I’ve plunged into big revisions on my second YA novel, but after revising two chapters today I decided to watch the final episodes of Season 2 of the BBC’s Robin Hood so I could send the discs back to Netflix. If you haven’t seen it and think you might and don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading now.

What the heck were they thinking killing off Maid Marian!!!!???? I don’t mind the reimagining of shows — after all I like the new Battlestar Galactica much more than the original — but honestly, how can you have Robin without Marian? And now the BBC says that Robin might have a new love interest at some point in Season 3. I’m sorry, but that is just wrong. And I predict if they do this, that character will be universally hated. Remember how much everyone hated Riley in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It wasn’t that anything was wrong with Riley. He just wasn’t Angel, the character we’d been led to believe was a destiny kind of love, a forever love for Buffy.

I know Lucy Griffiths (who played Marian) wanted to leave the show. While I’m not a fan of recastings, that would have been better than killing Marian. I’ve read some online message boards full of irate fans who vow not to watch Season 3. As one said, “You didn’t just kill Marian. You killed the show.” And with talk of Jonas Armstrong (who plays Robin) leaving after the third season, I’m thinking that will be its last. Or at least it should be. Shows just lose their power and chemistry when beloved actors and characters leave. A classic case is Northern Exposure. It wasn’t the same after Dr. Fleischmann left.

In honor of Robin and Marian, here’s a nice fan vid with a pretty song.

So, on Thursday, I made a trek to Wal-Mart to buy groceries and exciting things like deodorant and grass seed to plant in the part of the yard where we just had a tree taken out. While there, I cruised by the books section just to see if maybe my book was out on the shelf a little early. It was!!! It was surreal to see copies of A Firefighter in the Family on a store shelf for the first time. I even called my husband at work to tell him. Did I have a camera with me? No. So, I plan to trek to a bookstore this weekend with a camera and the hubby. Perhaps the one that’s next to Best Buy because hubby really wants to buy Spore, the new video game that comes out tomorrow.

Saw an article online this morning about the Top 20 TV Kisses. Among my favorites listed: Buffy and Angel (duh) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica and Logan from Veronica Mars, Ross and Rachel from Friends, and Mulder and Scully from The X-Files. See if you agree with the list. Do you think there are other great TV smooches that should have made the list?

As you can tell from my absence for a few days, I’ve been hard at work on the proposals to send to Harlequin American. I have all the synopses done now, and I finished up the chapters yesterday. I just have to go back through those chapters today to clean them up, then it’s off with the whole batch to my agent. Next up, reading a manuscript for Mary and working on workshops I’m giving in Maryland next weekend.

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.

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.

The RWA National Conference is now less than five weeks away, and one of the things I look forward to as a purely fun event is the Harlequin publisher party. It’s a full-on dance party, and I do love to dance. When I was in college, some friends and I would go to a club called Cheers to dance. But when I went to the Harlequin party last year, I figured out it had been probably 15 years since I’d gone out dancing. Good grief, how did those years fly by so fast!? But I boogied for hours nonetheless. It wasn’t until I got back to my hotel room that I felt the effects. My feet were throbbing so much I had a difficult time going to sleep. But hey, I’ll do it again this year.

And speaking of dancing, does anyone watch America’s Best Dance Crew? Hubby started watching it first last season, and I caught the last few episodes — enough to make me a fan of both Jabbawockeez and Kaba Modern. Season 2 started last night, so we watched while hubby also surfed the Internet and I browsed through my latest issue of BookPage to see what new books were hitting the shelves (multi-tasking, you know). Last night’s performances can be seen here. They were enough to make Super Cr3w and SoReal Cru my early favorites though I also really enjoyed the performances of Phresh Select and A.S.I.I.D. If you watched it (or if you even go to the link above and watch the short performances), let me know who your early favorites are.

In writing news, I just finished and submitted by revised essay for the Supernatural anthology being published by BenBella Books next year. The ever-wonderful Mary is also reading my revised ms of The Willow Creek, which I hope to finish revising based on her comments and submitted well in advance of its July 14 deadline. The rest of today’s schedule includes doing research for my next YA book and working on revisions to that book’s outline, just in case you were wondering.

I’ve been so busy this week that I’ve not updated the blog. Bad Trish. I’ve been doing revisions to my second Harlequin American while also trying to convert an older manuscript from the original documents in Word Perfect to MS Word. Talk about a pain! I think I finally have it where I don’t have to change the font of and retype every single quotation mark and apostrophe in the whole thing. Ugh. I’ve been working on the manuscript here and there, revising it and bringing it up to my current writing standards. Okay, that sounds a little snooty. What I mean is that when I go back and look at my older books, I can tell that my writing has progressed since then. Thus, the need for revisions. But I still think it’s a good story and thus worth the work. Plus, it’s a hearth-and-home type story, which is area of Harlequin I’m writing for, so hopefully it’ll make its way to store shelves.

I’ve also been immersing myself in all things Alaska because the second YA book is set there. I already watched Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel because I’m a big fan, but I also added The Alaska Experiment. I just started watching Ice Road Truckers too, though it’s set in the Northwest Territories of Canada instead of Alaska. But dude, it’s COLD! I cannot imagine hauling semi loads of huge mining equipment over frozen lakes! And this season, it’s even crazier. They’re driving across the frozen Arctic Ocean! That takes cojones, peeps. I’ve also checked out a ton of books about Alaska from the library.

Okay, let’s get to last week’s books winner and what’s up for grabs this week. Last week’s winner is Marianne! E-mail me through the Contact page with your mailing info, and I’ll get the books out to you. Up for grabs this week:

The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe
Forever, Rose by Robin Lee Hatcher
The Cowboy Who Came in from the Cold by Pamela Macaluso

Did you all smell the smoke coming from my fingers tapping away on my laptop today? I cranked out the first chunk of my detailed, chapter-by-chapter outline for the second YA today, the first five chapters. I hope to get that many done tomorrow as well and each day this week.

Since my second YA is set in Alaska, I’ve been doing research online, including looking up photos of the area in which I’m setting my fictional village. I’ve also been picking my friend Monica’s brain since she lived in Alaska for awhile. (Read about her Alaskan adventures here.) And I’ve been soaking up episodes of Deadliest Catch (which was already a favorite) and The Alaska Experiment.

Has anyone been to Alaska? If so, what part(s)? What struck you about the state and its people?

I saw an article online today listing the TV series that have been canceled for next year. I have an abysmal record of liking shows that end up getting canceled, so it wasn’t a surprise that I watched nine shows on the list:

Moonlight (the one I’m mourning the most)
Men in Trees (I’m just going to firmly believe that Patrick and Annie would have gotten back together.)
Jericho
Back to You (I thought Kelsey Grammar and Patricia Heaton were funny, but I guess not enough other people did.)
K-Ville  (no more Cole Hauser, sniff)
New Amsterdam
Life is Wild
Bionic Woman (Poor Will Yun Lee keeps getting cast in shows I like but which are canceled; he was in Witchblade too.)
Journeyman

This list didn’t even include Blood Ties (which I’m also mourning; come on, leave me ONE vampire show), which had been previously canceled.

I wonder which new shows in the fall I’ll like and thus be the kiss of death for.

As this year’s shows wind down with finales, my TiVo’s to-do list was getting pretty short. (I think the only things still on it are LOST, Battlestar Galactica, Deadliest Catch and The Alaska Experiment.) So I went through today and scheduled some movies I hadn’t seen. Maybe I’ll have time to watch them after I meet my YA outline deadline the first week of June. I still haven’t gone to see Prince Caspian either. Maybe I’ll do that on my birthday or as a treat after I meet my deadline.

Luckily my choice in friends is more successful than my choice in shows, including the fabulous Beth Pattillo. She’s guesting over at the Romance Bandits today in celebration of the release of her new book, The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society, this week. Swing by and say, “Hi.” She’s giving away a copy of the book to one lucky person.

First off, it’s time to announce the winner of last week’s free books. And the winner is…Bunny. E-mail me through the Contact page on this site with your mailing info, and I’ll get the books out to you.

Up for grabs this week are:

Under Siege by Catherine Mann
The Wrong Child by Patricia Kay
The Cinderella Rules by Donna Kauffmann (an advanced reading copy)

Remember, all you have to do to be in the running to win is comment on one of my blog posts this week.

On to my own book news. My YA editor and I are tossing some ideas about my second book for Razorbill back and forth. While we’re doing that, I started work on a proposal for Harlequin American today. I hope this will be the first book on a new contract. My goal is to write 10 pages a day. At that rate, I should finish the proposal this week and have it polished up and sent to my agent by the middle of next week at the latest.

Okay, on to the latest TV observations. I was disappointed in the Survivor results last night. I was rooting for Amanda and Cirie, and they ended up coming in second and third respectively. While she didn’t win $1 million, Amanda did come away with love in the form of fellow competitor Ozzy. His words to her during the final Tribal Council made my romance writer’s heart melt. I wish them all the best. Cirie’s final words after being voted out about broke my heart. And what was up with Natalie’s weirdo bedroom question for Parvati (the big winner)? I kind of felt sorry for Parv having to answer that out-of-the-blue and totally irrelevant question. Jeff Probst, the jury, and viewers were all confused.  And let me just say here, I really like Erik. Sure, he made a move that really cost him, but he seems like a really genuine nice guy. And I like to see the really nice people do well. I do think this is an experience that he’ll really treasure the rest of his life since he’s been such a fan for so long.

Looks like Survivor is going back to Africa again, this time to Gabon. This will be interesting since the first Africa season is one of three seasons I missed (Hey, it’s when Friends got good, and it was in The Time Before TiVo). I know the beach locations are popular, but I like it when they shake it up a bit like they did by going to China. The only time they’ve gone to what should have perhaps been a more memorable location and the season wasn’t good was Thailand, which goes down as the worst season in Survivor history in my book. Suckola.

Anyone watch Bones tonight? If you didn’t and plan to, SPOILER WARNING. It was a perfectly fine episode until the end when it turned into a great episode. Loved Tempe singing Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” on stage, loved how Booth was really enjoying himself watching her, and gasped when crazy stalker chick shot Booth. Okay, we know Booth has to live because there’d be no show if he didn’t, but I’m so interested in seeing what happens in next week’s season finale. Oh, and Gormagon will be back, and someone in the lab is going to betray the rest. If it’s any of the main characters (as in Angela, Hodgens, Zach, or Tempe), I’m so not going to be happy. I really don’t want it to be Angela or Hodgens because I don’t want them to split up. That leaves only Camille or some minor walk-on character as the culprit. Hmm…