century elf). It was a sea of red and green; hats sporting Christmas trees, antlers, elf ears, holiday viking horns, Santa caps, Grinch wigs, and even a menorah; Reindeer pushing little elves in sleigh-strollers; winged Sugar Plum Fairies dancing with a flurry of Snowflakes; Felt christmas trees and a gingerbread man. The air was filled with the jingle of bells tied to our running shoes and palpable cheer, warming the chilly air. I got positively overheated by the middle of the race. We ran along the I-5 express lanes, jumping the cracks and holes of the broken pavement. Hundreds of voices bounced off the tunnel walls as the crowd burst into a spontaneous rendition of “Jingle Bells”. This is what the Christmas Spirit is to me: neighbors and strangers joining together by the thousands to celebrate the season and raise money for a worthy cause. Happy Holidays!