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I have been procrastinating as hard as I can for the last two days, if you count today as day two, and I do. I have fidgeted with knickknacks, used iTunes, ranted I can’t find music, Twitter has been very tempting, I’ve even answered e-mail when I should be working. I’ve never taken so many business calls personally in forever. Anything to keep me away from my desk. I am up against a deadline to do intros to a bunch of nonfiction essays about the Anita Blake series. It has pulled me away from Bullet which is your regularly schedule Anita book for June. The book was going well and I’ve reached that point where I resent anything that interrupts me on it. It’s a good sign. It means I’m enjoying the book, the characters, and the world, but it also means that anything else I have to do is deeply resented. This reaction can get pretty severe for me. I can get so wrapped up in a book that food becomes just an unwanted distraction. I-Just-Want-to-Write! But I gave my word that I’d do the intros and it is interesting to read other people’s take on my work.

I realize that only I would say I’m procrastinating when I’m getting this much writing done, but to me if its not pages on the main book it just doesn’t count. I know that isn’t true, but I have trouble convincing my muse, or my inner child, that things that take us away from our playtime (writing Bullet) isn’t time delayed.

In fact, as the very best of literary discussions can do some of the essays have insights that are new to me. New ways of looking at characters, story-lines, my world. Interesting, even useful in that near therapy kind of way, but its also odd to be reading other people analyzing my books. Remember along with a biology degree have one in English lit, so I’m not unfamiliar with literary interpretations of books. I guess I just never thought mine would get the same treatment. I know that my books have been taught as part of courses at some colleges and universities. It’s happened often enough that it no longer seems weird, though sitting in on one of the classes probably would be, because some of the essays I’m reading make statements.

They say things like, “I’m sure the writer was giggling when she wrote this.” I can’t remember exactly which essay that was from, but I clearly remember thinking I didn’t find the incident funny, I found it frightening. Oh, it was about Anita’s interactions with Olaf in SKIN TRADE. Maybe the essay writer meant that nervous giggle that you do when you’re half-scared and half-intrigued, but either way I never find Olaf giggle worthy. I find him frightening, and confusing, and intriguing as a character, but not funny.

Some essays make statements about what I meant when I wrote something, or came up with something, and its either incorrect or it would take me books to realize why I wrote something and what its purpose was in the series. But the writer of the essays has a lot of hindsight to draw from, when writing the books its like living your life you’re too in it to realize the big picture sometimes. But some of the essays actually do get what I intended in ways that please me, because some do hit it dead on the way I meant it, and its not always the majority view among the fans, so that’s cool.

And then you have the next essay or two later where another essayist totally doesn’t get what I meant, and is as anti-theme as the first essayist was pro-theme. The ardeur is one of the major things that swings back and forth between the essays. One writer honestly nailed what I intended or rather the big picture, which was nice. My favorite was the essay that gave me fresh insight onto why Micah and Nathaniel got to Anita’s domestic center before Jean-Claude and Richard. The writer made some very good points that I’d never thought of, and I think she was right. She was right about my characters and helped me understand things that had confused Anita and me. Now, that’s interesting to me as a writer. Maybe in your books, as in your life sometimes you don’t understand everything because you’re standing too close. I certainly stand very close to Anita, and she’s not always the clearest emotional window into her world, and neither am I.

Interestingly the essay collection is entitled: Ardeur and its edited by Leah Wilson.

I’ve given myself permission to work on Bullet this morning, but knowing I’m behind th eight ball with the essays plays with my concentration. I can do comics, even script, but something about the essays and the intros has seriously thrown me. Its like it both uses the same part of my brain as my main fiction writing but without the energizing effect of the fiction. So I’m both tired and drained. An odd and unexpected effect that will make me more likely to say no the next time someone wants me to do this kind of thing again. Anything that messes with my process to this degree is to be avoided if at all possible. I value the insights and the experience of writing the intros and reading the essays, but I think it will be only time for such a task. So enjoy it when it comes out, because it may be the only collection that gets this much of my time and attention.