Author: Jonathon

I had this long blog planned, but now I sit here and realize that I’m done for the day. I’m stick a fork in me honey done. So, I’m off to find Jon and figure out something to do that isn’t work related. I am officially off the clock. G’night folks.

I had workmen on both sides of my office today. Pounding hammers, breaking brick, drills, and other tools I could not identify merely by sound. Because I tried not to look out at it all, but to work and not to concentrate on the work going on outside. The work going on outside on either side of my office, just under the windows. If the writing is going well, you could put a brass band outside my windows and I wouldn’t care. I might not even hear it, but on a day when the writing isn’t flowing so smoothly, well, everything distracts. Noises, temperatures, things moving outside, anything and everything bothers me. Today was not a good day for concentrating on the writing. It was not a good day for page counts, or prodcutivity. Jon and I did finish up the colors for the comic, and I sent the lettering off once and for all. Howard Taylor, of Schlock Mercenary fame, raised the question, "What did I mean by lettering?"

Answer: Some phrases that worked in the novel do not work so well in the comic. Other times the comic visuals need more caption, or less, or just different from the book. The physical laying on of the lettering is done by our letter-er (is that a word?) but for adding new phrases, or rewriting bits from the early books that’s a me job usually. Our very fine script adaptor, Jess, tries her best to stay very close to the books, which makes us all happy, but sometimes when the script meets the visual it just needs tweeking, so I tweek it. It’s small things usually, but just another part of the service I offer in the on-going effort to do the best I can. Control freak, trust issues, perfectionist, who me?

Jon did yoga today, one of the things my doc has not cleared me for, but Jon found it a little difficult. Yoga is about centering and peaceful and almost meditating with your body.  All those things are hard to do when bits of brick and mortar are hitting the windows just above your head, or when the drill starts going just as you strive for that tree pose. So, an interesting day for both of us.

I got eight pages on the rewrite of the novelette. Not consecutive pages because it’s that kind of rewrite. Yesterday’s research was exactly what I needed to move forward with this story. I felt like yesterday was a wasted day on the writing, but I need to remember that sometimes sitting in the corner of a room with books piled all around you as the sunshine patterns change and the day lengthens towards night is not always a waste of time. Sometimes it’s exactly what’s needed. Sometimes in my goal oriented rush I forget that part of what works for me as a writer is having time to browse through books, and sit in a corner and think, and make notes. Mustn’t forget the notes, because something about writing it down in disjointed notes helps me think better when I finally sit back down at the computer.

Now, I can’t let too many days of thinking and reading and basically doing a writer’s version of puttering go by with no pages, but today’s productivity reminded me that I do, occasionally need such days. I don’t know why I need days like that, but I do, and I’ve been denying myself the chance in my headlong rush for more pages. But if the pages you’re making are just thrown out the next day, or rewritten, or just making you unhappy then you haven’t really gained anything. So, lesson learned, maybe blogging about it when even help me remember it.

Tomorrow must finish up comic lettering, but tonight I went to the gym and lifted weights. I had doctor’s permission as long as I didn’t use my injured leg. My physical therapist gave his blessing, too. So, off I went, and because the last time I was able to do it, weeks ago now, I wasn’t sore at all, my work out partners upped my weights. I needed it, but ow. Should I have stayed home and finished up the lettering rather than exercise? Maybe, but my schedule being what it is if I keep putting off exercise for work I’ll never see the gym. So, I’ll rise a little early tomorrow and hit the office, finish up the lettering, and then move on to actual page making. It’ll be good.

SKIN TRADE is #1 on-line in the New York Times list. Next week we will be #1 in the printed New York Times. We are also #1 at Publisher’s Weekly. It has been an amazing week for the new book. Thanks to everyone who bought SKIN TRADE, and who bought the paperback of BLOOD NOIR, because you helped make both books crack the lists. BLOOD NOIR only got to 93 on USA TODAY, but that’s sales out the door, so thanks everyone for buying the book. Thanks to everyone who helped make SKIN TRADE the #6 best selling book in the country. Thanks to everyone who helped make this a week of number ones for me. I think it’s the first time we’ve ever gotten #1 at BookScan. So thank you.

I have to admit that all the success has messed with my ability to write. Now, if the book had done badly that would have messed with me, too, but no one tells you that good news, tremendously good news can mess with you, as well. The sales numbers came in first, so amazingly good, and that was when I began to not make my page quota. Because once the sales are good you begin to worry about the lists, where you will be on them? Then the best possible news arrives, and you are #1 on almost every list imaginable, and I stopped working. I didn’t mean to, but I just simply found myself staring at the computer and not making pages. It’s the weirdest thing that success can be as debilitating as failure. That accomplishing your dreams can actually make you wheel spin more frantically than not accomplishing them. I don’t understand it, but I am sitting here experiencing it, so it must be true. I’ve had this happen before when the news was good, but each time I’m puzzled. I am accomplishing exactly what I want to do. I am exceeding beyond my wildest dreams, so why is that a problem to me and my muse? When I heard all the good news I was relieved, then elated, then the next day you get up and go to work and you find yourself staring at the computer screen, that little blinking cursor like an accusing finger tapping out the seconds as they pass and you write nothing. I know that this will pass. I know it is not permanent, this odd paralysis, but it is not comfortable. I have spent the day reading, researching, meditating, cleaning my office, getting that feng shui moving. I have accomplished things today, but I know that as a writer you can’t count the days when there are no pages as a truly successfully day because that is a slippery slope. It’s too easy to get caught up in research, organizing, and not producing pages. It’s so much easier to read and take notes and it really will go into the next book, probably. But today didn’t get me one inch closer to the end of the Merry book, DIVINE MISDEMEANORS. One of the reasons I wrote the novelette just as SKIN TRADE came out was that I’d hoped with a shorter project I could keep working on tour and through this time of news from New York, but it was a vain hope. I am stopped in my tracks as if the gas has run out of my little engine, and I must wait on the side of the road with my wonderful news and my success for my muse to catch up with me, or for my internal issues, whatever they may be, to fix themselves, or to sink back into the morass of the subconscious unfixed and let me get on with my work. But, wait, what’s that dusk cloud? Could it be my muse coming with that much needed fuel? No, my muse is beside me, giving me that look, that says, of course she was here all along, my head was just too full of other thoughts to see her. Oh, I think, of course, how simple. The secret to succeeding at success is not to let it mess with the very talent that made the success possible. That last part is harder than you think.

It’s Saturday morning and I’m up early with just the dogs and me. It is the first time in weeks that I’ve been well enough to trust my ankle and the dogs in the yard without back up. Two things have changed. One, Pippin’s recall has become damn near rock solid. Two, my ankle is improving. So, an early morning with the house quiet and no one to worry about but me, and the dogs. They circle around my chair wanting me to feed them right now, please. I tell them wait until I’ve has had one cup of caffeine, please. I win the debate because as pack leader it’s really not a debate, and I have opposable thumbs. Doorknobs and can openers do not puzzle me.

For those of you who saw me on tour with my cane, you may be wondering how have I made this rapid improvement. I went to a good doctor and she assured me that I would not reinjure or make the injury worse by simply walking on it. Stay off of it when I could, and no walking for exercise, and no running at all, but stop babying it. She didn’t say it that way, that was my interpertation. She prescribed more aggressive physical therapy and more aggressive pain meds. It was only pain, not me making the injury worse, so with that medical advice I ditched the cane and started relearning how to walk. There’s always a transition with canes or crutches, if you’ve used them long enough, where you walk funny because your muscles have forgotten how to walk without the aid. I had a few days of a really spectacular limp, then gradually I began to walk. Yesterday I walked normally and the pain has gone down every day, for the most part. I take good pain meds at night for sleep, but I cannot write or even function if I take them during the day, so it’s an emergency need kind of thing. So far, I’ve waited every day for bedtime, when it’s okay to fall asleep or giggle helplessly until you pass out. My reward for this week of effort is that I have the house to myself. Well, me and the dogs, who have settled down to nap in the sun while I consume my caffiene. Jon is still asleep upstairs, because putting up with me while I’m hurt deserves a reward, too. Part of that is he gets to sleep in on a Saturday morning for the first time in months. I actually woke up this morning earlier than our alarm goes off during the week. I lay there, cuddled against his warmth and thought, "Why am I awake?"

The answer was, "Because I wanted to be, because I could feel the writing moving liquid in my head, and I wanted to be up and moving." I’m actually back in a pair of shoes I haven’t been able to wrap around my ankle in weeks. I may have to change part way through the day, but so far, so good. I am enjoying the silence, and the patient dogs in their sunshine naps. I’ll finish this, twitter, take care of the dogs out, then go to my office and see what else the day holds.

It’s date night, so in the interest of finishing the evening the way Jon and I have planned I will be brief. It’s date night, and nothing I could do at the computer would be half so fun as what I can do away from it. Hope everyone is having a good Friday night. I’m going to go enjoy mine.

SKIN TRADE is the number six best selling book in the country according to USA Today. It’s in today’s, Thursday’s, paper. There’s a write up from the interview I did earlier in the week, as well. So if you want a hard copy this is your chance. If you are wanting a web link then here is the link for the interview http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-06-10-book-buzz_N.htm. Here is the link for the top 150 books http://content.usatoday.com/life/books/booksdatabase/default.aspx?sortBy=&lastValue=0&date=latest. BLOOD NOIR paperback is #93 in USA Today. Oh, and for those who don’t know this is the list for every book sold that week. It includes fiction, nonfiction, young adult, children’s, self-help, political, all of it. These are sales out the door of the stores. Being number six with a hardback is pretty darn cool. Having BLOOD NOIR in the top one hundred as a paperback is very cool, too.

We are also, or were, because it may have changed on the New York Times List for graphic novels. Here’s the address for that write up. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/graphic-books-best-seller-list-may-30/

 

Storms turned our sixty pound puppy into a shivering, couch-climbing monkey. So the three of us cuddled on the couch with the dogs. Sasquatch could care less about the storms, but having Pip sit on him off and on all night did make him crawl to safety occassionally. But the three of us watched "Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes", and MYTHBUSTERS until almost midnight. It’s what summer is for, staying up late with your family watching things you all enjoy. When I was little it was the creature feature hour, but for our family it’s the Discovery and Science Channel. Yes, we are all science geeks, and proud of it. When I was a kid my uncle would stay up with me and my cousins, but he never watched the scary movies. When I was at home with my grandmother the only one staying up late to watch things was me. So, it’s pretty cool to be part of a family where we all actually can agree on something and stay up late to watch it. The storms have passed and Pip is finally calmer. So off to bed for all of us.

Questions most often asked on tour:

1. Is Richard ever going to be happy again? (This was a more polite version of the question. It depended on who was asking how it was phrased.)

Answer: I have no idea. That’s the honest answer. I want Richard to be happy, whatever that means for him, but he needs to embrace what and who he really is not some idealized version. He is getting better therapy and seems to be trying to reconcile what he thought his life would be to what it has turned out to be. Only time will tell.

2. Is there an end for Anita, or a certain number of books planned?

Ans: No. If I’m still having this good a time writing the books and you guys are still having this good a time reading them we’ll just keep going.

3. Do I have a favorite male character in the Anita series?

Ans: Obviously not, or I think Anita would have chosen by now. No one asked me for favorites; plural.

4. Do I have a favorite male character?

Ans: Apparently not, see above answer.

5. Is there going to be more girl on girl action in the books?

Ans: I don’t know. Anita has had some encounters with Belle Morte, but nothing outside of "dream". I’m hoping some of the men might get girlfriends, but Anita has so many boyfriends that I’d vote not to add any new sweetie’s of either sex. Merry would be okay with it, but pregnant with twins and moving in with her new men, well, there just isn’t a lot of room to add new girlfriends.

6. Spoilers about SKIN TRADE.

Ans: But so many people had not finished the book at the signings that there would have been an outcry if we’d let spoiler questions be answered, or even all the way asked. The questions themselves were spoilers in some cases, so I had to just not answer questions about the current book. Ironically by the time I can answer spoiler questions we’ll be on to the next book.

7. Is the next Merry book; DIVINE MISDEMONORS going to be out in December?

Ans: That’s still the plan.

8. What do I base characters on, or how do I develop characters?

Ans: First, I do not now, nor have I ever based characters on real people. At best I take mannerisms, or hair, or eye color, and mix it up with totally imaginary characteristics and come up with someone new. I really don’t know how to answer this question so that it will be useful for all you writers out there. I know that I have taken a couple of characters through the personality tests in the back of the book, THE RIGHT DOG FOR YOU by Dr. David Tattoria. It’s designed to have you answer personality tests so you can pick the dog that truly is the best fit for you. But you have to know yourself well enough to answer a series of questions. I have, in desperation, taken a few characters through these tests, because if I knew them well enough to answer all these questions then I knew them well enough to write them on paper.

9. What am I reading?

Ans: I just finished, "The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag" by Jim Corbett. It is a true life account of Corbett’s attempts to hunt and kill the man-eater. I count this as recreational reading, though I have made notes in the margins because I find some of these older accounts of hunting have some good insights into the real animals. Though, the adventure was first set in the early 1900s so some of the information would be dated. Reading these accounts always make me very grateful for current technology, like reliable flashlights. His accounts of being in the dark with the man-eater close by and the new fangled light not working are understated, but still chilling.

We’re home. We slept late, and have taken it very easy today. The farthest I’ve had to walk was from the bedroom to the couch. I’ve twittered and I’m starting to answer a little e-mail. I’ve been waiting to feel inspired to blog, but I’m beginning to think if I wait for inspiration I won’t be blogging today. It was great seeing everyone in Vegas last night. As I said on the twitter; I’ve had fun in Vegas before but I’ve never ended the weekend in a wheelchair. Now that’s a wild weekend. Just joking about the wild part, but unfortunately not about the wheelchair. The cane compromised my injured arm so the wheelchair was to save my arm as much as my leg. I had not realized how physically grueling using a cane would be. After awhile things that aren’t hurt begin to hurt just from trying to protect the other injuries. You know how using crutches hurts your underarms? Well the cane does that for your hand.

I think more sleep is called for, and tomorrow it’s back to work. I’ll try to blog about some of the most commonly asked questions that we got on tour, because I figure if that many of you ask at signings than it must be things you guys all might want to hear. But for tonight it’s time to go bed.