Author: Jonathon

My goal for the day is to be positive. To say, think, and react in a positive manner. I seem to have fallen into the sloth of grumpiness. The only way out is to act as if . . . Act as if I’m in a good mood. Act as if I’m not tired. Act as if . . . Oh, lots of things. The point is this; I must be positive to feel positive. I’ve already meditated today, and that helped for awhile, but the pessimist in me is just kicking the crap out of the optomist. You know how in cartoons it’s a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other? I don’t think it’s that simple. I think you have a muse that is the voice that helps you achieve your greatest good, your greatest life plan, but the other side isn’t a devil. It’s more an imp. That is the voice that tells you, can’t, that you’re a failure, that you’re ugly, fat, clumsy, fill in your negative. This is the voice that tells you, why even try you’ll just fail. This is the voice that eats your life and helps you waste all your talents in envy of others, in finding excuses not to persue your own work, your own dream. Turn to your muse, your message, your Diety given gifts, and use them. Muses aren’t just about writing and drawing, but about any endeavor that takes intellect and that spark of the divine, that spark of genius. That other voice, that negative voice, wants you to fail, wants your dreams to be wasted. It isn’t as simple as good vs. evil, that is too black and white. The negative voice, the anti-muse, doesn’t try to get most of us to do actual evil things, kill people, rape, pillage, and burn. The anti-muse just tells you that you are not good enough. It finds that small piece of doubt, or self-hatred, and fans it into a forest fire of self-defeat. Embrace your muse, do not listen to the anti-muse. Love yourself, or act as if you do. That’s what I’m going to do today. I started to type, try and do, but there is no try, there is only do. Quoting Yoda before lunch, a good sign?

I did fifteen pages today. Fifteen pages of the next Anita book. Its about what I did of THE HARLEQUIN so many months ago, so I wouldn’t be starting with a blank page. Frankly, I’m not sure if it’s book sixteen, or if it’s the beginning of a novel-lite. Tired, not sure. But I know I have to stop working on it, so I can finish edits of THE HARLEQUIN, and start Merry number 6.
MISTRAL’S KISS comes out next week. Merry number 5. There was a time just after my first series was rejected that I thought I’d never sell another book. Now here I am editing book fifteen of one series, and days away from the release of a fifth in another series. Both series are New York Times bestsellers. Both of them are mixed genre which I was told, years ago, did not sell. I lost track of the number of agents, editors and publishers that told me what I wanted to write didn’t have an audience, would never be successful. The market was flooded with vampire books, why write another? When I wanted to write a modern day fairie tale with real fairies, I was told to just keep writing about vampires. It was doing pretty good, why try to write something else? I write because no one was writing vampires the way I wanted to read them almost twenty years ago. No one was doing the fey the way I wanted to see them, so, like The Little Red Hen, I’d do it myself.
I seem to have started a sub-genre. Is it paranormal romance, gumshoe fantasy, urban fantasy romance? No one’s really come up with that perfect phrase. If we could just come up with something as cool sounding as cyberpunk, but alas, I don’t know what to call it either. My books read more like hard-boiled mysteries, or horror novels in tone of writing, but the romance and the magic is most definitely there, too. What do I write? What I want to read. Isn’t that what all writers write?

My earlier positive mood has evaporated. Sometimes I think that I only have so much good mood in me per day, and once it’s used up, well, it’s used up. It is the first day with power. The first day of being deliciously warm. I’m still wearing a sweater over my t-shirt, and have for most of the day. It’s as if the chill has sunk into m’ bones. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be truly cold. That unrelenting cold that comes from day after day of not being quite warm enough. It wears at your mind, your body, your emotions. You can build up a tolerance to it, but it is a shock to the system.
I’ll leave you with someone else’s words, a poem that ran through my mind in the days without power.

2. Fire and Ice
(From Harper’s Magazine, December 1920.)
SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost (1874-1963). Miscellaneous Poems to 1920.

We’re back online, powered up, juiced; pick your term. The power came on just before 3:00 this afternoon. The water came back on at about the same time. Apparently, one of the water mains had frozen and burst. The water, thankfully, was only off for part of today. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was when the electric came back on. My office is still cold. It’s going to take awhile to heat it all back up, but that’s okay. I’m just blogging this to everyone to say we’re back, then I’ll go to another part of the house where it’s warmer. Smaller room, fewer windows, heats up faster. There were so many things I thought of to blog while the power was out. Some sad, some angry, some positive, but the power was out, so nothing could be done. We went out to a local book store and did some editing on the current comic script which is like due tomorrow for changes, or something close to that. I have to admit that for the first time I missed my e-mail and my on-line comics in a major way. I was reading the comics in the summer when we lost power for five days, but I wasn’t doing e-mail. I was still having Jon or Darla print out stuff. I have now graduated to reading on screen. Something I thought I would never do. I actually missed more tech than just my computer for writing. Perhaps I will not be a leadite forever. There is too much, and too many ideas came to me, and news, and nothing, just those random thoughts you get in an emergency. But for tonight, hello out there, we have power. Yea!

The power went out last night. And it was freezing. 🙁
Anyway, we’re out and about charging phones and laptops and having hot food and drink.
Upside: We have gas furnaces in the house and a gas fireplace in the living room and the insulation in most of the house is above par.
Downside: the blowers in all the furnaces are electric. 🙁
Anywho, I’ll post something once we’re back up.

Hey guys. I was talking to Les Dabel yesterday, or maybe it was an e-mail. Jon and I did a lot of comic related stuff yesterday. Anyway, talked to Les, and said, or wrote, “I wish I could share the splash page of Jean-Claude and Nikolaos with the fans.” It was such an amazing image. So, guess what? Les checked with everyone and said, “Share.” So we’re sharing. Here is an image from issue three which won’t be out until, I think, mid-December. Oh, and if you don’t know what the term ‘splash page’ means, it refers to a page where only one panel takes up the entire page. Or that is my understanding of what it means. I’m learning all sorts of new terminology. Here it is, enjoy.

Jean-Claude is yelling, “Run!” to Anita who is out of frame.

Okay, guys, this is it, the final word from me. I never wrote in a blog that I ever, ever, saw the scenes in the second issue where the ratmen had a full package. It never happened. I never saw it. Ever. Okay? What I referred to in the blog was early work with the artist, Brett Booth, where he sent me character sketches of the wereanimals and ghouls, and zombies, and all sorts of things. He wanted to see if his vision and mine matched; they did. At no time that I saw did the art for issue two have full frontal nudity with all the bits appearing. They came in smooth in the pencils. It is part me being new at looking at pencils that I didn’t realize how smooth they would look in color. Now when pencils come across my desk they are a little darker, and it’s easier to look at them. But I knew the rats weren’t packin’. And no, you can’t see the earlier sketches. Don’t ask.
Now I hope that I can get back to enjoying the comic book. I have wonderful artwork and adaptation script to look over.

Okay guys, I’m not sure how some of you took my comment on the wererats genitilia, or lack there of, to mean I’m not happy with the comic. I am very happy with the comic. Short of me being able to draw the pictures in my head, this is my dream of my book being adapted to comic book form. This has been an amazingly positive experience. We have one bump in the road, the fact the comic book code just doesn’t let you do male frontal nudity, and I talk honestly about it in the blog, and now some of you took that to say I’m not happy with the comic. That’s not what I said. That’s not what I wrote in the blog. That’s certainly not what I meant anyone to take away from that blog. There are days when I think I should simply stop doing the blog. Because no matter what I say some people will interpret it differently from what I meant, or intended. I try to give you guys an honest view into my world and my work, as honest as I’m allowed. Honest as I think won’t get some debate started that I didn’t intend to start like this rumor. I love the comic books. I love watching the artwork come across our desks. I will from now on reread the script at the same time as I look at the art work so I’ll see how it actually compliments each other. Reading them separately leaves some holes in the comprehension of what an issue will look and feel like. So, lesson learned. But let me just say I love the comics, and I’ve been very happy with everyone that is working on it. Saying I’d like to have my wererats with full equipment doesn’t mean I don’t love the comic. It means exactly what I said, that I’d like to either see full frontal nudity with full equipment on the rats, or give them the thong that is the comic book hats off to nudity, not the Ken doll smoothness. I tend to say what I mean, if I wasn’t happy I’d say it. I am happy with the comic. So please do not think otherwise. I hope this stops the rumor that I’m not happy with it, but I fear me that like most rumors once it comes to life it’s hard to kill.
Now I’m going to go read over the script for issue 3 and issue 4, and enjoy how smoothly the book translates to comic script. I’m going to look at the newest artwork and go, wow. Seeing good artwork, especially of my own characters, fills me with envy. I so wish I could draw. I’ll tell you how happy I am, I’ve finally found a piece of art from my own work that I’m having framed to put up in my office. Of all the beautiful covers I’ve had on my books I’ve never framed and put one up. Not sure why, but the poster of Jean-Claude has finally won me over. I’m going to go back to having a wonderful time with the comic book. You guys try to play nice. No more rumors, okay.

THE HARLEQUIN was the first book I finished beginning to end in the new office. It was also the first book in years that I finished in a late night rush of inspiration. I ended up doing forty-nine pages from the day session which netted me seven, to the thirty-two that came from late afternoon to 3 A. M. The last time I sat up in the dark and did that many pages at once was LUNATIC CAFE. I did fifty pages in one rush. The session ended at 5 A. M. Trinity was only a few months old, so sleep was precious, but quiet time to write was in even shorter supply. At 3 in the morning I was getting a little jumpy, seeing things out of the corner of my eyes, but not bad. The night of the 5 in the morning, well, let’s just say that I knew we had a mouse, but the herd of mice I was seeing from the corners of my eyes just couldn’t be real. When I typed the last word of the book, I made myself get up and go towards one of the mice. They’d stopped disappearing when I looked directly at them, which was kind of unnerving. I got closer, the mouse didn’t move. Unusual for a mouse. I made myself reach out and touch it, because I knew it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t real. It was a curl of electric cord. Once I touched it and realized that my mind was making shapes out of nothing, I went to bed. My husband, my first husband, woke me at seven to get up with the baby. I told him, “I went to bed at five.” Wisely, he just got up and took care of Trinity. But he had to get me up by eight because he had to go to work, office job and all that. It would be the first day Trinity didn’t take a nap. Of course. Anyone who has cared for a small baby knows how the lack of sleep can get to you, but I still remember those cavorting hallucinogenic mice. I never wanted to do that again, but oddly, it felt good to be up and exhausted enough from writing to begin to see that edge of delusion. It meant I really had given my all to the process. There was something about fighting the good fight in the new office, turning on louder and louder music to keep alert. Nine Inch Nails was what I blasted through the night. I didn’t even need headphones to keep the rest of the family asleep, because the new offices are far enough away from the main house that no one could hear it. We’re also far enough away from neighbors that they couldn’t hear it either. Very nice. But something about the whole process helped the office be mine. It’s been christened now. Or bloodied, or it’s just become my space now. Again, very nice.
For this late night, early morning, session, Jon not only knew I was up doing it, but checked on me about every hour. I can thank him for introducing me to Nine Inch Nails. How it migrated to my office, I’m not sure. Hope he hasn’t been looking for it. He is aware now that it’s in my keeping. He walked up while it was blasting away. It is very nice to be married to someone that is intimate with my work, and my schedule. Someone who knows what I’m doing, and helps me with it. I did not ask him to check on me, it would never have occurred to me to ask. I’m a writer, and that is a solitary beast. You can ask people to look stuff over once you’re finished, or bounce ideas off them, but in the end the writing is done alone. You fight the dragon by yourself. But it’s nice to know I’ve got a base camp where people are waiting at the bottom of the hill with tea and sandwiches. It’s even nicer to know that if I’ve been too long in the cave that someone will grab a torch and brave the hill, and see who’s winning. The dragon is dead, the book is done. But I guess writing a book is like a CSI episode where the dragon slayer has to dissect the body, and clean up the cave, get it ready for it’s next occupant. Hmm. Writing for me is part muse driven rush, almost sexual, then sheer battle with blood and sword, then forensics where you dissect the battle and decide how best to cut the body up, then finally land lord, time to clean up the cage and put out a sign saying, “Dragon wanted.” I wrote last night in the blog that I think I’ve got the beginning of the next Anita book in hand, maybe. If so, I’ve got a glimpse of the next dragon. It looks deceptively mild mannered, but then don’t they all at the start? But the next dragon will be Merry # 6. I can hear the belly scales scratching across the rocks in the distance. It’s on it’s way, and it’s big one, but then, aren’t they all.

I’ve handed the baby off. Jon, Darla, and my editor, Susan, have the manuscript of THE HARLEQUIN. I have a list of things that I know need fixing. Darla and Jon will help tell me if what was in my head actually made it onto paper. Sometimes a scene is so vivid in the imagination that you read things into it as a writer that never made it into the paper version of the scene. You need fresh eyes that haven’t been dreaming, planning, writing, reading and rereading a scene for months. After I’ve talked to Susan and tell her what changes I’m going to make, unless she can talk me out of them, then the real rewrite begins. But because I’m having to wait on other people to tell me, does it work, I’ve moved onto the next step in my writing process. I’ve started the first chapter of the next book. It’s a fragile start, and probably won’t be the finished way you see it, at all, but the opening feels right. Of the three openings, three book ideas I was looking at, it is the one I know least about. I don’t know what the mystery plot will be with it, or if there is one. One of the ideas I guess I’m not doing yet has a hundred pages of rough draft already. It has a very strong mystery and some kick ass police scenes already written. So why not do that one next? Because it’s not ready, or I’m not ready. Some of the things that made me stop on it the first time are still there, like things need to happen in other books before we finish that hundred page start. Several things that happen in HARLEQUIN made the hundred page opening closer to a reality, but not quite all. I mourn that hundred pages. I’d love to sit down months from now and have that much of the next Anita book done, but the other opening, the one that is barely begun is the next one. I’m almost a hundred percent certain. Almost. I’m to bed. I wish I could share the idea for the opening, but I know better. It may fizzle out. It may do a hundred pages then go, nope, not yet. So no serious details until I’m sure. By the end of the rewrite of HARLEQUIN, I’ll know. Of course, I probably can’t tell you the opening of the next book until the HARLEQUIN is out because of spoiler problems. Oh, hell. I don’t know. I’m tired. I’m going to bed. I don’t have to write it tonight.