Hello my friends! Today is October 27th, the day Amazon begins shipping Tempest Rising! So, although the official launch isn’t until November 1, it feels like today is mini-launch-day . . . or MiLaDay (said with appropriate Cockney-esque cheek). Ha.

There’s a lot going on around the web involving moi. First off, I did an essay for John Scalzi’s Big Idea, in which I not only reveal the Big Idea behind Tempest Rising but I also weigh in with my thoughts on why Urban Fantasy is so popular right now. I wrote this essay long before the recent LA Times article that mentions me and TR, and I’d love to know your own thoughts on an issue that seems to be creating some media buzz.

Secondly, there are some more interviews of me and reviews of the novel posted round the net. The lovely (and tall!) SciFiChick interviews me here, and you can see what Becky Lejeune thought of Tempest Rising over at Book Bitch, here. Finally, Daya Pillai weighs in with her analysis (caution: spoilers alert!) here.

Jaye Wells also seems to have some funny ideas about what’s going to happen at our signing coming up here, in the Porte du Shreve, on November 7th. All I have to say is, “It’s ON!!!” Followed quickly by, “Please don’t hurt me.”

Most exciting of all, however, are the sightings rolling in! Here are two. The first is from Lower Alabama and featuring the beautiful Amethyst Adams. The next is from the Wilds of St. Louis, and was taken by my dear friends Ervin Malakaj and Gary Kukawinski (AKA The Hottest Boys EVAH. Seriously).

So exciting! I’ve also gotten reports from Florida of bookstores selling out and having more copies on order, and the UK itself seems to have run out! Amazon.co.uk is sold out and ordering more. So high thee hither to buy yourself a copy before there are none left! Okay, it’s not all that dire, we’ll just make more. But still! It’ll take a few days.

On an entirely different note, I have something funny to show you that has nothing to do with Tempest Rising, but something to do with my Day Job as a Professor of English Lit. I constantly have students who insist, or insinuate, that learning to write proper English is silly: that they will have jobs that don’t require them to write, that they “never” write in real life, etc.

I am constantly responding that they write all the time, but that because these forms of communication are “informal”–notes to their children’s teachers, text messages, emails to professors and coworkers, comments on forums or blog posts–they assume that they will not be judged on their grammar, word usage, etc. But, as this AMAZING clip from the internet proves, we are always being judged for everything, and anything, we may put out there in the public domain. Enjoy. I nearly peed my pants when my friend showed this to me:

So fair warning: If you write something inarticulate and asinine, no matter how heartfelt, you may end up being depicted as a Yahoo and openly mocked on the internet. After all, that’s what the web is here for–to anonymously make fun of other people from the comfort of our own homes. Don’t end up an urban legend! Learn to spell, punctuate, and string together a coherent sentence.

And on that note, how is babby formed?