Author: Jonathon

I have a longer blog but it’s going to take some info that Darla took home with her to complete it, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. I am feeling better. Yea! But it has been a very full day of interviews and such. The longer blog goes into details, but for the life of me I can’t remember everybody’s names and neither can Jon. Somehow all the business cards are with Darla who is at her house, and I’m not calling her at nearly 9:30 at night for work. So you’ll get more info tomorrow about what we did today and tonight. I guess by the time we actually put something up about the tour that everyone who attended the signings will have talked it through, but it’s the best I can do. Even now I’m beat, and Trinity is still got homework to finish. An hour past bedtime and we’re still working on homework. Sigh. I’ve got to see how her reading worksheet is going, we’ve got to get to bed. This is my first day up completely without any resting in between, let’s hope I didn’t push it. Ah, the madcap life of a bestselling author.

Well, I’ve been sick. Still not completely recovered, but some better. Most of us have weak areas physically. You know that old injury, or illness that seems to flare up when you’re under stress. For me, it’s sinus infections. I was diagnosed just before we began, and I did the tour on antibiotics. Usually that takes care of it, but antibiotics can only take care of so many things. I think I picked up a bug on one of the planes. I tend to do that, especially when already run down from something else. Anyway, that’s why there hasn’t been a blog in a day or so. But I’m upright, though frankly, I have that lingering tiredness that seems to want to drag you back to bed. Since I have two interviews tomorrow, both on camera, I may give into the need for a nap if it will keep me from being sicker tomorrow. If I push too hard today I will feel worse tomorrow, just a given. Must behave myself.
Hopefully tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll feel well enough to talk in detail about the events. I’m feeling worse as I type this, as if even this little bit of typing is too much. Damn. I’m going to go sit on the couch and sip some tea. Hope that will help.

We’re home. We’re safe. We’re beat. The events went well. I’ll put up something more details tomorrow after a good night’s sleep in our own bed. Yea! Thanks again to everyone that came to the signings. More later. Must sleep.

Finally, MICAH is on the shelves. The first of the novel-lites. Anita out of town with just one of the men in her life instead of a flock of them. The mystery in the forefront instead of intermingled with the romance. Anita working with the F. B. I. again, raising the dead again. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since Anita got to do just police work, just zombie raising, without vampire, or shapeshifter politics getting in the way. It was nice. It was sort of relaxing. I’m looking foreword to doing more of them. I have ideas for Richard and Nathaniel, respectively. I’d love to come up with one for Jean-Claude, and or, Asher, but so far nothing has come to mind that would sustain even a short book. More interludes than plot, and an interlude is not enough to hang a book on. No matter how fun it might be. We get to hear about Micah’s background in this book. His family. How he became a wereleopard. Stuff that I knew, in part in my head, but it had never made it onto paper. Now it has.
I’m almost completely ready for tonight’s premiere signing. Jon and I will dress up for this one, as we always do for the first signing of every book, but in Oklahoma and Texas you’ll be seeing dressy causal. I couldn’t possible do the high heels for more than a night at a time. And the dress up clothes take up sooo much room in a suitcase. Well, time to grab dinner before we have to finish getting ready. See everybody at the signing tonight.

Well, tomorrow is it. MICAH will be officially released. I’m my usual mix of nerves and excitement. I asked Jon, what else should I say? His contribution, “AAAHHH!” He takes the brunt of getting me through my nerves, so he’s entitled. If all I had to do was the local opening, then fine, but it’s that whole flying places and getting into strange cars, in unfamiliar cities. We love seeing all the fans. We do, but I wish I was a better traveler. I’ve got books to read on the planes. We’ll be back on Friday for God’s sake, but I think Jon and I won’t believe we’re actually coming back so quickly until we get back. I’ve given up on getting Merry done before we go, so not happening. And maybe it’s just as well, I stand at a cross roads for the climax of the book, and am not sure which road to take. The end is the same, but what shape we’re in when we get there, well, that’s a different story. Jon and I are off to bed. We’ll see some of you tomorrow at the signing.

I don’t normally forward stuff, but I thought this should get wider play.
see also: Google News
Jon

—– Original Message —–
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
To: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 12:00 AM
Subject: [Daily Illuminator] Octavia Butler
Science fiction author Octavia Butler died on Saturday, February 25, following an apparent stroke.
Winner of one Nebula and two Hugo awards, Butler is probably best known for the novella “Bloodchild” and the Xenogenesis series. She once introduced herself, “I’m a 53-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer.” Tragically, she didn’t make it.
— Steve Jackson

I did it. Two plane trips in one day and no hysterics. Very good. I guess it’s progress. We went to the Chicago Field Museum to see, primarily, the Pompeii exhibit. It was amazing, and touching, and scary occasionally. One of the casts of one of the dead, well, let’s just say it was very difficult not to project pain and suffering in his death throes. Maybe it’s the way they did the cast, or it was the heat that made his body and face look so twisted. I know that extreme heat can do that, but gazing down on him it was hard to not project. The exhibit is only there until sometime in March. Trinity is a huge fan of Pompeii, and archeology in general. She loves history, and especially history with some kind of macabre twist. I did not raise her on the ghost stories, or the stories of abuse that my grandmother raised me on. She has not suffered early loss and abandonment as I did. But she is still attracted to the strange and unusual. Not always, she’s a very pink and frilly girl, but history is much more interesting if some sort of ghost story is attached. Pompeii is not literally full of ghosts, the exhibit at least, but it has that feel to it of being haunted. One of our goals is to do a family vacation to Pompeii in Italy. But that won’t be this year, or probably next either.
Our taxi to the museum backed into another car, at a goodly clip. Reminding me that statistically it’s more dangerous to drive than fly. But since I’m afraid of cars driven by strangers, especially in towns I don’t know, it’s okay, I was nervous anyway. Hey, that phobia is improved. I used to be afraid to ride in cars at all. My mother’s death and the car accident she and I were involved in when I was a child probably have something to do with that. But since I drive almost every day it’s gotten much less. I guess I just need to fly more often. Sigh.
On a more cheerful note, I loved looking at all the jewelry and the gold that people grabbed. They grabbed statues and jewelry with images of their deities on them, but either way, when they knew they were maybe dying, they grabbed their families and their valuables. I didn’t find that shallow, or disappointing. I found it reassuring. It made them very much real people. They took things to help them start over in a new life elsewhere. It wasn’t greed, it was purely practically. The gold and jewels would have helped them get food and shelter. It was a very hopeful thing to do. And no, I didn’t find it depressing that their hope wasn’t realized. Don’t know why, but I didn’t. I gazed down at the rings, some exquitestly carved, and felt hopeful. There was a snake bracelet carved in such detail that I think you could almost use the head scales to get the species. The bracelet weighed over a pound. Over a pound of gold shaped in a very life like snake. Lots of snake rings, but nothing as spectacular as that one bracelet.
I recommend the exhibit, it was amazing, but the crowds were almost equally amazing. Trinity and I both had trouble seeing some of the exhibits because of the crowd. We could lift Trinity up to see over everyone, but I was out of luck. It was like being caught in a shuffling mob. If you can manage I’d recommend trying a week day instead of a weekend. Call ahead for tickets instead of fighting the line once you get there. They have a permanent exhibit of Egyptian antiquities that is a favorite of Trin’s, and ours. No ticket necessary for that one. Any way, safe and sound, and we all enjoyed it very much.
I am enjoying the day’s first cup of tea with no one but me up. Luxury. Well, me and the dogs, who are milling about my feet as I write this. I think it’s their subtle hint they need to go back out now that they’ve been fed.

My courage failed me today. Not a single page to my name. I’m reduced to making a long hand outline in my notebook. I will write down all the options and choices possible, then we will tiptoe through the minefield. Because that’s what it feels like, a minefield. The way is narrow, and perilous. The potential for loosing characters is severe. I don’t want to loose anybody. Part of me is wondering if just refusing to let anyone die is a betrayal of the plot and characters, or if the betrayal would be to let them die. Books ago I grew tired of death. I grew tired of plot choices where killing is the only plot solution. I think that’s why the sex has gotten so much more play in the last books. I’d simply rather do something more live affirming than murder. Especially with Merry sex is often an option where in most books people would have to die. Is it really morally better to kill people to further a plot than to have sex with them? I don’t think so. So to find myself at the end of a Merry book with death and destruction my only options, well, it’s discouraging. I value these men. I don’t want to loose any of them. They are all valuable to me, and to Merry, in different ways. Ways that go beyond plot or character growth. Merry and I both feel like we’ve had enough character growth for awhile. We’d like some simpler choices please.
Tomorrow my family are going on a mini-family vacation. A trip up and back in one day. We’re taking Richard with us, so there’s no one to take care of the dogs, so no overnight. Richard is making noises about moving back to Italy to be with his sweetie sometime this year. I don’t know who we’ll trust with all the things that Richard does here. This visit has sort of brought that into focus. You can board the two younger dogs, but Phouka is blind, and any change of setting is distressing to her, and Jimmy is just old. He’ll be sixteen this year and if he goes off his special diet again, it could be the end of him, so the vet says. He’s sooo pitiful when he begs for treats, and after what happened last time we boarded him, we just don’t trust everyone that works at the doggie hotel to stand firm and not give into those eyes. It must be the beagle half of him, because pugs just don’t beg for food quite that well. Anyway, off tomorrow to have fun, though in truth, the thought of two plane rides in one day scares the hell out of me. But I must get better at it, and so tomorrow I bite the bullet and pretend to be brave. Trinity has no idea that her mother is such a chicken shit about flying. I pretend good. But damn, some trips are harder than others. Normally I put on earphones, music, and work, and pretend I’m not on a plane. Trinity wants to talk, and talking about the plane and the trip makes it hard to pretend I’m in a very narrow bus. I’m to bed as we have to get up early tomorrow.

Fifteen pages. A hard, slogging fifteen pages. It wasn’t a muse driven rush, more a battle hard fought and hard won. But we are close. I’d say within three days of the end. Three work days. So tomorrow, but Saturday is a bust because we’ve planned a family outing. It’ll be fun, just awkward timing. But Sunday and Monday before we open on Tuesday. There is a chance, a more than slim chance that I could, possibly, get this book finished before we leave for MICAH. Keep your fingers crossed.

I’ve done thirteen pages today. Merry is closer to the end than I thought she was, but still a ways to go. Close enough that it gives me that illusion that if I just kept my butt in the chair and typed I could get done in a few days. Done before we leave for tour for MICAH. But it is illusion. I can do a rush of fifty pages in one session. I’ve done it before when the muse was hot, but fifty pages won’t see it done. I’ve learned not to do a mammoth push unless I am able to make the push the finish line. If I push, do some marathon and am still a few marathons short of the finish, it just seems to tire me out and make it harder to sustain a day in, day out, page count. The marathon is attractive, but if it’s not the last of the book, pushing that hard actually makes it take longer to finish. But I can feel the end of the book. I can feel it, as if my fingers were stretched through a hole, stretched as far and as hard as I could go, so the ligaments in my shoulder pop and strain and ache with the effort to reach. I can feel the brush of a cloak, cloth, cob web, something brushes my finger tips, then it’s gone. I can’t reach the end this way. Illusion, but oh, it is a tempting illusion. To be done. To be done before we have to break for tour. To be done before I have to do more and more interviews about Anita and the gang. To be done when Merry is loudest in my head and sweetly eager. By the time we get back from tour, even a short one, the book will be cold ashes in my hands. I will have to rebuild this heat, and oh, it takes so much more to rebuild a cold fire, then to keep a blaze going. So much momentum will be lost.
I used to use the analogy that writing a book was like trying to push a huge boulder up a snow covered hill. At first it looks impossible, then you try. You get a little way up, the boulder slide back down. You make some serious progress and you slip, and the boulder rolls over you, and back down the hill. There is a point in the book where you can feel the crest of the hill, and you know that if you just push hard enough you’ll be over the hump. I always spend a long time just poised like that, almost over, but not. Then, one day you push hard and the boulder just goes over the edge. It rolls over the other side of the hill, and instead of pushing it, you chase it. You chase it, chase it, and run breathless, and panting, and struggling in the snow. Not struggling to keep it moving, but struggling to be fast enough, strong enough, to keep up with your boulder. That last glorious rush at the end of a book, as your boulder goes thundering down the hill, gathering snow as it rolls, so that it’s bigger, thicker, more than you ever dreamed it would be. And all you have to do is chase it until it stops. I’m chasing my boulder as fast as I can, and it won’t be fast enough. Tour will catch me before my boulder comes to rest, and when I return, it will be solidly, stuck. It will be wedged in, not finished, just stopped. I’ll be like Archimedes, searching for a place to stand, and a lever long enough to move the world. Or that’s how it’s going to feel. Write faster, must write faster.