Author: Jonathon

We’ve been without power for about two days. Storms came in and plastered the St. Louis area. Nothing too violent, thank goodness, but enough to leave over a hundred thousand of us without power. Just a quick note to let all you who care know we’re safe and will be back in business per normal on Monday.
Did seventeen pages on Saturday morning just before the skies opened up and dumped some much needed rain on us. And some not so needed serious winds. But the work got saved to a separate thumb drive so when all the tech went south, I didn’t loose the pages. Yea!
Jon just looked over my shoulder and reminded me of a not so yea, that happened during the storm. We found a leak in the new addition. Some important caulking didn’t get done in time, and the basement exercise room was leaking like a sieve. As in, flooded. Walking down the steps, you could hear water gurgling like a stream, never good indoors where there are no fountains. Our contractor rushed over and the three of us put a huge tarp over the area, weighted it down with lumber, as the second round of storms pounded us. Jon and I were both so wet we had to change clothes. Wet as in water dripping out of our hair into our faces once we went back inside. At least the second round of storms wasn’t as lightning and thunder packed. That would have been a little too exciting to be out in.
Once the exciting part was done, our contractor took a look at the exercise room. He was upset, but assured us that it was fixable, and that if something had to be ruined, drywall would be his choice. Since it was drywall, it wasn’t as big a problem as we first thought. Though the painter, who will be returning to work from a week long vacation, will be pissed. He has to paint that room over again.
Going to bed now.

First full day of work after the vacation, and I’ve got seven pages. I’m happy with them, and the progress made in the story. Though as I ended on page 592, and I’m not to the next scene yet, well, let’s just say the book is not going to stop at seven hundred pages. Nope. But I’m still hoping that it won’t be eight hundred. I’m hoping to top out at no more than maybe seven hundred and fifty pages. No more, please. So much for this being a short book. Ah, well. Damnit, I started all positive with my progress and now I’m bummed because of how far from the end of the book I still am. Mood is a precarious thing of late. I’m going to be happy with my seven pages, and the progress on the plot and go to bed.

We’re back from Cape Cod. It was lovely. If you’re every in Harwichport, Mass. Try THE PORT for dinner. They had the best calamari we’ve ever had, bar none. They also had a mushroom ravoli that was a tie with a similar dish we had in San Francisco at ROSA PISTOLES. Which, if you’ve ever eaten at ROSA PISTOLES, is high praise indeed. Their ice tea was good enough it didn’t need sugar. Very rare. Also for dinner try THE CAPE SEA GRILL. Reservations a good idea, though not absolutely necessary if you are a small party. For lunch, get sandwiches at THE MASON JAR. Excellent deli, though skip the pickles, too cucumbery, not enough pickle. We did lunch there twice, once for taking with on a picnic.
The water off the Cape is truly warm enough to splash around in. It’s not like tropical warm, but warm enough. Much warmer than most of the water off of California.
Though if you go to Cape Cod in the summer be prepared for traffic. Parking is difficult. But it’s all relative, I guess. I’ve lived in L. A. so by that standard traffic wasn’t bad. I’ve tried parking in New York, and again, by that standard, parking wasn’t bad. The biggest thrill was that the roads are narrow, and the rental car was not, exciting in that bad sort of way. We found a lovely local book store called, REED BOOKS. Got a lot of books on Cape Cod history, mainly true crime, local legends, ghost stories, tales of the sea, that sort of thing. Yes, I have an idea for Cape Cod, which I’ve had for awhile. Now the preliminary research begins. No clue when this particular Anita story will be on the computer. I’m deep within the last bit of DANSE MACABRE, don’t even want to contemplate the next book. There’s an old story about a man who was bet he couldn’t eat an elephant. He did it. The man who bet him asked, how did you do it? One bite at a time, was the reply. How do you write a book? One book at a time.
Forgive me if I’ve spelled Rosa Pistoles wrong. I can’t find the cookbook we bought from them when we were there. If I take time to check from another source this blog will not go up today. Perfectionism is an unattainable goal.

Nearly thirty pages yesterday. Today not even close to that. I know why in part. It was another day where there were a thousand interruptions. The new water garden has a leak. The guys are still trying to find out where all that water is going. Jon’s sprained his ankle so I had to take one of the other building meetings today. Our contractor used small words. I swear when it comes to tech and construction I sometimes feel like Charlie Brown and everyone is doing that wa-wa-wa talk that the grown-ups do in the cartoon. Jon and I are about to flee for a few days. I’d hoped to finish the book before we left, or expected to be further out from the end. It’s a frustrating place to leave it, but if we don’t get out of all this for a few days I can’t promise what will happen to my mood. I’ve been cranky for days. We’re building what amounts to a second house and I need the thing finished. I need the book finished. I need for people to stop saying it will be lovely when it’s finished. It will be, but . . . but more than anything else Jon and I need to get away and not have a dozen decisions a day to make.
Saw the cover for MICAH. It’s beautiful, and there’s a man on the cover, not a woman. Cool. I haven’t been this unreservedly happy with a cover sense NARCISSUS IN CHAINS. There’s lots of good news, honest, but I’m just having trouble seeing it. Need a little distance for a day, or two.

I couldn’t write new stuff to the musicals. Had to go back to Hoobastank, Edgewater, Seether, Revis, the soundtracks for THE PUNISHER, and DAREDEVIL. Right now I have all four dogs under the desk, or as under as they will fit. Phouka is hiding from Jimmy, who keeps wanting to lick or mount her. Sasquatch is lying on his side with a rubber bone taunting Pippin. They’ve been playing keep away, and now Sas is lying on his side, making alien talky noises like the Tan-tans on the ice planet Hoth. (I swear that’s what he sounds like sometimes.) Pip is lying on the other side of the chair leg letting Sas taunt and play, while he, barely moves. I think Pip is letting Sas think he’s winning, before he gets up and trounces him. He out weighs the other dogs by more than their body weight, and is tall enough for them to walk under him. If Pip wants to win a fight he can. But the other dogs get discouraged and won’t play with him, so he’s learned to let them win enough to want to keep playing before he bounds up and finishes the game. Now everyone’s at the door, except Phouka. I think the younger dogs need to go downstairs. I’ll open the door and yell for someone to get them. Then back to work for me.
Everyone went downstairs but Phouka. She’s curled on the dog bed by the desk. She’s gone almost completely blind in the last two months. The doctor thought she’d go blind eventually but the speed with which it happened caught us off-guard. Eight seems a little young for it. Jimmy, who is 15, is doing so much better. Sigh. But since she lost most of her sight she’s not as eager to move. She likes to stay where she’s at, and she’s lost a lot of patience with the rough-housing from the other dogs. I really thought we’d get the new construction finished before her sight went, but it is not to be. She has been so brave and so game about the new steps, the new patio. We pat, and say up, and she tries. Once she knows a safe route just once, she’ll trust that it’s there and okay. What a brave girl. Her utter trust that we’ll see her safe has been both heart warming and a little scary. For Halloween this year there is only one costume for our fuzzy princess –Daredevil.

Just reread the previous blog entry, and had to resist the urge to edit for small things. Always a temptation. I’ve finished the read through of the first five hundred plus pages of DANSE MACABRE. There’s nothing wrong with it. It just isn’t the book I’d planned on. But it isn’t the first time that Anita and the gang have high-jacked a book. It probably won’t be the last. I think I just vastly underestimated how many new characters I had to introduce, and how many old characters we needed to explore further. I’ve promised myself that next book will be mostly violence and mystery, but this book is mostly politics, metaphysics, emotional issues, and sex. I’ve put the two chapters where Edward and Anita interact in a folder marked chapters two and three of Anita book 14. I’ve mapped out the end of DANSE MACABRE, but the map for the party at the end is basically just, party at the end. As I wrote earlier, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve set it in motion, but it all depends on so many things, like the free will of the characters. Their choices will effect too much for me to plan. Exciting, and scary, from a writer’s point of view.

The last entry was actually written long hand last Friday the 29th of July. What follows are entries that were sort of written long hand over a series of days starting I believe last Sunday, or even Monday. I thought about breaking this very long blog up into smaller ones. But one, I don’t know how to do that without getting Jon’s computer expertise, and two, well, it sort of all goes together.
Reread the last entry. Not a very cheerful day. But then, I’ve never gotten 567 pages into a book and lost the thread of it. DANSE MACABRE is my twentieth book. I guess I thought that I could try something different and it would be okay, but you change your work habits at your peril. That whole, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Or maybe this book was one I’ve needed to do with Anita for awhile and I just didn’t know it. Certainly we’re tackling some hard issues. Whatever the reason . . . I’ve lost the thread and I do stand in the maze and not know how to get out. I’m about to do something that I tell new writers never to do. I’m going to print it out and reread, and do some editing as I go, before I’ve actually finished the book. I tell other writers never do major rewriting until the book is finished. But I don’t know how else to find where I need to go. For some reason I’ve had more trouble than usual holding the plot in my head. I know part of the problem, the new edition on the house. Jon has taken most of the burden of it on himself. For many reasons, not the least of which is that I do not speak construction. Jon had to explain to me what most of the tools did, or at least how they worked. Also how sharp they all are, even when not plugged in. Ouch. But we’ve finally reached the part where choices must be made that cannot be left up to others alone, not even Jon. Paint colors, plumbing fixtures, lighting fixtures, tile, flooring. Wood, what kind of wood? What kind of polish or coating or finish? The edition is beautiful, but I have reached the point where I just want to stop making the decisions and be left alone. The interruptions are nearly constant on some days. The water garden will be lovely, when it’s finished. Everything will be lovely, when it’s finished. When it’s finished.
Our friend Richard, no relation to the character, said of the water garden that it was looking great, but that I couldn’t see it because I was in the middle of it, too close to it. I looked up at him, and said, “Huh, a metaphor for a book.” It is. Deep into a book, you sometimes loose your faith. No, change that, you always loose faith. Most writers that I know, have a moment when they are convinced that the book is crap and they are killing trees to no purpose. Some writers hit the wall near the beginning of a book. Some in the middle. Some near the end. I used to be an early to late middle wall writer. Once I was over the hump then it was smooth sailing. But not this book. This book I’ll hit thirty pages one day and six the next. Once I’ve hit that level of pages, I don’t go back down under ten. Ever.
I have now read about four hundred pages of the book. I’m happy with it. Nothing wrong with it. In fact I’ve written ‘nice’ by several passages of my own writing. Always nice when I reread and think that I’ve captured exactly what I wanted to capture on paper. It doesn’t happen often. I’m going to paraphrase Mark Twain, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” I, like most writers, feel that most of the time we try to catch lightning and end up with a jar full of bugs. They’re really pretty bugs, very shiny and they do light up the dark, but it’s not quite what we were trying for. But there are a lot of moments in DANSE MACABRE where the lightning crackles on the page. I’ve got the metaphorical burn marks to show for it.
I’m not good at giving up on things. In fact, it’s one of my worst things. Somewhere around four hundred pages of reading today, I realized the problem with the book. I was trying to put too much into the book. Too much plot, too many characters. Just too much. I’ve said in several public talks that Edward and probably even Olaf were going to be in this book. I even have some chapters with Edward and Anita. The trouble is that these chapters came over five hundred pages in. You don’t bring Edward on five hundred pages in unless the book is going to be at least a thousand pages long. It’s not going to be that long. About seven hundred pages is about it. I finally embraced what my subconscious has known for a day or two, that Edward isn’t in this book. Sorry to all those Edward fans out there, I’m disappointed to. But I think it’s better to keep the Edward part of the plot and spin it into it’s own book, then try and tack it on to the end of a different plot. Any time you raise a major plot point five hundred pages in, you’re book either needs a major rewrite, or your plot isn’t working. I was ready to trash the book, but I’ve read most of it, and it works. The book works as is, but it is not a mystery, not in the traditional sense. It is not an Edward plot. Book fifteen will be nothing but the Edward plot, well, okay, that and some very scary vampires that, well . . . Anyway, on the positive I have the second and third chapter of the next book already written. They’re a little too abrupt to be the first chapter, but they can be damned close. Set up in chapter one, on the telephone to Edward asking for some help in chapter two, then away we go.
What is Danse Macabre about then, if Edward’s not in it? Almost everything is a spoiler. Let’s just say that Anita and Richard some to some revelations about themselves as a couple. We learn more of Jean-Claude and Asher’s back story. We see the Mother of All Darkness again. Belle Morte plays a metaphysical visit. We meet some of the other masters of the city here in America. We get to go to a ballet about vampires where real vampires play the vampire parts. I actually don’t know what will happen at the climax of the book at the club Danse Macabre. I have thrown out the plots and plans I made. I’m letting the characters take the reins and run with it. I always seem to work better that way, when I’m chasing after my imaginary friends, or they surprise me completely. I’ll finish the read through, then we’ll get back to where we were, a scene with Requiem, and several of the new vamps from Britain.

I am lost in the maze. My thread has broken. I don’t know when it happened, but I stand lost with the broken string in my hand. I don’t know which way is back and which way forward. Which way leads to safety and which to the Minotaur.
I think I can feel it’s hot breath on the back of my neck. I turn panicked and nothing is there. Only my own fear populating the dark with monsters. I stare at the broken thread in my hand and wonder even if I knew which way was which, which way would I go? Does what I seek lie in safety, in getting out, or in going further in? Must I like Theseus find my way to the heart of the labyrinth and slay the Minotaur? Or would I find another way to tame the beast, a way that does not involve blood and pain. Or perhaps at the center of the labyrinth there is no flesh-eating beast but only a mirror. A mirror so you can see that the only monster is in that shining surface and the only person you run from is yourself.
I stand in the dark with my broken thread and think. Safety is giving up. I can’t give up. It is not in me. I choose to go further into the haunted dark. I will face the beast, for to go back is cowardice and I could not bear it. The moment I choose the thread grows and leads further in towards the sounds of hooves and axes. I follow the thread towards the sounds. I have turned my back on safety and sanity. I go to embrace the Minotaur.

Hi all! I just wanted to update what has happened and make some more suggestions on things to do. Also, for those of you who are positive you can spot a pitbull, there is a test! Ways to make your kids and yourself, dog safe. An online petition to stop the senseless killing!
First, thank you to everyone who has written to tell me how I am not wrong. Thanks! There have only been two negatives so far and one was from someone who is terrified of dogs, period. Wish I could help with that one, but I cannot tell someone how to overcome what for them is a valid fear. She didn’t say why she is scared of all dogs, just that she is.
To the other who is convinced pitbulls are just bred to be mean, no they are not. It is the owners who make a dog mean. Any dog will bite if they feel threatened. That is natural.
Torturing a dog to teach it to fight needs to be more of a crime. And that is what they do, I will not detail it, because it is just sick. I think that forfiture would be a far better method. And I mean forfiture of not just the animals, but the property they were trained on and housed in. All vehicles found at an animal fight (because believe it or not, these draw spectators and bettors) and confiscation of all monies from everyone present. Then the proceeds should be turned over to the animal shelters to better the lives of all animals. Let’s make this supposed “sport” too expensive to do. Though a nice jail sentence for animal fighters certainly wouldn’t hurt either.
As to what is happening in Denver, so far no change in the legislation, but I have three suggestions!
If I read the recent Supreme Court ruling correctly on emminent domain, I think it could be applied to the dogs. Please follow my logic. The Court said, no goverment agency may take personal property for the public good, without justly compensating the owners. Dogs are property. A dog whose sole crime is resembling a pit bull (see the test at the end if you think you are able to spot em easily) is there fore being killed or the owners forced to relinquish them. So the owners are being deprived of their property and it may be that they are justified in demanding the city reimburse them for the loss of their property even if it is a dog. A judge would actually have to decide this one It may not fly, but it couldn’t hurt to file a suit if you lost a dog to this law in Denver asking for financial compensation for your property loss.
Another possible legal option. Start a recall of the mayor and city council members who voted this in. One of the few legal options citizens have left anymore to rid themselves of incompetent politicians.
Lastly, this is strictly for the city workers, civil disobediance. Refuse to collect dogs or kill those whose sole crime is looking like they just might be a pit bull. I do believe most shelter workers are kind, caring people and are as heartsick over this as the rest of us. If they ban together and refuse, they will have an impact. They would be the best also to propose alternative laws.
For those who are sure they can spot a pit bull, here’s a test. Try it, I think you will be surprised at how really difficult this is.
http://www.pbrc.net/poppysplace/games/AdultFindabull/findpitbull_v4.html
Poppy’s Place has some wonderful info on pitbulls and dogs in general. Especially their fun and games section which is excellent for kids!
http://www.pbrc.net/poppysplace/
For more general info on pitbulls try the rescue group:
http://www.pbrc.net/home.html
I will say this, most rescue groups are far more honest about their dogs than breeders. They don’t want you to return a dog once you have adopted it so they are much more likely to tell you all the joys and faults of a specific breed and individual dog! I am not saying breeders are bad, just some of them are less scrupulous than others. For the good ones, I applaud you. For the bad ones, well I certainly wouldn’t be heart broken if you went out of business.
Online petition to the Governor of Colorado and the Mayor of Denver: http://www.petitiononline.com/savepits/petition.html
And to WP who suggested that I am “stirring up shit” and needed a golden spoon. Naw, a shovel. A spoon is too small.
Thanks for all the support!
Darla