Author: Jonathon

Hey everybody. I know Jonathon’s been letting you know the power ups and downs of the last few days. Monday the fifth, we still had a houseful of friends, and there were just too many people to sit down and write. Then we had the big storm. No power on Tuesday the sixth. So A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT was begun at the local book store that has an internet access port-thingie. I did seven pages. They were good pages, but they weren’t the beginning of the book. Probably the scene will be in the first third of the book, but it ain’t the beginning. Sigh.
By Wednesday the seventh, we had power. Yea! I did ten pages, new pages, and that’s not the beginning either. A version of that scene will appear later in the book. I’m almost certain. Nothing is ever completely certain in my books when I’m writing them. I get surprised a lot. Maybe that’s what keeps them fresh for me, and for you.
So I had seventeen pages in two days, under less than ideal circumstances. Good, right? Well, yeah, and no. Yeah, I was happy that I’d managed to work with all the activity around me. Wednesday, we were invaded by the plumber, and the irrigation guys. To let you know how smoothly that went, when Jonathon and I tried to leave to get breakfast out, the plumber stepped into the middle of the road and blocked our way. He thought we were leaving for the day. He had to discuss that it was a much more complex job than they’d first thought. Isn’t it always.
When the writing is going well you could probably have an entire marching band behind me and I wouldn’t care. When the writing isn’t going well, everything bugs me. Distracts me, makes me want to throw up my hands and say, “How can I write with all this crap happening around me.” So the fact that I got nearly twenty pages with all of it happening was great. But none of it is the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence.
I went back through my current writer’s notebook. It is a stenographer’s notebook, spiral bound. I’ve used this kind of notebook since junior high. I knew there were notes about this Merry book in there somewhere. I went through it last night, and found the notes I remembered. I actually wrote some of it on the plane going to vacation, and some of it on a bench with my little tropical dress and wide brimmed hat on. Jonathon was sitting beside me, with his hat and his tropical print shirt, reading a book. We sat on the bench and looked out at the water, with our bodies touching from thigh to shoulder; him doing his thing, me doing mine. But I sat there on our lovely vacation and wrote the beginning. It wasn’t the beginning I wanted.
I realize that the reason I have seventeen pages, but no beginning is that I’ve been fighting myself. I want to begin with something more up beat, not so dark, but the book is the book, and it wants, or needs, a darker opening. So this morning I got up, and let the book have it’s head. I’ve got about four pages, most of it typed in notes. But it’s the beginning. It is the first line, the first paragraph, the first images. This is it.
I will have to get up and go exercise soon, but after lunch when I come back to it, I will continue from where the notes left off. I know what I’m doing next, and I know the scenes that will bridge to one of the scenes I wrote earlier this week. It will be a different scene for the beginning being there first, a better scene. And that is how you know that you’re where you need to begin, because it makes everything that comes after make more sense, have more purpose.
Gotta go workout. Talk to you guys later, hopefully tomorrow. Bye for now.

We’re Open again!
‘nuf Said.
Jonathon

Due to a power outage in the neighborhood, we are closed for business untill further notice. We can’t access the internet to do orders or postage if we have no power.
Right now, Laurell and I are out at a local hot-spot to try and do some work. It isn’t exactly the start on Merry 4 she planned.
got to go.
Jonathon

I thought I’d published this yesterday, but technology being what it is, and my tech skills being what they are, I’m having to redo the post this morning. I guess I’m not ready to fly solo on the tech quite yet. Next time I’ll let Jonathon walk me through it.
America is the great experiment. We were the first country in history to break away from our parent stem, and declare ourselves independent. The war for independence was fought for unfair taxes, and real injustices against our parent country, England, but it was fought more, I think, because we simply wanted to be free. We were a new nation, a new people. We came here to this strange place, so different from Europe, and we made of ourselves a new people, with new customs, new attitudes. I’m not talking about the people in charge; the Washingtons, the Jefferesons, the Adams. I’m talking about the everyday people. The people that always do most of the living and working and dieing, when all those names that the history books remember, decide it’s time to fight.
The very things that drove most of our ancestors away from their original countries was that, for the most part, they did not fit in where they were. They wanted to find a place that they could call home. A place where their dreams were not crushed, or spat upon. America is that place. Even after over two hundred years, we are still the land of opportunity.
Yeah, that’s right. We are the land of opportunity. I still believe that. I still believe that here it is possible to start with nothing, and find your dreams. Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of people say that they don’t believe that anymore. That there isn’t enough. Not enough money, not enough medical care, not enough love, not enough jobs, not enough. There seems to be a sense of unease lately. We don’t feel safe. This doesn’t bother me the way it seems to bother others, because I never felt safe. I had my own personal world shattered at such a young age, that I grew up with few illusions. So, I understand the fragility of the things around us. Most people pretend that nothing bad can happen, or actually believe that nothing bad can happen, so when it happens, they are crushed.
But are we brave and proud of our country, and our people, because nothing bad happens? Are we only proud Americans when there is no storm to weather? Is that it? Does everything have to be perfect for us not to be afraid? I hope not. Because perfection is an illusion, a lie for children. This country is not longer in it’s infancy. We are working into our third century. That is the age that many countries choose to become imperialistic, expanist, take over your neighbors, build an empire. In a different time and place, America might have done that, but this is not a contrary for empire building. This is a century for finding new ways to build a legacy.
What do you do if there are not new shores to find, not new worlds to explore? First, of course, that’s not true. There is space, and God, knows, I want us to go out into that wondrous void. I want to see in my lifetime that men, and women, will walk on Mars, and beyond. The oceans beneath us, are almost as unexplored, and some say more a mystery, than the night skies. There are new places to go, things to see. The difference now is that it takes scientists and training. You can’t just find a seat on a boat and go. That leaves a lot of us out of this next great exploration.
What can the rest of us do to build a legacy? About fifty years ago American industry began to ship our manufacturing jobs overseas. Now, there is almost no way to make a decent living in the manufacturing sector. Now, American business is shipping our tech jobs overseas. Within ten years, that will be gone, too. Many of the businesses doing this are doing it for bigger profit margins, because somewhere in the last fifty years business began to think that they owed more to their investors, and their CEOs, than to their workers. Once upon a time you showed loyalty to your company because they showed loyalty to you, that seems a thing of the past. Now, having said that, some of the tech jobs are going overseas because by the time they get a local American worker trained up, the worker is already looking for something better, that pays more. For a fraction of the cost, they can ship it overseas and the people are happy to get the money. But if this is true of some smaller companies, then why am I hearing so many people with tech degrees out of work? They are eager to work, and most of them would not quite the job once they had it, not easily, or lightly. So maybe we need to have the companies that would hire local people if they could, being matched up with the tech people who would stay with the job.
We are getting people offering to work for us just for medical insurance. I find that very sad. We are one of the greatest nations in the world, but more and more of our people do not have health insurance. What’s with that?
It is our responsibility as bosses to take care of our employees. That are not just light bulbs to be replaced when one burns out. If you pay them what they’re worth, enough that they can live and live well, not just scrape buy. And if they don’t have insurance through a spouse, you insure them. Now some small businesses can’t afford, I understand that, but we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to take care of eachother. I’m sorry that this is full of such doom and gloom, but I don’t mean it that way. I wish I had a magic solution to these problems, but I don’t. But I do have an idea.
I am offically a CEO of a company. Small, true, but growing. I would like all the CEOs, or anyone else that is a postion of power over others, out there to make a promise in the next twelve months. Promise that you will take care of your workers. Your staff. Your people. We have to take care of eachother. Everytime a person looses a job, it means they can’t spend money in the ecomomy. The economy can’t recover if people don’t have money to spend, or if people are having to decide between food and medicine. If you are in a positon where you can make this not be happening, do it. Make that difference in just one life, and see the good that spreads from it. View your employees as an asset, and a valuable commodity. Treat every person that works or comes in contact with your business as a plus sign on your books. And remember when reading through that profit report, that these are not just figures, or words, but they represent people, their families, the local ecomony. Talk to the people that are on the line of your factory, your office pool. Talk to them. Find out what their lives are like. Find out what’s it really like to live in today’s America. Even if you have only one person that you can make a difference for, make that difference. For every dollar you spend to make the standard of living better for your people, it isn’t lost. It is a very definite profit. The relief in a man’s face when he knows that he has enough money now to pay his bills, and then some. The look in a woman’s eyes when she knows that now, she can pay for daycare, and still make enough to eat. For the next twelve months, try and see how much you can do for your employees, your staff. I think you’ll find that if give loyalty and respect to the people that can’t demand it from you, that you’ll get loyalty and respect in return. And never forget that happier, healthier people, work better, have fewer sick days, and can make the entire atomospher of a work place shine.
I leave you with this thought. When you look in the mirror tomorrow morning, not think about the first meeting of the day, or do I look good in this suit, have I gained weight? Look in the mirror and wonder, am I good person? That should be a question that we ask ourselves often, because if the answer is no, then what else is there? No one talks much about honor, anymore. But I do. Are you an honorable man? If you aren’t sure, then the answer is probably, no. Honor, goodness, helping others. Trot them out for the next twelve months, until the next fourth of July, just try them in the work place. If in twelve months you think it’s all a bunch of balderdash, well, then fine. But I think you’ll find, as I do, that doing what is right, pays off in ways that you never dreampt of, and being able to say, I am a good person, I am an honorable person, is a very good thing indeed.
Let’s take care of each other in the next twelve months, because, United we stand, divided we fall, is not simply rhetoric.

Hey everybody. Okay, the essay is done for the hardback of LUNATIC CAFE. Now I have to update the acknowledgements. This was the book I dedicated to my daughter just after she was born. She’s going to be ten this year. If I don’t update it, all the talk about baby’s and the pregnancy will make people think I had a second child, because the new hardbacks have the current year in them. So, to save some of the confusion we’ve had with other not so updated stuff, I have to change it. I hate changing acknowledgements, because I sort of agonize about them the first time around. Oh, well.
Good news. As I said earlier in the blog somewhere, one of the last things I do is to write the first chapter of the next book. I thought I’d fix the acknowledgements or the yabbies in LUNATIC, but instead the muse struck and struck hard. I sat down at a little before nine to putter until breakfast, and an hour and a half later I started getting light headed, because I never did get breakfast. But I did get fourteen pages done. The first chapter of Anita 13 is done. Now, not completely, I stopped short of describing Nathaniel and Micah at the end when they come in from jogging, but other than that, it’s done. I printed it off, put a paper clip on it (one of those over-sized brightly colored ones), and put it in the file that is already in the Anita file drawer. The file that says, Anita 13 on it. Until today it was full of notes. Things that I didn’t get to use in INCUBUS DREAMS, or even earlier notes that have been waiting for the right book. Notes, character sketches, incidents, stuff. But today, all the misc. stuff was joined by actual pages. Now, six months down the road when I’ve delivered A STROKE OF MOONLIGHT, when I sit down to start the next Anita book, I’ll already be started. It makes things go so much faster. I am really kicking myself that last Merry book I ended with only notes for the beginning of the next book. Notes are great, but real pages are better. Lesson learned. I must do real pages at the end of each book, for the next book.
I still have sticky notes to clear up, and a list of things to take off the white board, that I can’t just erase. But Monday, on schedule, I will start A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. I’ve found the music to listen to, at least until six hundred pages or so. Most albums don’t last to seven hundred pages before you get well and truly tired of the music. There are exceptions, but I’m already scouting for other music, just in case. I always work to music in the office, and I’m picky, different music for each book, though I have found that some of the early Tori Amos CD’s have been able to come back online for another go here and there. It’s finally been long enough. But the idea is when you hear this particular music you fall into the mindset of this book. Works for me.
I just started picking a candle to light before I sit down to write. I’ve never done that before, but on the rewrite for INCUBUS DREAMS, I needed something to cheer me along. I find candles very comforting. I picked a thick pillar candle and burned it until it melted to goo. Now I’ve shopped for another one that I can light on day one for Merry this time. Anything to keep the spirits up, I guess.
It also helps divide my time in the office and working, from the non office, non writing. A small ritual that helps me know that now it’s time to write. Not look at dog rescue sights on the internet, or research stuff, but actual pages. Light the candle, you write. No lighted candle, it can be research. As I get more and more projects crossing my desk, I find it helpful. Helps me focus. Helps me protect my time. Candle lit, and it’s like as long as it’s burning I remember that my time is also burning away. That as the candle is consumed, so are the minutes of my day, and I need to use them wisely. Okay, that’s it. Go play, or work, because I’ve got to go back to work myself.

Well, its good that I decided not to start A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT until July 5th. Darla waited until we got the copy edits off to remind me that I have to go over LUNATIC CAFE for yabbies before it goes to hardback. I also need to do the essay for the back of the hardback. I have no idea what the essay should be about. Truly INCUBUS DREAMS ate the world as far as the writing goals went. But now it’s off and away, and suddenly all the things I’d put off, or even forgotten about, are here to stay.
Well, I’m going to go and try to come up with an idea for the essay. Bye for now.

Hi! Since more folks seem to read the blog than the board I am going to put up a couple of announcements here. Hope no one minds:
To coincide with the paperback release of Cerulean Sins Laurell will be doing two signings:
Wednesday, September 1 Barnes & Noble 3111 South Veterans Pkwy. Springfield, IL 62704 6:30 PM
Thursday, September 2 Borders 1519 S. Brentwood Blvd. Brentwood, MO 63144 7:00 PM
Incubus Dreams will be out Sept 28th. Cerulean Sins paperback will be out Sept. 1st. The paperback will have one of four collectible postcards in the back. But just to make it more fun, if you buy a paperback of Cerulean Sins, write your name and address on the back of the receipt and mail it to: LKH PO Box 190306 St. Louis, MO 63119. On Sept 15th we will draw the names of five lucky winners to recieve a signed hardback of Incubus Dreams a week before it is available at the store.
Boxer Rescue Online Auction: This really wonderful group is having a huge online auction. Of course we sent some goodies along also. The auction begins 07/01/04, but go ahead out and browse the selection. You will be very pleased you did. http://auction.box49.com/

We’re home, home to stay for awhile. It’s not that meeting everybody out in Arizona wasn’t lovely, but it’s good to be home, and know that we don’t have another plane to catch the next day. If I could just get over my dislike of air travel, it would all go so much smoother. Oh, well.
We are saying the last good-byes to INCUBUS DREAMS. The manuscript is off again to New York. We’ll see it one more time after this, but for all intents and purposes it’s over on my end. Jonathon still gets to do the proofs in detail, and I get to make a quick look at them, but that’s it. Now is the time to take down the last few sticky notes that still cling to the wall above my computer. Some of them will go to the Anita wall, and wait for another book. Some of them didn’t get used this book, and won’t ever get used, so into the trash for them. I get to erase my big white board, which was a Godsend during the rewrite. A few notes will be transferred to permanent sticky notes and put on the Anita wall, but most will simply be erased. Most have been used in the book at last, and can be gone.
I have already begun the first chapter of the next Anita book. Lucky thirteen. One of the last things I do at the end of every book is to write the beginning of the next one in the series. I do that for both Anita and Merry. The voice and world are never stronger, clearer, than right now, at the end of it all. So I open up a new file and begin again. Sometimes just notes, or plot outline, but most of the time a few pages, a true beginning. I always have an easier time later down the road when I’ve actual begun. Notes just aren’t the same thing for me.
I will do one more reorganization of my notes and stuff of the first chapter of Anita 13. I think I figured it out on the plane, what I want in that first chapter. No, I can’t give you a hint, because it would give things away that happen in INCUBUS DREAMS. The first chapter of book thirteen gives things away, too many things. So no hinting, except to say that it will certainly be a different beginning for an Anita book.
Sorry for the tease, but much else and I’ll give away too much.
July 1st is the day I’ve put down to start the next Merry book. A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. My goal for the blog is to literally write a short note every day, or every other day, and talk about the actual process from day one. We’ll see. I fear me that there will be days where all I’ll want to say in the blog is more pages, or not enough pages, or oh, God, not another sex scene. But maybe not, maybe I’ll be able to explain what I’m doing better than it actually seems to explain in my own head sometimes. We’ll see.
Right now, the dogs are scattered around my office. Sheryl Crow is singing on the CD player, and tomorrow I will take down the remnants of INCUBUS DREAMS, make my last run at the first chapter of the next Anita book, at least until months down the road. The day after that, I’ll probably take some time off. Time to play with my kid, and visit with our friend, Greg, that’s coming up from Texas. Then probably on July 1st, I’ll actually pick some of the sticky notes off the Merry wall and put them over the computer. I may make some notes, but I think it will be a prep day. Who knows the muse may strike, but I think a few more days of bubbling in the back of my head will help the beginning. This is one of those books that I made only notes and outlines for it, not actual pages, and I’m regretting it. I’m regretting that I didn’t write actual pages when I finished SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT. Lesson learned, not just notes, every again, but only actual pages. I was just so behind on deadlines, that I rushed. But you can either take your time at the beginning or end of a project, but the time has to be paid one way or the other.
Probably the actual writing-writing will begin on July 5th, a Monday. I usually prefer to start a new book on a Monday. The beginning of the week, fresh, new. I’ll see you there, at the beginning. Interestingly enough because I didn’t write pages, but only made notes about this Merry beginning, it means the blog will actually start with the real writing. You will be there from the moment I choose the first sentence, to the moment I write the end. (No, this does mean that I will be writing the book online so you can read it as I go. It means exactly what it says, I’ll talk about the process.) Tori Amos is singing on the CD player now, and since, if I have a musical muse, it’s her, I’ll sign off. Bye for now.

Vacation notes:
We’ve done nothing for days. Well, actually we’ve read for pleasure not for research or a quote I have to give, or for editing, or for any reason other than sheer pleasure. We’ve slept in late, had breakfast in our room every day and taken leisurely strolls. Picked a different restaurant for dinner reservations every night and had lunch at whatever place we happen to be passing when we get hungry. A lot of the people around us seem to be rushing. Rushing to the pool, rushing to a show, or the spa, or to eat, or just rushing. They seem to feel that if they don’t use every minute of their vacation that they’re loosing out. They all looked exhausted and harassed and not like they’re having much fun at all. It’s supposed to be a vacation not an endurance run.
Admittedly, if Trinity were with us instead of on her own vacation with Grandma and Grandpa, we wouldn’t be able to do nothing. Children think nothing is boring. She’s gone where there are rides to ride, games to play, crafts to make, dinner theatre, and the pool is right outside their door. When we talked to her tonight she was so excited.
For Jon and me, this is our three year delayed honeymoon. We got married and were out on a month long book tour days later. There wasn’t time for a honeymoon. We had taken a three day weekend to Vegas earlier in the year, but Vegas really isn’t our cup of tea. We don’t gamble, don’t drink to speak of, don’t do well in the heat. Of course, all that we really wanted for that trip was a king-size bed, black out curtains, and twenty-four hour room service. This trip we actually wanted to be some place that if we did want to leave our room there were places we wanted to be. It’s possible to have sex and never leave your room for three days, with travel on both ends, but five? If you try to have steady sex for five days you’ll hurt yourself, even on a honeymoon.

Hey everybody. We’re back from vacation, but a car will be picking us up at three something today to take us to a business meeting. For the next few blog entries I’m going to go between notes from vacation and more current, like now news.
vacation notes:
We can see the beach from our balcony window. A white beach with that roll of deep blue water cut with paler green. It’s hot. Like tropical hot. I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise, but damn it is hot. By day three I’d broken down and bought one of those light weight resort dresses that I normally wouldn’t be caught dead in. But it was loose and it breathed and I felt much cooler. Though I’ve never been able to figure out why the dresses, and matching shirts, always come in such bold patterns. Either the dress is designed to break up my pattern so I’d be camouflaged at a poolside party, or the bright colors must mean I’m venomous, or mimicking something else that is venomous. At least that’s the way nature works. But I was so much more comfortable that I’m actually considering buying a second dress in an even brighter pattern for tomorrow. We’re on vacation. We’d rather be comfortable than worry about fashion.
Right now we’re wearing sarongs (pieces of cloth that theoretically you tie until it makes clothing). Let’s just say the theory is definitely not for public viewing. I’ve got to go help Jonathon decide what we’re packing for the business trip. A totally different kind of packing. Bye for now.