News

I am circling just under 180 pages on the new Anita book. I always start out a book with great energy and excitement, but somewhere after the first chapter I hit what most writers hit, which is the ‘where do I go from here’ part. I have my outline, but my outline is fluid. I have more a list of events that need to happen in a certain sequence. I have several lists this book of things that must happen in Anita’s personal life (and no I don’t just mean sex). For instance I knew Anita and Ronnie were going to have a heart to heart talk about their respective love lives, and their faltering friendshipt. I knew that that needed to be early in the book before the mystery got too deep. If you’re going to do personal stuff it needs to be before the bodies get too numerous. Or at least that’s the theory.
I read over my husband’s entry for the blog today, and realized that I had my own epiphany. I’ve been writing Anita books as if the books have not changed from GUILTY PLEASURES to CERULEAN SINS. I keep trying to do convoluted msyteries where everything feeds back into each other, and that was great when the books were mostly mysteries with very little romance or vampire politics, or lycanthropy politics, or the dozen different things that have happened as the books have progressed and the world has grown in depth, and become more and more real, more solid. By trying to do the mystery as tricksie as always, I feel like I’ve not been able to do the mystery justice. I mean, the main villian in NARCISSUS IN CHAINS was way cool, and he got very little on stage time. I’d planned for much more and there wasn’t time, nor did Anita cooperate. She was too tough for the villian’s henchmen, and didn’t captures as planned. I learned that I needed tougher villians, and she was just way more dangerous than I’d realized. Which was very cool, but it meant that I threw out the last third of that booK, and almost start over for the climax, as far as planning.
I finally realized as I looked at the mystery slotted for Anita Book 12, that there was too much mystery. That this mystery plot was enough for two normal books, even if they’d been straight mystery without any of the other elements. Which meant I’d end up not getting my villians on stage enough, and feeling like I’d created this nifty idea that people barely got to see. So I have scaled back. One good solid mystery plot is better than two not so solid mystery plots. Besides the second mystery idea will probably be in Anita book 14. Notice how I’ve skipped book 13, almost as if I already know what the plot is for that one. Hmm.
But those who have heard me speak across the country, and read bits in the newsletter, do not fear. Edward is still coming to St. Louis this book, and Olaf is, too. Richard has gotten on stage in a major way, and I realized that since I’m not in love with Richard the way Anita still is in part, I’m just angry with him. I’m like someone’s best friend who gets to hear all the awful things the boyfriend does, and then the girlfriend goes back with the boyfriend, and the best friend is left hating him, and not being able to say it out loud. No, this does not mean they’re back together. This only means that Anita is having to deal with her feelings about Richard, and he, with his feelings for her. But Anita has the promise of maybe sex, and I’m the best friend who isn’t going to get sex, and will probably be who she gripes to when everything goes south again. I finally realized that Anita has been hurt enough, and I just don’t want to see it anymore. I want her to be happy, and I’m not sure Richard is capable of making that happen. But that’s their business not mine, and so I’m trying to stay out of it. But it does make him harder to write on paper, because I’m angery with him for hurting Anita. Once I realized that I was able to get out of my own way and just let the scene unfold. But damn, the fact that I almost need therapy to deal with my fictional character’s love life is very close to frightening. I had a vaction this year, honest.