Author: Jonathon

Question on tour: writer’s block and what to do about it? I’m not sure I’m the writer to ask this question of, because I don’t get writer’s block. Look at the number and length of the books I’ve done over the last ten years, do the math, if I ever suffered from writer’s block I could not have kept the schedule up. But then again, people seemed to have different ideas about what the dreaded block was, so I’ll go over some things people called writer’s block. First, out of ideas. Can’t help you there, I’m one of those writer’s that is blessed with ideas. Second, too many ideas can’t decide what to write. This one I can be a little more helpful with. Pick something, anything. Don’t worry if it’s a good idea or the best idea. The worst possible thing you can do is to not write, so write something, write anything. Maybe the idea you chose is actually a good idea and the writing will take off, or maybe the idea won’t fly. But if you don’t run the idea up the flag pole you’ll never know if someone salutes, or not. Try it, one of the wonderful things about being a writer is that you can always rewrite later. It’s not carved in stone. Let that idea fly, see where it takes you. One that most writers don’t talk about much, self-loathing. Just plain I hate myself and anything I could come up with is a stupid idea, and how could I possibly think that anyone would want to read anything I wrote. I can and can’t help with this one. Most of us have moments when we think we can’t do something. Writing, strangely, is an area I’m pretty confident in, but there are others that are not so bright for me. Here’s the secret to conquering that ugly voice in your head. Act, as if. Act as if you’re brave when you’re scared. You’ll still be scared, but you’ll seem brave, and you won’t let the fear stop you. Strangely, if you act braver than you are over and over again, eventually most fears begin to recede, to grow less. Not all, but most. Act as if you’re more positive than you are, and over a number of years you find that you have become more positive. It took about a decade for me to go from being Nellie Negative to Polly Positive, okay I’ll never be Polly Positive, but I’m a heck of a lot more positive than I used to be. Why did I do this change of inner thoughts? I was determined that the depressing negativity I had been raised with would not be passed on to my child. So I vowed to never say anything negative in front of her. Now that didn’t mean she was never told no, I believe in discipline. All these parents that want to be their child’s friend drive me crazy. First be their parent, you’re the only parents they’ll ever have, then be their friend. You cannot be your kids friend first and be an effective parent. Just doesn’t work that way. You have to give your kid room to hate you occasionally and not take it personally. They’ll get over it. But back to being positive. I never criticized myself in front of her. I never criticized her father in front of her. I smiled and put on a happy face on day’s that I was so sad I could barely stand myself. But she didn’t know it. That was the point. She is one of the brightest and happiest kids I know. Not only is the glass half full but it’s a bright shiny happy glass. My glass is still half empty, and isn’t it a dirty, cracked glass. But a strange thing happened in trying to raise my daughter more positively than I was raised, I became more positive. Even Jon has noticed that he’s more positive than when he married me, because I introduced him to the positive rule, and it was nonnegotiable. We’ve both become more positive people. What does this mean for writing? It means, act as if you believe that this idea you’re writing is brilliant. Act as if there wasn’t a voice in your head screaming at you that it will fail. Act as if that teacher or parent or whoever didn’t rip you apart for daring to be a writer. Act as if all the negativity isn’t there, all that stomach clenching fear isn’t there when you sit down at the computer. Act as if, act as if long enough, and it will change. You have the power to change how you feel about yourself inside. You have the power to retrain your thoughts and feelings, so that they are a comfort and not a torment. I know you can do it, because I did it. You don’t have to believe in yourself this moment, this day, just act as if you believe in yourself. Act as if, and get writing. Act as if, and just do it. It’s not a fast fix, but I promise that if you act as if, you’ll look up one day and realize that you really do believe, and you aren’t scared anymore. Maybe it will take weeks, or months, or even years. I don’t know the level of uncertainty in your heart, but the change does happen. Act as if, and gradually you will become that which you acted. One day you’ll look up and realize that you really aren’t afraid to speak in front of large groups. (One of my fears, years ago.) You’ll realize that months of just sitting down at the computer and working even when you were convinced it was crap, even when you knew you were killing trees to no purpose, you actually have a story that works, or makes you smile. You did it, and nothing helps build confidence like facing your fear and conquering it, and not letting it conquer you.

Got eight pages done today. Yea! I’ve finally got my minim page count. I got my butt to the computer by 9:00 A. M. Since I knew I had a business meeting this afternoon, it gave me even more incentive to get up and get moving. Frankly, eight pages has tired me out. I’m hoping after we get through this section, we’ll pick up speed.
Now, I’ll answer another question I got frequently on tour. Why the sex in the books? I think I got tired of killing things. I think I just wanted to do something a little more life affirming than murder. For those of you who would rather see dead and mutilated corpses instead of happy naked people; sorry. Have no fear, there will be more carnage, and more mysteries to solve. But frankly, as a writer I’m more interested in my people’s emotional lives and happiness than in catching the bad guy. In interviewing people, this change of interest is sort of a reflection I’ve found in talking to real policeman. As a rookie, you love putting the bad guy away, you love the chase and catching his ass. But somewhere around ten years in, many of the guys and girls, start to wonder if it’s worth it? I mean, there’s always another crime to solve, always another sick bastard out there. It’s like trying to clean up a nuclear disaster with a mop. You can clean as hard as you’re able, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference, and you’re getting eaten up by things you can’t see or understand. You just get tired of the horrible things people do to each other. Sometimes you get a second breath, a renewed sense of purpose, and you remember why you wanted to be a cop in the first place. But even the guys who get a new enthusiasm agree that coming home to the people you love becomes more important than solving the crime. You do your job, but you also begin to want to come home alive to your family more than you want to catch the bad guy. When you’re young, nothing seems as important as solving the new case, rising up the ladder, getting that one case that will do it for you. A decade in, you don’t get the buzz you once did off the violence and the solving of it. I found myself doing the same thing. The violence just isn’t the rush it used to be. The mystery isn’t the rush it used to be. I’ve always been a more character oriented writer than a plot oriented writer. I’m hoping that DANSE MACABRE cleared the decks in the personal department. So far the new book is more mystery and danger oriented. But for every one of you guys that wanted to know why so much sex in the books, there were a dozen or more, that would ask for more sex. Eventually, we’ll get the arduer under control enough to be able to do a more straight forward mystery plot, and then I’ll have people complaining that there wasn’t enough romance, or sex in that book. Sigh. There is just no way to make everyone happy, in the end you should make yourself happy, or your characters happy, and let it go.

Well here it is, one of the most frequently asked questions from tour. What do you do on days when the writing isn’t flowing? I can tell you what I did today, because it sure wasn’t flowing. The morning was interrupted with calls and other business that couldn’t be ignored, but damn. I often find that if I don’t get any work done in the morning that I don’t get much done the rest of the day. How my morning goes is often how the rest of the day’s writing goes. I am just going to have to tell everyone on the coasts that regardless of their schedule I must write in the morning. Yeah, it’s all important, but all the publicity and new deals don’t amount to a hill of beans if the books don’t get written. I’m so discouraged today that my estimate that I’d be done by middle of September seems laughable.
I’ll feel better tomorrow, but right now, I’m tired, and grumpy, and have almost nothing to show for the day’s work. I did most of my tricks that I use when the muse seems reluctant. The muse has said, rather loudly in my head, that she can’t do a damn thing if I don’t put my ass in a chair and at least try to write. She’s right. She’s very right. I broke my own rule. I did not sit down to write at my usual time. I let other phone calls and business interview with the schedule. I know better. I’ve let it happen two days running, and every day you slide, makes it harder to climb the mountain the next time. Part of the problem is that the next scene is a sex scene. I thought I’d lost all my moral squeamishness on paper, but, apparently not. What I’ve got to decide is, is my discomfort warranted, or does this man hit some bad button I didn’t know I had. Funny how your own issues will rear their heads at odd moments.
Okay, first sit down and write. Second, keep to your schedule, whatever that is. I’ve broken both rules, and I’m suffering the consequences. Knowing I was having problems I went to my writer’s notebook and long hand. When the computer isn’t working for me, I find that something about the physical act of writing the scene out often helps. I managed to get about four paragraphs long hand. The high light of the day so far, was that the new hummingbird feeder that is at the window at my long-hand desk attracted hummingbirds. For the first time I got to sit and watch them feed. At least three different females, two of whom fought about it, but their markings were different enough that I knew they weren’t the same bird. The two appearing at once, helped clench it, but the third bird has spots of red on it. I’m wondering if what I took to be a third female is actually a juvenile male. I’ll have to look it up in one of my bird books to see if juvenile males look like females at first, many birds do, but I’m just not sure about hummingbirds. Anyway, that was cool, but it didn’t get the scene written. Of course, it didn’t help that my computer wouldn’t work. Three times I had to call for help from Jon, because it was acting flaky. Jon and Darla both warned me that my lap top was old for a lap top, and I should probably look at something newer. I, technophobe that I am, said, no. Today has made me realize that I need to trade computers before I have some sort of major crash. Sigh.
So, I wrote long hand. It didn’t really help. The only thing I haven’t done is take the work out to a cafe or some such and try that. But I have this new beautiful office, and plenty of room to wander around. Surely I can find a spot that will work for this. I don’t know. If it wasn’t a sex scene I’d do Christmas music, but sometimes I can write sex scenes to Christmas music, and sometimes I can’t. But usually when the writing is going this badly, I will resort to Christmas music. I should have known things were bad when I worked to a musical on the only day this week I managed to get any pages. Musical, then Christmas music, and hopefully by then I’ll be out of this deep funk. But I don’t know. Then I’ve got the trip to Source Comics coming up in about a week. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone, and we are very excited about the comic book, but it is another trip. I am just not one of those writers that does well with interruptions, maybe none of us do. I gotta have a few days in a row where I’m left pretty much alone on travel, business, and just write. Because in the long run, no matter how wonderful everything else is, and exciting even, if the books don’t get written none of it matters. I’ll feel better tomorrow, but right now, I give up. The dragon won today. I’m going to post this, and go get on the treadmill. Maybe a little exercise will help.

Hey, guys, it’s been an extremely busy day here. Got a lot of business done, but not a lot of writing. Always a frustrating day for me, no matter how well everything else went. Anyway, we are going to do a blog about the event in Las Vegas. Jon and I haven’t forgotten about all you guys who came out to see us. It was a great event, and no sand storm this time. Yea! I am also going to try and answer some of the most frequently asked questions that we got on tour in future blogs. That’s it for today. Dinner, then we’re going to try and go out to a movie to renew the spirits. Somehow all the good news, bad news, good news, medium news, just took it out of me today. I’m not hinting, some of it you’re not going to get to know. Some of it, you don’t get to know unless we’re sure, yes, or no. I’m outta here. Take care everyone, pleasant dreams.

Jon and I voted today. We wanted to have a voice in who got on the final ballot. Because we both felt that last time, for many of the races, the people we wanted to vote for, didn’t make it to the final ballot. But we hadn’t voted in the primaries, so we hadn’t helped choose. This time, we helped. This time if the people we voted for aren’t on the final ballot, it won’t be because we thought someone else would vote for them. This time, if we don’t get the people we wanted, we can bitch because we voted for them. My rule is if you didn’t vote, you can’t bitch. So vote, so your complaint is legitimate. Get out there and vote, every chance you have. Did you know that the last president of the this country was voted in by less than half of the eligible voters in this country. Why? Because that’s all that showed up. You think the primaries don’t matter; yeah, they do. This is our chance to get our choices on the ballot. This is your chance to have your vote count, now. All of you who don’t vote are giving away a right that your ancestors fought and died for. If they could die for it, can’t you get off work a little early, or take a longer lunch and punch a card, or use the new touch-screen? The touch-screen was very cool. It gave you several chances to look over your ballot and change your mind, if you wished. It was very clear, and easy to use. Even I, the technophobe, liked it.
By the way, if your work place tells you they won’t let you off to vote, that’s illegal in most states. They have to let you vote. They aren’t allowed to hinder your constitutional right to vote for your elected officials. Though, Darla, informs me that here in Missouri you have to give your employer twenty-four hour notice that you want to vote. I didn’t know that last bit either. Sorry. But you know for next time, and most places will let you off a little early so you can vote. Vote now, so you can bitch later.

Hey, everybody. We’re back from vacation. Usually, I let you guys know, and do some lead up blogs to a trip, but this time the trip kind of caught me unprepared. Usually, a book begins to take a back seat to my usual trip anxieties, but this time I worked right up to time to leave. The book is very hot right now, and I don’t mean to imply anything about the scenes sex level, no this is that boiling point where plot and character just cook. I actually worked on the plane going to our destination, and will be making those notes into computer fodder tomorrow. I’ll change a little bit but for the most part it’s a complete chapter. This was a family vacation so I didn’t work while we were gone. Oh, I made some notes, but as all of you with kids understand, the time gets very full and goes very fast. But the chapter I finished on the plane left me with some choices to make and if I hadn’t had the cooling off period, I might have done the wrong thing for this book. We’ll see which way the choice goes for this scene tomorrow, I’ve narrowed it down to three choices. But the scene after this one isn’t truly effected by which way we go, the scene just needs to fill the need, and then we can move on to a longer Edward scene. Yea!

There are signs that the new Anita book is going well, and that I am heavily into her world. What signs? I saw a small pile of mail on the island in the kitchen last night. It had a note on it that said, Richard’s. My first thought was why would Richard have any stuff in my house? I was thinking of Richard Zeeman, one of my imaginary friends. It would indeed be surprising if he had real, concrete stuff at my house, or anyone’s physical house. It was, of course, a note pertaining to our dear friend Richard, who some of you have met at signings. He was the one with the camera. He is now in Italy with his girlfriend, permanently. But we’re still getting his mail and some of the stuff he’d ordered that didn’t come in before he got on a plane. So he’s got a pile of stuff with his name on it. We’ll mail it to him when he tells us where to send it. But for several moments when I first saw that note, I thought only of Richard, the character. When I have moments like this, I’m never sure if I should be happy, or disturbed? Happy that the world is that real to me now, and since I’m in the end game of the book, last third, the world should be at it’s most real for me. The world, the voice, the characters all so real. Final choices to make. The plot coming together, all the various threads, in hand, and we’re almost ready to pull them in, like a handful of balloons that you drag from the sky and only when they’re close enough are you sure what colors they are.
A lot of people on tour asked me, how do I keep the characters straight. How do I remember what they look like? I told them that these are my friends. When you go into a room full of your close friends you don’t need notes to remember what they look like, they’re your friends and you know their faces. I may not be sure who has grey eyes, and who has blue, or how tall everyone is to the inch, but then, truthfully, I don’t know the height of my closets friends to the inch, and unless the eyes are amazing I tend to lump bluish, grayish into one color in my head for eyes, as well. But other than not being absolutely certain of the shade of blue or grey, I know my friends, and my imaginary friends, too. I know that some of you that asked that question are writing your own stuff and trying to figure out how things work. I can’t tell you how to make your characters that real to you, as a writer, but I can tell you that they become real for me somewhere between book four and book eight. I’m experiencing the same evolution with Merry and her men. Book four was the book that they began to coalesce for me, and it’s becoming less effort to remember what everyone looks like, and how they behave, they are becoming real to me, as Anita and her gang became. I think my characters are like my real life friends, the people I like, I like more and more the longer I know them. I like knowing the ins and outs of a person, the good and bad, the happy and sad. I like it all, and my friends let me be the moody bastard I can be, and I allow them the same freedom. The freedom to be yourself and still have people who love you. I love my characters, I just do.

Got sixteen pages today. Very cool. Today is also Lammas, celebration of the first harvest. Though some pagans celebrate it on the last day of July, or somewhere between now and the fifth of August. Though Jon and I were both raised in farm country so this time of year might have meant early harvests, but what it really meant was work round the clock. Lammas originates in the British Isles and their growing season doesn’t match ours exactly. Maybe early August is when the harvest is winding down more, if not, when did they have time to do a festival? Of course, I do have a tendency to over complicate things of a spiritual nature sometimes, so maybe they just baked a special loaf of bread, ate some of that fresh fruit, and went back to work. There are many different varieties of this holy day across the Isles, research will net you a lot of different ways it was celebrated. The trick to all the holidays is to make it relevant to the times we live in now. If you grow food, or tend livestock, then your harvest is obvious. But for those of us in office jobs, sometimes it’s harder. First harvest can be a harvest of friends, maybe celebrate the new friends you’ve made this year. Or a new job, or that you were able to buy that new living room set you’d been saving for. That is a fruit that was harvested from your job and your family’s economy. Just a few ideas of how you can take what sounds very rural and make it make sense in some of our very none rural settings. I’m hoping next year to have a small garden so we can serve actual fruits and veggies from the land we live on at table for Lammas. As a Wiccan there are several holidays where fruits from our own plot of land would be very cool. Yes, I am aware that Lammas has much longer and more complicated spelling, but as a dyslexic, I try to keep the spelling simple.

I did a bad thing, and I knew it at the time, but . . . There are two scenes that you never end before you’ve begun them, okay, three. One, is a fight scene, you need at least the beginning choreography so when you sit down the next day you won’t have to start from scratch. Two, an heavy emotional scene, my courage sort of fails if I don’t have the conversation started, like any painful conversation, you don’t want to do it, so better to be started rather than have to begin it again. Three, a sex scene. You need at least some notes about how it feels, what we’re doing. I know better than to end a chapter with any of the three, and except to come back the next day and just pick up where I left off. The energy just lays there, and stares at you, the blank page mocks you. If I had just done a few notes, then I’d be okay. I’d have something to prime the pump, but nooo, I left it. I so know better, but sometimes even the most practiced of us forget. I mean I finished a chapter, and it was a heavy emotional scene, so I was tired, but . . . Now, I have a sex scene, and no start to it. I am also on top of that not feeling my best, nothing major just the ickies, but it does not put you in the mind for sex. In real life I’d have a partner, to help get me in the mood. But on paper there’s just me and the words. Yeah, my imaginary friends are great, but what makes this scene particular hard is it’s someone we’ve never done before on paper. It’s a long running character, but no one Anita has ever been with before. I always put a lot of pressure on myself the first time a man gets to appear on paper. That whole performance anxiety thing. I mean my poor words are all this man has to defend his honor, so to speak. My words are all he has to use to seduce and make love to a woman. That’s asking a lot of a few words, or so it always seems to me. So having nothing but a blank page is doubly bad on this scene.
Yeah, I haven’t told you who it is, because if I do, it’s a spoiler, and I’m trying to avoid that, since this is a book you guys aren’t even going to see until 2007. Besides, this is first draft and maybe it won’t work. Maybe there’s a reason that this man has never been in Anita’s bed. Maybe I’ll write the scene and go, no way. Or maybe Anita will say, nope. Or even the man. It’s happened before, not often, but it has happened. So until I’m positive that the scene is staying in the book, I can’t tell you guys who it is. Sorry, but I’ve learned not to promise you guys something, or someone, unless I’m positive I can deliver. I mean I’d planned on Edward being in the last two, or even three books, but he never made it. He is in this one, but that whole experience has taught me caution. If the scene stays, and works, and Jon and Darla don’t think it will be too big a spoiler I’ll tell you later. But let me see if the scene works. I have to say, Anita and I are both squeachy about doing another new guy. Don’t we have enough on our plate? What does squeachy mean? It’s that moment of embarrassment when you want to hunch your shoulders, and cringe. Sort of a combination of squeamish and icky, squeachy. You all know the moment I’m talking about. Hell, for many of us junior high is one long squeachy moment after another, and so many first dates fall into this category even when you’re supposed to be all grown up.

We had no power again yesterday. Another round of storms. According to others, the news reported no new outages from the new storms. We and some of our neighbors would disagree. We’d had power for five days, then nothing once more. Jon and I are talking about alternate fuel sources for the house. This just seems to be happening too blasted often. I got seven pages done yesterday, and got through a difficult scene before the power went. I even got to use the treadmill, before we lost the electricity. But it was a fairly sleepless, and very hot night last night. You can do without the air conditioning, but you need at least a fan to move the air around. Without either, well, it was hot, very hot. It hit a hundred here today. We were very grateful to have the air conditioning back on. Anyway, just a note to let to know that we’re back on line, again. Hopefully, we’ll stay up and running this time.