Author: Jonathon

Things I’m having to do to make sure I hit this deadline:

Didn’t go to Dragon Con or take labor day weekend off in any way. No time.

Gave up webcomics for the duration. Why? Instead of treating them reading your morning funnies and putting a smile on my face to get me to the office, I was using them to procrastinate. I’d read the current then think of an older cartoon that I just wanted to revisit. I’d search for more webcomics just to see what was out there. I was soooo using it as a way to procrastinate. When I realized that I tried behaving like normal, just reading then going to work, but found I had to cut myself off cold turkey. So no Devil’s Panties, Schlock Mercenary, Sluggy Freelance, or any of my other funnies until DIVINE MISDEMEANORS is done. *sad* And puzzled.

Have started to work evenings again. Yesterday I think I stopped at 10 PM. I was happy with the day’s output, but it’s left me not very eager to hit the desk this morning. I knew that would happen, but I’m also learning that with this book in particular if the muse is hot that I need to ride with her until she’s not, because I can’t count that the heat will be there tomorrow. Ironically, I think part of the problem with my muse and me is that she’s not getting what she needs to feel good. All right, I’m not getting my tank refilled enough to make my muse and me happy. It’s just been a conspiracy of things lately that keep draining my energy and enthusiasm, then I’ll do something to fill the tank back up, or try, and something else will come along and suck all that goodness right back up for some kind of drama llama crap. (drama llama is when the drama could be avoided if people, and animals, would work their issues.) Let me quote one of my favorite sayings, "If you do not work your issues, your issues will work you."

Hitting the gym and exercise even harder. I used to give up exercise when I had such deadlines and that is one of the reasons that I had to lose fifty pounds a few years back. Yep, you read that right. Exercise helps keep the stress more manageable. Yay! The weight room is my friend. Now if only my ankle would heal even faster so I could do more cardio. But hey, I was going to a physical therapist only about a month ago, so I’m doing good, just a little frustrated.

And yes, thanks for those who have suggested that sex is a good destresser. I’m aware of that, actually. Jon and I are both aware of that, thanks. So, no more reminders, okay? Trust me we’ve got it covered.

Oh, and blogging, and Twitter. I have discovered that I have used them both a time or two to procrastinate. Twitter is good because it lets me do something while the book in percolating in my head, but blogging takes longer, and in fact, I’m procrastinating right this second. After working a 14 hour day yesterday I’m strangely not eager to get to my desk and write. Hmm. Wonder why that would be? *sarcasm, who me* So in the interest of not delaying myself anymore I will end this blog, post it, and eat breakfast so I can spend labor day doing what I thought as a small child you did on such a day; labor.

 

I tweeted that I did 50 pounds for my bicep curls at the gym last night. 50 pounds with 12 reps each 2 X 12. My first set was at my old weight 40 pounds, but it was too easy. If it’s too easy you up your weights, or your reps, I prefer upping the weights. It forces me to keep my form in the exercise honest, no cheating. Good form helps prevent injuries, and I’m all about no more of those. But I did want to clarify that I did the smaller movement bicep curls. It was the curl I was shown first by someone who had done lifting as a semi-pro years back. While down visiting friends last weekend I was shown the more complete movement for bicep curls which uses more and some different muscles. On that type I could not do the 40 I was doing at the gym then, not and get three sets of twelve, 3 X 12. I’m aiming for lower reps and higher weights. Right now I’m experimenting with 8 to 10 reps per exercise. It’s also to get us in and out of the gym faster since my schedule continues to be rather, um, hectic. (Calling my schedule hectic just feels too understatement like calling Dolly Parton well-endowed. The term just doesn’t cover the reality.)

It’s been interesting that some of you have written in to caution me that higher weights and lower reps will make me bulk up. That is actually the plan. My family’s women have a terrible medical history of osteoporosis and one of the few things that all the doctors agree on is that weight lifting will help prevent the worst of that. After watching my grandmother end her life nearly eight inches shorter than she started, and she didn’t have that much height to spare since she began life at 4’ 11". She was also in tremendous pain with it for many years. It got me thinking I’ll hit the gym.

Also, doctors tell me that if I’d had more muscle around my joints I probably wouldn’t have injured my arm. I now have permanent tendinitis, yes tennis elbow, from signing my own signature too much and too fast. (Who knew that writing was a sport?) That is one reason I have to limit what I sign at events. Doctor says if I reinjure it again, I may end up with surgery, no thanks. My leg doctor says that if I had had more muscle to support my ankle that I might not have the injury to that either. I just got off of physical therapy about a month ago for the ankle. Still not well, and it’s preventing me from doing any serious cardio which is frustrating. Ten minutes on a treadmill and the pain lets me know I have to stop. I can walk outside much longer if I have either an ankle brace or the right boots to hold everything in place.

Let’s see, two serious injuries, both might have been prevented if I’d had more muscle to support my body. I decided that Deity could stop hinting now, I’ll go to the gym, I’ll lift weights, just please don’t hurt me anymore.

Interestingly my doctor loved the New Rock boots and thought they were great for my injury. High heels actually feel better if the heel is wide, no stilettos for awhile. Once you’re in heels you just have to put on slightly dressier clothes, or I do, so I’ve never looked better on a daily basis in my life. I’m finally embracing this whole girl thing. Ironically, as I enjoy dresses and skirts and heels more than ever before in my life, I am working on putting on the most muscle I’ve had since college. Both are for health reasons, not fashion, but when you can look good and be obeying doctor’s orders it’s all good.

My day so far:

Last of comic coloring tweaked and off. Everything done on next issue.

Ten pages on Merry book, DIVINE MISDEMEANORS in morning session.

Eleven pages on rewrite of Anita novella, FLIRT in afternoon session.

Twitters.

Questions answered.

E-mails answered.

Books and comics and book plates signed. Clue for getting your signatures sooner. First, don’t send more than three things. Three is the limit unless foreign then five items. The new lower limit you can thank people who abused the privilege by sending hundreds of book plates at a time for me to sign, or the person who sent in a box of books that was almost as long as I am tall. Guys, come on. I’m glad you love the books and you want my signature, but if I signed that many for everyone I wouldn’t have time to actually write new books. And I’ve also noticed that the people who send in 500 comics to be signed, yes you read that right 500 comics, are usually the fans who complain the most that I’m slow at signing. They are the ones most likely to berate my personal assistant, Carri, over e-mail, or when she made the mistake of forgetting that her phone number was at the bottom of her business e-mail calling her on the phone to yell at her about it. She has since changed her phone number to avoid such things and taken it off the business e-mail, because people have abused her, and the privledge.

Guys, be nice. How hard a concept is that?

Date night so I’m getting off here and throwing myself into my husband’s arms, and wearing this day away with something slow, and gentle. Some nights it’s more about being held and touched then going for the gold. Because I’ve been pursuing goals all day at work I want date night to be about wandering slowly towards that goal, not racing frantically. I’ve rewritten the last two sentences five times now. So I’m stopping now. Done for the day.

 

I have just reread the last paragraph I wrote twice and I can’t tell if it’s good, or bad, or indifferent. That means I’m officially too tired to write anymore. I was hoping that lunch would refresh me, and it did, but just after lunch and before I came back over the writer’s high of the morning began to seep away.

All you writers out there know what I mean by high. You have a wonderfully productive session either a lot of pages or just a break through in the plot, or some scene that’s been defeating you. The endorphins rise just like you’ve had some physical activity that hit that magic mark and flooded your system with endorphins. Runner’s high is the same thing. Sex raises your endorphins. Pain does it for some people, but only certain kinds of pain, not all of it.

This morning I checked the lettering for the next issue of THE LAUGHING CORPSE comic. My script adapter Jess had done such a good job, and our editor Mike had done an equally good job so it went quickly and there were only small changes. This was due today so it had to be first on the list. but I finished it early and was able to do five pages on DIVINE MISDEMEANORS before lunch. I moved past the scene that had sunk me and I knew what the next scene would be, and it was just a fun. I felt wonderful almost giddy with that rush of feel-good chemistry. But an endorphin high is like any other high for every up there is a down. It’s one of the reasons you get really sleepy after a truly good sex session. I was chatty and vivacious as I answered a few e-mails. I know to only write to good friends when I’m like this, because business e-mails come out a little too exuberant when endorphins have taken over most of my bloodstream. I was still in a great mood at lunch, then just as I was getting ready to go back to work the endorphins began to crash out of me. I was suddenly so tired.

If I wasn’t under more deadline pressure than you can shake a stick at I would have taken a bath or gone to the gym. Strangely I find the gym helps when I feel like this. But I had to try to do a few more pages, not on Merry. I find that this book especially if I push it then next day I write nothing, so five pages was good. But I have extra pages for the novella that are needed in New York ASAP.

Do you guys remember me talking about the novella awhile back? I was a little cagey about what it was about because I wanted the editors in New York to know the subject matter first. They can get cranky about surprise projects that are truly a surprise, so New York first, then I can talk freely. The novella is an Anita book, like MICAH, but it’s even more self-contained and a very tight plot. It’s a perfect small meal of a book, and I’m still happy with it. That says a lot for a writer. So if I can maintain the pace you guys are going to get a new Merry book in December then a new, but smaller, Anita book in the early part of the year, and then, if all goes well, a new regular size Anita book in June. Makes me tired just writing all that. I’ll know that Merry has truly captured my subconscious like Anita when she demands her own wee book someday. I look forward to it.

But the novella was like MICAH it interrupted me and demanded to be written before I could clear the decks and work on the current Merry book. Once it was done, I could write on something else, but only afterwards. Though MICAH interrupted another Anita book, DANSE MACBRE. I’ve learned that it’s just faster to give into an idea that is that pushy, because it pushes everything else out of your mind until you write it. Well, there were some early pages that needed to be expanded on, and the climatic fight scene needed to have some expansion, too. I often have to expand the climax of a book, because I tend to rush. I can see the end in sight and I just want to cross that finish line. So I cross it, then come back later and add if I still feel it needs it. Sometimes rushing is fine, but not this time. My editor and I have both agreed I need to add a few more pages, so I was doing that this afternoon. I got some notes on the plane ride down to my friends this weekend that belong at the beginning of the novella, and I was going along fine, then the endorphin dump hit serious low and I was just out of fuel.

I have now eaten a yogurt. I don’t really enjoy yogurt, but I don’t hate it, and some of the flavors are okay. Anyway, I was hoping that would energize me, it has not. So I’m drinking one last cup of strong tea, then if my energy is still flagging this badly I’m done for the day, and since it’s gym night probably done for the night. I’ve never been able to go back for three sessions of writing in a day, two is my limit. So, gym, or not, stick a fork in me, honey, I’m done.

Twitter is down, so I’ll just hit the highlights and see if blogger is working.

First, Sasquatch is doing well, though our dog sitters had an exciting weekend. His eye has gotten a secondary infection and he’s on more meds. His eye is seeping something that looks like tomato soup. *yuck* He’s having to take all his pain meds now, when before he didn’t need them. He’s resting on the dog bed beside my desk as I type this sentence. This is the first work day in my office with just one dog, and no chance of another coming up to visit. Sigh.

Pippin is doing well at his new foster home, but there are noises that he may be staying permanetly. They’ve found him charming and a good dog. He is both of those things, but he just didn’t want Sas around. I don’t know what happened, or why, but maybe Pip will be happier in his new home, and Sas seems happy to be an only dog. I think he’s in too much pain to care about furry company.

Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes and good energy sent our way during this little domestic crisis. Thanks for all the suggestions about rescue groups, too. We lucked out with someone we knew, but we did call some of the numbers. Most of the boxer groups either would only take purebreds, or would not take dogs with agression issues. I can’t blame them.

Four pages on Merry, so my visit to friends out of town did refresh me some. I’ve meditated and tweeted, and now a blog. Must get back to make more pages. HIM is the music on player at the moment. Now back to make more pages, or maybe a snack, my body is telling me that I might have skimped on breakfast. I had eggs what more does it want? Bacon! Bad stomach, bad stomach, no salty, fatty, delicious bacon. Did I say, delicious, I meant terrible, yes, terrible. Nope, no amount of concern will every convince me that crispy bacon is anything but wonderful. I’ll be good and have yogurt or a vitamin bar, but it’s not going to be the same.

 

It’s date night and if ever I needed one this is it. The stress of the last few days has been off the scale. I just took Sasquatch out for his last walk of the night and when I reached up to get his harness and leash, there was no other leash. For the first time in nine years we have only one dog. It was one of those moments, that make you pause, and your chest gets tight for a moment not like you’re going to cry, but just a moment to begin to deal with the loss.

During all this crisis Jon and I have continued to work on the comic of THE LAUGHING CORPSE. There have been roughs, colors, solicite text, wips (works in progress) and covers to look over. There’s been flap copy for DIVINE MISDEMEANORS, the next Merry book which I’m supposed to be writing, but I admit that was hard to do during the last few days. I finally realized I’m jealous of Merry. Jealous of my own creation. Not for the sex and all the men, after these last few days I think if I had to take care of that many people I’d lose what’s left of my patience, and my temper. Merry has so much help. She has so many hands on deck to take care of everything, anything, and though I have staff, and good staff, it’s real life. In fiction, on the page I can make certain that the people around Merry know exactly what to do, and how to do it. I get rewrites, and second or thirty-fifth chances to get it juuust right.

In real life you seldom get second chances let alone third, or more. In real life you stumble through trying to make the right decisions, trying to protect the people and animals you love, trying to work and make deadlines, and there are still meals to eat, appointments to keep, demands to be met, even when there’s blood being cleaned off your kitchen floor life goes strangely on.

Now Merry’s life isn’t perfect, and some of the people around her are not making her life easier, but the majority of them are, but in real life I find that is seldom true. In real life you have people that are supposed to be helping you being just the opposite of helpful. There are moments when I feel quite beaten down with trying to take care of everyone, myself included. This week has been a test of many things, some things have broken and will never be repaired. Sasquatch’s eye is gone. He’s being a good sport about it, but it’s not fixable. It is, what it is. Pippin is gone from our house forever, and though he’s in a great foster home with a great family, he’s no longer ours.

Jon, Trinity, and I picked up Sasquatch from the vet together, as a family. Trinity is already wrangling for another dog. Jon told her, "Just don’t bring it up until we do, okay?" She agreed.

I tried to explain how tired we were, how emotionally used up. "While you’ve had as calm a few days as we could give you. Daddy and I have been working really hard to find Pip a new home, and take care of Sasquatch."

She was quiet for a moment, then said, "I’m sorry it’s been hard on you guys."

Jon said, "That’s what parents do. We take care of things and try to keep you out of the worst of it."

I had an ah-ha moment. "My grandmother didn’t do that, except about money, everything else she told me. She made me share all of the scary stuff, the hard stuff, of being a grown-up, but with none of the power or choice. No wonder I hated being a child."

Jon said, "It’s like being an adult but with none of the perks, and you didn’t get to be a child either."

"No," I said, "not really."

It was one of those moments when my own childhood rearranged itself in my head and I realized that I protected my daughter from so many things that my grandmother hadn’t seen fit to protect me from. She was all alone and I was all she had, so she turned to me in ways that were probably not great for me. But if the proof of success is in the success of the child then she did all right. I’ve done well as they used to say. The trick is did I succeed because of, or in spite of, and the truth is something of both.

Now off to date night and some of those perks of being an adult. I’ve had enough of the downside of being a grown-up I’m way past ready for some upside.

Cleaning blood off my hands last night, a lot of blood, and I thought, "It’s a bad night when there’s this much blood." The fact that it was coming out of one of my beloved dogs made it worse. Pippin, our boxer mix, has dog agression problems. We’ve had a trainer come out to help us. We’ve got a shock collar for outside walks and strange dog interactions. We’ve done obedience with him. We feed him sepeartely. We make sure toys, treats, and such are not shared. But sometimes he just goes off, no warning, no trigger, just zero to maniac in nothing flat. Last night he attacked our pug, Sasquatch, and if Jon hadn’t dragged him off might have killed him. I ran downstairs to the sound of the fight and the humans yelling to find Carri holding Sas, blood everywhere and Jon locking Pip in his crate. Carri snatched up Sas, put pressure on his eye, I grabbed the keys and off we went to the vet.

I knew Sas’ eye was gone the minute I saw the injury. It was this red chunky lump dangling on his cheek. There was no saving it. In the car he wanted me to pet him, and I did when I could between frantic driving. He wagged his tail. With his eye on his cheek, and Carri still unable to stop the blood he wagged his tail. Pugs are tough little mothers. Sas had his surgery to remove the remains of the eye today. He’s fine, though doped up on morphine, and very groggy. Trinity was saying they could be pirates for Halloween this year, when she saw him today she said, "Maybe we could be Frankenstein’s Monster." The swelling will go down, but he looked pretty pitiful. We’ll bring him home on Wednesday, and before that we have to find a new home for Pip. We just can’t guarantee Sasquatch’s safety anymore around our big puppy. We’ve been lucky enough to find someone we know whose willing to foster him until we can find a permanent home. He’d take Pip since he’s always liked the dog, but he already has a lab and with Pip’s dog agression it’s just too chancy. But at least we won’t have to put him in a shelter an all black dog, five years old, sixty pounds, with aggression problems is going to be hard to adopt. People don’t like to adopt black dogs they perceive them as scary, or something. The older the dog the harder to adopt, people want puppies. The bigger the dog the harder to adopt and then throw in dog agression and I had visions of my beautiful athletic dog rotting behind bars.

The vet offered to put him down, but we couldn’t abide that. But now we have one wounded dog, and one dog that we’ve lost forever soon. These last few days with him are bitter sweet. We lost two dogs last year. Jimmy at 17 and Phouka at 8. It’s been a hard time for pets.

I went to the gym tonight with Carri. I worked hard, and she kept complaining, "Hey, Mr. Speedy." It’s usually me following her speed, but tonight I wanted, no needed, to work. I needed to sweat and have that moment on at least one machine where the thought floated through my mind on a dimming of vision that maybe passing out from exertion seemed like a good idea. I worked myself hard tonight and it helped. I did 40 pounds on the bicep curl at 3X12. I was very pleased with that and that I’m at 40 and 50 pounds for a lot of the other exercises, and I raised weights on some of the more complex machines. I worked, I sweated, I pushed myself, I felt better, but now I’m home and tomorrow Pip has to go away. It’s too sad. I can lift enough weights to make myself feel better, but I can’t lift enough to make it not true.

Carri and I were talking on the way back from the gym that it felt like this week should be over, not just Tuesday. I said, "Last night feels surreal, unreal." If only.

I told her partway through the weight routine, "Well at least no one’s dead. It’s a still a good week." Then I realized what I’d said, and I added, "But when you’re saying it’s a good week because no one’s dead, it’s really a pretty bad week." She could only agree with me. We loose Pip tomorrow. We bring Sassy home with his new pirate look. Life will go on. It has a way of doing that. Now Jon and I are going to hit the showers, because he did his workout here at home. He hates lifting weights and I love it. He does Secret Bulgarian workout. I would tell you the secret, but then I’d have to kill you. Wahahahah!

Sometimes you laugh so you don’t cry. I’ve been laughing a lot today.

Feeling much better than I was on Friday. Very good friends came down to visit. I was actually stressed about the visit, not because I didn’t want to see them, but because all I could think about was, "Need to write. Need to finish book. Deadline, deadline, deadline . . . Ahhhh!" I’d reached that critical pressure cooker boil that I sometimes hit when a book is not going smoothly and the deadline is tight.

We’ve been trying to get Shawn, his wife, Kathy, and their kids, K & P, down here all summer. We finally chose the week that Mary Poppins, the musical, came to the Fox theater here in St. Louis. We got to see Broadway’s original Mary Poppins and Bert, and it was fabulous. But before it was fabulous I was almost beside myself with stress. I reached that want to cry, throw things, or just go completely tharn like a rabbit in headlights until the car crushes me. And suddenly we had a houseful of people. Not a completely good mix. (Yes, that is an understatement of vast propertions.)

Carri and her wife Pili were able to drop by briefly to see Shawn and his family, so we had a lot of very good friends and family in one place at one time and all I could feel was the stress. I think I rallied and managed to be human enough to visit, but the effort ate farther into my reserves. No, that’s not true, I had no reserves left. If I was a car I’d have been on fumes, with that thick chunk-chunk they make when they’re about to stop cold from lack of fuel. Bad enough the mood was that I couldn’t hide it completely from close friends, so I didn’t pretend. I behaved, but I couldn’t camouflage how bad things were interenally. But one of the good things about close friends is that they love you anyway, hell, someone of them love me because we’re all moody bastards and Friday night was just my turn.

Trinity was loving having her cousins down to visit, and it was truly good to see them all, but I went to bed with my mood close to as dark as it gets. That’s pretty damn dark, by the by. It’s about as dark as you’d think it would be for someone who writes what I write; yeah that dark. I woke in the morning to a leaden feeling of the same hopelessness that I’d gone to bed with, which was not a good sign. I thought, I have to find some time to work today, but in the end it didn’t happen. It wasn’t just visiting with company, it was also that I couldn’t face the thought of the Merry book so soon again. Why the serious desolation? Did I mention here, or on Twitter that I cut 70 pgs from the book this week? No, well, I’d hoped that I was wrong. I’d hope that I could save some of them, but by Friday I knew I couldn’t.

What’s wrong with the pages? Nothing. Everything. They’re well written, I’ve reached that frightening point as a writer that I write well even when it’s not the right scene for a book. The dialogue still rocks, the fight scene was great, but it wasn’t Galen, or Rhys, or Frost, or Doyle, who would do, or say these things. This was some darker, pettier version of my characters that I didn’t recognize. It read well, but it was all wrong. I hoped it was my head going dark, that critical sense overwhelming the creative, but I slept on it overnight and found that I was right, so I began to back track to find where it had gone off the rails. It derailed almost as soon as we left the crime scene and the paparazzi feeding frenzy. It derailed as soon as we hit the beach house and the other guards. It was like they’d spent the time between books getting angry and jealous and horrible to each other. What the hell?

I blogged earlier about hitting some of the issues I was raised with and my grandmother’s attitude towards men, sex, so much else, and I finally realized Friday that the men were behaving badly. They were everything my grandmother told me they would be. This wasn’t my voice as a writer, or as a person, this was some evil version of my childhood leaking out into my writing. I find that I often hit the deep ugly issues first on paper, before I can look at them in my own life. They come out all weird and fictional, but somewhere in there is a bit of ugly trying to color my world, both real and ficitonal. I’ve had three different therapists tell me the same thing, "You’re remarkably healthy for your upbringing." Yeah.

If my deadline wasn’t chewing me to bits, I wouldn’t even be that upset. It would just be part of my creative process and I’d deal, but the deadline is chewing my world ever closer to being out of time. I don’t have time to explore my angst to this degree. I don’t have time to wait for my muse to cope better, or for her to spit out the garbage and let my conscious mind see it, deal with it, then join forces with my muse and clean it up. I’m out of time for shit like that, yet, I can’t let the book go like this. I can’t let this darkness eat Merry and her lovers, her friends, her world. I owe them all more than that.

So I sit here, knowing the task before me, and I’m worried, yes, but I’m not scared anymore. The fear left me on Saturday sometime in the afternoon when I was answering e-mails from friends and visiting with the friends in person at the house, some hard, tight, suffocating knot began to loosen inside me. I let it go. Even if Shawn and his family hadn’t been here I could not have worked Saturday. I needed the time to refresh my mind, conquer this mood, fight my monsters. By the time I was getting dressed for the show I was feeling a little better. I’d talked to Shawn in private, and Kathy in private. I’m just as likely to be out by the barbaque grill drinking a hard cider, as Jon is, and he’s as likely to be in the kitchen talking cooking and sewing with the women. Okay, he’s more likely to do the latter. If weapons are a topic we’ll be on that side of the room regardless of boy/girl ratio. We’d talked in a grown up group. We’d spent time with the kids. It had all helped.

We all dressed up, all the girls in heels, including Trinity and her cousin, K. They’re still new to the whole heels thing, and they learned that having an arm, or hand to hang onto was a good thing. Ah, the things we girls do to look smashing for a night of theater. Turns out, Shawn had never seen Mary Poppins in any version. He was raised without a TV, and movies were just not something he got to do as a child, and he’s worked night shifts most of his married life, so didn’t share much viewing time with kids, so he was a Mary Poppins virgin. Which meant he had no idea what to expect. It was too cool to sit beside him in the theater and watch his face. I’d catch Kathy on the other side of him doing the same thing. We’d smile at each other and enjoy this moment. Jon and I knew the music very well since it’s one I’ve written a book to, but we’d never seen the musical. It was fabulous. The choreography, the staging, the acting, the music, the costumes, it all worked. Poppins is played by the actress who originated the role on Broadway, Ashley Brown. She was, "Practically Perfect in Everyway."

We got back home with Shawn’s son sleep walking, so tired by the time things finished. The girls were wobbling in their heels, but we got to the car in safety and home to tuck everyone into bed. Somewhere during the musical the last bit of that knot went away. I just enjoyed my friends, my family, and the show. This morning we had brunch at Jon’s parent’s house. His stepfather, Art, cooked, and it was amazing as always, though he has taken into consideration our dietary concerns and many things were lower calories, lower fat, but stil delicious. The bacon, other than being cooked without sitting in grease, well, it’s bacon, real bacon and it’s the first we’ve had in months. God, it was good. Jon and I have decided that it wasn’t brunch it was brupper, which is what you call it when you’ve had breakfast, lunch, and supper in one meal. But, yum!

It was also Kathy’s birthday weekend so the musical was accidentally incredibly well-timed. And what I thought was just another interruption to my overwhelming schedule was the break I needed this weekend. Goddess and God love me, because they have conspired this year to force me to take breaks when I am about at the breaking point. They shove me out of the deep end and make me paddle around in the shallows and have a few funny drinks with umbrellas, and see my friends, and family, and breathe again. It seems the harder I work the more breaks I need, still working at getting that balance, but getting closer.

I’ve spent the week blaming Merry for the book, DIVINE MISDEMEANORS, kicking my ass both literarily, mentally, and emotionally. I’ve been blaming Rhys, Galen, Frost, even the newer men, and female guards. I’ve bemoaned, complained and otherwise grumped my way through most of this week work-wise. "Why is Merry always so much more difficult to write than Anita?" "Why can’t I do this?" Why, why, why?

I had my epiphany last night somewhere between date night sushi with Jon, Carri, & her wife, Pili, then parted ways, and Jon and I came back to enjoy the more private part of date night to ourselves. Somewhere in all that I had the light-bulb-over-head moment. It wasn’t Merry, or anyone else getting in my way. It was me getting in their way.

Yep, you read that right. Me, getting in their way. I even know why Anita writes faster than Merry for me. Anita feels guilty about stuff. Merry doesn’t. Her culture just doesn’t cover the breadth and depth of guilt I was raised with, Anita’s culture is my culture so she gets the angst. Merry doesn’t see the point, and that makes me uncomfortable. Anita helps me work my issues. Merry goes through life without my issues and that makes me not understand her. I’ve worked hard to get over the issues that were indoctrinated into me as a child, they never worked for me. All my happiness and my success has come from being outside the box that everyone calls normal. But Anita is still uncomfortable with the truth of being so far outside the box, happy, but uncomfortable. I was taught you could be happy, but you have to feel really, really bad about it. So you could be happy, but you had to ruin your happiness with guilt and then you’d be virtuous. My grandmother’s short hand of that was simply don’t do anything that made me happy and cut out the middle man since you end up miserable anyway. She was, in her own way, just as odd a duck as me. But she was also the most unhappy duck I’ve ever met, and I’ve come to love my weird little pond.

So this morning I got up bright eyed and happy, because I understood now why Merry has always written slower for me and what my issue is with her. She’s too damn happy in a circumstance that my up-bringing would have condemned as evil. Just when you think it’s safe to go back into your childhood issues you discover the shark is still there in the shallows waiting to gobble you up. Well, no more letting the shark win. I’m buying some dynamite and have blocked the passage out to sea with debris. It’s trapped and today I stun it, and wade in and kill it. Down with Guilt!

Especially when you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.

 

I started to feel a little fuzzy and realized I hadn’t eaten breakfast. I thought, okay, I’ve got one chapter rewritten I’ll get some food before tackling the main part of the sex rewrite. You need fuel for that kind of thing. So, I walked over to the main part of the house away from the offices.

I got a vitamin bar and some water. I checked in with Carri, my assistant, and Mary, and well, everyone. Trinity, our daughter was watching Top Gear on the telly. She’s still off from school for the summer. As I’m eating my bar I think to ask, "Trinity did you have breakfast?"

"No," she said.

"Eat something," I said.

She gets up and starts rummaging in the cupboard. I go back to the far offices to talk to Mary. Get my question answered and walk back through the kitchen. Carri is brewing a fresh pot of tea, and I see my daughter has buttered both sides of a piece of bread. I think, "Oh, that’s interesting, she buttered both sides." Then out of the corner of my eye as I keep walking towards the offices I see her plug in the toaster.

That little voice in my head goes, "That’s not right." I stop, turn, and say out loud, "Trinity are you going to put that buttered piece of bread in the toaster?"

She nods.

"No," I say, "you don’t put buttered bread in the toaster."

"Why not?" she asks.

"Because the butter drips down and gets rancid and will give you all kinds of botulism and stuff."

Carri chimes in, "You don’t butter the bread first."

Trinity looks a little embarrassed, then grins, then laughs at the whole sitatuon. She looks a little sadly at her perfectly buttered piece of bread, but she opens the trash and drops it in. She gets a second piece of bread, unbuttered, and puts it along with another unbuttered piece in the toaster.

If I had not walked into the kitchen at just that moment that piece of buttered bread would have gone into the toaster. We’d have been smelling burnt butter for days. Trinity is still laughing about it. I’m just glad I made the mother’s saving throw on that particular moment. Now my child knows how to make toast without either setting the kitchen on fire, or giving herself food poisoning. This is a good skill to have.

Now I’m back in my office with water, a fresh cup of hot tea, and a sex scene to rewrite. To say that the toast incident sort of threw me out of that mindset is an understatement, but I’m still glad I was there to make the catch for my daughter. It’s left me smiling if not quite in the right mood for the rewrite.