Author: Jonathon

But its back up now.

Anyway. Yes, I did know that the blog was acting funky earlier today. It’s my fault. I was installing a new blog engine and it made the site go wonky for a bit. It’s fixed right now, but I’m going to be monkeying around some more in the future and trying to get everything running right before I go live.

Hopefully, once I go live, things will look mostly identical to the way they are now. Perhaps there will be a better image gallery, perhaps there will be a more useful archive. a better RSS feed. lots of other nifty-ness.

But for the nonce, it is going to be blogger.

In the not so distant future, it will be something else. Hopefully a better something else.

We went to the Orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Gardens Sunday. We always try to go, but Sunday was the last day. I thought we were going to miss it, but luckily we did not. The orchids were lovely, as always. We went with Jon’s parents and took Trinity. It’s always a family affair. Sorry to all those fans who want me to spend my time in cemeteries and morgues, but honestly not my favorite places. I, like Anita, only work in places like that. I don’t honestly want to spend my down time there.

We got like a zillion comic pages from Brett today, or it felt that way. Boy was he a busy boy. Great, as always, minor back and forths. I have to say that some things that work on the page of a book, in a visual medium look different like Harvey in the Freak party scene. Drawn body hair is different than visualized body hair in writing, and if we ever do see this scene on film we are so not having some poor actor get extra hair put on him for it. Eww. For those of you out there are aficionados of men with lots of body hair, more power to you. Not my cup of tea. But then if we all liked the same thing in men we’d all be chasing the same people, and there wouldn’t be enough to go around.

Good night all.

I could do my usual rant on the first day of daylight savings for the year. I could curse Benjamin Franklin, but instead I’ll just say that this can’t be what Franklin had in mind. Franklin wanted us to go to bed earlier and get up with light to save candles. Candles, folks. When’s the last time you lit your way with a candle?

Daylight savings maybe useful if you actually run your life to the rhythm of the sun. I think farmers and people who tend livestock still have to get up before dawn and work their butts off, but for the majority of us dawn isn’t that critical. Daylight isn’t critical to most of our jobs. Many of us work well into the night on a regular basis regardless of the clock. And if we aren’t working, we’re playing, or relaxing using some sort of electronic device. I read yesterday that daylight savings will save so many barrels of oil? How? Most electricity in this country is made from coal or nuclear, mostly coal. So how does daylight savings save oil? Do our cars run more efficiently in daylight? I don’t think so.

No rant this year, just puzzled. Frankly, I think daylight savings is a way for the government, whatever flavor, to feel it’s saving energy when in point of fact it probably isn’t. It saves whoever is in the White House from having to truly look at ways to cut energy costs and give us alternative fuels. See, we’re saving energy. We’re turning the clocks forward an hour. Yea!

All I think daylight savings does is irritate most of the country, and make us late for at least one morning twice a year to wherever we’re supposed to be going.

Okay, Jon and I both managed to catch a bug. Better today. We continued to do work, but it was hard. And yes, I am aware that by not resting completely you make your recovery time longer. But we got deadlines, thanks. Time, tide and deadlines wait for no man, or woman. The first day, I was too sick to work. Day two I took two one hour naps, but worked. Hell the day I first got six I did seventeen pages. Apparently my muse doesn’t get sick at the same time that I do. Lucky.

Then, of course, Jon caught the bug from me. Luckily he doesn’t usually get as sick as I do. I am by far the punier of the two of us. We both laid down for a nap yesterday, and we actually slept. Which says just how sick we were.

Today is better yet. Yea! Still not completely over it, though. I’m hungry but a lot of things sound awful still. I’ve been eating a lot of toast, and green jasmine tea has been my friend.

I did four pages yesterday on A LICK OF FROST, but I had to throw them out today. They just did not work. So I did six pages today, the total redo of yesterday’s pages and two more new. I know it was the right direction for the chapter because the pages didn’t fight me like they did yesterday. I guess I was feeling worse than I knew, because those four pages were a whole lot of telling and not showing. A rookie mistake, and I am by no means a rookie.

I got the last few notes from the copy edits of THE HARLEQUIN yesterday. I had several people look over the notes for me, because when I’m sick I’m not always thinking clearly. The first step to wisdom is knowing that there is a problem.

I’m beginning to be puzzled by the blogs. Some of you are really enjoying that I’m answering more fan questions. Other’s want more writing advice or insight. Some are missing the little bits about our daily life. I’m left, as with everything I write, unable to satisfy everyone. It’s one of the reasons that you can’t write to every one’s preference, because for every person you make happy, you make someone else unhappy. It seems to be the nature of the beast. Sigh.

There are days when because I know I can’t make everyone happy, I just don’t want to write anything here. Then I realize I’m a grown-up and I long ago gave up this childish idea that you can please all the people all the time. It just isn’t possible. Again, sigh.

So, a blog that will please some of you, but not all of you.

I did eighteen pages yesterday. I believe it is the most in one session for A LICK OF FROST so far. I think the next most is like twelve or fifteen. I’d have to check the calender and that would mean this will never get posted today. So, an estimate will do. The last day that I got close to so many pages I then went into the afternoon session on a different project and a page was way hard. So, lesson learned. I’m finding that afternoon projects on something totally different sort of refreshes me for the book next day, but not if I’ve done some amazing page count in the morning. Eighteen pages meant no afternoon session on anything. My muse and I were done for the day. But that’s okay, we’re on deadline, or a wee bit ahead, for everything. Which considering everything we’re doing, that’s pretty darn good. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to tell you everything that’s in the pipeline, but down the road we’re probably going to be working on things that may not come to pass. Afternoon is for trying different things, new things. Stephen King used to do books that he wasn’t sure would pan out. He’s stated that he has unfinished books where hundreds of pages in he lost the thread in the maze, and couldn’t finish, or lost interest, or whatever. But some of those books became some of his most successful books. (No, I no longer remember the name of the essay or where I read it. So I don’t know the title of the books that he completed this way.) If it’s good enough for Mr. King, it’s good enough for me.

I’m sitting at the computer while a cup of mint tea steeps. I’ve been trying to have a cup of mint tea all day and never seemed to manage it. I did manage to do twelve pages on A LICK OF FROST. Before I sit down to sip my tea I’m going to try answering a question or two from the board.

Why hasn’t Anita healed Asher’s scars? Anita has only healed fresh wounds on vampires and shapeshifters. She has never healed an old scar or anything that was less than fresh on anyone. Zombies are more like making clay figures in away, then healing. I mean the zombie is already dead so if something isn’t quite right, it’s not a problem, they’re going back in the grave anyway. For Anita to have a shot at trying to fix Asher, he’d have to cut, or be willing to let someone else cut off flesh until they got to undamaged tissue. Probably it would need to be a silver knife, so the damage might be a new scar. But once he was cut, then Anita would have to see if she could heal him. Maybe she could, but how deep would the cuts have to be, and where would you risk the first cut. I just don’t think it has occurred to anyone that there is even a remote chance that Anita’s healing could heal wounds so very old. She’s also never tried to heal fire damage which seems to be a major no-heal zone for both lycanthropes and vampires, or heck, zombies. I’m just not sure that metaphysics can heal fire damage at all.

Will we be seeing the Bouviers from BLOODY BONES in another Anita book? For those who don’t remember them they were minor/major characters in this one book. They were descend ts from the Unseelie court whose family had immigrated to America long ago. It’s a very different back story for the fey in America than in Merry’s world. So, no, sorry but now that I’m doing Merry no fey in Anita land. But the rule works both ways, no vampires in Merry’s world either. One; the more extensive research I’ve done for Merry makes me want to change things that I’ve already put in print in Anita’s world in BLOODY BONES, so I’m just leaving it alone. Two; I wrote Merry so I could get an occasional break from Anita and her world, so cross pollination of the two series would sort of defeat that purpose.

So, anyway, Laurell is off at a Writer’s Group meeting and asked me to post some more information on the Gun Research. Mostly it is about the new toys for Edward.

We checked out the FN PS90 and the FN Five-seveN. The PS90 is a futuristic looking carbine that you may have seen on Stargate, or perhaps Gunslinger Girl, in its P90, military capacity. If you want to know more about it, the ‘net is full of information. The Five-seveN is its companion pistol that uses the same ammunition as the P90. Not a common occurrence, but not as uncommon as one would think. Edward probably got it because of the ammunition was designed to defeat most light body armor. Of course the civilian loads are less capable that the military rounds. Another plus for this system is that it is extremely light weight. That with its large ammunition capacity (50 rounds in the P90 magazine, and 20 per magazine in the Five-seveN. ) makes it a formidable system for when Edward needs to get in close to his prey.

Not that that is done, I can go back to movie night with the kiddo. Cinderella 3 and Stormbreaker to be exact.

I’m tired tonight, guys. It’s been a very productive day. I even managed 30 minutes on the treadmill, and a bath. I’ll have Jon help me do the Edward gun research blog later. I find when I’m tired the dyslexia hits harder. I can’t seem to remember the numbers and letters for the guns in the right order. So, heck with it.

One cool thing for the day, we got to see Custard in the comic book for the first time. There’s lots of other cool stuff, but I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say and what I’m not, so I’ve been erring on the side of caution, and saying very little about the comic. It’s cool, and getting cooler, and that’s all I can say for now. And one of the reasons you aren’t getting as many blogs is blogger’s change to google. Sometimes even small changes can cause me to just give up on tech. Jon is still working on finding the blog a new home where we can control the tech a little more.

I’m hoping to put up the follow up gun research blog tomorrow, but for tonight a quick thanks.
Thanks to all the board members who made me the lovely Valentine’s Day scrapbook. To all you who just wrote your thoughts, thanks. To all who wrote poems, thank you. To all who shared quotes from others, some of which I wasn’t familiar with, thank you. To everyone who sent artwork, thanks. It was all wonderful. Thank you for all the time and effort you guys put into it. Just wanted to let you know it was appreciated.