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I finished A LICK OF FROST today. Merry and the gang’s newest adventure all done. Yea!
My publicist, Craig, tells me that a copy of THE HARLEQUIN fresh off the presses is on it’s way to me. It’s nice to have one book done before the next one arrives on the doorstep.
Years ago when I first contemplated doing two continuing series simultaneously I knew it would be hard. But I didn’t realize just how much more work it would be. It’s sort of like people who have only one child and think how much harder can two kids be? Lots. My friends that have more than one child say the work quadruples. Well, it’s sort of the same way for literary creations.
I’ve been writing Anita since 1987. Yeah, how weird is that. Anita Blake first came into being on paper for me in 1987. The first short story which has now seen print in STRANGE CANDY, my short story anthology, was rejected by everyone. I got the nicest rejections. Most of them loved the story, but they didn’t know what to do with it. It wasn’t quite horror, or fantasy, or mystery, or . . . And yet it was all of them.
In the late ’80s no one was buying mixed genre. But I loved Anita and her world. I loved them both enough to write an entire book set in the world with Anita. The confusion the magazines had had with the short story should have clued me in that the book, which I finished around 1991, maybe early ’92, would have the same problems.
Strangely, it didn’t occur to me. I’d written something unique and different. At the time no one was doing what I do. There was no such sub category as paranormal romance, or even urban fantasy. There were a few books out, and there was Charles De Lint, but that was it.
GUILTY PLEASURES was rejected by everybody. Mystery houses thought it was horror. The horror publishers thought it was fantasy, or not scary enough because my vampires were out of the closet. One editor wanted me to rewrite the book so that my vampires would be like everyone else’s vampires a deep dark secret. I refused. What intrigued me from the beginning was our modern world having to deal with real monsters, not as something hidden, but as a truth. Again I got some wonderful rejections, but they were still rejections. It would take over two years for someone to take a chance on me.
Penguin/Putnam bought the book. Gave me a three book contract, and I knew there would be more books. I knew that this time, unlike my first series, there would be at least three adventures. My first ever novel, NIGHTSEER, had it’s direct sequel rejected by my first editor for lacking that certain “Je ne sais quoi”. Which is basically French for “I don’t know what”. You can’t rewrite if that’s the only feedback you get.
After watching my first dream die so abruptly having a three book contract was like heaven. I knew I had at least three books to set up my world, and explore my characters. It was truly a dream come true.
Anita’s adventures were selling well, and climbing up the lists, when I decided to do the Merry series. Why do another series if the first one was successful?
I’d written the fifth Anita book, BLOODY BONES. I’d written all five books pretty much back to back. I took a little time off, but I was then, and am now, a big believer on getting the early books of a series out to the fans as soon as you can. People who like to read series books like to know more is coming.
But one night just after finishing BLOODY BONES I had a dream. I dreamt that I was me, but I was trapped in an Anita plot. I had a gun, and a shoulder holster and I was with Edward. We were supposed to be body guarding some man. We were trapped in a narrow stairwell with a crowd of people. There was no way to keep our man safe, no way with just two of us in such a crowd, and . . . I woke up in a cold sweat thinking. Thinking that it was real. Thinking that this land of guns and assassins and scary stuff was real.
The next morning I decided I had to write something else next. I needed to clear my imagination. I did not want anymore Anita anxiety dreams. Merry and her world came out of that need for a break between books.
I now have the amazing experience of having two best selling series. Merry started as a vacation for my muse, and now she’s a serious contender. Who knew?