Author: Jonathon

Happy Mother’s Day! Since I’m a mother, too, I’m taking the day off, so hug your mom’s or whoever raised you. It’s not about gender roles, it’s about who was there to wipe your nose, bandage that skinned knee, and do all the work that goes into being a parent. I add that last because I always got left out in school, because they planned events where kids brought their moms to school, or their dads, depending on the event and the season, but I had neither. I had a grandmother in a time when I don’t think grandparents’s day existed. But in all the ways that counted she was my mom. It’s not everyone that can say they had two moms growing up, but I did, one just wasn’t able to stay with me very long. I do wish that I’d had the common sense to ask to bring my grandmother to some of the mother/daughter events when I was little, but it didn’t occur to any of the grown-ups, or me. Now, I have Jon’s mom, so I am very blessed indeed to have three women in one lifetime that I call, Mom. We sent Mom and Art some place warm for mother’s day. She said it was too much, Jon and I both said, "It’s a token of what you do every day for us." And that’s the truth. So, now with my own daughter, and Jon’s Mom, mother’s day no longer sucks.

Happy Ocho de Mayo. The official celebration that all the leftovers from Cinco de Mayo are gone.

Tonight I made a Chupaqueso. For those of you not familiar with the Chupaqueso, it is an interesting dish. Originated by Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary, it is a molten cheese and filling stuffed into a wrapper of cheese. I dubbed mine the Chupaqueso de Muerte con Ensalada ala mode. Below is a picture sans ala mode y ensalada.

It was made with a shell of Cheddar and Mozarella, and a filling of Havarti, Bacon, Ham and Olives. OK, so the salad was sperate from the Chupaqueso, and only one of us had Ice Cream anywhere near it. But Still.

Laurell pronounced it "Horribly good." and then forbade me from making another one for a "Long Time"

I was originally going to call it the Chupaqueso de Luchadores, but after sharing one of theses among four adults it was named "of Death" and put on the infamous list of Foods forbidden to be made. Crock-Pot Lasagna is also on this list. Yes, once we had a dinner party called on account of "Lasagna of Death". After eating one serving of the evil, wondrous, food, we all sat around looking at each other, trying not to fall into a food coma.

Tonight was a little like that.

Dinner at home, movie out, now home for one last cup of hot beverage and desert. Oh, we saw "Wolverine." We liked it. Not high art, but if you want a blow-shit-up-real-good movie this would be the one, at least until we see "Star Trek". Hugh Jackman had hit the gym and he looked great, but it wasn’t until near the end of the movie when he was in a white tank top undershirt, jeans, and roaring at the camera that all that shoulder, arm, and back work gave the money shot. He maybe too tall at 6’ 3" but damn except for height he was, in that one moment, Wolverine. For those who did not know Wolverine in the comics is 5’ 3", my height, which was why he was always one of my favorite.

I’ve updated the blog from Monday with the correct info. but here it is again:

June 1st at the St. Louis Public Library, Central Branch. Yes, that’s right if you come to this signing you can get the book a day earlier than any other bookstore is supposed to put it on sale. My publisher made a special exception for the home town signing. Subterranean Books will be providing the books. The event starts at 6pm.

 

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Our friend Pili is coming over tonight to cook for us. She’s actually Spanish, but her family owned a Mexican restaurant for years so she got in the habit of celebrating the holiday. It will be a family holiday with the three of us, Carri, Pili’s partner, and Jon’s parents. I haven’t celebrated Cinco de Mayo since Spanish club in high school, but I’m positive the food will be much better. Pili is an amazing cook, and in high school the club members themselves, including me, cooked the meal. A bunch of mid-western high school students cooking Mexican food, often for the first time. The results were not pretty, and often not entirely edible. Though it was one of the first times I learned that pretty doesn’t mean it tastes good and looking icky didn’t mean it wasn’t good to eat. Of course, some times looks are accurate, opossum stew comes to mind.

No, really, I’m from the deep south originally. I’ve had opossum stew, and it’s about the greasiest meat I ever want to attempt. Waahh! Include a full body shiver with that and you’ve got the reaction. For all you southerners or wild game eaters that want to argue greasy meat with me, let me add I have not eaten raccoon or bear. I’m told unless cooked very carefully both meats are greasier than opposum. If that is true, I do not want to test this theory. See earlier reaction. Thuaaaa! You must stick your tongue out in order to make that sound properly.

I’ve made more progress writing today than yesterday, but as it nears five o’clock I’m tired. Since I’ve been working since about nine this morning, that’s probably normal. There was a break for Jon and I to do yoga, which helped with all that sitting at the desk. But now, done for the day. I’m closing up the office and heading to the house so I can see if Pili needs me to play souse chef. Though Jon’s a much better cook than I am, so he’s probably souse chef. I’ll just chop things. Cutting things up; that I can do. Oh, and for all of you who don’t know what souse chef means, you are obviously not watching enough Gordon Ramsey.

Tour dates for SKIN TRADE;

June 1st at the St. Louis Public Library, Central Branch. Yes, that’s right if you come to this signing you can get the book a day earlier than any other bookstore is supposed to put it on sale. My publisher made a special exception for the home town signing. Subterranean Books will be providing the books. The event starts at 6pm.

June 3rd in Chicago, Il, Borders Books & Music the store is actually located in Oak Brook.

June 5th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since SKIN TRADE is set in Vegas we had to have at least one signing there. It will be at the Clarke County Library where we have a stage to play on, with all that implies. It’s a very nice venue for the Q & A. Books will be sold by Barnes and Noble.

More info to come.

Happy Beltane everyone! Time to light that bonfire, put a garland of flowers around something, and crown the May Queen. Some of the more grown-up aspects of the holiday for us will have to wait a few days, because we have Trinity with us this weekend. Our religious holidays often have fertility aspects to them. You can celebrate them without actually doing more than putting an athame (sacred blade) in the chalice, but when you’re married to your magical partner it does open up the options more. Our hawthorn tree actually bloomed for Beltane this year, normally the weather is warm enough that the white blossoms come weeks ahead of May Day, but this year we had our May tree blooming almost exactly on schedule.

I’m up by myself this morning. The house quiet around me, though I relearned during the video shoot that the house is never actually quiet. It was a lesson I first realized when we kept loosing power a couple of years back. Once the power was out then the house was utterly quiet like someone’s breathing had stopped, so it was startling, almost anxiety provoking until you realized that the problem wasn’t some mysterious prowler noise, but the total absent of the sounds that fill a modern house twenty-four-seven.  The power outages that year let me know just how much daily noise there is, even when I think it’s quiet. On the day of the filming I was reminded of that lesson all over again. First there was this high pitched noise that the sound equipment was picking up. Everyone was trying to locate it and turn it off. I was in the chair getting make-up put on so I just got to watch people wander back and forth trying to figure it out. It ended up being the air conditioning. We were lucky that it wasn’t too hot a day since we had to turn the air off. Then about the time we get started a neighbor starts to use a lawn mower which gets picked up on the microphone. If it had just been our neighbor we could have asked him to wait a bit, but it was a lawn service which means that time is money for them. If we asked them to wait, it would throw their whole day’s schedule off and that means money out of their pockets. About the time that stopped, then the neighbor on the other side of us had a different lawn service start up. Ahh! The sound technician got that sorted out on his equipment, then the hot water heater in the room with us started up, and that we simply had to out wait. We ran around noticing sounds that are normally so quiet, so ordinary, that we don’t consider them noise. The day of filming was very educational in a lot of ways, and we now have a better appreciation for what silence is in real life and what level of silence you need for filming.

I stood on the edge of the Mississippi River yesterday, inches from deep, muddy brown of it. The wind was fresh and tasted of spring as it played with my hair. The hair was perfectly curled to match the make-up I was wearing. It was the end of the video shoot yesterday, and I looked fabulous, but then with this much care and attention you almost have to work hard at looking bad. I’d already seen the play back earlier and had to admit I looked good. It went against all the insecurities that had been screaming in my head at six that morning as I got up to get ready for make-up, hair, and interviews. I knew at least one of those voices; my grandmother. She’d told me my entire childhood that I wasn’t pretty. That I better learn to take care of myself because no man ever would. The level of devastation when your only parent tells you something like that is fairly high, but good things came out of it in the end. I believed I wasn’t that attractive so I decided I better be smart and work hard and get my ass out of there. I wasn’t planning to get married, so the only person I could depend on was me. Also, I was raised that it mattered what I could do around the house not what I looked like. I wouldn’t have a manicure until I was in my thirties, because it was more important to lift that fifty pound bag of rock salt than to worry about chipping a nail. In the end it’s given me a guy’s attitude towards appearance and I have to say it’s a more user-friendly attitude than most women’s. It’s less punishing; usually. Another voice in my head was the first man I ever loved. He told me I was pretty, but not beautiful, then preceded to tell me what women he thought were beautiful. They were all between five-eight and six feet tall, blond, and very Nordic looking. All things I would never be, so that was not a good moment. He wasn’t breaking up with me by the way, and he didn’t understand why the truth bothered me. He would finally get his tall, blue-eyed, blonde, and I would go on to be much happier with someone else. It was those couple of relationships that were important to me emotionally, and the men so enamored of me at first, growing disinterested, and that thought in my head, "If I were beautiful enough, sexy enough, this wouldn’t be happening." I’ve actually had a couple of men tell me they didn’t want me because I was too sexual, that my appetite was too much. You think you need to be sexier to keep one relationship and the next one thinks those skills are too agressive and all you want them for is sex. Sometimes you can’t win for loosing. I know intellectually that it wasn’t about me in the end, but the men themselves. It was their own issues that drove us apart and made them act as they did, but that’s cold logic and it’s not cold while the pain is fresh. I know that no one, male or female, can hold someone if they are determined not to work on the relationship. Intellectually I know that, but yesterday morning wasn’t about thinking; it was about feelings. They can be treacherous lying little things, feelings, because under stress they can go back to times in your life where you weren’t as happy, or secure, and they will beat you to death with those old memories.

I tried on two different outfits and let Carri pick the one that would look best on camera. Then I sat down in the chair and let Priscilla do her magic. No one does my hair and make-up as good as she does. The picture of Jon and I on the blog with us together is another day when she dolled us up, and everyone says it’s the best picture we’ve ever taken together. Jon was going to be on camera for some of the interview so he got in the chair when I got up. They’d take me first by myself so he’d be ready to join me later. The sound tech clipped my microphone on, and they checked the lights, cameras, etc . . . and off we went. I talked by myself for two hours, give or take. It was good. Ian the director asked his questions off camera and helped put me at ease. It wasn’t like I hadn’t talked about my books and how I write before, though perhaps never so continuously. They won’t use all of it, of course, but will use it to make a smaller piece. You always film way more than you use on anything large, or small.

By the end of the day which was about four, or so, because of planes to be caught to the coast, I was feeling much better. It’s hard to be "on" that long and keep it natural and charming, but I’d done my best and everyone was happy. Ian and the crew had been very pleased that I could take direction and hit my mark. We did all my parts in no more than three takes, most of the third takes were small changes that Ian asked for, and it just looked better on the playback. Carri asked me if I wanted to help scout camera shots in the second location, and I said the truth, "I don’t "see" in camera yet. I trust you to tell me what it’s going to look like, it’s one of the reasons I hired you." If you hire someone for their expertise, then get out of their way and let them do their job. I treated Ian the same way when he gave me direction. If someone inspires my confidence then I am happy to let them lead me where I need to go. Yes, it is that inspire confidence part that sometimes I have a hard time finding in people, but not yesterday. Yesterday we had a lot of good people that inspired a lot of confidence. It was all good.

By day’s end we were on the Riverfront which in Anita’s world is Blood Square where most of the vampire clubs are located, among them Guilty Pleasures. Ian wanted to see the Riverfront with it’s cobblestones, gaslights, and atmosphere. It was only after I was walking on the same streets that I’d first been inspired by that I told him that this was the section of St. Louis that helped me shape Anita’s world in GUILTY PLEASURES. If I hadn’t been invited to a friend’s bachelorette party down on the Landing where there were male strippers would Guilty Pleasures the fictional strip club exisist? I don’t know. And if Jean-Claude’s first business had not been a male strip club would the books have been less sensuous, would the sexual overtones have been less from the beginning? There’s no way to tell really, but as I stood by the river and listened to the water lap against the shore, I remembered the first time I stood there. It was night then, and the weight of the river seems heavier with the water black and stretching out into the darkness. It was lonelier, even with the other bachelorettes happily drunk in the dark with me. My job ended up being to keep the very drunk bride from doing anything unfortunate, since I wasn’t drinking. (Yes, Anita and I shared that experience.) I had a moment that night to stand there and feel something on the breeze; an idea maybe, a whisper of something that called to my muse and me. A happy accident you might say, but Ian, the director, and I talked yesterday about how if you’re walking your path, doing the work you’re supposed to be doing, making the best choices you can, that serendipity becomes your friend, and things roll almost eerily together and simply work out. Yesterday we filmed part of the promotional video for the seventeenth Anita Blake novel, SKIN TRADE, in the same place where the inspiration for the first book had come to me. Better yet the director didn’t know he’d chosen the spot until we were already filming there, and I told him after we were nearly finished. It was one of those moments that I’ve been having lately where everything just comes together and feeling right is too small a phrase for it. If only some of the growing pains to get to those magic moments weren’t so damned painful.

I’m sitting here with my sound damping Bose headphones on listening to Seether’s "F*** It". I’m tired enough that I’m having trouble focusing my eyes and keep staring off into space at absolutely nothing but the white noise in my own head. Every time I do a photo shoot, or a video shoot I am more and more impressed with people who do this as their main job. It’s a lot harder than it looks, and a lot more tedious. People ask me why I didn’t jump on the idea of an Anita movie years ago, well, today was one of the reasons. There was a lot of hurry up and wait, and a lot of just waiting, and it takes a lot longer to set up for a shot than you ever imagine. Jon and I have done the research, as much as you can on a business this complex, and making films is not glamourous. It’s freaking hard work, and the real trick is while you work your ass off you have to make it look effortless and totally natural. Though I was told today that I have finally mastered being natural on moving camera.

I think I blogged about my epiphany about what made someone look good on camera awhile back, but not sure if I actually did, or just thought hard about doing it, so if part of this is a repeat, forgive me, and if not, then here goes. One of our favorite shows to watch as a family is Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. One night we were watching and I thought, you know Mike Rowe is one of our favorite people to watch on televsion. He’s always fun, always entertaining, and has that near magical ability to be likeable and attractive even when covered in shit, and I mean that literally. He makes it all strangely charming. You just feel like you could invite him for dinner and he’d be fun. He’s managed that balancing act where straight men want to be his friend and the rest of us think he’s cute, and the straight men don’t hold it against him. (You did know that the real test of likeable is to be a sex symbol for one half of the population and still liked by the rest of us.) I actually began to try to figure out why Mike Rowe is so damn personable on camera. Yes, he’s attractive, but there are plenty of attractive people that aren’t good on camera, so what was it. I finally came to the conclusion that he was absolutely natural in front of the camera no matter what he was doing. He never seemed to feel awkward in the most awkward of situations. He just got more funny and charming. I thought, okay, now that I’ve figured it out, what next? I had to be natural on camera. So with Mike as my inspiration I tried, and finally seem to have succeeded, but it wasn’t Mike that capped my on camera appearance. It was our friend Daven.

Daven has this almost magical ability to charm people. Male, female, straight, not, doesn’t matter, he just seems to be able to turn on the glamour and the person he’s aiming at just melts. I watched it all weekend, and finally asked, "How do you do that?" He actually demonstrated putting off an air of welcoming and smiles, and then his very serious face and demeanor where no one that didn’t have a death wish would approach him. Have I mentioned that he’s over six feet tall? When he wants to he can look quite imposing. So today on camera I tried to be as natural as Mike Rowe and any time I started to be confused about what to do on camera I thought, "What would Daven do?" I treated the director/producer and the camera as if it was that person that Daven was looking at, and you know what, it worked beautifully. I must use this new superpower only for good, or when it amuses me. Of course, my version of this new ability was my own version of my friend’s charisma. Years ago I would try to copy people’s behavior exactly, but it never fit because I was not that person. Now I understand that you take the ability and modify it to your own personality. I would be hard pressed to explain how my version differs from Daven’s but I just know that it does. But in the end being good on camera is a type of charm as in the old sense of the word, as in to charm someone. It’s almost a type of flirting this camera trick, but instead of a date or a blush you’re working for something indefinable. All I know is that for the first time, ever, when I watched the play back even I couldn’t say anything but, it looked good. Me thinking I looked good on moving camera, damn near a miracle.

Film crew is coming tomorrow to do a promotional video for SKIN TRADE, and for my books in general. It’s very flattering that my publisher wants to do it. It means I’m a big enough fish for them to fly out and do it. My editor, Susan, has flown in to supervise. We’re all going out to eat tonight, and Trinity is coming with us. I asked if that would be okay, and Susan said, "After all these years of hearing about Trinity, it will be great to finally meet her." So, my whole family is going out with my editor tonight for dinner.

I’m a little freaked about the video shoot tomorrow. First, I hate seeing myself on moving camera. It just looks weird, because I don’t normally get to see myself move like that. You know you watch your friends, but you don’t get the opportunity to watch yourself. Carri has been helping me set up different places in the house where the cameras can set up for flattering shots that don’t show any clues to where I’m located. Carri’s degree is in film production with an emphasis on cinameatography. Which means she has sticky notes on the floor where the camera should go, and is arranging things so it will look good on camera. I have no idea what looks good on camera, and I prove that every time I pick outfits or settings for things like this, I just don’t "see" in film.  I see in prose and will often find myself converting events or settings to prose in my head, but film is still mostly a mystery to me. I can "see" in comic book now, but Jon still does it faster and more naturally than I do. I’m hoping I will eventually be able to see in film, as well. Just another skill I never thought I’d need. Life is funny that way.