Wanna Play with Shambling Things?

When:  TOMORROW.  Yes, tomorrow -- Saturday, June 11th.
Where:  The Phoenix, Arizona Barnes and Noble Bookstore where Bill and Ed's Excellent Adventure was filmed.
Why:  Because Yvonne Her-Very-Own-Self will be signing not only HIGHBORN, but CONCRETE SAVIOR.  Yes, it's out and available, and it's time to get your copy!
Why Revisited:  Because all the B&N employees are going to dress up like zombies and there will be contests and fun and shambling things for you to play with.  You certainly don't want to miss that, right?
Added Bonus:  Yvonne's husband, author Weston Ochse, will also be there, signing his zombie novel, Empire of Salt.  Note that she is not referring to him as a "Shambling Thing."  No, really.  She isn't.

Today I Salute...

... The Husband, Weston Ochse, for twenty-one years in the U.S. Army, and for continuing to serve our country afterward by working for Uncle Sam.  He has given up decades of his life, time with his family, his wife, his children, and so many, many things he wanted to do, all to help keep us free and protect us.  He would still give his life to do so.  Thank you, Wes, for all that you've done and continue to do, and for the man you are.  I love you.

PHOENIX COMICON THIS WEEKEND!

Come visit me!  Keep me amused!  The Husband (Weston Ochse) has run off to Spain and Romania (I am not kidding) and left me completely UNSUPERVISED for the entire weekend.  Actually almost two entire weeks, but who's counting?  Anyway, here's my schedule.  Six great panels, plus I'll be at Table #634 in between those times with books and all kinds of fun stuff.  Stop by and say hi!  Pester me!  Please!

Rumor has it -- and it might be more than rumor -- that a few copies of CONCRETE SAVIOR might even be available...

Oh, and just in honor of ComiCon itself, I've posted a brand new zombie painting on my Facebook page.  I call it "Pretty."

::hee::

Don't Leave Me Lonely...

Are you around Sierra Vista, Arizona?  Then come by and visit with me and my author husband, Weston Ochse, today from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Fairfield Inn.  :o)

World Horror Convention 2011 Schedule!

WHC 2011 Schedule - http://whc2011.org/ !

THURS 10 PM - Phoenix Central Room: How Much Money Do We Make? (Panel about impossible stuff. ::ahem::)

FRI 10 AM - Robertson Room: Reading from CONCRETE SAVIOR
...
SAT 7 PM - Mass Signing

Yes, I know I'm late in posting all this, but I've been busy as two of me all week! :o)

To Me or Not To Me...

To Me or Not To Me... What the heck is that?

Why, it's the title of a guest blog over at Book'd Out.  Zip over to http://bookdout.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/giveaway-guest-post-yvonne-navarro-author-of-dark-redemption-series/ and check it out.  There's also a review of HIGHBORN and a (::gasp!::) book giveaway!

Yapping About Writing...

Come on over to the International Thriller Writers/THE BIG THRILL and join me in a roundtable discussion! Topic is "How do you separate yourself from the characters you write?" http://tinyurl.com/4rbhrxm It's happening right now, this week -- 3/21-27 -- RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND!!!!! Don't make me hear echoes!

Snoring, As Interpreted by Dreams

Last night The Husband had one of those nights-- you know, the kind where no matter how many times or how hard I poked him in the side, nudged him in the foot, smacked him upside the head (okay, not really, at least this time), he wouldn't stop snoring.  Generally, if I can get him to stop for just a few minutes, I'll fall asleep and just snooze right on through it.  But sometimes, like last night, there's an interesting combination of him being loud enough and me being too tired to wake up.  And this is what happened:

Ghoulie, our blind Great Dane, is an attention sponge.  Her world is tactile and she wants to be touched, talked to, and played with constantly.  When she isn't, or when she's forced to lie down and stay put (such as when we're trying to watch a movie on a weekend evening), she'll lie at our feet between the couch and the coffee table, and she'll growl.  I am not kidding.  The more frustrated she gets, the longer and louder she growls, until we literally can't hear the television and have to interject "Ghoulie, be quiet!"-- which is usually enough to stop her for about 40 seconds before we get to start all over again.  At 3:18 a.m. I stopped myself just short of sitting up and yelling that very phrase into Wes's ear, because he sounded just like her-- long, loud and growly-- and I truly believed the dog was fussing for attention in the middle of the darned night.

Somewhere around 4:30 a.m., the volume, pitch and duration changed to something like a wheezing sort of... whistling.  My dream-brain interpreted that sound as coming out of the mouth of a red-skinned velociraptor that was about the size of a Great Dane but had Rorschach-like black and white spots down the middle of its back.  I was hiding under the bed and this extinct dinosaur was scrabbling its way underneath it, trying to get to me.  I was trying to get away not because I was afraid of it, but because even though it was friendly (??!), it had three-inch teeth and about as much control over its jaw power as an eight-week-old Great Dane puppy, as in not much.  It just wanted to play and kept getting tangled up in the bedcoverings as it tried to catch me.  At the end of this debacle, during which I kept hollering to my mother (who's been gone for a number of years now), "Mom, make it stop!", it was on top of the bed, I was standing over it, and scratching its back.

Tonight: I'm putting duct tape over his nose.  End of problem.

Random Bits of Wednesday

* Sitting here watching Ghoulie run in her sleep, her legs and paws twitching and moving.  Today's Question of the Universe: Do blind dogs finally get to see the rabbit they chase in their dreams?

* On my Facebook page I posted a link to a YouTube video that shows a dog trainer giving CPR to a boxer that inexplicably collapsed and stopped breathing during a training session.  It's difficult to watch but very educational, and the emotional devastation takes a turn at precisely 1:47 in the video.

* Today UPS brought me a book, "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss.  My friend Liz Danforth posted about this book so I decided to check it out; like the awesome partner he is, The Husband saw it on my Amazon Wishlist and ordered it for me when he bought something for himself.  I plan on having a 4-hour workwork by next Tuesday.  We'll see how that works out, and if I'm living a life of leisure by then, I'll be sure to let everyone know.  ::ahem::

* Be sure to check out the great review of HIGHBORN over at Hellnotes (link below).  There's another fantastic review of HIGHBORN in the February issue of Locus Magazine, although, alas, that review is not available online.

FANTASTIC REVIEW OF HIGHBORN!

Where?  Right HERE, at Hellnotes.

Most startling quote: 

"Author Yvonne Navarro leaps onto a popular theme, and rides it like a seasoned jockey on a thoroughbred."

Let just say I'm surprised, because frankly, horses have always intimidated me.  Fourteen hundred pounds of muscle and flesh that never fails to simply want to get me OFF its back.  I've had them try to rear, rub me off on trees, and just flat take off.  I've never mastered the theory of "move-with-the-horse-rhythm," apparently preferring (without having been told this) to jar my brains out and bruise my butt by coming down when the horse's back goes up.

But hey, if someone wants to compare my writing to winning the Kentucky Derby (okay, so that might be a stretch...), that's great!