The Patron Saint of Mistaking Your Pint of Ale for Karate Potion

(As seen on a coaster at Kieran's Irish Pub)

 "Dear Saint Arnold, watch over as I drink my glorious Finnegans Amber Ale.  And should I have more than one, let me not succumb to strange delusions of the ability to go toe-to-toe with a large Samoan bouncer named Taga. Guide my tongue that it may not carelessly speak the words, "bozo", or "punk", or "sheep f***er."  Guide of my hand that I may not attempt to demonstrate its lethality against a parking meter, a paper towel dispenser, or the elderly.  Let me not refer to my appendages as guns, cannons, or Fat Man and Little Boy.  And grant me the wisdom to realize that pinching the back of a man's neck will not render him unconscious.  But heaven forbid, should my honor be threatened by an agent of evil, let that agent be small, like a leprechaun.  And in a wheelchair."

Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody. 

If you design websites, or put anything up online, this research is handy stuff. Test subjects were found to both retain more information and enjoy their reading experience more when text was presented in certain ways.  Pictures that were merely decorative were flat out ignored while ones featuring "real" people were examined more than ones featuring models.  But the real reason I post the link here is for the humor value of these findings:

"Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.  [The researcher] adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site."

 Well, there ya go.  Now I'm off to "browse the kennel club."  If ya know what I mean...

After much delay, I have finally finished the sequel to Singer of Souls. My father's death made it very hard to concentrate on writing and I am thankful to my very understanding editor, Patrick Nielsen-Hayden for allowing me the time to heal and get back to work.  

 It's a very different novel from it's predecessor.  I have two main characters this time, Douglas's brother and sister, and I wrote it in 3rd person limited, following the two protagonists around as they traverse very different story arcs that eventually converge in what I hope is a satisfying and surprising conclusion.  The addition of small interludes between chapters allowed me to have a good deal of fun experimenting with different styles.  The interludes are written from the viewpoints of a large number of side characters, including evil German faeries, Native American Gods, consumption vampires, and some characters from the first book like Martes and Aine.  Made for a lot of different and fun research, which I always enjoy.  My office has once again filled with odd books on magic, firearms, vampires in 19th century New England, hierarchy of Edinburgh's police force--you know, the usual stuff.  I've got to clean up and get ready for the next project, which I think will be finishing the epic fantasy that my agent is currently shopping the first 50k words of.