News

It’s Christmas music this afternoon. Any of you that read the blog on a regular basis know what that means. The writing is not going that well. I know, I know, I’m not suppose to actually be writing anything new. But I have notes from the research trip to write up, and the edits on Blood Noir. Some of the choreography of the action scenes has changed now that I’ve been on the ground and walked around where Jason grew up. You can plan all you want, but once you get on location the plan has to change because what works in your head doesn’t work when you have a hard reality to walk around in, and on. But the changes aren’t that major. Since I put the book in about a month early, I actually have plenty of time to do the edits. But since this last week and some change is the longest I’ve gone without making actual pages, I just had to make pages today. I couldn’t help it. So why the Christmas music?
Because I have so many ideas ready to go that I was stymied as to what to choose first. I mean yes the rewrite of BLOOD NOIR is due first, but Merry #7 is due soon enough that starting it would be helpful. I know the first scene, so I thought if the book is ready then why not get a jump? Of course, I now have two Anita books that are pretty much ready to be written at the same time. I mean new ones. I had hoped that getting out and seeing new sights would refresh me and inspire my muse, but even to me it’s an embarrassment of riches. So much ready to write that I actually didn’t know which one to pick.
I finally decided to let my imagination choose whichever seemed most fun at the moment. I’ve never done that before, but then I don’t remember the last time I had this many things pushing around in my head ready to be committed to paper. I actually got my minimum page count of four today. I think the pages aren’t the next Anita book after BLOOD NOIR, but probably the book after that. Talk about getting a jump on things.
Oh, and of the top selling Fantasy and Science Fiction on Amazon.com, I have number two and number eight. Number two is THE HARLEQUIN, and number eight, is A LICK OF FROST. I thought FROST did really well since it hadn’t been out very long at all. We might have gotten even higher if we’d had more time to be counted. But either way to have both my books for 2007 on the top ten was pretty, darn, cool. My understanding is that it’s based on orders on Amazon. THE HARLEQUIN was number 81 over all in the top one hundred. Considering that most of the books ahead of me were diet, cook book, self-help, and political books, I was pretty happy. There is fiction ahead of me on the top one hundred, yes. There are writers listed who I’m still using as role models for what I want my print runs to be, or my sales to be. There’s always room for improvement, no matter how well you’re doing. Okay, maybe not if your J. K. Rowling, but short of her numbers, there’s always up to go.