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Sometimes I’m too hard on myself and that makes my character Anita Blake too hard on herself. Merry Gentry cuts herself more slack than either of us. I’m not sure why, but Anita does take the brunt of my near punishing standards for myself. Example in point, last night’s writing session. I expected Anita and myself to be able to go from seeing one of THE most violent crime scenes she’s ever seen, plus video of another murder where the bad guy is taunting Anita personally, to being able to do cocktail party talk and flirting. It’s what was up next in plot, and we do need the scene to bridge to the nearly hundred pages beyond this point, but having put the crime scenes right before it has to change the scene.

Anita and I were both beating ourselves up last night. Why couldn’t we just do what needed to be done? Why were we being such babies? Why was this bothering us that much? Did I mention it was one of, if not the, most violent crime scene she’s seen, and I’ve written? Why should a little thing like that throw us off our game? Why should we have a hard time going from that to polite questions and getting to know some new weretigers? Why couldn’t we just suck it up and do what needed doing? That was really how I was thinking last night.

This morning I woke up cuddled next to my husband, Jonathon, and thought what the hell was I thinking last night? In the clear light of day, in a nest of warm blankets and warmer husband, I suddenly understood why I couldn’t write the scene last night. I understood why Anita just balked. We came to a freaking stand still. She and I blinking at each other over the imaginary distance like shell shock victims. Because for her, that was pretty accurate. How many horrors can you see before they leave a stain? How much violence can you deal with before your mind, your body, and your spirit, simply rebels? Last night was our moment, my imaginary friend and me. We just couldn’t step from police work, violence, blood and gore, to cleaning up for what amounted to a cocktail party. One where the shapeshifter and vampire politics was deep on the ground. Anita couldn’t figure out how to be the pretty girl on Jean-Claude’s arm, and I couldn’t figure out how to write the scene, because what we really need to do is give Anita a break. She needs her own version of a good night’s sleep with the men she loves, so she can wake up in a nest of covers all warm and loved, and a little healed.

Anita book plots are usually screamingly fast. It’s like a roller coaster ride from one event to another. But sometimes the hill is so high, the drop so low, that you want off the roller coaster. You scream, not because you’re having fun, but because screaming is the only thing left to you. You can’t climb out. You can’t get away. You can’t stop the machinery. You just have to hold on and scream. Anita has reached that point where she wants off, and I’ve reached that point where we both need something a little gentler. Merry-go-round sounds about right, but we’d settle for the tilt-a-whirl. But something kinder than this, please.

The earlier deaths took a toil on her and me that I hadn’t really fully owned. We just don’t have the reserves of strength and stamina, that we normally have. Some emotional wounds, some psychic scars, can’t be bulled through. Sometimes you have to admit you’re hurt and that if you don’t stop to staunch the blood eventually you will bleed out. Eventually your heart and mind won’t be able to just keep moving. Today, I have to figure out what I can do on paper to give my girl that moment of reprieve so she can get her feet back under her. But one thing I know is that neither of us can go into the next scene as planned and have it work as planned. We can do it, but we have to do it honest, which means Anita is going to be as fragile emotionally as I’ve seen her on paper, or close to it. She needs a break. I need a break. We’ve set this book a year from the end of Flirt. She’s had a year of relative calm, but I haven’t. I haven’t seen the violence for real, but I have been writing as hard as I can for about the last year. Even for me this is an insane schedule. So, on one hand, Anita had a break of a year. On the other hand, I don’t really have to deal with the violence, but I didn’t get a year of semi-rest. So between the two of us, neither of us gets a break. It’s weird, but my lack of recoup time coupled with my demand that the books not only meet their deadlines, but they be the best book I can write, is taking it’s toil. Even with a deadline this tight I am sacrificing hundreds of pages because it’s not quite good enough. I won’t sign my name to a book that I don’t like. I’m not saying the books are perfect, that’s not the goal, because perfect isn’t real, but I do the best I can every damn time. I won’t short change my imaginary friends, or myself, but standards this high come with a price. I’ve had other writers tell me, “Well, I know its a weak book, but my deadline . . . ” If I think its a weak book I rewrite it regardless of deadline, which is how we came to this last few months of deadlines. You can fix books and rewrite and fall behind a little, but then the time you carve from one deadline gets cut off the next one, until you end up with several books in a row where the schedule is punishing, and my muse and I are whipping ourselves to make it all happen.

I had a morning with my family. Anita needs her version of that, or we go into the next scene and she looses it. We loose it, and finally admit that there is no big, red “S” tattooed on either of our chests. That no matter how strong, or how much metaphysical ability, that eventually your emotions are still merely mortal, and eventually you need more than just a good cry. So, I either have to break up the plot which will be difficult, or we forge ahead and let Anita and me fall down a little. Fall down so that people we love can pick us back up and reassure us that no one expects us to be Superwoman. No, honest, they don’t. It just feels that way.