News

Hey everybody. Okay, the essay is done for the hardback of LUNATIC CAFE. Now I have to update the acknowledgements. This was the book I dedicated to my daughter just after she was born. She’s going to be ten this year. If I don’t update it, all the talk about baby’s and the pregnancy will make people think I had a second child, because the new hardbacks have the current year in them. So, to save some of the confusion we’ve had with other not so updated stuff, I have to change it. I hate changing acknowledgements, because I sort of agonize about them the first time around. Oh, well.
Good news. As I said earlier in the blog somewhere, one of the last things I do is to write the first chapter of the next book. I thought I’d fix the acknowledgements or the yabbies in LUNATIC, but instead the muse struck and struck hard. I sat down at a little before nine to putter until breakfast, and an hour and a half later I started getting light headed, because I never did get breakfast. But I did get fourteen pages done. The first chapter of Anita 13 is done. Now, not completely, I stopped short of describing Nathaniel and Micah at the end when they come in from jogging, but other than that, it’s done. I printed it off, put a paper clip on it (one of those over-sized brightly colored ones), and put it in the file that is already in the Anita file drawer. The file that says, Anita 13 on it. Until today it was full of notes. Things that I didn’t get to use in INCUBUS DREAMS, or even earlier notes that have been waiting for the right book. Notes, character sketches, incidents, stuff. But today, all the misc. stuff was joined by actual pages. Now, six months down the road when I’ve delivered A STROKE OF MOONLIGHT, when I sit down to start the next Anita book, I’ll already be started. It makes things go so much faster. I am really kicking myself that last Merry book I ended with only notes for the beginning of the next book. Notes are great, but real pages are better. Lesson learned. I must do real pages at the end of each book, for the next book.
I still have sticky notes to clear up, and a list of things to take off the white board, that I can’t just erase. But Monday, on schedule, I will start A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. I’ve found the music to listen to, at least until six hundred pages or so. Most albums don’t last to seven hundred pages before you get well and truly tired of the music. There are exceptions, but I’m already scouting for other music, just in case. I always work to music in the office, and I’m picky, different music for each book, though I have found that some of the early Tori Amos CD’s have been able to come back online for another go here and there. It’s finally been long enough. But the idea is when you hear this particular music you fall into the mindset of this book. Works for me.
I just started picking a candle to light before I sit down to write. I’ve never done that before, but on the rewrite for INCUBUS DREAMS, I needed something to cheer me along. I find candles very comforting. I picked a thick pillar candle and burned it until it melted to goo. Now I’ve shopped for another one that I can light on day one for Merry this time. Anything to keep the spirits up, I guess.
It also helps divide my time in the office and working, from the non office, non writing. A small ritual that helps me know that now it’s time to write. Not look at dog rescue sights on the internet, or research stuff, but actual pages. Light the candle, you write. No lighted candle, it can be research. As I get more and more projects crossing my desk, I find it helpful. Helps me focus. Helps me protect my time. Candle lit, and it’s like as long as it’s burning I remember that my time is also burning away. That as the candle is consumed, so are the minutes of my day, and I need to use them wisely. Okay, that’s it. Go play, or work, because I’ve got to go back to work myself.