Author: Jonathon

As a Christmas Eve/Yule present to all of you guys here is a first peek at “Flirt” the next Anita Blake novel. It will hit the shelves on Febuary 2nd 2010, but for your holiday viewing here is how it all begins. https://www.laurellkhamilton.com/flirt.html

 

What do you do when you’re convinced the writing you just finished is crap?

Well, it might be crap, but odds are that it’s not. Most writers are perfectionists at heart. We’re always searching for that perfect word, the exact phrase to convey the emotion we’re trying to get the reader to feel. We build worlds out of air and words and imagination and we want them to be real and interesting. Sometimes we put the bar pretty high for our lonely little words on paper. You should have high goals for your writing, but you should give your writing a little breathing room especially in first draft.

I find that if I start editing too severely in first draft that I can bring myself to a screeching halt. When I first started doing this for a living, I had so little time between working in corporate America that perfectionism didn’t rear its ugly head. But the picky beast did come to live in my office once I had time to write and was no longer working outside the house. It got so bad that I made a sign and put it on the wall by the door of the room, not directly above the desk but where I could glance up and see it if I needed to. The sign read, “Perfectionism is an unattainable goal.” The trick to it was that I spelled perfectionism wrong deliberately. So that every time I stopped myself trying to over edit in first draft I looked up and saw that sign. It stayed on my wall for years and was a visible reminder to get the hell out of my own way.

First draft is where you can experiment. Its where you can play. Its where you can be as bad as you need to be to get better. Let me share the 70/30 rule. It means that 70% of any first draft is garbage, but 30% is gold. The trouble is you must write the entire 100% to find that 30%. Its scattered throughout the 70% that doesn’t work. Somewhere around the 6th or 9th book the percentage of gold began to go up in first draft for me. I’ve had glorious books where 80% was gold and only 20% was garbage. But anytime I get caught up in beating myself up because its not working, or its not right, or its not – perfect I remember the 70/30 rule and it calms me down.

It’s a first draft, its not meant to be perfect. In fact if you write a first that you don’t cut or change anything on ever, then you are doing something wrong. The writers that don’t see the flaws in their own writing are the opposite problem of most of us, and I can’t help those “perfect” writers. They are seldom published, ever, because you must understand that not everything works. They’re happier with their writing, but in the end usually less successful than those of us who have black days of despair about our writing. We’ll get better, they won’t. To improve you must first understand that something needs improving.

When my head goes ugly, I am convinced that everything I write that day is crap. If I print I am killing trees to no purpose. I am in despair. Nothing works. Dialogue seems pointless, characterization false, descriptions flat, plot wanders around in circles. I’ve learned the most valuable thing I can do when my head goes that black; do not edit that day. Do not edit anything you’ve written on days like that, because you can’t see the writing. You’ve become the evil twin of the novice writer that thinks everything they write is golden. Just as they see all their writing as perfect, you see all your writing as horrible. Neither is true, I’d almost bet on that. The truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes, but while your head is trapped in the darkest of extremes leave your writing alone. You can write on days like that, but never, ever edit. Why do I say that?

Because I’ve edited on days when my head was so ugly inside that I hated it all, and the next day I reread what I’d left intact and it read great. There wasn’t that much wrong with it, and the parts I’d cut had to be rewritten, because I needed them and there’d been nothing that wrong with them to begin with, but I couldn’t see anything but flaws. So no editing when your head goes ugly. Step away from the computer, leave your office, and set the writing aside for a few hours, or a day. Most of the time when I come back to it, I find that it reads just fine. That in fact on days that I’m convinced my writing is terrible it usually isn’t. Sometimes days when I think something worked really well, I find the next day that though the scene flowed it doesn’t belong in this book. One of the good things about doing a series is that I have an out-takes drawer. I will periodically go through it for ideas or finally realize that the current book is where that long saved scene belongs. I make sure that I don’t ever want a scene before I delete it forever now. It doesn’t hurt to keep it as a file until the current book is put to bed. Better to have it and delete it later then delete it now and have to reconstruct it later.

So on days when your writing fills you with despair, go for a walk, hit the gym, eat lunch somewhere besides your kitchen. I find that fresh air, exercise, and a little change of scenery can do wonders for a dark mood. But the biggest tip I have is to wait until you’ve had some sleep and come back to the writing with a clearer eye. Most of the time I find that its not crap, it was just my head turning against me. The greatest asset you have as a writer is your imagination and your quirks. The greatest enemy you have as a writer is your imagination and your quirks. It is one of the great ironies of what we do that the very things that are our strengths can turn against us and destroy us, or we can tame the demons and hitch them to our wagon and make them work for a living. You can either make them work or let them eat you hollow with despair. I prefer my demons to have union cards, and work for a living.

 

Visited with Trinity this morning and heard all about her adventures with Chinese acrobats and the Titanic. She and grandparents went to Branson, Missouri where they saw both. The largest, permanent Titanic exhibit in world is there. They all had a blast.

Phone calls to New York about business that happened while I was on vacation. Then more of the Anita Blake comic to look at. Wips (works in progress), and Finals. We’re nearly to the end of The Laughing Corpse in the artwork. Cool to see it in pictures after living in my head in words for so long.

Brunch, or Lunchfest.

Meditated.

Just opened e-mail here and have 21 new business e-mails alone. On one hand, good and amazing, on the other hand, argh.

Now expecting out of town friends for dinner. Hoping to hit the gym tonight, but feeling the holiday reach up and disrupt my schedule. Not that I don’t want to see friends, but can’t figure out how to balance all the social with the work and creative. I feel about my writing the way Anita feels about raising zombies, if we don’t do it voluntarily it comes out in odd ways. She raises accidental zombies and I get cranky, restless, impatient, and a general bear to live with; I am trying not to exhibit any of those symptoms, but know I’m struggling at this point.

We’ve decided to start a new tradition for the day after Solstice: Sushi. Pili, Thechickenchic on Twitter, is picking it up and bringing in so we can all visit. It will be a good visit but at some point Carri, Meerkatfeinated on Twitter, and I want to runaway to the gym. How to do that and not seem rude is the question? Every year I struggle to balance the holidays with all its many demands on time, patience and just sheer energy. I do better each year, but there always comes that moment when the great, tumbling, snowball, that is what Yule/Christmas has become slams into me and I am suddenly smashed into it being crushed into the hillside as the every growing snowball rolls downhill. I feel like some cartoon character overwhelmed by circumstances while a laugh track plays in the background, but I’ve always thought that for the cartoon character in question probably not so funny. There are friends, good friends, that I owe calls to, and time with, and I am left trying to figure out how to divide myself up and do it all. The truth is that we cannot do it all, none of us, we are all just human and for those of us whose jobs don’t stop for the holiday we must struggle on with the additional demands and even the additional joy of long separated friends and family. It is a joy to see them and get back in touch, but the other demands do not go away in the midst of all the socializing. Every year I try to figure a way to do what is demanded on all sides without stressing and every year, eventually, I have to embrace the stress part of the ho, ho, ho, and just let myself have a moment of grumpiness. Funny, I was the cheerful one in the airport on the way home, bolstering Jon’s grumpy side as we hurried from one gate change to another, but now its me that’s been Grinched. Bah, humbug, and pass the eggnog the Holy part of the holiday is over for us, but the commercial part marches upon us like a herd of ravening army ants eating everything in its path. I love the reason for the holiday the return of light and hope, but the actual practice of the holiday puzzles me.

 

I like wild life. I mean I have a biology degree and have been fascinated with animals from my earliest memories. No, really, one of pre-two-year-old memories is of finding a group of lady bugs at the base of a tree hiding under the grass that covered the base of said tree. But I like my wild life outside the house. The treaty Jon and I have with spiders is stay out of sight and you live, come too close and your life expectancy shortens. Being bitten by a brown recluse about three years ago has not softened my view on our eight legged cohabitants of the house. If I know at a glance that its a harmless spider then it just needs to not try to crawl on me. Honestly, very few things are allowed to crawl on me without some sort of retribution. If it climbs on me they have broken the pact and the penalty for that is usually a sudden, messy death. Which brings us to the lizard.

Lizard you say, what’s it doing in the house? Exactly. I mean I’ve found all sorts of things in the house: crickets, grasshoppers, praying mantis, lady bugs, true bugs, moths, beetles of various sorts, all of which were captured and deposited back outside. Millipedes, centipedes, silverfish, spiders, ants, 1 mouse, not all of which faired well. Wasps and bees are problematic because I know they mean no harm but they sting. Whether they are captured and released back into the wilds depends on the temperament of the wasp or bee in question. Grumpy insects get smashed, happy cooperative insects are set free. Which brings us to the lizard, I know I said that already, but its sort of fresh in my mind since it happened moments ago.

I was sitting at my little desk area that I’d been writing at earlier in the day. I was saving the work or something when movement caught my eye. I thought at first it was a large cockroach, not good, but then I got a better look at it and realized it was not a large cockroach, but a small lizard. Small is good in these circumstances. It certainly is more comforting than large. But we had a lizard in the house which was a first. I was calm in the beginning, but then I started over thinking. How did it get into the house? If the lizard could get in what other reptile could get in? Were there more tiny lizards in the house? I was thinking all this while I tried to herd the lizard outside onto the balcony area which was the closest outside door. Jon had joined me by now, brought to the scene of the lizard wrangling by me yelling, “Lizard, there’s a lizard in here!”

We had it almost out when Jon bent down to pick it up. Braver than me. I’m not afraid of lizards, but by then I knew it was a gecko and if you’ve ever been bitten by a large one, it hurts. Day Gecko’s are especially mean in my experience. It was a baby gecko, but I didn’t know what kind, some lizards look totally different as babies. So I said, “It’s a gecko, it may bite.” Then, of course, Jon didn’t want to pick it up, and while I was looking for something to shoo it out the door it made a break for it out underneath the front door. Jon opened the door and now the great lizard hunt was begun in earnest as we moved things in the vestibule trying to find the gecko. We found a gecko, but not THE gecko. It was a dead baby, so long dead it was desiccated and very dead. On one hand comforting because it wasn’t alive, on the other hand not comforting because that meant there were possibly a lot more baby geckos wandering about. Also, most unsettling we couldn’t find the first baby gecko. Since they can climb walls and cross ceilings it made it especially exciting to think where it could have wondered off to. But in the end we just assumed it would stay outside and we went onto dinner.

I apologized to Jon for freaking so badly. I mean I’m supposed to be the biology person, but there was just something about the lizard running past my feet that made me start disaster thinking. Disaster thinking is when you start with something pretty innocuous, even innocent and think about all the bad stuff that could come from it. Example: we have one live lizard in the house and one dead lizard in the house. They appear to be the same species of gecko which means we’ve had a batch hatch out in, or near our living area. So, first how many more are there and will any of them hide in the bed with us overnight? They’re reptiles and will be looking for warmth. Let me be clear if I roll over on a gecko of any size and feel it crawling over me I will scream like a girl and wield the first heavy object like a caveman. Then the thought was if the geckos can get in what else could get in and where the hell are they getting inside, well the front door is slightly off center and the weather stripping is nonexistent, so we’ll be fixing that. We are in an area of the country where coral snakes live, and though they are one of the least offensive snakes you practically have to step on them hard to get them to bite you they are very venomous and related to cobras. Jon and I are both from rural areas where movement on the ground is noticed and quickly identified since some of what is on the ground is deadly. So, see I’d started with one small, baby, gecko, and ended with a venomous snake crawling up in bed with us. Disaster thinking at its best. I used to do this years ago, but broke myself of the habit, but in one small reptile it all came flooding back, years of bad thinking.

Jon talked me down and was somewhat amused that I had freaked so completely. He’s usually the one freaking about things in the house and I’m the voice of reason, or the person who kills the scary thing for you, but now the tables were firmly turned. In fact as we left for dinner I said to him, “Welcome to my version of come kill the spider for me.” We put a towel in front of the space under the door which was big enough for mice as well as very slender snakes and vowed to fix it. But we also noticed an even smaller crack at the top of the door. The door simply does not hang straight in its frame. But we thought, the gecko’s gone, and went to dinner. I used my iphone to research geckos and found that we have, I believe, 17 native to the United States most of them imports either by accident or released from pet homes. Our house guest was a baby Tropical House Gecko. Once I knew what kind it was I was calmer about it. Knowing about something always makes me feel better.

We have a nice relaxing dinner out and come back home ready to enjoy our last full night of vacation. I walk inside the door and a small, pale, gecko runs past my feet. Did I mention I’m wearing sandals. I am not happy but I promised myself I wouldn’t freak again, but I hadn’t expected for the same lizard to make a repeat adventure. We begin to try and herd the gecko, but he’s having none of it. I lose sight of him, but Jon says, “He’s on my boots.” Not the ones he was wearing, but the pair by the couch. I blocked the lizard’s escape with a pillow. Jon moved a boot. Tropical House Gecko made another darting run. He was so small only about two inches I thought, “He’s small enough to go in a jar like an insect.” I was about to suggest it when the gecko got onto my big black bag that we’d brought down for a beach bag. I said, “That’ll do.” I went for the balcony doors and Jon picked up the huge bag with the lizard sitting on it. He moved carefully and the gecko sat there, then started running, but Jon shifted the bag so we had a lizard hamster wheel effect. He’s almost got the bag with gecko to the door where I’m still standing. I think very clearly as I’m being calm, “If the gecko jumps on me all bets are off.” But it stays on the bag, we get it out to the balcony and now what?

“See if it will get off onto the railing,” I suggest.

Jon was actually thinking about simply tossing the bag over board, so he told me later, but the gecko hops off on its on and scampers down the wall and out of sight, and into the wilds from which he came. We rush back inside, close the door, and have a moment of relief when I say, “It was the same gecko right?”

“Yes,” Jon says.

“It wasn’t a little bigger than the last one was it?”

He shakes his head and says, firmly, “No, same size, same gecko.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“I’m sure,” he says.

So, we had a Tropical House Gecko in the house. Maybe that’s why they’re alled house geckos.

[Jon here: I wanted to make it known that while Laurell was alternately Freaked and Calm during the adventure, she spent most of the time writing this blog laughing. If you can’t laugh at yourself…]

 

No pages today, in fact I never opened up my lap top. Jon and I have spent the day watching the ocean spill across the sand. We’ve purchased groceries, a Solstice present for Trinity. It was just so her we couldn’t pass it up. We have joined a health club so that we can exercise while we’re here. I brought my binoculars and bird book this time so we could look at the passing fauna up close, but some of the fauna came to us. This afternoon we were sipping tea on the balcony and an American Kestrel flew up to land on the railing. It was almost landed when it saw us, back-pedaled, flaring its tail wide so I got an amazing look at the pale rufous (red) color and the striping. It flew to a neighboring balcony that didn’t have people on it. It sat on the railing for a long time grooming its feathers and watching the ground for prey. I don’t know what it eats this close to the sea, but it was alert for movement. A second Kestrel flew up to the other and then rose up suddenly, and was just gone with a flick of wings and a flare of tail. They were so maneuverable. The sea gulls were graceful but nothing we saw today matched the speed and dexterity of the littlest falcon native to North America. Both the Kestrels were females. The males are a little more colorful and less stripy among other things. A Kestrel was the first bird we saw when we landed. It was hovering above the grassy verge looking for food. They are one of the few birds that can and routinely do hover in mid-air. It gives them a greater sense of timing, because they can hover and wait for their moment before they strike. Did you know that falcons don’t kill with their talons, but with the speed and strength of a blow. Think of it as them making a fist and hitting something so hard they stun it, and sometimes kill it outright from the first blow. Though admittedly that’s more likely from a Peregrine or a Gyrfalcon, something bigger than a Kestrel. We had one near our house when I was growing up that ate grasshoppers as its main prey animal. I never saw it with anything else. When I say they’re small, I mean the size of a blue-jay. Small and elegant, maneuverable, and one of the most adaptable birds of prey that we have. Not bad for a bird smaller than my forearm.

We saw platoons of brown pelicans going back and forth all afternoon. Sea gulls galore and some terns, I’m still struggling to learn to tell them all apart. It’s like sparrows so similar that differentiating is difficult. I’ll study up and get better at identifying them. Gulls are very graceful and somehow funny at the same time like aerobatic pigeons. We saw two osprey winging over the water, and one of them greeted us as we landed with a fish in its talons. It’s been a very bird-of-prey-rich-trip.

The Kestrel being so close was my favorite bird interaction of the day, but my next favorite were the Black Skimmers. I didn’t know what they were when we saw them in a flock so low over the water that I thought they meant to land on it, but they stayed just above the waves and dipped their lower bills in the water skimming for food. They are a deep velvet black above and snowhite below so they look very formal as if they’re ready for some black tie event. Formal and moving in this graceful line of birds, dipping into the water and winging away as the sun began to set.

I’ve been a birder since college and this trip is reminding me how much I enjoy it. I need to go on more birding vacations. So no pages for the day but I feel refreshed and just rested. There are so many reasons that I got a degree in biology and almost went on to be a wildlife biologist instead of a writer. I’m happy that I went the writing route, but this trip has reminded me that just because I’m not a biologist as a job doesn’t mean I can’t still do it as a hobby.

 

I did my cheerful and heartfelt holiday good cheer blog yesterday and the universe decided to see if I meant it. Jon and I missed our flight to warmer climes and discovered that tomorrow is aGreen Day at the airports. That doesn’t mean its ecologically sound, but that all our men and women in the armed services are going to descend on the airport and get first dibs on all seats, especially stand-bys which was all we could get. The nice woman at the ticket counter talked about us needing to get there no later than 4 AM if we wanted a chance to get seats. I felt quite punished. My holiday spirit washed away on a tide of negativity. I am very happy that the airlines do their best to get all the armed forces personal home for the holidays, but its like one of the worst days to try and get a flight at the last minute. Like I said, it was instant karma. Did I mean my cheerful message, or not?

I admit to a little bit of self-pity, and grumpiness, but in the end I honestly thought about what I’d written and realized I’d met my last blog. I could either make myself and Jon miserable tonight, or I could let it go, and enjoy things. It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to what happens to you that dictates how you feel. That’s one of the sayings I have in my office on a sticky note, and its true. So Jon and I have one more night home in our own bed together, not exactly a terrible fate. So we get to our destination a day later. I admit that if we hadn’t found alternative flight plans and had to do the whole getting up at 3 AM for a flight tomorrow I might be working much harder at the whole cheerful thing, but we did find alternative transportation. Another thing to be thankful for. Is this all too Pollyanna? Maybe, but as everyone gets more frantic to have that “perfect” holiday, and puts more and more pressure on themselves to do it all, I think I’ll try to remember that it’s not about perfect it’s about doing the best you can. I’ve decided to give up on finishing my present list in time for Solstice which is Monday. We’ll celebrate a few days later with all Jon’s family on Christmas, which we’d call Yule, but by any name it’s a nice holiday. So I decided to enjoy the night of catching up on all the Tivo shows that we’ve not watched for the last few weeks. Jon is changing arrangements for the rental car and other things, and we’ll get there tomorrow instead of tonight. Hey, at least we’re already packed.

 

Waking up in our own bed in our own house with all our stuff around us, and Sasquatch barking downstairs was a good way to wake up. Apparently I’d been sleeping soundly because Sas had gotten to the howl part of his morning wake-up call. Our part beagle Jimmy, who passed away at 17, taught Sas to howl when he was just a puppy. But Jimmy’s beagle heritage had given him more nose so he could really howl, Sas, not so much. He starts off howling and its as if his lack of nose just cuts it off in the middle. Its a sad and incredibly cute sound.

I left Jon asnooze in bed, but I woke and there was no more sleeping for me. Trinity is still asleep, too. So me, and a now fed Sasquatch are the only ones stirring. The house is amazingly quiet after the noise and press of tour it is very soothing.

Several of you on-line asked for the recipe for the homemade sugar plums that Trinity and Grandpa made. We’ll get that up on the blog under the food category later in the week. Jon has fixed it so there’s a feed on the front of my official website that has a food blog and a music blog. I thought he’d be taking that from twitter posts, but it actually is separate blog entries that make me have to post to it. Which means I’m not posting as regularly as I could. An added step always puzzles me. I’ll work on that this coming week. But for today just glad to be home, sipping our tea, and getting a few quiet moments at home.

 

The event in Portland on Friday you get a signed book which I’ve done ahead of time and you get to hear me talk, answering your questions in person, until at least 9, so from 7 to 9 you guys have me all to yourselves. The ticket for the event is 26 dollars. For that you get a signed copy of Divine Misdemeanors and you get me for two hours. Some of you have complained at having to pay anything, but others at other events have complained that I only get to talk and do Q & A for about fifteen to thirty minutes when you all have more things you want to ask, well this is your chance for that extra time.

Why charge at all? Powells has me in an audtitorium with seating like a big lecture hall so that you all can see me, rather than just a big voice, me, that you can’t see. I’m fairly short, so a regular sized crowd and those in back are going to catch only glimpses of me as I pace back and forth talking. So the Bagdad is a place where everyone has a good view and a good seat, and Powells has to cover the expense of it. That is my understanding. So good seats, good view, and at least 2 hours of back and forth between you guys and me. I guess I could bat my big, brown eyes at you and say, “You don’t think I’m worth it?” But honestly folks, each of you will have to decide that on your own. I don’t know your budget, and I don’t know how much you want your questions answered in person. Only you can make that call. For those who decide its worth it, then we’ll see you there. For those who cannot, <shrug>, I have no idea when I will be doing another event where I’m going to be talking and answering questions for this length of time.