Author: Jonathon

First, sorry I didn’t make it clear that Jean-Claude’s only legitimate child died with the mother. But, as for him having descendents . . . I know that Jean-Claude and the noble son that he played whipping boy for visited houses of ill-repute. So the only possibility of a legitimate heir is gone, but illegitimate off spring is still a possibility. For that matter part of Anita’s family, on her father’s side, comes from the Alsace-Lorraine region. Which is an area that has been disputed back and forth between France and Germany for a very long time. I’m not saying they have cousins in common, but it’s not outside of possibility. If your family is peasant stock, which Anita has stated she is, the records are a lot sketchier. Nobles keep track of their bloodlines, peasants, not so much.
I’m a little surprised at the Merry vote. Though, on the other hand, not surprised at all. Doyle and Frost have been fan favorites from the beginning. Rhys coming in a strong second, before Frost, is a surprise. No promises, but I’ll see what I can do on Rhys’s behave in the next book. The three way tie between Usna, Barinthus, and Aisling was a surprise. Again, I’ll see what I can do. I was surprised that Galen was such a distant runner, and the men that didn’t get any votes surprised me, as well. Maybe the fans, like me sometimes, and even Merry, are beginning to be spoiled for choices. Maybe there really is such a thing as too much of a good thing, even in fiction.
We won’t be seeing much of Jason in THE HARLEQUIN. Sorry about that guys. Nathaniel has stuck to his guns with Anita, and gotten her to agree to a real date. So, yes, he shows that he has needs not getting met with Anita, and he wants those needs met. His quiet way of pressuring her has gotten her to agree to things that a frontal assault, or a more aggressive stance has failed to do in the past.

I’ll try to answer some more questions from fans later. For tonight, I just didn’t want to let too much time pass between entries. I was hoping the snow would miss us, but it’s falling, softly, outside. The dogs came in all damp. Pip’s black fur glittering as the snow melted. It’s supposed to be three to six inches. If it’s six, then we’ll stay home tomorrow. If it’s less, we have plans with friends we haven’t seen in awhile. Though, if it’s a choice between ice and snow, I’ll take the snow. Here’s a prayer that the electricity keeps going with no problems. Snow is a gentler touch of winter than ice. Safer on the roads, and the power lines. Because of the predicted winter storm Jon and I stayed home for date night. We did one of my two guilty pleasures; Walkers shortbread cookies, and a mini-marathon of Desperate Housewives. The cookies are bad for the arteries, and so much else. But every once in awhile you need to eat that sweet thing that you’ve been craving. Shortbread cookies are one of the things that can’t stay in the house. You get a small box, eat them, share them with friends, and do not buy them for another six months to a year. I’m not sure the television show, Desperate Housewives, is bad for us, in fact it’s won a lot of awards. I think it’s just the title that makes it feel like a guilty indulgence.

Another question from the forum:
I don’t know if Rhys gets a one on one love scene with Merry in the newest book. I haven’t actaully started A LICK OF FROST, yet. I’ve tried to start it, but it hasn’t really worked. I’ve blogged a little about some of the difficulities I’ve had starting it. This is probably the last book before we begin to narrow the pack of Merry’s men from one thing or another. So I’ll give you guys the oprutunity to vote for which of the men you’d most like to see a one on one scene with Merry. I’m not saying you’ll get your wish, but I would be interested in which of the guys that we haven’t seen, or those we have, that you guys would be most interested in seeing on stage in a more complete manner. So write into the forum, and say which of the guys we haven’t seen on stage yet that you’d like to see Merry be up close and personal with. If your vote is for one of the men we’ve already seen, then still write in. I’d be curious if most of you already have favorites among the men Merry has already chosen.

Okay questions from the forum:
How does Jean-Claude talk to me? Quietly. He’s strangely never pushy. The loudest he’s ever been in my head was when I first wrote A KISS OF SHADOWS. Jean-Claude popped into my head from nowhere, and said, “You had this, and didn’t offer me any?” He was referring to Merry. This was back when Anita was not doing sex, at all. I knew Jean-Claude was frustrated with Anita, but that loud interruption in the middle of a different book, let me know just how frustrated he was. Not just about the sex, or lack thereof, but about Anita’s constant arguing about nearly everything. Jean-Claude doesn’t mind Micah and Nathaniel as much as he did Richard. Partly, Micah and Nathaniel have been okay with being closer to him physically from the beginning. Not sex, but just less hung up about Jean-Claude being around. Micah and Nathaniel have never seen it as a competition. Richard definitely sees it as a competition with Jean-Claude for Anita. Micah and Nathaniel are fine with sharing. They don’t try to force Jean-Claude out. As for a domestic arrangement, I’m still not sure that Jean-Claude would thrive in a more traditional situation with Anita. I know that he had a brief marriage as a human, a wife that died in childbirth, but it was not a love match. He married for status, wealth, and privilege. A common goal, an almost unattainable one for someone who was born a peasant. You might say it was a Cinderella story, except with the prince a low level noble woman, and Jean-Claude as Cinderella. Then he was in turn seduced by the vampire that brought him over. Then Belle Morte sort of collected him. Neither was a particularly typical domestic arrangement. His time with Asher and Julianna was the closest to domestic for him, but even there it was not typical. At his happiest he was sharing the woman he loved with another man. Or, he was sharing the man he loved with a woman. In a true menage a trois, it’s all about the sharing. I just don’t think Jean-Claude’s idea of domestic bliss is typical. Anita averages at least two nights a week with him, often more, if she’s not on a case.
Part of the problem is you guys never see Anita unless she is in the middle of a case. So what would be an ‘ordinary’ week for her, you never see. The reason you don’t see it, is if nothing happens it’s not a book. It might be interesting, but it would just be a series of events making up her week, not a plot. She tends to split her time between the two houses. Her own, and Jean-Claude’s.

THE HARLEQUIN is off to New York. The last bit of it went off today. Because of the deadline being so tight, Jon just sat at one of the other desks in my office. I’d turn to him with the last notes and go, okay, here’s the change I made. Does it make sense? Here’s the editor’s note. Do you agree with it? When the deadlines were looser, books went through my writing group. We’d do the bother factor. Which means you vote and if everyone in the room, all seven of us, don’t understand a point in the book you just change it. If say, three people don’t understand it, well, it’s still fifty percent, so it’s the writer’s call. But with a fifty percent bother factor I usually still try to clarify. If only one person is puzzled, it’s usually a personal preference. So ignore and go on. By the time I finished this rewrite, there would have been maybe, a twenty-four hour window to hand it out, get it read, and get feedback. No one can do nearly seven hundred manuscript pages in twenty-four hours. Okay, not as a critique, and even if you could, the twenty-four hours includes the time to make any changes. So, impossible. I’ve done twenty-four hour turn around critiques for people, but that was between two hundred and three hundred pages, not six hundred or more. What would I do, if Jon wasn’t here to turn to? Well, I had one writer friend who read me his book inch by inch over the phone. Some writers e-mail pieces back and forth. The comic is certainly teaching me that could have possibilities, if you could find someone to babysat their e-mail for you. Some writers use their editors as their sounding board. Some writers truly are solitary creatures and don’t use that much feedback. I certainly did that for years before I found my writing group, but I guess I’m actually a group animal at heart.

We have power, yea!
I got the lion’s share of THE HARLEQUIN off to New York. Again, yea!
I still have one Dolph and Anita scene to redo, or rethink. I have the final fight scene still to rewrite. Not so, yea.
I’m still not a hundred percent over the bug I picked up. So, that’s it for now. Hopefully, will feel better tomorrow and maybe get to actually answer some questions from fans on the board.

I’m trying to be optimistic. Jon tells me I have to be. But it’s not my best thing. I’m thinking positive thoughts. You think positive thoughts, too, that the rain that’s coming down here doesn’t turn to freezing rain. If it just rains, we’re cool, but ice . . . Well, the local news actually encouraged people to prepare for power outages. I think everyone’s confidence in our local power company, AmerenUE is pretty low after the last two outages we’ve had. But positive thoughts.
First, there’d been an Amber alert here earlier in the week, five days ago, I believe. They found the boy. He looks okay. I know looks can be deceiving, but he looked okay, and that is pretty good news. But on top of that, they found a second boy with him. This kid was snatched when he was eleven years old. We’ve seen posters of him forever, it seems. He’s now sixteen and he’s going home. How amazing is that? So that’s my positive thought for the night. Two teenage boys home. Two families reunited with their kids.
After news like that, if anyone cares, the rewrite of THE HARLEQUIN is nearly done. Positive thoughts that I get to put it in FedEx tomorrow.

I am done with THE HARLEQUIN, sort of. I am still trapped in the rewrite, but the book is done. I am adding a couple of chapters in the middle featuring characters that play a part in the climax. I am still going to rewrite some of the ending fight scene. But the book is done. So why did I get trapped for a day, writing and rewriting this one new chapter? Because I got carried away with two brand new ideas that would work just perfectly here, or is it there? Anyway, I wrote the scene twice with two different takes on it. I threw them both out today. It’s a rewrite, not a first draft. The first draft is where you put everything and anything into the mix. The first draft is where you get to explore those blind alleys, or chase those rabbits down those holes. But in the final edit, you don’t chase bunnies, you stay the hell out of dark alleys. You do not deviate from the path laid out before you. Both the new ideas may get used in future books, but not this book. And the fact that my imagination is trying to add major plot lines at the end, means that I am done with this book. My imagination has gone onto the next project, or is ready to do so. Sometimes the editing takes more time than my muse thinks it should, and it gets impatient. But since I only have two more days to finish it all up, and get it off to New York, my muse doesn’t have much longer to get impatient. We’re out of time, if you guys are going to get this book in June. I forgot one of Hamilton’s rules of writing, or rather of rewriting. The rule is; keep it simple. Don’t throw in something brand new in the final edit. Don’t complicate a book just because you’re tired of editing and want to write something new. My imagination does not find editing as satisfying as first draft. So, need to finish, so I can do the next adventure with my imaginary friends. Merry next. Though, since I’m still sick, I may actually allow myself to get completely well before I start the next book. Yeah, being well, would be nice. Sorry, if that sounded grumpy, but I’ve done nineteen pages of fresh work today. The pages needed to be there, but I did it on a day when eight pages seemed like a whole lot. But I did it. I did it, and now I’m done. I’m going to go collapse on the couch. Apparently, we’re a plague house. Trin had to come home early from school with a low grade fever and feeling tired. This sounds familiar. I’m gonna go lay down.

Okay, still not well, but improving. Anyway, I’ll answer something from the forum. On the new cover art with the blonde stripper on it. The question was, who is this guy? Funny you should ask. It was one of those interesting accidents. This was originally one of the character sketches that Brett Booth sent to me when he and the Dabels were first showing me their stuff. You can see why the image helped win me over, it is yummy. But Brett thought it was Robert, and then I pointed out that he doesn’t have long hair in the first book. So then, we decided it was Aubrey, but since we weren’t planning on using the picture in the comic, actually, it didn’t really matter. Just one of those discussions you have. Then we had Guilty Pleasures #1 go back to press for a third time, and we needed another cover. We went back and forth a few times, but I finally suggested the sketch of Aubrey/Robert from the character sketches I was shown originally. Here is where my ignorance of how art works comes into play. I thought Brett could just take the original image and use some artsy magic to make it big enough for a cover. Nope, he had to redraw it bigger. My only defense is the only art I worked with when I was in corporate America was on the computer, so you could size it up and down pretty easily. But at least Brett knew exactly what he was drawing, so that was a little faster. Anyway, he drew it, it was lovely, and it went off to be colored. Here’s where the confusion begins. In the original sketches this image was marked as Robert, who is a blonde. As I said earlier in this post, it was only after I pointed out to Brett that Robert didn’t have long hair that it ceased to be Robert, and we decided it was Aubrey. Aubrey has brown hair. But I can see why the colorist chose blonde, because the original sketch is marked for a blonde character.
So, we get this amazing picture, but with the wrong color of hair. Jon used a computer program to do a quick down and dirty change of hair color, and once you darkened the hair the picture just didn’t work as well. Normally, I’d say, nope, no matter how amazing it looks it’s got to be changed, but you know what, I love the image, we’re at deadline, and it looks better this way. I’ve been easier going and more chatty in e-mails all day. I think it’s the meds I’m on. But whatever the reason the wrong hair color just looked better on the cover. Aubrey will have his brown hair in the comic art, but he’s a blonde on the cover. I guess since movie posters can have so little to do with the actual movie, we can change a hair color on the third cover for issue #1. I wonder if when I finally get off these meds if I’ll feel differently? Naw. It’s a great cover, and maybe blondes do have more fun. As a lifelong brunette, I’ll never know.

Hey, everybody. I’m still sick. Not a lot sick. The fever finally broke. But nearly a week of fever, even a low grade one, has wiped me out. I am amazingly tired. I’m tired of laying down. I was on the mend when according to my doctor, I caught a second virus before the first one was completely gone. Sigh. Today has been the most I’ve stayed upright since I got sick. But when I went to the bedroom to get something, the bed looked awfully nice, cool, and welcoming. I’d have been in bed by now but got caught by a show on National Geographic. Dr. Brady Barr and some of his Dangerous Encounters. But it’s over, and I’m beat. So good night, my friends, take care. I hope everyone else is well.