Author: Jonathon

Hey everybody. Christmas Eve. Ho, ho, ho. I know that Darla is going to begin posting the second chapter of SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT, the third Merry Gentry book tomorrow, as a sort of present. But I thought I’d either sweeten the pot, or drive you guys crazy. How about hints from the next Anita book, INCUBUS DREAMS? The book is going well, but it’s going to be a blasted long bugger. I just passed five hundred pages. Yea! Richard has had two big scenes on paper. One he behaved badly, and the second he surprised us with how hard he tried to help Anita. Ronnie has had two scenes, one medium and one big. Nathaniel has decided to dominate large sections of this book. Anita has been asking him to be less submissive, to ask for what he wants, and I’d encouraged that. Neither she, nor I, understood what that might mean. The Damian fans will be getting more than their usual money’s worth. I don’t think he’s had this much on screen time since BLUE MOON. We’ve introduced new vampires that will be continuing characters. We’ve introduced new werewolves, who will also be continuing characters. I’m estimating this book will be around a thousand manuscript pages. Longer than OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY which held the record at around nine hundred and something. We’ve still got at least three more murder scenes to do. Olaf’s call is still too come, though close. That call will be what prompts her to call Edward for help. So much of my outline (that is sticky noted above my desk) still remains to do. Other things on the outline are gone, earlier character choices have made some scenes mute. That always happens. I know how the mystery ends. I know who done it. But I have no idea how Richard and Anita will be doing by the end of this book. I’ve outlined some choices, you know, choose a, b, or c. The earlier choices have gotten rid of some scenes that I’d thought we’d see. Oh, well, what do I know, I’m just the writer. The question that keeps coming up so often it’s like a theme for this book, is this — Can you truly love anyone if you do not first love yourself? If you hate yourself, can you love anyone else? If you do not accept all of who you are, can you accept anyone else? Hard questions. It remains to be seen whether I get any answers, hard, or otherwise.
Well, I’ve got to get back to work. The new werewolf Graham is driving Anita back to Guilty Pleasures so she can pick up Nathaniel. Why isn’t she driving? Blood loss makes her dizzy. And a few other things that would indeed be spoilers. One of the new vamps is with her, as well. The people Jean-Claude chose to be her security for the night. The plan is to get back in time to see Nathaniel’s act, or at least the end of it. We’ve never seen him on stage. We’ve never seen him shapeshift. Tonight we will. Then after we’ve seen the show, we’ll get another murder scene to go to. Though Anita doesn’t know about the new murder yet. Busy, busy, busy.
Happy holidays to all of you. Be safe, be well. Remember that we’re more alike than different. Remember that we all hurt, and we all bleed. Everybody play nice.

Happy holidays to everyone! May all your hopes and wishes for the new year be fullfilled.
And since I didn’t make a wish on my birthday that just passed I am going to make it here and now:
May 2004 bring peace to the world.
My wish for Christmas:
May there be no more homeless, unwanted pets. May they all find the special person or people worthy of them. And may we all work to make it so.
So everyone smile and make someone’s day lighter!

I seem to have lost the post I started. Darn it!
Here is what I said in a nutshell.
Please do not buy a pet for a gift. Unless you know without a doubt that the person your buying for wants a pet and is willing to make a lifetime commitment to that animal. Yes, a life time. The animals life time.
After the holidays shelters and rescue groups are flooded with unwanted holiday pets. That cute kitten or puppy that brought such joy is now a nuisance. It needs to be fed, watered, walked and played with. But no one has the time. It needs to be housebroken, it chews things or claws things. It has gone from being a happy event to an unhappy event.
So now it gets relegated to the yard. Left alone and ignored. The petting and happiness of it’s initial arrival is now but a dream. The kids promised they would take care of it. But now they don’t want to be responsible either. Now it sits and wonders if it is even remembered. All it wants is to love you. Animals are thinking, feeling creatures. They cannot tend themselves. Dogs are pack animals also. They need the company of humans or others of their kind to survive and be healthy. But suddenly no one has the time. So off to the shelter it goes!
If it is a no-kill shelter it may have years before it finds a loving home. If it is a kill shelter it may have 1 – 3 days before it is killed. Give it what ever pleasant name you like, that is what it is. And it is likely to be killed in the most efficient and cheapest method available. Usually gassing. Hardly a noble end when all it wanted was a home to be loved in. Instead it is gasping it’s life away because of human carelessness. Harsh of me? Yes but it is true.
A pet will repay your love and care with love and loyalty like no other creature will ever give you. But it is a commitment on your part to tend their needs, they cannot do it themselves.
And what does it say to a child that the moment it becomes inconvenient off it goes? Your deeds should reflect you words.
And please do not drive it to the country and release it. These are domesticated animals. They are ill equipped to live in the wild. The people in those areas have all the animals they want. Your unwanted pet is likely to be shot, hit by a car, trapped, poisoned, starve to death or killed by another animal. Surely that is not what you planned.
So this holiday season try a stuffed toy, or one of the robotic pets. All the joy with none of the mess. Remember, taking on a pet really is a lifetime commitment. The life of the pet.
If you don’t know if you have the time to commit, many shelters and rescue groups offer rent a pet. Everything you need to tend a pet for a weekend is provided. Call it the “try it before you buy it” plan. Or offer to foster, at least if it doesn’t work out the animal has a place to return to where it is safe and has a chance at a real home. No shame in admitting it wasn’t for you. That is why they offer the programs. To give you a chance to see if it really will work for you. And most shelters would rather have an animal returned to them if it doesn’t work out. Yes, they are disappointed. But they understand that sometimes it doesn’t work out and are grateful to have it returned to them rather than callously abandoned. If it makes it easier for you, you can prepay the adoption fee for the next home. That way, someone who may want it but unable to afford the fee will be able to take it.
Happy holidays! And please remember to give your pet a hug. They love you, no matter what.

Wooo Hooooo!!! LoTR: TRoTK !!!! Woooo! Hoo!
Just got done watching it and somone will post more tomorrow, but in the mean time….
Wooo! Hooo!

Hey, everybody. I was going to recommend a movie that most of you probably won’t pick up, because you’ll never know it exisited. FRIENDS AND FAMILY, is one of the funniest movies we’ve seen in years. The idea? A New York gay couple who happen to be the main bodyguards and enforcers for the Don of a mob family. Add that one half of the couple has a dad who is deep cover F.B.I, and a mother that has arranged a surprise birthday visit, and the fun goes from there. Oh, the parents think the men run a caterering company. In one hilarious scene the two mob bodyguards prove, beyond shadow of doubt, that they cannot cook. Watching them try to boil eggs was just a hoot. The movie walks a thin line between too much and just enough for the humor, and the characters to shine. The end of the movie is touching, and holds one of the most romantic pieces of dialogue that I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. I think, because they were so careful to show little or no touching between the couple, they had to build the relationship more. It freaking worked. Hollywood relies on sex for romance most of the time, and the two are not synomomous.
Yeah, there’s a lot of sex in my books, but you earn it. It’s not easy or done instead of the emotional stuff. Sex is the reward, not the meat of a relationship. If you’re lying in bed in the middle of foreplay and you think of something funny, and share it, and have everybody laugh, then you are in the right bed. If you’re worried that what you’re about to say will offend someone, then what the hell are you doing naked in a bed with them? Sorry, sorry, got distracted, but it is one of my pet peeves. So many movies and shows, present a picture of life that has little or nothing to do with reality. It maybe funny, but it ain’t real. So many times Hollywood makes it seem so easy. You meet, you get that little shot of eltricity between two people and the next thing you know, you’re having sex, and that makes a relationship. I’ve interviewed people that number their sexual partners in the hundreds. Notice I said, sexual partners, not lovers. Love has very little to do with it when you’re that busy. You may be having a good time, and if it works for you, great, but sex is not love. Now, I would be the last person to say that sex isn’t a high priority for me. It certainly is, in fact sexual compatibility is in the top three for me. Because when two people who truly love each other are mismatched really badly in their tastes or appetite in the bedroom is soul-destroying. So it’s improtant, but the sex is not the relationship. I think most media presents it as if it is.
But back to what I started this blog with, the movie, FRIENDS AND FAMILY. Without a single kiss, or almost any other caressing. I’m not sure they even held hands during the movie. I’d have to see it again, and I plan to. But with so little physical contact, their love for eachother shone through. It was tender, funny, and it made them a real couple in a way that so much of the bump and grind between the sheets, does not.
I think one of the reasons that everyone has enjoyed my books so much is that Anita didn’t fall into bed with Jean-Claude or Richard, when they first met. You had to build a relationship first. You laid a foundation that was about so many things other than sex. Truthfully, I think in the Merry books one of the reasons that Doyle is a favorite for more people is that he had to wait a book or so, before he got intercourse. No one has liked anyone else as well, that has gotten to the sex too quickly, or too easily. Sex is sex, but love, ah, there’s the hard part. It’s harder to show on film, harder to show on paper, and harder to get in real life.

hey,
  here is something that we’ve been thinking of doing for some time, and now have gotten around to doing. So many people wan to know what Laurell’s office looks like, so we decided to give you all a sneak peak of where our favorite author spends her time creating.

Hey, everybody. I’ve been off the Christmas music for nearly five days now. I didn’t write about it, because I’ve spent a day here and there, and had to go back to the Christmas music because I wasn’t getting anything written. But day five and I’m doing good. Though for some reason Tori Amos is not the music for this book. I’m actually listening to Fiona Apple’s first album, Tidal. Two days of that and I started alternating with Poe’s first album, Hello. If you haven’t picked it up, it’s great. Some very cool songs on it. ‘Hello’ is good, but my favorites are ‘Trigger Happy Jack’, ‘Angry Johnny’, ‘Dolphin’, ‘Junkie’, and ‘Fly Away’. I’ll buy an occasionally album for one or two songs, but most of the time I gotta really like an album. Especially to write to it. The Fiona Apple album doesn’t have a single song that I don’t like. some better than others, but nothing leaves me cold.
So I’m back to writing to non-Christmas music now that it’s less than three weeks away. Ironic, isn’t it?
I can now stop referring to the book as the new Anita book, and give it a title. Incubus Dreams. I’ve had that title on a sticky note in my office for over a year before I ever sat down to write this book. When I wrote those two words I didn’t even know it was a title. I thought it might have been a short story, but the longer I walked past it, the more I thought no, title, and book, and finally, this book. (I put my sticky notes on walls and cabinets, places I can see them. I find just seeing them daily helps me not forget them, and helps stimulate the imgaination.)
I’ll tell you how well the book is going. I came up straight from breakfast and getting the kiddo on the bus. I walked right up to my office and just sat down to write. I know exactly what I’m writing today, as I’ve known for the last few days, and that seems to be the trick on this book. I need to know what the days work is going to be, no vaugeries, but very specific stuff. Today I get to fill in a blank in the newest chapter and we get to see Jean-Claude on stage at Guilty Pleasures for the first time. Yes, you read right. Now, he doesn’t strip, far too declasse for him, but he finds his own way to entertain the crowd. Oh, yeah.
I know that the next chapter is either Anita raising the dead, or the next murder scence. It depends on when in her night Zerbrowski calls. Before or after the zombie raising. But see, I know my whole day. I was so excited to get to it that I forgot that today is Tuesday and we have allergy shots. I get three every time I walk in the door. Fun, fun, fun. And that is said with as much sarcasm as I can put into it. But the shots are helping, and in five years we can stop. Yeah, you heard me, five years. Jon and I have had to make a longer term commitment to our allergy treatment than most people make to their marriages.
But my point is that I’ve got to runaway and get ready to do allergy shots. I just forgot. The book is cooking and it tends to swallow the world, in a good way. My favorite part of writing is when the book gets to this white hot intensity. When you wake up first thing thinking about it, go to bed at night with it, and walk around during the day with it bumping inside your head, tickling across your skin. Jon and Darla are used to me staring off into space in the middle of a conversation, or suddenly vanishing from a room to make a note. They’re happy to see it. One, it means the book is really going well, and two, I’m grumpy when the book is going slowly. I try not to be, but I am. But right now, gotta go get shots. Bye for now.

I thought this blogger was supposed to be about writing. Specifically about writing the next Anita Blake novel. So I’ve tried to avoid things that were too far off topic. But the amazing response to the last blog entry I did, which had nothing to do with writing, and everything to do with the horrible attitude in this country about women and their bodies, has made me reconsider what this blog is supposed to be.
Maybe, you guys want some opinion that is not connected to business. Maybe. I am very uncomfortable with the idea of anyone getting up on their soap box, when they aren’t an expert in a field. So I hesitate to inflict my opinions on you. But maybe I’ll do it a little more often. I am still a little uncertain how I feel that my opinion, my view, can impact so many people. I’m a writer, not a politician, or an actor. Writers are usally a much more solitary animal. So I’m still feeling my way in the dark of suddenly having so many people pay attention to me.
I am getting better at it. I had someone recognize me at my allergist, and have a book in hand to be signed. She apologized for doing it in the doctor’s office, but when else would she see me. I understood, and it didn’t bug me. But I admit that a few years back when I first started getting recongized by face and not just by name, it spooked me. Not scared, but I was just uncertain how to handle it. I am told that most actors that get to a certain level of fame are given some training in how to handle situations like this. Writers are not. First, it rarely happens to most writers. Even if their books are wildly popular their faces are not. I’ve even asked a few people, and it’s not my picture on the back of the books that is outting me. Most of the people who talk to me outside of a signing or an event have seen me at a signing or something. They’ve seen me in a profesionally capacity, and apparently even out of make-up I’m recognizable.
It was a little odd the first few times I was out with my daughter school shopping and had the sales lady ask if I was Laurell K. Hamilton. I’ve been recognized sometimes by name and sometimes by face in department stores, video stores, record stores, the Disney Store, movie theatres, and rarely, strangely, book stores. I have to admit that it weirded me out at first. I mean most of us become writers because we’re sort of unsociable. Sometimes we’re just not good at being social, or sometimes we just prefer not to be social. Either way writers are a low key lot. It is a way to be famous and not be known, and I am certainly not KNOWN in the way that an actor is. I cannot imagine not being able to go to the grocery store without someone recognizing you. I’m starting to hear the scary stories about people camping out across from this or that acrtress’s home, so they know when she leaves. That’s just creepy. And shouldn’t it be covered under stalking laws.
No, actors, actresses, well known models, anyone with that high a profile has my most profound sympathies. I cannot imagaine it. My small taste of it has been unnerving enough.
Yet, having said that, I continue to strive to widen my audience, to get more publicity, to put myself out there more. An odd dicotomy that. I want to hit that next level, but I didn’t realize until this year what that might mean in terms of being noticed. Good thing I’m not shy.
I research everything, pretty much. I’ve actually been thinking about finding people more famous than I am, (of which there are plenty. any actress on any moderately successful television show or movie for instance,) and asking them how do they do it? How do they survive in that kind of limelight? How do you balance the desire to do what you do as work, with the attention it gets you?
Having said all that, it brings me back to my first point. Honest it does. I was wowed by the postive feedback about the blog where I ranted against the idea that women must be tiny, stick figures to be attractive. It just isn’t true folks. Men like curves, and the women I’ve met that like women, like curves, too. Now there are always exceptions to this rule, but not nearly as many as the media would let us believe. My point is that so many people read my blog. So many people took my opinion and some will give it more serious consideration because of who I am. Not because I have a specility in this field that I gave my opinion on, but simply because I am a little bit famous. I find that kind of power to presaude both frightening and exciting. My hope, my most frevent hope, is that I use this louder voice that success has given me, wisely. That I always remember that fame is the by product, not the substance of what I do.
I’ve got to go make pages now. Because in the end if I don’t make pages the rest of it doesn’t matter. Not really. If the books don’t get written it doesn’t matter what interviews I’m asked to do, or who thinks I’m great. A writer writes, that’s what we do. So, bye for now.

I apologize ahead of time. This entry is pretty much going to be a rant, so I apologize now. But I’m still going to rant.
My daughter’s school has a wonderful program where they adopt a family. Each class adopts a different family, but there is a giving tree with gifts listed for everybody’s families. You donate food and household goods to specific family per room, but clothing items are just all on the tree. Such a good idea, right? Right.
I went today to pick an ornament off the tree, because I think it is a great idea. There was a woman there to do the same thing. We were standing there reading the different gifts requests, when she said, “Size twenty, isn’t that sad?” I said, “No, why?” Her point was that a size twenty listed for a girl was sad. My point was that it wasn’t sad. I informed her that the average size for women in this country from about age 15 to death is size fourteen. Size fourteen is average. Not size 4, or 3, but 14. The woman presisted in her saddness for this poor girl who was a size twenty. I pointed out that maybe she was tall, because I wasn’t making my point any other way. The woman, who was shorter than I was, conceeded that that might be true.
What is wrong with women in this country? We’re supposed to be ashamed if we’re over a certain size? Why? If you’re healthy, and it’s not impacting your body in a negative way, embrace your size, whatever it is. When I was growing up if you were below a size 5, you had to shop in the children’s section, because women weren’t that small. What the hell is a size 0, anyway? I mean, doesn’t 0 mean nothing? Is that the message that fashion in this country is going for, that women must be nothing to be perfect? Is that the message they want us to take? And if we aren’t a size 0, aren’t nothing, if we have substance and hips and breasts, then we are ugly, someting to be pitied?
There are girl’s as young as eight and nine in this country right now in treatment for anarexia. I’ve been to birthday parties where most of the girl children refused cake. Only the girls, a bunch of eight-year-olds refusing cake. Now here’s the real kicker for you moms and dads out there. You can talk healthy to your kids all you want, but if they see you on diets, hear you talk about your body in a negative way, then that’s where they get their self-image.
When my daughter, Trinity, was only two or so, I was standing in front of the mirror in hose and panties and bra. I looked in the mirror and said outloud, “My thighs are fat.” (Actually, they weren’t. I think my thighs are fat at 106, or 140, weight has nothing to do with how I feel about my thighs.) But I said it outloud, and walked away. My daughter, the toddler walked up to the mirror and looked at her own legs, and I watched her look at her body, and frown. I vowed in that moment that no matter how I felt about my body that I would never say another negative thing about it, in front of my daughter, and I’ve kept that vow. When she was eight, she asked me, “Mommy, what’s a diet?” Because girls in her class were talking about it. She has sat at resturants and told the waiter, “No diet soda, diet is a four letter word, and it’s bad for you.” I was so proud. She has an abosolutely wonderful body image. I’m hoping that my attitude will see her through high school and college in health and happiness.
So all you women out there, love yourselves. It’s almost never men who complain about size on women. Men like curves. Love yourselves so our children will learn to love themselves, instead of learning to hate themselves. Though, to be fair, one of the fastest growing groups suffering from eating disorders is colleg age men. So don’t just assume that it’s just a girl problem. I’d hoped equality meant we’d share the best of eachother but women are dieing of heart attacks at an every growing rate, and men are now suffering from eating disorders. Let’s share the best of what it means to be male and female, not the worst. Love the body you’re in, and remember that little ears are listening, little eyes watching. Love who you are, not who you’re going to be ten pounds from now. There, that’s my rant. Gotta go.

I see that Darla has handled talking about the wonderful event at Misouri Center for the Book Festival. I’ll just say thanks to everyone that was there, and everyone who worked to make it happen. A special hey to Mark Tiedemann who if he hadn’t asked me as a friend, I would have passed. I had a bad experience once at a library talk years ago. It put me off them, almost permently, but Saturday went smoothly, so maybe libraries are safe once more. Thanks to our security Officer Jack for making sure of that.
I do have to say how amazed I am that people will drive, and fly from such distances, just to see me. I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet I would do that for. Nobody living anyway. If I start listing all the people who made such an effort to get to the signing, talk, reading, I’ll never get done, so back to business.
I tried listening to non Christmas music on Friday. Tori Amos’s new album, Scarlet’s Walk. Early in the book, this was the album, but I’m still not ready to leave Christmas land. I got no pages worth keeping on Friday. Saturday was all about getting ready for the talk and signing. We managed to sign the last book as the library was closing at 6:00. We got dinner with Jack and Darla, and went home to rescue the puppies. Pippin, the new puppy, had not messed his crate. The two pugs, who are all grown-up, had. Weird. So Saturaday was wonderful, but no time to write. This is one of the reasons I take so few offers to speak. I mean, if I don’t get the books written, nothing else really matters, right?
Which brings us to Sunday. We slept in as late as the dogs would allow, or could stand, then grabbed lunch with our friend Richard. (No, he has nothing to do with the Richard in the books. I didn’t even meet him until much later. And no, they look nothing alike.) By afternoon my plans to work and for us to catch a latish movie were a bust. I was taken ill. Funny, I felt fine earlier in the day. So Sunday was a complete bust where work was concerned. It just turned into a very unpleasant day.
That brings us to today, Monday. I’m not completely over whatever hit me Sunday. I mean up and moving, but just not quite feeling my best. But not feeling so badly that I can use it as an exscuse to avoid writing for the day. The problem as I mentioned in a blog entry earlier is that even a day away and the heat begins to fade out of my creative fire. I’ve now had three days away. The book just sits there and stares back at me. A cold book always seems sort of sullen, as if it won’t give up its secrets easily. You have to fight for it now. Before it was coming like water out of the proverbial cleft rock. Now, it’s time to dig into that rock, and hunt for the water that I know is in there. But it won’t come easy.
I am listening to the Carol of the Bells CD my husband, Jon, made me. It helps. Though frankly I may have to send him out to find thirty different versions of GOOD KING WENCESLAS to put on a CD next. Even Carol of the Bells is beginning to wear thin. Or maybe DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH, or WE SAW THREE SHIPS A SAILING, something, anything. I’ll dig through the Christmas albums and see what I can find. I’ve even got a YANKEE candle burning in my office. The scent? Christmas Wreath, of course. At the rate I’m going I’ll be trying to stay in a Christmas state of mind through the acutal holiday and beyond. I hope not. I really hope not. Gotta go try and make pages.