After I put together the big Dragon*Con post last week, I managed to get sick with whatever it was hubby had when I got home. We’re not sure if it was a really bad cold, a sinus infection or possibly a lighter case of the flu, but whatever it was I’m glad it’s now gone. Bleh.

It’s a busy blog today for me elsewhere. I’m blogging over at Nobody Writes It Better about the passing of Patrick Swayze, and at the Romance Bandits blog I’m hosting MJ Fredrick, whose new book release, Beneath the Surface, is great. She’s talking about heroes who make us melt with the things they say. There’s even a quiz with a lovely prize.

I’m back from Dragon*Con, and I’ve actually downloaded all of my photos. I had a fabulous time embracing my inner sci-fi geek, and I have the photos to prove it. Last Thursday, I drove to my friend Tanya Michna’s house in Georgia. We drove into Atlanta to pick up our guest badges and packets since we were both speakers. Let’s just say it was a bit surreal and we both felt kind of like posers when we looked over and saw Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) and Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica) in line with us.

Friday morning, we made our way to our hotel for the weekend and had a remarkably easy time finding a good parking spot and getting checked in quickly. Then we zipped over to the Buffy/Angel panel. Here’s one-half of the panel — Kristy Swanson (Buffy in the original movie) and Felicia Day (Vi in the series).

And the other half of the panel was Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) and Julie Benz (Darla).

After the panel, I was off to have the first of the photos I’d booked taken. First up was some of the Battlestar Galactica cast. I’d originally scheduled a photo with Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama) and Mary McDonnell (President Laura Roslin), but Olmos had to cancel his appearance. I still had the photo with Mary, but I added Kandyse McClure (Dualla) and Michael Trucco (Sam Anders). I wish I’d splurged and gotten the photo with all the cast members there, but I was already making my credit card scream. You can kind of see that I’d dressed as a Merlotte’s Diner waitress from True Blood — the same idea at least 20 other people I saw had.

The next photo was with Charisma Carpenter and Julie Benz. Hey, nothing like having your photo taken between two of the most beautiful women at the conference to make you recommit to your exercise plan.

After that, I went back to our room. Since this year we were staying in one of the four host hotels, I was able to watch and earlier panel with Paul McGillion (Dr. Carson Beckett on Stargate Atlantis) on Dragon*Con TV.  Later that night, Tanya and I hit the Supernatural fan panel and handed out our business cards for the Supernatural Sisters blog we do with M.J. Fredrick, Natalie Damschroder and Terri Clark.

I had to get up early the next morning for my photo op with Leonard Nimoy. Couldn’t believe I was actually going to stand next to the original Spock. Unfortunately, some lowlife thief stole the photo company’s equipment (four laptops, camera equipment, printers, photo cards, etc.) Saturday night, and my Nimoy photo was one of the 10 percent they hadn’t had the opportunity to back up. The folks at Froggy’s Photos were nice and refunded my money. The lady I talked to couldn’t believe I was being nice and understanding about it because she said she’d already had several people yell at her about their lots photos (on Sunday). Dudes, it’s not like they asked to have their equipment stolen. They had to finish out their appointments on Sunday and Monday with borrowed equipment.

I followed the Nimoy shoot with ones with Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen) and Justin Chon (Eric Yorkie) of Twilight (which was why I’d chosen to dress like Alice Cullen)…

and then Joe Flanigan (John Sheppard) and Paul McGillion (doing a Zoolander face) of Stargate Atlantis. (The following day, I was able to get Paul and Joe to sign my photo and have a little more time to talk to them. Both very nice, and Paul is a total ham. His various expressions in everyone’s photos were a riot.)

After the Atlantis photo, I hurried to where Tanya was already waiting in line for the Battlestar Galactica panel. One-half of the panel was Michael Hogan (Saul Tigh), Michael Trucco (Sam Anders), Kate Vernon (Ellen Tigh), and Mary McDonnell (President Laura Roslin).

The other half was Luciana Carro (Kat), Alessandro Juliani (Felix Gaeda) and Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrol).

This entire panel seemed to really get along well and all seemed like truly nice people and genuinely appreciative of the fans.

After some lunch, Tanya and I made for the line already forming for the Stargate panel. It was a 4 p.m. panel, and we got in line about 1:45 and still weren’t in the front. A couple of the panel members (Gary Jones and Colin Cunningham) were from Stargate SG-1. The other four panelists were from Stargate Atlantis. They were Paul McGillion, Rachel Luttrell (Teyla Emmagan), Joe Flanigan and Jason Momoa (Ronon Dex). This was another really fun and friendly group.

In fact, when Rachel wasn’t there for the beginning of the panel, Joe called her to see where she was and held his phone up to the microphone. LOL!

I was able to meet Rachel and have my photo taken with her a little later. She was really friendly. I’m inspired to get as fit as her.

We capped off the night with the Cruxshadows concert — for the second year in a row — which went from midnight until 2 a.m. Yep, the really late night of the con. And would you believe there was another event after that? People were queued up for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which holds absolutely not interest for me.

On Sunday, I didn’t dress in costume because I was on a panel speaking about Writing for the YA Market with fellow authors such as Richelle Mead, Diana Peterfreund, Gillian Summers and Katherine Duey. But before that, I had my photo taken with Jason Momoa. He wasn’t as chatty as the other Atlantis cast members but was still nice. Ronon was always one of my favorite characters, and one of the reasons was because he wasn’t chatty.

The final professional photo I had taken was with John Schneider. I really liked him as Jonathon Kent on Smallville, but well before that I’d loved him as Bo Duke on the Dukes of Hazzard. I remember watching it faithfully every Friday night on one of the three channels we got out in the boonies. I told one of the ladies working the photo shoot that if I could have one back to tell my 12-year-old self that one day I’d meet John Schneider, I wouldn’t have believed it. Not surprisingly, he was super nice.

Dragon*Con has an area it calls the Walk of Fame. It’s here that you can meet the actors and talk to them a little more, get their autographs if you like. I had Joe, Paul and Jason autograph theirs, and I was able to talk to Kate Vernon and Michael Hogan for a few minutes. While Michael was talking to someone else, Kate and I even talked about my YA book, Heartbreak River. How cool is that!? I was able to have my photo snapped with them. You wouldn’t know they’re Cylons, would you?

One of the coolest parts of Dragon*Con is checking out all the costumes. Here are a few examples.

The best Wonder Woman I saw. She was tall and totally had the look.

Supergirl (Isn’t she adorable?)

Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (I remembered meeting this gal last year when she was dressed as Number Six from BSG.)

There are always tons of Star Wars characters. Here’s an Ewok, a Jedi and a Stormtrooper.

And for you fans of Buffy comics, here’s an awesome Fray.

Catwoman

We met Hello Kitty in the food court. I couldn’t help but think she was burning up in that costume.

Loved this trio! They were Captain Malcom Reynolds, River Tam and Jayne Cobb from Firefly and Serenity.

I love the Underworld movies, and here are some Lycans fit to scare small children. What you can barely see on the right is one of the vampires in the armor we see in the beginning of Underworld: Evolution. I wish I’d noticed that the gal taking the photo didn’t get the entire group. Bummer.

The best Dr. Horrible I saw over the weekend.

And here’s me as Alice Cullen with Tanya as Tonks from the Harry Potter books.

I’m already brainstorming my costume ideas for next year.

Watch out, Blogland! I’m back from the writing cave. Yes, fair readers, I finally finished my latest book and turned it in to my editor yesterday. I then breathed the most enormous sigh of relief mankind has ever experienced.

As it normally does when I’m on deadline, my desk has become a disaster area. I began the excavation today by paying bills and throwing all the junk mail in the recycle bin. Also ran a million errands and did some prep for my trip to Dragon*Con this upcoming weekend. If any of you are attending, I’ll be on a Young Adult panel on Sunday morning. The rest of the time I’ll be geeking out with 40,000 of my closest friends. I booked my “photos with the stars” appointments last night, and I have to admit I went a little crazy. I plan to have my photo taken with several actors from Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis, Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, along with John Schneider and Leonard Nimoy. I’m also very excited to see many of the actors on panels along with some wonderful authors like Diana Gabaldon, Charlaine Harris and Richelle Mead.

I hope to share lots of fun pictures here when I get back. I still have a few photos from the RWA National Conference I want to share, and I plan to do that over the next couple of days before I leave.

I love summer movie season. I mentioned before that I’d been waiting for months to see Wolverine, and the same can be said for the new J.J. Abrams-helmed Star Trek. Considering I really like other Abrams productions like LOST and Fringe, I had a good feeling about this movie. And was I ever right!

I’ve started watching the original Star Trek in reruns back in the ’70s when I was a kid. I was also a devoted Star Trek: The Next Generation fan. I watched Deep Space Nine (my least favorite Trek spin-off), Voyager (hubby’s least favorite; he hates Chakotay) and Enterprise some, but the Star Trek franchise had waned in recent years. Well, Abrams has brought it back with some excellent casting and lots of fun, summer-popcorn movie boom.

I can’t say enough about the casting. I think all the actors have done a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the original characters but putting their own spin on what they would have been like when they were much younger. I particularly like Chris Pine as Captin Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock and Karl Urban as Bones. I think Urban totally nailed Bones, and I think that’s because of how he watched Star Trek every Saturday when he was a kid. I loved his interplay with Pine’s Kirk. Very fun! And it was such fun to see Quinto playing a good guy, and not the disturbing (but excellently acted) Sylar on Heroes. By contrast, we saw Eric Bana (normally a good guy) playing a very bad Romulan, Nero. It’s a testament to the makeup people that they’ve rendered Eric (normally very nice to look at) not at all attractive. It’s hard to even tell at a glance that it’s him

There are fun shout-outs to the original: Leonard Nimoy’s “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise” voiceover, the original theme music, Chekov’s thick Russian accent being incomprehensible to the ship’s computer, Bones’ “Damn it, Jim” moments, and others I’m sure I’m forgetting. And it was fun to see a bit part played by Paul McGillion from Stargate: Atlantis.

If you’ve seen it, tell me what you thought. If not, put it on your weekend agenda. I think even people who were never really into Trek and don’t know much beyond the names Kirk and Spock will enjoy it. Until you see it, enjoy this awesome trailer:

I’ve been waiting for months, well actually ever since I heard they were going to make a Wolverine movie, to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Geek girl that I am, I’m a big fan of the X-Men. And Wolverine has always been one of my favorite characters, along with Gambit, who also is introduced in this film. I wanted to see more of Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), but since this was mainly a movie about Wolverine and Sabretooth, I understand why he didn’t have more screen time. So, without spoilers, here are some of the things I liked:

1. Hugh Jackman — I mean, seriously, what’s not to like? He’s so easy to look at, and he plays the cigar-chomping Wolverine with intensity. Here he is pictured with, from left, Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson/Deadpool), Taylor Kitsch (Remy LeBeau/Gambit), Liev Schreiber (Victor Creed/Sabretooth) and Lynn Collins (Kayla Silverfox).

2. Liev Schreiber was an excellent Sabretooth. I now wish he’d been Sabretooth in the X-Men trilogy.

3. Taylor Kitsch as Gambit. I want me some more Gambit! I hope they make an Origins movie about him too.

4. The boom and fighting factors. What can I say? I’m a girl who likes action movies.

May always seems to have a lot of great movies, the beginning of the summer movie season. I’m already planning an outing to see the new Star Trek this Friday. Geek girl strikes again! I think this trailer looks awesome.

I just got back from my first Dragon*Con tonight, and I’m already planning to go back next year. Not only did I get some writerly exposure to people who might never have heard of me otherwise, but my fangirl self had a fantastic time. What follows is a rundown along with lots of fun pictures. Be sure to go through the whole post — it’s worth it.

So, Thursday I drove down to pal Tanya Michna’s (aka Tanya Michaels’ house) so we could get the jump on arriving the next day. In preparation, we watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a Joss Whedon project that was an Internet hit this summer and which Tanya’s seen many times and I had yet to see due to my crazy schedule. Anyway, as with all things Joss, I loved it. Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible) and Nathan Fillion (Captain Hammer) were hysterical. My two favorite new sayings, quotes from Dr. Horrible, are “What a crazy random happenstance” and a Captain Hammer quote I can’t say on the blog.

On Friday, we arrived at our hotel, unloaded our stuff in our room and headed down to the Hyatt to register and get on with Day 1. Tanya had obligations on the writer track that day, but I went to see Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk (from Firefly and Serenity) speak. Had to wait in line for an hour and a half, but it was worth it. When my spot in line ended up so far back that I was on the outside of the hotel, I figured I wouldn’t get in, but I was miraculously on the sixth row. Nathan and Alan were really funny as they answered audience members’ questions. Later in the afternoon, I had a signing but since I currently don’t have any sci-fi/fantasy/paranormal books out, I only signed things for two people — one book cover and one DragonCon program. Oh, well.

That night, Tanya and I attended first the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog live performance, which was several people in costume lip-syncing the show while the show played to the side on a big screen. Very funny, and the guy who played Dr. Horrible was really good. Afterward, we hopped over to another hotel to hear part of the performance of the Brobdingnagian Bards. After that was the Buffy Sing Along, which was the same format used in the Dr. Horrible Sing Along but with the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Once More with Feeling.” I’d wanted to attend this for a long time, so I was glad to finally get to see it and sing along with a room full of people who loved Buffy too.

We started off Saturday with a program by Matthew Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies. I’ve heard him interviewed before on the Pottercast podcast, but it was fun to see him in person. Here’s Matt, looking a lot different than he did when Neville first came on screen.

That afternoon, I was on a panel about YA fiction along with several other authors, including Rachel Caine, whose Morganville Vampires series I’m really enjoying. I told her this and that I love her Weather Wardens series too. She was very nice and signed the first Morganville book for me. Next up was a reading by me. Again, because I don’t yet have huge paranormal/sci-fi/fantasy cred, no one showed up. I sat at read Rachel’s book while I waited to see if anyone showed up. When I was still alone after 15 minutes, I took off for the line that was already forming for the Firefly panel with Nathan (Captain Mal), Alan (Wash) as well as Jewel Staite (Kaylee) and Morena Baccarin (Inara). They were very entertaining, and you could tell they all loved working together. Here’s the lovely cast members, from left: Alan, Jewel, Morena and Nathan.

After dinner, we went back to our hotel to rest for a bit and drop off the promo materials we’d been lugging around during the day. But we were back down at conference central at 10 p.m. for a panel on Supernatural. We were able to announce we’re in the Supernatural anthology, In the Hunt, that’s coming out in March (which incidentally is now up on Amazon.com here). After that, we headed over to the ballroom to see dark wave band Cruxshadows play. Again, the line stretched outside and wrapped the building. We didn’t know the band’s music going in, but we really enjoyed it and ended up both buying a CD. I met almost all of the members of the band. Here’s me with JoHanna Moresco, a violin player.

Here are dancers and singers Jessica Lackey and Sarah Kilgore.

Me with violinist David Wood and keyboardist Jen Jawidzik (aka Pyromantic).

And with lead singer Rogue.

On Sunday morning, Tanya and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 7 despite having gone to sleep after 3 a.m. so we could get a good spot for the Dollhouse talk with Tahmoh Penikett (who also plays Helo on Battlestar Galactica). Dollhouse is a new Joss Whedon show starting in January. We got front-row seats! Here’s Tahmoh talking about his new character, FBI agent Paul Ballard. Lots of the info on the show online shows the name as Paul Smith, but Tahmoh revealed it’d been changed.

A lot of the rest of my Sunday consisted of getting three very exciting professional photos taken. Prepare to squee, people!

Here I am with Tahmoh Penikett. Love his Helo character on BSG; can’t wait to see Dollhouse.

And with Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk.

Okay, brace yourselves. Here I am with James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Milton Fine/Braniac on Smallville, and Captain John Hart on Torchwood).

They were all really nice, but because of the long lines you didn’t get more than a few words with each. Which I understand. They were probably really, really tired by the end of each day. Oh, funny moment from when I was standing in line to get my photo with Tahmoh. I had on a shirt that had “WTF — What the Frak?” on it (See above. For those of you who don’t know, that’s a saying from BSG). Michael Hogan, who plays Col. Tigh, saw it, chuckled and said, “What the frak? That’s great.” There were other BSG cast members in the room too — Edward James Olmos (Adama), Aaron Douglas (Tyrol), and James Callis (Baltar).

Jewel and Morena weren’t doing photos, so I wasn’t able to get one with them. The only other person who was that I thought about getting one with was Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex Luthor on Smallville, but I figured I’d done enough. I did see him, however, in the Walk of Fame room. I didn’t meet anyone in there because you had to buy an autographed picture to meet them, but I just walked through to see who I could see. Among the other notables: George Takei, Walter Koenig, Lou Ferrigno, Jake Lloyd, Yancy Butler, Beau Bridges, Avery Brooks.

More than 30,000 people attend Dragon*Con, and a huge portion of those dress up in costumes. Here are some of the many I saw.

With Jedi Shaak Ti and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Ironman

Giselle and Prince Edward from Enchanted

With Number Six from Battlestar Galactica.

With Professor Snape and Sirius Black from the Harry Potter series.

Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett

A fantastic Tia Dalma and Gibbs from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I better stop there before I make the blog post explode. If you ever have the chance to go to Dragon*Con, I highly recommend it.

I recently received Entertainment Weekly’s Fall Movie Preview issue. You might have heard about it because the cover story was for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince but the week before (after EW had gone to press), the release date was changed from this November to next summer. Oops. The good news is that with that change, the release of Twilight, the movie I’m looking most forward to this fall, has been bumped back to 21 rather than Dec. 12.

Here are some of the other movies highlighted that I’m looking forward to. Most of these will be Netflix rentals, but I definitely want to see Twilight and probably Australia on the big screen.
Appaloosa (9/17) — starring Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris, Jeremy Irons and Renee Zellweger; a western — I love westerns.

The Duchess (9/19) — starring Keira Knightley

Blindness (9/26) — starring Julianne Moore, Gael Garcia Bernal and Mark Ruffalo

Body of Lies (10/10) — starring two of my favorite actors, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe

Quantum of Solace (11/7) — Daniel Craig as James Bond

Australia (11/14 — hey, that’s my anniversary) — starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman

Bolt (11/26) — animated, with the voices of John Travolta, Miley Cyrus and others

Revolutionary Road (12/26) — Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet on screen together again!

Marley & Me (12/25) — based on the book, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (12/25) — starring Brad Pitt

Defiance — starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell

What fall releases are you looking forward to?

I finally made the time to go see The Dark Knight. I know, eons after a gazillion other people have already seen it. But it came out right before I left for San Francisco, and let’s just say I’ve been really busy since then. But my mom is visiting and her birthday is coming up, so off we went to the theater. With popcorn, hot dog, nachos and drinks in hand, we made our way to our seats. When the previews started, three were ones I’d already seen online but were really cool on the big screen and for movies I want to see — Twilight (CAN’T WAIT!), Watchmen, and Terminator Salvation. Another was one I hadn’t seen, Body of Lies with Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio, both wonderful actors.

I’d heard all the buzz about how Heath Ledger should be nominated for an Oscar posthumously for his work as the Joker, but even though I know he was a fantastic actor and had been nominated before (for Brokeback Mountain) I had to wonder if the speculation was a product of his sad and untimely death. I no longer think that. He immersed himself in that role so completely, it was freaky. Freaky in a wonderful acting sort of way. I hope he does get the nomination, and I hope he wins. And if he does, I’m sure I’ll cry because part of me still can’t quite believe that he’s gone and I’ll never see him in another movie.

The fact that I really like Christian Bale and his acting didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the movie either. That charge his mom and sister made against him — something seems fishy and I’m not going to believe it until shown undeniable proof.

I promise to get back to the San Fran photos, but it’s been a busy week. But stay tuned.

Okay, totally cool news! I’ve had a trip to Dragon*Con in my plans for a few months, but it wasn’t until today that I found out that I’ve been approved as an author speaker along with good pal Tanya Michaels/Tanya Michna. We are such geek girls about certain TV shows, so in addition to our speaking and autographing duties we’ll be prowling the halls looking for cast members from Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville. My goals for the weekend of Dragon*Con (Aug. 29-Sept. 1):

1. Meet lots of readers to get the word out about my books
2. Meet Tahmoh Penikett, Katie Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber (Helo, Starbuck and Apollo from BSG); Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite and Adam Baldwin (from Serenity and Firefly); Michael Rosenbaum and Erica Durance (from Smallville); and James Marsters (from Buffy and Angel). Yes, I’m letting my sci-fi geekdom shine!

The only thing that could make this weekend better would be if the boys from Supernatural were going to be there. Then I would be absolutely beside myself. (But Mary and Natalie might hate me forever. Eek.)

Check out the Dragon*Con site for more info, including the huge list of celebrities attending. I’m not on the list yet because I just faxed in my letter of agreement tonight.

I hope everyone had a great 4th. Having done our cookout and partying last weekend, we didn’t even leave the house except to step out onto the front porch to watch the neighbors shoot off fireworks. And as you can tell from my lack of blogging the past couple of days, I’ve been in the writing cave. I’ve written 33 pages in the past two days. I’m really pushing to have a rough draft done by the time I head to San Fran so I can do editing on the train.

You know how you get those meme things in e-mail and are tagged by other bloggers all the time. You know the ones that ask things like — tell us six random things about you? Well, I’ve decided to start my own and see how long it takes the world of the Internet to send it back to me. So, here goes:

Famous People Meme — Which famous person in each of the following categories would you like to meet?

Author — J.K. Rowling

Movie Actor — Orlando Bloom

TV Actor — Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, also Sarah Michelle Gellar

Musician/Singer — Bon Jovi

Historical Figure — Queen Elizabeth I and Sacajawea

Fictional Book Character — J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood brothers

Fictional Movie or TV Character — Buffy Sommers

Okay, if you have a blog, go forth and blog. Everyone, including the bloggers, share your answers in the comments section. I’m verrry curious.