Author: Jonathon

Laurell isn’t going to be doing this, but Stacie M. Ritchie will be doing a signing.
see this press release for more info.

Just in case today runs like yesterday, I wanted to post a blog before the day gets away from us. I’m wearing a black baby-doll shirt that says, “Evil Keeps Me Young.” One, it’s a fun shirt, first chance I’ve gotten to wear it. Two, it suits my mood. I’ve been trying for light and positive and my mood is all over the place. Today I’ll try for black, and cynical and see if that helps the mood to stabilize. Jon is sitting beside me in the other bar stool with our big puppy, Pippin, in his lap. Pip is nearly sixty pounds, but he still likes being a lap dog, especially if we’re sitting somewhere tall. He likes a view. Don’t we all? It rained all day and into the night yesterday. It was a hard, cold, autumn rain. I love days like that, always have. Our Domestic Officer, Sherry, said, her, too. One of her relatives commented on her liking for such days with this, “You can take the girl out of Ireland, but you can’t take Ireland out of the girl.” I think it’s a comment on the weather in Ireland. Neither Sherry nor I have ever gone, so we don’t know for certain, but we are both of Irish ancestry. I think she’s got more direct Irish roots. Some of my family is from the border between Scotland and England, which makes us Scottish, and my grandfather’s surname is Irish, plus living in the hills of Arkansas there are a lot more families of Irish and Scottish ancestry, and everyone intermarried. So, I guess I’m Scotch/Irish, but I believe Sherry’s family can trace their Irish heritage to actual towns and places. Anyway, here’s the blog, when Jon hears back from a few people we’ll post a little more news. The phone is ringing, the timer has rung for tea, and thus the day begins.

It’s Saturday. I have a few precious moments alone, well, okay, not alone-alone. I mean we have four dogs once you’re up, they’re up, and alone isn’t really accurate when you have a beagle howl/barking at your feet. Jimmy maybe half pug, but his bark and attitude towards it is all beagle. Please do not think we bought him as some designer dog. Jimmy is sixteen, and when he was born he was just a mutt. When we adopted him at the ripe old age of ten, he was so just a mutt. A mutt with patches of hair missing, pellets from a BB gun under his skin, and a case of claustrophobia that made him throw up in his crate every night. We actually tried sedatives on him, but it made him loopy, so we compromised and gave him a larger area to sleep in. A bathroom wasn’t big enough, so he has the run of the living room/kitchen area. He sleeps on the loveseat. This worked out well, until at fifteen he began to loose some of his housebreaking sensibilities. Now, first thing every morning is clean up. We’ve taken up the carpet in the living room and won’t put it down again until we’re short a dog. But I can’t imagine not looking down into that intense little face and letting that really loud bark hammer between my eyes every morning. He is a pushy little dog. I’m nattering on about the dogs because you guys are going to have to wait until next week for me to explain to you what the heck I was alluding to in the blog about sausage making.
Friday was a very long day. I did an interview to support the Guilty Pleasures comic book. I talked to people in New York from 8:30 to 11:00 that morning. I’ll probably still be talking to people come Monday. Nothing bad. It’s all good stuff. Among many things we’re discussing the cover for THE HARLEQUIN, Anita 15. It will all eventually lead to good stuff, but there was no way to work on the book. We’re discussing the cover and the book isn’t done. This has become a standard with me in the last few years, but I always find it disturbing. It’s like doing the well baby check-up when the baby hasn’t been born yet, or like doing the postmortem when the patient is still alive. It just seems out of order. Publicity is great, but more and more the other parts of the business are interrupting the actually writing of the books. I cannot seem to make anyone understand how disruptive even a small interruption can be to the writing, let alone hours of it. I’m tired, discouraged, because I now no longer believe I will have the book done before I see you guys in New Orleans. Right now, it feels like I will still be hovering just before the climatic scene, but never getting to it. Before I left for Orlando and New York the book was so real to me, the climax so close, and since then it seems like I haven’t had a peaceful day complete to get back into the book. There have been constant interruptions. Some of it on my end, landscapers, remodeling of the last bathroom, the new library shelves, but a lot of it has been on the other end. The end that wants the book done soon, but somehow I don’t get left alone to finish it. God, it sounds like I’m whining, I hate that. If all I can do is whine I’m stopping. I’m just really, really tired guys. Sorry about that.
I just fed the dogs. We all got a late start this morning. But when I came back in Sasquatch, our smallest pug, was sitting in the big comfy chair. Sunlight had filled the chair, and his earnest little face was so intent on me, so full of who he is, that it made me laugh. I said, “Hey, pretty dog.” He bounded down off the chair to follow me, as everyone was, because I had the food bowls. Just like that, my mood is a lighter, just my dog sitting in sunshine, looking at me. It isn’t the big things that keep you going, or help you day to day, it’s the small things, the everyday treasures. Some days I wonder about having four dogs, but most of the time they lighten the load, which is what they’ve been doing for us humans for about ten thousand years is it now? I’d have to look it up to be certain, and get two books to agree, but a long time. I have a good friend who’s an agnostic. He wants proof that God, or Goddess, or anybody, exists. I told him one day that of course a higher power was behind the creation of everything. Las Vegas wouldn’t take the odds on all this being accidental. That didn’t convince him, he’d heard it before. I told him God has to exist otherwise why would dog’s have scratchy spots that make their leg go when you pet them. He laughed, and said it was one of the best arguments he’d ever heard. If it was all a cosmic accident why would there be so many things that are just for fun, just because they make us smile?
I’m outta here. You’ve seen me depressed, whining, happy, now philosophical. So time to stop blogging and get on with my day. Besides, I just heard Jimmy pee on the floor. I love my dogs, I love them all. Damnit.

I’m trying to do a blog each day. I had a blog almost done when I realized that I had to run it by my agent before I could post it. It’s all good news, nothing bad at all, but my business is like everyone’s business you don’t always tell everyone how the sausage is made. Most people don’t want to know what goes into the meat, they just want to eat the yummy sausage. Hopefully tomorrow I can give you the yummy minus the gory details. G’night folks.

Got an e-mail the other day from Ernst Dabel regarding the http://www.ComicMonsters.com”>ComicMonsters.com King of all Monsters tournament.

Hi everyone Anita Blake needs your help to be considered #1 in the industry! Please check out the email below!
She is in a very vicious tournament and there are 16 days of voting left, please spread the word. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! She must win!!!!!!
Ernst
—– Original Message —–
Subject: Anita Blake
Hi Dabel guys,
I just wanted to let you know that Anita Blake is involved in the “King of All Monsters Tournament.”
She is currently taking on Ash from Devil’s Due.
I thought you may like to know about this so that fans of the character can vote for her.
http://www.comicmonsters.com/modules.php?name=Tournament&ws=matchups&bid=1
The official press release is below.
Regards,
Rob Caprilozzi
Comic Monsters
http://www.ComicMonsters.com
PRESS RELEASE
http://www.ComicMonsters.com”>ComicMonsters.com, the internet’s leading news and information website for horror comics, announces its KING OF ALL MONSTERS TOURNAMENT.
A new form of madness has struck the online horror community as http://www.ComicMonsters.com”>ComicMonsters.com has announced its latest contest, one that will let monster fans decide once and for all which horror character will rule them all!
This October, horror fans worldwide will have the chance to fill out a tournament bracket, much like they do with NCAA Basketball’s March Madness, and then in turn, vote on each battle, save their bracket and earn points with each victory. The winner will receive fantastic prizes from the http://www.ComicMonsters.com”>ComicMonsters.com vaults!
Choose who you think will go the distance in the tournament. Will the legends like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface and Freddy Krueger win out? Or will it be someone from the bloodsucking contingent, such as Blade the Vampire Killer, Morbius, Hannibal King and Vampirella? Maybe it will be those of a lycan heart – Werewolf by Night, Nightwolf or Scratch? Maybe you decide to side with the ruthless Captain Howdy or Dracula.
There is only one way to crown the KING OF ALL MONSTERS, find the brackets and vote for the best at http://www.comicmonsters.com/modules.php?name=Tournament
********

So, Anyway. Go sign up, and vote and Help Anita become the Queen of all Monsters!

Did a photo shoot today. Not sure if you’ll even get to see the pictures. I don’t even want to discuss it. Had a meeting with the landscaper. Had about six or more workmen of one kind or another in the house today. By 9:00 A. M. I turned to Darla, and said, “It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?” Her reply,” Looks like it.” It was, one of those days when you get a dozen things done, but don’t get to sit down at your desk. I am sitting at my desk now, at 6:20 P. M. for the first time today. I tried to do this blog earlier from the kitchen computer, but got interrupted again. Now, here I sit. The chicken didn’t get put in the crock pot, so Jon is off getting dinner from a restaurant. Trinity has finished her homework, and is watching an episode of TEEN TITANS, while I steal a few minutes alone in my office. I am trying not to be frustrated about today. It was all good stuff. But I am hoping that tomorrow I actually get to sit down and work on THE HARLEQUIN. There is still a chance that I could finish the book before we leave for New Orleans. I think I hear Jon, I’m outta here.

I’ve been trying to do a blog about Archon since Sunday when we got home, but it just isn’t coming. I end up sounding tired or grumpy, and I don’t mean to. I’ll give it a day or so to rest, then try again. I tried to work today, but my mind was too tired. Not from Archon, but from the year in general. It has been a heck of a busy year. I think it’s just all starting to catch up with me. Today I rested. Someone said, I needed some R and R, rest and relaxation. I told the truth, I do R and H, rest and hesitation. I try to rest, then feel like I should be doing something else, and just move restless from one almost task to another. I relaxed by accident. I visited with friends who happen to be co-workers now. It meant that no one got much done, but since most of us had been at Archon this weekend, we were all sort of tired and not in a workie mood. So we talked. We did some work. I went out with the dogs and rested in the sunshine. It was a beautiful day here, not too hot, not too cold. One of those fall days that just make you want to go for a walk. We walked the dogs today. I tend not to think of it as exercise, but it had been so long since we’d done it, my calves let me know that yes it was exercise, after all. Tomorrow we’ll add a little more of our exercise routine into the day, but today was all about getting back into the swing of things. Today was about being gentle to yourself. Not always my best thing.
I watched a movie. I talked to people. I drank tea. I enjoyed the sunshine. I enjoyed feeling good, tired, but good. Right this moment, Trinity is finishing up her homework. I’m sitting here in an apron with cartoon dogs on it, having cut up onions, and garlic so Jon can use them in the stir fry he’s making. It’s one of our favorite meals, and that includes Trinity. Skinless, boneless, chicken for the meat, zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, and the before mentioned onions and garlic. It’s cooked up in extra virgin olive oil. Jon will add a little low sodium soy sauce and a little General Tso’s sauce, Iron Chef brand. Rice for it to go over, and it’s a meal. Why all the details? Because I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and talk about a subject I’ve been avoiding.
Jon and I lost forty pounds a piece about two years ago. We’ve kept it off, except for five pounds a piece. It was ten pounds a piece, but we’ve managed to loose five of that, so thirty-five pounds a piece that’s stayed off for over two years. How did we do this? We’ve changed how we eat and drink. It’s not a diet, because most people consider a diet something temporary, this isn’t temporary. We have changed, permanently how we eat. We have tried to make exercise part of our daily routine. It hasn’t been easy, but it has been worth it. We both feel better, as well as look better. So many people have asked how we did it, but I’d avoided talking about it. Why? Because I think we’re too hung up on weight in this country, but it’s worked for us, maybe it will work for others. But please understand that loosing weight is not the point. Being healthier is the point. I finally decided to talk about this a little when I had a woman at the convention say, that I must not have to work to have that hour glass figure. I told her, actually, I’ve worked my butt off, literally. Don’t get me wrong, I still have curves. Women are supposed to have curves, not look like adolescent boys with a little bit of chest. We’ve used a treadmill, walking outside, and weight lifting, to make healthy changes to our bodies. We tried ballroom dancing, as well, but to get really good you’d need to devote more time to it than we have in the schedule. We’re looking at adding something else. Maybe yoga, or Pilates, or martial arts. We’re trying to find something to help us over the plateau you get in an exercise program after awhile. If our trainer, Keath, reads this, sorry about the yoga and Pilates, but I’m trying to work on relaxing as well as getting in shape. Before you do any exercise plan talk to your doctor and make sure you don’t have any health issues that would make exercise inadvisable. But if you’re healthy then exercise, eat right, and take it slow. If you want to keep the weight off, don’t loose more than a pound or two a week. If you loose faster than that you can throw your body into starvation mode and you’ll get that rebound weight where you gain back what you’ve lost plus ten to fifteen extra pounds. So slow and steady wins the race.

The kick off for STRANGE CANDY was a nicely subdued affair. Jon and I dressed up. He did a suit and I even did stiletto heels. The crowd was about two hundred people. It’s the smallest kick off event we’ve had in years. This was also the first time we’d had a short story anthology instead of one of the series books. The book is selling really well, but people just didn’t feel compelled to come out and play. Or it maybe that this is the third event we’ve had in St. Louis this year. We did MICAH in February or March. We did DANSE MACABRE in June. It’s only October, and here we are again. I actually had at least three people explain why their usual friends weren’t with them, they said, “They’ll catch me next time.” I found the same thing, sort of, on the third event in Minneapolis when we did the comic book special preview, smaller crowds. I guess it’s the same reason when bands tour they don’t keep doing the same city in the same year over and over, no matter how much people love your work, they just grow accustomed to the idea that they can catch you next time. But because of it, all of us got out of there before ten o’clock. It was unheard of. We’d also, Jon and I, gone ahead of time and signed lots of stock. The store manager said they’d had people come in earlier that day and just want a signed book. They didn’t want to stand in line for four or more hours. I can’t blame them. But because so many of you guys didn’t want to stand in line for four hours, the rest of us didn’t have to. So many familiar faces remarked over and over, how nice it was that it was so quick. It was nice. I suppose there are writers that would have been upset at a smaller crowd, but they have to be writers that have not done four hundred, or more people night after night. You try signing two books per person, every night for six weeks with crowds at around that size, see how you stand up under the sheer physical demand of it. Jon and I are secure enough to let this one be a smaller signing. Though, it makes me wonder what the con this weekend is going to be like. Jon and I are hitting Archon this weekend for the first time in years, like six or seven years. I think six. Now I’m thinking that even though we haven’t done the con in years that most of the people that wanted to stand in line, or see me, will have had their fill of me. We’ll see. But I think that the kick-off for MISTRAL’S KISS in December will be in a different city than St. Louis. We’ll see how Archon goes, but I think we’ll give everybody here a pass in December. We’ll do some place warm where we won’t get snowed in.

Well, I’m back in my office. Glad to be here. When I left for the business trip to Orlando and New York, the office seemed a little big and intimidating. Now, it seems cozy. There’s something about being in New York that puts things in perspective. I’ve got Revis on the player, and just listening to it helps my blood pressure go down. Soothing. It’s the music I listened to when I wrote, MICAH. I’m trying to stay positive in this blog, but God, I’m tired. I’m tired, I don’t feel well, and negativity just calls sweetly to me. “Give in, Laurell, be in that bad mood.” I’m fighting it off, but it’s hard when you’re tired. The book which might have actually been finished last week, is ashes in my hands, the fire dead. It will take days to get the momentum back up, and going. It will be the difference between finishing the book at the end of September and the middle of October. I’m still ahead of schedule, but that’s not the point. I hate loosing ground. Tomorrow is the lay down date for STRANGE CANDY, my short story anthology. We look forward to seeing you guys at the Fenton Barnes and Nobles on Tuesday. It is the only official event for this book. My editor, Susan, said at one of the meetings in New York, that it was interesting watching my evolution as a writer. For me, the short stories have been a reminder of how I used to feel about my writing.
“House of Wizards” was not the first story I sold, but it was the first piece to appear in print. I remember seeing the magazine, MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY’S FANTASY MAGAZINE, with my name under the story. It was an amazing moment. A moment that had started when I was twelve and first started trying to scribble down stories. There it was, my name, in print, my story, my world, my characters, there with illustrations and everything. I touched the print with my finger tips, delicately, as if I were afraid it would vanish if I rubbed too hard. My then husband, now ex, Gary, and I, went out to dinner to celebrate.
Every sale I made was a triumph back then, a finger in the face of all those people who told me I couldn’t do it. Hell, told me it couldn’t be done. A young girl from Indiana farm country be a selling writer, no way. It just wasn’t something they could imagine happening to someone they knew, but I could imagine it. I worked my ass off to pursue that dream. People ask when did you become a professional writer. Answer, when I received my first rejection slip, which would be at about seventeen.
The stories in STRANGE CANDY were some of the sweetest sales I ever had. Then, I sold my first book, NIGHTSEER. Let’s just say that I was no one’s darling. I was never one of those writers that some editor or publisher picked to be a star. All the success I’ve had has come through hard work, and you, the reader’s, word of mouth. It would be years before I had a publicity campaign with any teeth to it. I had an agent, and she helped sell the book, but this book editor would be the first to let me know just where a beginning writer is in the evolutionary ladder of publishing. Beginning writers are like light bulbs, if one burns out, you can always buy more. The thrill of selling that first book was amazing, and again, my then husband, Gary, and I went out and celebrated. But it would be nearly four years before the book would see print. Almost long enough for the clause in my contract to kick it back to me. It was the only book I edited on spec, speculation, which means I made editorial changes before it was purchased with the promise that if I made the changes he would buy it. He did. He was right about most of the changes, maybe all of them. The editing was easy, the rewrites were easy, hell, I’d done seven rewrites on my own before it went to my agent. It was a single book contact, and it never occurred to me they wouldn’t want the sequel. I wrote it, they rejected it. They wanted changes. I made the changes, and was finally told that there was nothing I could do to this book that would make the editor buy it. My series, the one I’d been dreaming of and making notes for since high school, was dead. The first book didn’t sell that well, they told me. It stayed in print and on the shelves a lot longer than the average first novel. I think average is about six weeks. Harsh, but true. But it didn’t sell that well. I was crushed, and thought seriously of giving up writing, getting a real job, a grown-up job. All those thoughts you have as a writer when things crash around you. Editor after editor told me that the fantasy, both high and heroic, was dead. Nobody was buying. Many of the short stories in STRANGE CANDY are heroic fantasy, they were my first dream. But then no one wanted it, and I was left with either adapting or dieing. I had this one story, it featured a character called Anita Blake. She raised the dead for a living. She lived in a world where people discussed vampires and zombies as a given. I had this one story. Everyone had rejected it, and I mean everyone. I got some of the nicest rejections, they loved the story, but they couldn’t figure out what it was. Was it horror, or fantasy, or science fiction, or mystery? Mixed genre was not popular, because they couldn’t figure out how to market it. But I had this one story, and I liked it, I liked the character, I liked the world. I thought it had possibilities.
I sat down and wrote GUILTY PLEASURES. Okay, I wrote seventy pages of it, and then lost courage. It was sooo different from anything I’d ever read. What if it didn’t sell? What if no one wanted it? So with the courage of desperation I tucked it into my bag and went to Archon 14, a local St. Louis con. I’d offered to do a reading, but they were going to schedule me in when they had time. Well, Melinda Snodgrass, who was writing on STAR TREK: NEXT GEN, was unable to take her reading, so they put me in her room. Here was the problem, most people didn’t know what she looked like, and they didn’t know who the hell I was, so I, with only maybe three stories sold, no books, walked into a packed room. A packed room, well, I’d never done a reading at a con before, I didn’t know how terribly unusual it was to have a packed room at a reading. So innocent. I walked in, sat down, introduced myself, and there were complaints about where Ms. Snodgrass was, but I started to read. And they sat back down and they stayed. People would come to the door, listen for a second, and come inside. By the time I finished reading the seventy pages, it was standing room only, all the way to the far wall. I finished, and there was utter silence. I thought, oh, God, they hate it. Then the applause started, and swelled, and yells, and cries of, when will it be published. I couldn’t answer that. Read more, read more. I didn’t explain that there was no more. I’d read the room what I had. But their reaction was one of the things that gave me the courage to finish the book. It would take over two years before PENGUIN/PUTNAM, would buy GUILTY PLEASURES. Because it was mixed genre and no one knew what to do with it. Was it horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, what? Same problems as the short story had earlier. But it did sale, that book, and the rest, as they say, is history.
This weekend is Archon 30, which means I wrote GUILTY PLEASURES in 1990. Wow. We’ll be there, at Archon this weekend. I admit I was seeing it as a chore, not a pleasure. But writing this, has made me remember long, long, ago, when going wasn’t a chore, but a scary pleasure. I remember how nervous I was, how scared of the crowds, and of being outted as a writer. But all of what I’ve accomplished now, twenty books, or is it more than that now? Number one New York Times Bestseller. This beautiful office, the husband I adore, Jonathon. My writing group, and so many of my friends. Most of them I met through my work. I met them, because once I had a story, that no one wanted to buy, but that I believed in. STRANGE CANDY will be the first time that this story has seen print. It is Anita’s first time on paper ever. There were no notes, no quibbling, just a story that came to me when I was living far from home by the shore of the western sea. A story that came out of loneliness, and would eventually lead me to places less lonely, and introduce me to people who loved me. Sometimes I feel like the ugly duckling, you know the story, the little swan who the ducks think is ugly, because he’s not like them. Once I thought I was a monster, ugly, and perverted, dark and unnatural in my head, such thoughts, such weirdness. Then I grew up, and found that what is ugly and monstrous to some people is beautiful and wondrous to others. That the definition of perverted changes depending on who you talk to. The inside of my head is still a dark place, but now I’m surrounded by people who like the dark, too, and help me see that there’s still light even in the deepest night. Or more like, that dark isn’t inherently bad. Deity made the dark and the light, the night and the day; it’s all good, or it wouldn’t be here. I still work at embracing all of me, and not being afraid of parts, or feeling like one piece is better than another. I try to believe that I’m a swan now, and all those ducks that told me what was wrong with me while I grew up, well, they’re ducks. I was never a very good duck, but I’m just fine as a swan.

Sometimes when you don’t feel so good, you just need some soup.
We’re back from NY & Orlando, safe and sound, if a little tired. So, we’re having some soup, and we’ll post more once feel better. Meaning, probably tomorrow.