Author: Jonathon

I managed a few sentences, maybe a few paragraphs yesterday. I sat on the couch and wrote long hand in my writer’s notebook with the dogs crowded around me. In Sasquatch’s case on me. He’s always willing to act as my lap table for my notebook. Though even the smallest computer is too heavy for him, and he’ll leave my lap in protest ousted by the bit of technology. But no tech yesterday, just a pen and paper. What little I did get was good and the plot limps ahead. I left Merry to the rear of the battlefield with a handful of Red-Caps (goblins) to protect her in case the enemy gets that far. She’s doing magic from a distance, and if everything goes well that’s all she’ll do. It things go badly, then we may finally see our princess in the midst of battle. That would be bad though, for it would mean that all her men and the goblins with us had failed. I do not see them all failing, but I, for one, have been taught not to count my chickens before their hatched. They have a habit of turning into basilisks in my books far too often for comfort. No, there are no basilisks in this book, it’s a mythology reference. But there may be chickens.

Got up today feeling sort of pitiful, so I dragged out my oldest pair of jeans. They are almost twelve years old now. They’ve lost what fashion sense they may have started life with, but they are sooo comfortable. Jeans worn until the material is actually soft to touch, a brushed softness that no amount of prep can really duplicate. I wear them sparingly now because I know their days are numbered. The inner seam of the thigh now has a hole that is high enough up and big enough that wearing them out of the house is a debatable wisdom. These jeans are to me what a pair of sweats or a favorite pair of jammies are to other people. They are my comfort pants, that you wear because they feel good, not because you give a damn what you look like. I just plain feel better in them. I’m going to take my favorite pair of jeans and the body wearing them upstairs to bed. I’m beat, and not in a good happy way. So tired, but I made it through the whole day without a nap. That’s good. It must be the jeans.

I haven’t put a blog up in a few days because I hate whining. I especially hate whining when I’m the one doing it. I had a reaction to some of the medicine I’ve been on for the acid reflux. A reaction that only shows up in about one percent of the population. So my doctor changed my meds which caused another problem. I’m okay. We’ve got me on meds that finally seem to be a little kinder to my system, but it has given me a new respect for suffers of chronic pain. I’ve had only a few days of it. I cannot imagine it going on indefinitely. So I haven’t been writing here because all I wanted to do was complain. I had a great weekend and then by, I think, Tuesday, I was hurting. I’m hoping to feel well enough today for us to go out and do something as a family. We took a short outing yesterday, and I was okay. Though I was exhausted by early evening. I fell asleep on the couch, curled over our oldest dog, Jimmy. Apparently, he makes a very good pillow, and he was asleep, too, so I guess he thought it was comfy.

Happy Purim, which was early last week. Happy St. Patrick’s Day which was late last week. Happy Spring Equinox which was Monday. What have I been doing while all of you were celebrating holidays? The copy edited manuscript of DANSE MACABRE came in just before we went on tour. No way to take a twelve pound book on an airplane. Editing at copy edit stage is difficult traveling anyway, but the size of the book just lended itself to loosing pieces. That would have been bad. Our new copy editor, who is amazing, would probably have cried if we’d misplaced all her careful work. Jon looked at the copy edits first. I’ve found that a fresh pair of eyes is very useful at this stage. Then, after he was done, my turn. But do you guys remember what else I’m trying to do? Finish the next Merry book, MISTRAL’S KISS. I was convinced that if I went back over an Anita book that Merry’s voice and adventure would be distant in my mind, and I’d have trouble getting back into it. It’s happened before, though never with a book this close to completion. I mean, Merry and the gang are in the final scenes. The big battle, the last few confrontations, and magic, magic, everywhere. Usually, when I’m this close to the end a book writes very fast, but I wrote here on the blog earlier about how reluctant Merry and I had both become about finishing this book. It had slowed to a crawl. Then I had a talk with my editor at Penguin/Putnam, Susan. She kindly pointed out that they really needed DANSE back soon.
We discussed how soon, and then she offered to move the book later in the year. Don’t scream people, I refused. Because there is no room to move nuthin’ this year. The good news is that I have four books coming this year, five if you count the new hard back of THE KILLING DANCE with the new afterward. The bad news is that I’ve got four books coming this year, five if you count the new hard back of THE KILLING DANCE with the new afterward. Why is it both bad and good? Because writing a book is only part of the job. You got to edit the puppies, too. You’ve got to get two different publishers to agree on when different books are coming out. Now that I’m a bestseller, and especially a number one New York Times bestseller, there is a lot more marketing and scheduling, not just among my own books, but juggling with other books at their houses and other houses. Trust me, a lot of thought goes into when to release a book that has bestselling potential. Nothing in the schedule can move, not an inch. It took too much maneuvering to get everything where it is now. So I had to drop everything and work on DANSE MACABRE copy edits.
We got them off Tuesday, so they should be overnighted safely to my publisher by now. But now that leaves me back to MISTRAL’S KISS. I really expected the book to be like cold ashes in my imagination, but it wasn’t. The scene lives for me. In fact, the break seems to have renewed my courage and Merry’s. We can do this. We can. I hope I have the book finished before I have to drop everything and work on the copy edits for STRANGE CANDY, my short story collection. Since it’s sitting on the pile of things to be done, I’m probably running out of time. My editor will get back to me today about when the last possible date will be to send it back to them.
Sunday, finally, I got to see MICAH in the New York Times at number one on the paperback list. I’d seen it online, but I’m an old fashioned kind of girl. I needed to see it in print. Apparently, you hit online before you hit in print. so there’s this delay, and it’s both exciting and agonizing. Print is real to me, computer screen, not so real. I know, I know, I’m a Luddite. It took me a week to finally relax and enjoy being number one on the Times List, and all the other lists. A week of struggling with my own inner demons before I could have fun with it. Some very good friends came up this weekend, Shawn and Kathy. We’d been trying to get them back up for about a year. So I actually took the weekend off, and let myself finally celebrate all the good news. Schedules, and babysitters are hard to match so no idea when Shawn and Kathy will get back down here. I hope soon. We wanted a grown-up weekend. It was Shawn’s birthday, so we took him out to one of our favorite restaurants. Kathy, his lovely wife, teaches and they have a young son, so a child free weekend was a truly rare occasion for her. A nice restaurant, good food, and very good company.
Shawn and I have known each other for almost twenty years. We were married into the same family, and divorced from our respective spouses who happened to be brother and sister. A very interesting bonding experience that. Now we are both remarried. I think they’ll hit seven years at the end of the month. Jon and I will celebrate five married, six as a couple this year, ourselves. Strangely, Jon and Kathy look eerily alike. Almost more alike than our first spouses, who were brother and sister for real. Funny that.

No pages at all yesterday. Merry and I are both dreading this scene. She wants the same deal I made Anita after GUILTY PLEASURES. I promised her after we lost you-know-who in that book that I wouldn’t kill off anyone else she loved again. I didn’t use the name of the person who doesn’t make it because more and more people are starting at the other end of the series, so not everyone has read GUILTY PLEASURES. It’s getting harder and harder to give talks at public events, too. Spoilers, spoilers everywhere. Early in the series, I think book five was out, or maybe book. Yeah, either BURNT OFFERINGS or THE KILLING DANCE was new, or maybe it was as far as BLUE MOON. Okay, I don’t remember, but we were in San Francisco, that I remember. Anyway, the crowd wanted to ask questions about the new book, and one of the men in the audience said, “No, I haven’t finished THE LUNATIC CAFE, yet.” He hadn’t finished book four, and they were asking questions about book eight. It was book eight, BLUE MOOON, because it was Richard questions. The gentleman in the crowd didn’t want any spoilers. I was okay with that. The crowd offered to shut him in a closet. I vetoed that. We compromised. I answered questions and he put his hands over his ears and hummed loudly. I’m not kidding. Real life is weird enough I don’t need to make this crap up.
But I promised Anita that if she truly cared about someone they’d survive. I know why I made the promise to her; my mother’s death when I was six. To say it scarred me is an understatement. So I promised Anita something I cannot promise myself. How was I to know that she would fall in love with so bloody many men? I was planning on monogamy for her when I made the promise. Who knows, maybe her interest in so many of the other characters is my subconscious’s way of keeping everyone safe? Maybe. But Merry is pressing for the same promise. I don’t think I can give it. I fear for some of the men in this, the last few scenes. She’s fighting me, and I can’t argue with her. I feel that it is wrong, if I can stop it, if I can save them all, why not? Why not?
A woman at the St. Louis signing for MICAH asked when I was going to kill someone off in one of the series. She didn’t care who, just someone. She felt that the characters weren’t in true jeopardy anymore. I’d been wondering the same thing myself for a little while. But who would I sacrifice to make my fictional world more believable? No one. I hold them all precious. Admittedly, eventually, Cel is going to have to die in the Merry series. I just don’t see her as every being safe while he lives. But that’s books away, and I don’t care about Cel, not in that way. If Merry’s series is not ‘real’ enough for some of the readers is that a good enough reason to pick someone to kill off? No. But what I fear is that the plot itself, of its own weight, is leading us to the loss. It’s that fear that keeps Merry reluctant, and my feelings of guilt that help her win the argument. Can we get through this last scene with everyone intact, and should we? I don’t know anymore; I just don’t know.

Eight pages done on MISTRAL’S KISS. Yea! The most pages I’ve gotten done since the amazing news about MICAH came. If you’re wondering why Mistral got mentioned in the title before Doyle or Frost, or anyone else, well, some of my other title ideas with the other men’s names in them, were considered too sexy. Don’t ask me, I just work here. Anyway, I’m done for the day before school even lets out, very cool. What will I do with a few minutes of free time? It happens so infrequently I’m not sure if I remember what you’re supposed to do with a few free moments. Jon is still plowing ahead on the copy edits of DANSE MACABRE, so he’s not free to help me blog about the signing in Tulsa. Sorry everyone, maybe tomorrow. We haven’t put anything up about the signing in Texas either. I’m usually faster about this, or we usually have better connectivity on the road so put something up that night. We’ll get to it, promise. I’ve spent the day writing to Tori Amos’s ‘THE BEEKEEPER’ and the soundtrack to the movie HOODWINKED. Somedays you write to something that puts you in the mood. Somedays you play something that helps keep your own spirits up. Today the music was more for me than the book.

I can feel something moving liquid and almost real inside my head. Some idea, some book, or story, something. It’s been percolating in the back of my head for awhile. I’d thought it was the end of the Merry book, MISTRAL’S KISS. But the closer the idea comes the more I’m not certain that it has anything to do with Merry. Which is awkward since that’s what is due next. I have to finish Merry before I can go on to something else. I want to finish Merry, but she and I are both afraid of this ending. Afraid of what it might mean. And, frankly, all the good news has messed with my concentration. I finished the piece for the spring newsletter this morning. Jon’s going to have to sit down with me and explain the comic book script to me. I’m having trouble visualizing it all. As Jon says, one of the benefits to being married to a comic book geek. One among many. Jon has gone through the first two-thirds of the copy edited DANSE MACABRE. I need to go over it now, but if I start rereading the last Anita book Merry’s voice will not be as strong in my head. So many things happening at once, all good things, but it’s still hard to juggle. I fear me that what’s moving closer and closer like the building pressure of a storm is the next Anita book. Not yet, not yet. Must finish Merry first. Why do I suddenly have this image in my head of me with a chair and a whip fending off the next book. It’s a wonderful problem to have that something is so real that it overwhelms you, but we have a queue here, and a deadline, but ideas are no respecter of either. Of course, maybe what’s almost in the front of my head is not the new Anita book. Heck, maybe it’s a different Anita idea. God knows there are enough of them in the files waiting their turn. Sometimes one of them will just decide that they need a little attention, I’ll write my notes, then it’s like the idea goes back to sleep, until it grows a little more. Some ideas percolate for years before they’re ready. Maybe it’s the next Merry book, though it doesn’t have that feel to it. This close to the end of a book Merry and her crew are busy there. Anyway, my mind is still scattered from all the good news. Jon’s going to help me write something about the Tulsa signing tomorrow. I can’t seem to gather my thoughts. Makes it hard to write anything. But in all the scattering more notes for the next Anita book got made this weekend. I know what happens next I just need to get the time to write it all down.
I’m going to see if I can get a few sentences on Merry done. Any progress will make tomorrow’s work easier. The longer I’m stuck the more stuck I feel.

MICAH is number one on the New York Times list. Not the printed list, not yet, but the on-line list, yes. I have it in a smaller window as I write this so that I can keep checking and make sure it’s really still there, at number one. I believe it will be printed in the paper next week. Earlier this week I found out that MICAH was number one on the USA Today list. That means that of every book sold in the country; hardback, paperback, juvenile, adult, fiction, nonfiction, old and new, all books sold, my book sold the most copies of anything. Of anything. How amazing is that? We were number twenty-three last week overall on this list, and that was with a day or so of sales. Everyone in New York started to get excited, I waited. I’ve learned not to let myself get too hopeful too soon in this business. But we are number one, and next week we will be number one on both the Nielsen’s Bookscan list and the Publisher’s Weekly list. My editor can’t remember the last book that made all four lists at number one. I mean one of them, or two of them, but not all four of them. People in New York are saying, maybe Dan Brown. We’re not sure about that, but it just seems impossible that Dan Brown and his book have not made all four lists at the same time at some point in his reign upon the lists. But making all four lists at number one is a very big deal. It’s like Vegas wouldn’t take those odds, big deal. But I did it, we did it. My characters are real enough to me that it always feels like a group effort.
Of course, it is a group effort, especially the sales numbers. You guys, the readers, the fans, the people that picked up this book and thought, well, I’ll give it a try. You guys did the numbers. You guys bought the book. Thank you.
I have been getting calls from New York from very reasonable, businesslike people, and they are giddy on the phone. A couple have been nearly incoherent with happiness. It’s very cool. I have not been incoherent with happiness. It’s effecting me. I haven’t been able to concentrate on the current book in days. But there was enough smaller work piled up that needed doing. Interviews, cover copy to go over, art work to look at, a comic book script, books to sign, all the thousand and one things I do as a writer that are not writing a book. I’ve caught up on everything but the spring newsletter. I’ll get to that on Monday. Because I am still having trouble sitting down and writing. Small jobs, pieces, so I can work, get up, move around, then work a little more. I am excited, but it’s like a bubbling excitement that quiets down then bubbles back to the surface, so that my body can’t sit still. I have to get up and move. Yet I haven’t been near the gym in days. I’ll fix that today. So I’ve been pacing, finishing up reading other people’s books. I’ve been waiting to calm down. Though if you talked to me on the phone I wouldn’t sound that excited. I have been the calmest person on all the calls from New York. To my agent, Merrilee, I actually said, “I’m excited, I know it doesn’t sound it.” She replied, “I’ve worked with you long enough I know this is excited for you.” And it is. Why aren’t I doing hand-spring? I’m not sure. When I first cracked the top five of the New York Times list Jon and I were in San Francisco on tour. We used up the battery in his phone, my phone, and our media escort, Frank’s phone calling and telling friends and family. Not this time. I actually spent about twenty-four hours telling no one. I think I didn’t trust it to be true. I didn’t believe it. But it is true. It really is.

I’ve been trying to put up something about the first signing for MICAH. It was here in St. Louis, though technically in St. Peters, MO. The crowd was great, as always. We had about three hundred, maybe a little over, because people were doubling and more on their line tickets. I understand, the first person who gets off work gets a ticket and saves a place. Be careful on that though, some stores are very strict about it, so check first. St. Louis had the rowdiest energy of any of the crowds. So glad everyone had such a good time. But now, I know why everyone had such a good time. It’s Charles’s fault. I’ve seen the pictures. Not only is he well-armed but he’s the opening act, too. For those of you who couldn’t be at the St. Louis signing, Charles was our bodyguard. He was also our guard at the Romance Con last year and will be again this year. Though when you see us next on tour I think we’re going to have to go down to only two books per person. Sorry, but in the interest of time and my arm it’s the difference between nine hundred books a night and six hundred.
It was great to see so many familiar faces. The new faces are great, too, but some people are becoming like old home week. Through signings we’ve followed some people through graduating college to buying their first house. We’ve seen people through job changes, marriages, babies . . . and still you guys are willing to come out and wait for hours just to see us and get a signature. It’s really cool. It’s not just in St. Louis that we’re getting familiar faces but at all the cities that are regular stops. The fans are beginning to look for the other people they only see at the signings so they can catch up with them in line while everyone waits. So many people make friends at the events. We’ve even had two different couples meet in line and later marry. How’s that for making good use of your wait.
The next tour isn’t until late June. That’ll be DANSE MACABRE. It’s about four times longer than MICAH. Let’s see one of you guys finish that in three hours, and no skimming. Three hours is the record right now for someone finishing MICAH. At least, that have talked to us about it.

I wrote the following yesterday evening, before the quick note I posted.
Got up today and wasn’t sure I was feeling well enough to do everything that was scheduled. I was so tired, but I often am after even a few days of touring even without the sinus infection and other stuff. I think if I didn’t have the phobias then touring would be so much less of an ordeal. Where is that blasted teleportation technology? Of course, I’d probably be like Dr. McCoy and not trust it, but since I don’t completely trust planes or cars, I guess it wouldn’t be that different. Anyway, we all got ready to go downtown to the City Museum, where we were meeting the ladies, Christina and Jessica from DUNGEON MAJESTY. They’re sort of a web show, or streaming video show. Check out their website, I’m sure they can explain what they do much better than I can. But they are women who game and do a show about it, but it’s a lot more than that. The interview went well, and it was great to meet them. An entire gaming group of girls, too cool. The most I ever had in one gaming group at one time was three women, and that’s counting me. It is still a very male dominated field. I don’t know when the interview will be up and running on their sight, so please don’t ask. Darla, or Jon, will let you know when we know.
I also did a podcast audio interview for the Mayor’s website, possibly next Monday as new ones come out on Mondays. Many thanks to Richard Callow,Annette Mandel and Nick Kasoff for arranging the interview. Again, I don’t know when it will be up and available. Both interviews have to be edited down. As anyone who has seen me at an event knows I can talk. People love that I give informative answers, but you never get to use it all. I guess I interview like I write, say everything you want to say then trim it down to what you need.
It’s so nice to finely feel better. Richard and I made dinner while Jon helped Trinity with math homework. For those of you who came to the St. Louis, or should I say, St. Peters, event, Richard was the one taking photographs. We’ll be putting some of his photos from today up as soon as possible on the website. The City Museum is entirely too cool. It’s like being inside a sculpture that you can touch, fondle, and interact with. It’s hard to explain. I got to meet the creator of most of what you’ll see there, Bob Cassilly. Walking through the caverns that he’s carved inside this building is like walking through his imagination. An imagination that you can run your hands over, and lean against. It was a privaledge to have him lead us through part of his work. He talks about his work the way I talk about mine with an enthusiastic intimacy, and an eye of wonder for what we’ve created. When you see what he’s made, you’ll understand when I say, that he looks at a work that most artists would be proud to call finished with an eye to the future and what comes next, much the same way I look at the Anitaverse. I’ve done thirteen books counting MICAH, and I’m still looking forward to what comes next.
Unfortunately, the kiddo is still doing homework. Math is almost done, but there’s a reading assignment. She’s reading her chapter as I type this. When she’s done we have a worksheet to finish. Yes, it is past her bedtime, but it’s all due tomorrow. Other friends tell us the same story about homework. Long hours, and late nights. We’re going to have to call it soon, but I’m not sure we’ll be done. And I know from experience that getting Trin up early to work on it in the morning is not always the most successful tactic. She’s not a morning person and neither are we.