Lost my voice last night. Yes, I’ve been to the doctor. Have some voice back today, but am having to sort of ration the use of it, so I can make sure I can talk to all you guys who are coming to the two signings next week for A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. Not to mention that it hurts to talk. Always an incentive not to do something.
The Micah novella is going along nicely, but it’s actually going to be the size of a small book. I’ll try to remember this the next time I have a “short” idea. Sigh. Well back to work, at least writing doesn’t require me to talk.
Jon just walked by and said, “You should tell them how you lost your voice.” Okay.
I’ve been diagnosed with LPR (Laryngopharyngeal Reflux). Basically it’s like acid reflux except instead of trying to burn a hole through my esophogus, it’s coming all the way up to my voice box, my larynx. Spring allergies have hit, and so I’ve got drainage coming from above, and acid coming from below, and everything is pooling in my throat. Ho, ho, ho. My doctor has doubled some of the medication I was already on. She’s going to get me into a voice clinic that specializes in things relating to the voice. This does explain why a few years ago I went from being able to project to the back row of a room, easily, to straining for it. It also explains why I started loosing my voice after tour, unless every talk had a microphone. It explains why I feel like I’m choking sometimes if a shirt covers my throat. It actually explains a lot of symptoms and problems that wouldn’t seem related, but actually are. Funny how the body works sometimes. Funny in that morbid, very not ha-ha way.
This would all be easier if I was better at charades. I’ve always sucked at the game. Writing little notes hurts my injured arm. My American sign language is too rusty to use. Very frustrating.
Author: Jonathon
And the morning begins
Twenty minutes before the school bus is due to arrive at our door, our sweet little girl, says, “I need to dress like Helen Keller today for my book report.” It is the first Jonathon and I have heard of the need to dress up. She’s still in her jammies. Teeth unbrushed. Hair uncombed. We’re like scrambling to even make the bus. And now we have to pull an early 1900s woman’s outfit out of our magical closet. Problem, we don’t have a magical closet.
She finally finds a play skirt to put on over her jeans when the time comes for her report today. She found it, because I could find nothing in her closet that remotely resembled what she needed. The last book report was handled more here, at home. Mary, her grandma, made her an outfit to dress up as a junior herpetologist. It was way cool. But this book report is done at school with the children taking more responsibility for the whole think. And she did. She found the skirt. She has all her stuff in her time capsule that has to do with Helen Keller. She has shown the contents of her box to no one here at home. I got a glimpse of a picture of a key, and I know the story well enough to go, oh, that’s good. But she’s on her own. So why if she’s on her own were we trying to conjure a outfit out of thin air twenty minutes to bus time?
All my friends with kids now in their teens and especially twenties, say the same thing. That no matter how old they get, there will still moments when the kids turn to you and expect miracles on the spur of the movement to make their life work. I am both looking forward to this, and a little afraid. Because I’ve noticed that the older Trinity gets the less easy it is to pull off that miracle. Ah, for the days when a little something sweet and a story would take care of all the ills in the world.
Curse You, Ben Franklin
Did you remember to spring forward this morning, or are you running an hour late? Jonathon and I remembered, but the clock lied. It says we got up at 6:00 A. M., but my body knew it was really 5:00 A. M. The sun knew the truth, because it wasn’t up yet either.
Maybe I wouldn’t take daylight saving time (and yes, saving, not savings is the original phrasing) so hard if I hadn’t been raised without it. A good portion of Indiana doesn’t observe this artificial mess. We all got along just fine without rearranging our clocks, thank you very much. Since I’ve lived without government mandated clock tampering, and saw no ill effects from it, I’m puzzled why most of the country gives into it all.
The true irony to me is that the concept was invented by Benjamin Franklin. A man who was notorious for staying up into the wee hours of the night, or morning as it were, and sleeping until noon. Yes, I know he did the famous quote, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” But Mr. Franklin quoted a lot of stuff he didn’t actually do in his own life.
On one morning after the night before, a very late night, he woke to find his room ablaze with sunlight. His first thought was that his room must be full of the new oil lamps. Then he realized to his shock that it was the sun. In the humorous essay he wrote about this event, he said that he didn’t realize the sun rose so early. He proposed, as a joke, that we change our clocks to accommodate the earlier rising of the sun as the year progresses. His tongue was firmly in cheek. It was a joke folks. A joke, I tell you!
But as so often happens what one man says in jest, someone else simply takes as fact and runs with it. What began as a humorous essay published in a French publication, has become the law of the land in the United States of America. Ben Franklin rarely saw the light of day before noon, if he had a choice. So I say, curse you Ben Franklin, curse you. For rousing all the rest of us out of our beds before dawn, when, if you were still alive and well, you’d still be sleeping until noon.
Jasmine Tea, music, and the muse
Spent two days this weeks pretty much living on music and Jasmine tea. I ate, but I huddled over my tea, and music and wrote. I now remember why I stopped writing short stories, because I bloody don’t know how to write short. The novellette is turning into a novella, and if it goes about twenty pages more it may qualify page wise as a novel. A short one by my standards, but the size of a cozy mystery. Geez, I just can’t write short. Goal is to finish the “short” piece today. Gotta get back to the actual book.
Music that I’m listening to: Revis, The Punisher soundtrack, Tori Amos. Thanks for all the music suggestions. After the novella is done I’ll let you know how much of the music suggestions I’ve already written to on other books. Amazingly similar suggestions to my working music taste.
Music
Thanks to everyone for all the music suggestions. Darla told me that she’s had quite a few suggestions and that they are a very, varied group of suggestions. Sometime this week she’ll forward them to Jon, and he’ll go through them, and discuss them with me. His taste in music has always been eclectic, and he’s more likely to know who everyone is talking about. When Jon and I were dating, turning on the CD player in his truck was always an interesting experience. I never knew if I was going to get the original Andrew Sisters, or black death metal. This actually happened, no exaggerating from one date to the next. I told him to give a girl a little warning next time and he did.
We did go music shopping over the weekend. Right now I’m listening to the sound track for THE PUNISHER. I’ve also picked up Seether’s Disclaimer II, Fuel’s Natural Selection, Type O Negative’s October Rust, and My Chemical Romance’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (I don’t know if I’ll actually write to Chemical Romance, but it’s a very fun album. The video for their song “I’m not Okay, I promise” is wonderful. And the song holds up without the visuals, which is not always the case.)
I wrote most of the early part of the Micah story to Revis’s Places for Breathing. Very good album. Gets better the more I listen to it. But I listened to it during the sex scene, and now I’m raising zombies. A very different mood. So different, that I had to put the Revis away until we get back to the interpersonal stuff. I may try the new Tori Amos The Beekeeper, which I wrote a lot of the story to, until I had to do the sex scene, then I needed to change again. The Beekeeper will stay with the play list for this story and the book itself, that I’m sure of, but it’s like I’m needed more specific music for different moods. What do you listen to for raising the dead? Try going into a music store and asking that of the clerk. No, don’t really do it, they get really weirded out.
Penguin mugs and imaginary friends
I know I’m in the groove today, because . . . I was searching in the cabinet today for the mug I wanted to drink tea out of. I couldn’t find it. I finally asked Jon and Darla to help me find it, then I realized something. I was searching for my baby penguin mug. I don’t have a baby penguin mug. Anita has a baby penguin mug. I was searching for my character’s favorite mug, not mine. She collects penguins, I don’t. Moments like this used to creep me out, but no longer. I take it as a good sign. The novellette is going very well, and will be done soon. I am having a great time, and eager to finish, and just as eager to get back to working on the main book.
Good news all around. Gotta go.
Music for Micah
Driving myself nuts trying to find music to write to today. I’m actually doing a novelette where Micah and Anita go out of town. I need to know more about Micah, and one of the ways I’ve always done that is to throw the main character and the character I’m having trouble with into a situation and see what happens. Micah only came on the scene in book ten, and by that time there was so much back story with the other guys, that sometimes I feel like he just hasn’t had enough time on stage. But, as with Richard, he doesn’t talk directly to me. So I have to sort of coax him. Nathaniel used to also be difficult for me, but after last book INCUBUS DREAMS, this is no longer true. I created a disc (or rather Jonathon did) of music to help me when writing Nathaniel scenes. Now I’m looking for one to help with Micah scenes. But so far, its sort of a bust. I mean I’ve got some that are ball parking, but not a home run. I think part of the problem is that it’s also a sex scene today, and those can be difficult. I mean, how do you describe on paper something that is so tied to the senses? How to paint with only black letters on white paper something that needs to be in rainbow technicolor? I always struggle to do literary sex justice. To make it as real as possible on paper. And, I’m also, oddly, carrying the torch for the men. I’m their only voice to do a good job in bed, so there’s always a little performance pressure to make sure that all the men get a fair chance to be great in bed.
Gotta go. Where did I put that Revis CD?
Home?
Went home to visit family last weekend. For all of you who think a visit back home is a grand thing, congrats. Do you see yourself in the people who raised you? Do you talk to them and hear echoes of who you are, and who you were? Or do you look around at the people who raised you and realize that they never knew or understood you, nor you them. That you were always a stranger in a strange land, and time has not changed that.
My visit to my childhood home has left me not knowing what to write here. Not knowing what to share, and what to leave out, so I’ve written nothing. I know it’s popular these days to share every ounce of your life with everyone. But I don’t buy it. Somethings are private, and are meant to be private. So until I can decide what’s private and what’s okay to be public, we’ll just leave it alone.
A few days away
We’re back from our mini-vacation. Four days in Florida. Jonathon and I realized we had only a few days before the next book would need to be started, or real life would interfere. So away we went.
It was colder in Florida than it was here in St. Louis while we were gone. We were very glad we’d dressed in layers to get us to the airport, because we wore all those layers while in Florida. The biggest selling item of clothes there was sweatshirts, because everyone else had bought only shorts. We saw some very cold looking tourists. One day was rainy and cold. That cold autumnal rain that just seems to chill you to the bone. Jonathon and I felt quite cheated. We’d gone away to get warm and relax by the surf. Instead, we bundled up and watched the waves through the windows, because most of the time it was too cold to want to linger by the water. We did a lot of walking though, and that was good. Using the pedometers we discovered that I have to do more steps to keep up with Jonathon’s longer stride. But then why should he be different from most of the people on the planet. For my size I have a very long, commanding stride, because I’ve spent most of my life with people who had longer legs, and bigger natural strides. I don’t even notice it anymore. But the technology does not lie.
We’ve decided that sometime in the next two years we must scout around for a truly tropical place to do our long weekends away. Some place where it will be warm no matter when we go. The cold made it harder to lounge outside and read a book. No, impossible. We didn’t lounge much of anywhere but in the room. We did eat at some great restaurants. We did sleep in late. We did have room service. We did get to spend some grown-up time that was way over-due. But we did miss the warm weather.
Forgive the one or two words that the spell checker and I are arguing over. You can either have a new blog today, or a perfectly spelled one. Not both. Sorry about that, but if we’re to make lunch on time so I can get back and make more pages on the next Anita book (which I have started) I must stay on track time wise.
Music, music everywhere, but nothing to listen to
Okay, so A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT is finally put to bed. The last calls from the editors came today. The last e-mails. The copy editors caught something that I had totally missed. It had Rhys simply vanishing from a scene and then using magic to call in and talk to Doyle, as if he was still outside the fairie mounds talking to the police. There’d been two different versions of this scene. One had Rhys there through out the section and one had sent him out and kept him out with the human police. When I glommed them together, well, oops. Thanks again to my copy editors for the save.
I always write to music. But this book takes the prize on how many different albums got used. I thought you guys might find a list of everything that got used interesting. If you aren’t interested, then stop reading now.
Musicals: Jekyll and Hyde The original Broadway cast recording, The Complete Work Jekyll and Hyde the gothic musical thriller, 1776 original Broadway cast with William Daniels, and 1776 with Brent Spiner. A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD is also a musical, but it seemed to fit the need that is usually filled by Christmas music. Frog and Toad did have some Christmas music on it, but it was mainly just a very feel-good album for days when the writing was moving slow.
I found Thornley’s album COME AGAIN, first, and loved it. Three Days Grace came that same week. I found both through listening to a local radio station 105.7 KPNT, New rock for St. Louis. They played the singles and I went searching for the album. The two albums came when I’d almost given up on finding any music to write A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT to. I mean I was recycling music from the last Merry book, but it wasn’t satisfying. I find that each book seems to have it’s own personality, and mood, and needs music accordingly. Then when we were on tour a fan gave us two album mock-ups by a group called Breaking Benjamin. He said, “If you like them, please buy the albums.” I promised I would. The mock-ups were not great quality, and it almost sunk them, but by that time I needed a music break, so in desperation I bought one album to see if it was better in higher quality. Oh, my, God! Yes, it was. The first Breaking Benjamin album that I got was SATURATE. I think I went out the next day and got their album WE ARE NOT ALONE. I loved them both. Thanks so much to the gentleman who gave us the dubs on tour. If you hadn’t handed them to me, I might never had discovered this great band. Thank you so much. I am embarrassed to say that I cannot recall your name. Thank you again.
Late in the book I’d exhausted four great albums, nine if you count the musicals, too. Nine wonderful albums, and the book was not done, and I needed new music again. Like I said, a record. Then I heard a truly disturbing version of John Lennon’s of IMAGINE by a band called A Perfect Circle. The album was EMOTIVE, and there were a lot of other great songs on it.
But even A Perfect Circle’s EMOTIVE could not get me through the home stretch of MIDNIGHT. What’s a girl to do when she exhausts great band after great band? Well accident, and my lack of technological no-how was about to come to the rescue. Jon had put Thornley, Three Days Grace, and both the Breaking Benjamin albums on an mp3 player. A Perfect Circle’s EMOTIVE had gone on the player, as well. One day I was trying to find a specific song instead of just playing the play list beginning to end, and I hit the wrong button at the wrong moment. Suddenly the play list was in shuffle mode and I was listening to Thornley’s Falling to Pieces followed immediately by Three Days Grace’s Burn, and A Perfect Circle’s Peace love and Understanding. At first I was horrorified, and a little angry. Damnit, I didn’t need my music to get screwed up. Then I realized that by shuffling all these songs that I liked in a very new, fresh order, it made all the music fresh again. I liked the songs, that hadn’t changed, I just needed a little bit of a change. The accidental shuffling did the trick. These songs on shuffle are what got me through the end of A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. The music got me through the end game, and all the way through the rewrite, and the return of it from New York. It takes some damned good music to live in my head for that many months, and still make me smile. Or, make me dance. Yes, when I’m thinking really hard sometimes a little dancing around the office, using the body really hard, will shake something loose, and help me get back to work. Any way, that’s it. That’s the play list for A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, Merry number four.
Thanks to all the bands that kept me going. Thanks to everyone who recommended music to Jon and I.