books Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Laurell K. Hamilton

Choosing Character Names, part 2

Names are where characters begin to take shape for me, and its always been that way. I bought my first baby name book when I was fourteen, the same year that I decided that maybe, just maybe I could be a writer. I remember the bookstore clerk that checked me out glancing down at my stomach, and then quickly up at my face. I realized that she thought I was pregnant and looking for names for a real baby. I didn’t try to explain that I needed the book to help me name fictional characters. I was painfully shy, and had finished one story in my entire life. How was I going to say out loud to an adult that I was spending money on a book to help me write stories that I hoped to sell to real magazines, and earn real money, and maybe eventually make a living at this. I couldn’t explain, so I said nothing and let her think what she liked. I still have that first baby name book, Name Your Baby by Lareina Rule, and I still reference it constantly when creating new characters. The cover has actually come apart, but I saved it, kept it with the book. The pages are starting to yellow, but I still love this book. From the very beginning of my career when I knew the name, I knew the character. Sometimes the name comes first and a character just magically forms around it. Sometimes I have a character in mind, but it’s not fully formed so I’ll search through all my baby name books and makes lists of names. That’s how I named, Micah, Nathaniel, Doyle, just to name three. Sometimes characters choose their names without me looking anything up, like Anita and Jean-Claude. Anita chose her name and I knew enough to know it was originally a Spanish name, so she chose half her ethnicity without me deciding anything consciously. Though since all the people I grew up with that were Hispanic came from families that were originally from Mexico that’s where Anita’s mother’s family had to be from, because it was more familiar to me. Jean-Claude on the other hand, I wanted to be Spanish, because no one had done a master vampire from Spain as a main character. At that time I spoke and read Spanish. I wasn’t fluent, but I could get by. (Please, do not speak Spanish to me now, I’m so rusty it’s embarrassing.) But he insisted he was French, which I didn’t speak, couldn’t read, and my accent is still horrible according to my French translator. I tried so hard to force him to be what I envisioned and the character just didn’t work at all. Finally, in desperation I let him be French and suddenly he chose his name, his personality, and stepped on stage almost fully formed and just, well, Jean-Claude. I’ve been informed since then that it is not an elegant name in France, and not sexy enough, but he came with the name, this one I did not choose. Of course, it’s not the name that he was born with in France, but one that he acquired after he became a vampire, but that’s a story for another day.

Two other name books stay in the reference drawer with Rule’s book. Beyond Jennifer and Jason, by Linda Rozenkrantz and Pamela Redmond Satran. I found the book by accident in the grocery store over ten years ago. It has lists for boyish names, ambisexual names, handsome names, pretty names, names for standing out, names for fitting in, macho names etc . . . I don’t agree with every name on every list, but I find them all useful in their way. Multicultural Baby Names by M. J. Abadie is rare find, because it’s literally what the title promises, names that aren’t just white Anglo-saxon, Northern European, or German, which is the predominance of most English baby name books. There are chapters on Arabic names, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, African, Hindu, Native American, and more. I try very hard not to have my fictional characters seem like they stepped out of a “Dick and Jane” kid’s book where everyone is middle to upper class and living in a white bread America that never existed for most of us outside of sitcoms from the 1950s and 60s.

New Blog: Filling up the Emptiness

You know that empty spot inside you? The one that feels like a bottomless pit that’s as wide as the Grand Canyon? If you don’t have one of these desolate places inside you, then you don’t need to read any further. Enjoy your happy and issue free life! But if you are like many of us and understand exactly what I mean, welcome.

I don’t know if I had the empty spot, before my mother died, but since I was only six at the time it’s hard for me to judge. Whatever the reason that caused that dark space inside me that nothing seemed to fill up, I did try to fill it up with many things. I tried books and reading, then I found writing and that worked for a long time. Then I fell in love for the first time and I thought that would do it, but no love outside of ourselves can completely fill that void. Years later, the marriage broke, and I vowed I’d give up on love, but dating led to falling in love with a friend. I thought this is it, this will work, and it did, it has, it is, but it doesn’t fill up the emptiness. Love is a light in the dark, but it does not destroy it all. I say again, no love outside of ourselves can fill that space of need. If religion fills that void for you, then wonderful, but though I am devoted to my path of faith it does not fill the hole. What Deity showed me, was the isses that dug the hole in the first place, and how I might heal the damage. If I was willing to work hard and experience most of the pain again, then I could heal, but it wasn’t guaranteed. If your God, or Goddess, promises you an easy path, and surety of success then you may not be hearing the voice of God, but the voice of something you want to be true. True faith is a path filled with many stones and thorns, because it is not the easy road that makes a warrior. If the word warrior doesn’t work for you, then find another, but its a good word for me.

I kept writing and I was successful, beyond my wildest dreams successful. I never thought I’d hit #1 on the New York Times List, or be the #1 best selling paperback in the country ever. These are all goals I’ve reached, but never had on my list of goals to reach. My goal for my writing was much more humble. I simply wanted to make enough to support my daughter and myself after my divorce. I’ve done a bit more than just support her and myself, a great deal more. I am blessed, and lucky, but as with most luck it’s because I put the hard work in before my opportunities came. Lucky people are usually prepared people.

All the success, all the books, and my wonderful characters and worlds, filled up part of me, because writing isn’t just a job for me, it’s a calling. Unfortunately, my calling didn’t fill up all the holes, or heal all the wounds. Having a child didn’t fill it up. I love our daughter, and she is great, but it’s not her job to make me feel whole, nor is it my job to make her a whole human being. Parents are supposed to give their children wings, but the kids have to learn how to fly with them. Hard to let go, but necessary.

So what fills up the hole? If love, success, money, art, children, marriage, sex, religion, faith, God, Goddess, if none of that fills that horrible emptiness completely, then what does?

I don’t know if anything does, there, that’s the truth. I wish it wasn’t. I wish I had a magic word, or pill to share with you and we could all be happy and healthy and whole. The only thing I know that helps that black emptiness fill up some is therapy, and facing the issues, the wounds, that dug that piece of my soul out. Therapy is hard, good therapy is very hard, but it’s the only way I’ve found to truly heal and cope, but that alone isn’t enough. For me, I need a strong faith, a personal relationship with Deity every day. Loving relationships, because what one person damages, another can help you heal. Animals, dogs right now, because I find that they are damn near essential to my happiness. Exercise, because it effects my physical health and my mood. For me it takes hard and frequent exercise to get me where my orthopedist says I need to get and stay, but staying out of surgery is worth it. Good nutrition, again effects health and mood. Time management, there is time to do it all, but not if I sit down and watch three hours of television, or more of movies a night. I like TV, love some shows, and love some movies, but I’d rather spend couple time with my husband, or our girlfriend and her husband, or have a good heart to heart talk with our daughter. I’m trying to get outside at least once a day, five days a week, because I feel better when I do. That’s the trick to filling up the void inside, to find what makes you feel better, truly better, which means when you do this whether it’s religion, exercise, dating, marriage, sex, parenting, building model airplanes, sculpting, collecting stamps, or playing the sport of your choice, whatever it is that makes you feel better, also makes your life work better. If what you’re doing dulls the pain, but makes your life worse, then it’s a crutch, maybe even an addiction, seek professional help and cut the destructive shit out.

You know how I said, love outside of yourself won’t fill up that empty space? Well, love inside yourself may. You need to love yourself. I know it’s hard, but its necessary. We have to love ourselves in the end, because if we don’t we continue to look for validation everywhere but inside ourselves, and in the end, we’re all we’ve got. Lovers, husbands, wives, children, bosses, jobs, houses, cars, flowers, pets, everything, comes and goes, but we remain. The face we see everyday in the mirror is our only constant companion. I used to think that was lonely, but I’ve come to understand that it’s not lonely, it’s just hard, but doable. If we’re following the path we’re meant to follow and doing the things we’re supposed to be doing we will find the people that we need and want in our lives. They will come to us, if they do their work, and we will help each other be better. That emptiness inside can fill up, I know, because mine is much smaller than it was, the difference between every ocean on the planet and now just a swimming pool and even that is getting smaller. I am healing. I am walking my path and meeting the people that I’m supposed to meet. I am learning from them, and they from me. We impact each other far more than we know, but as we heal and become more solid, we are less impacted by others, and our influence on them grows. So walk softly as you heal, and understand that others may not be so far down their paths, but walk softly and carry a big stick as Teddy Roosevelt said. Or as my faith would say, “Do no harm, but take no shit.”

If sharing part of my journey helps you, I’m glad. If you read this and are totally puzzled by what I mean, then you didn’t need this message. If you need it, I hope you do understand it, and f not now, then someday. Be well, be safe, be brave, trust yourself, and find people to trust, and be worthy of any trust that is placed in you.

New Blog: Doyle

We’re only a week and a day away from, A Shiver of Light, being on the shelves! I’ll see everyone in Huntington Beach, California at Barnes & Noble for the first event on June 2, and then onto Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon on June 3!

Yesterday’s page tease featured the Killing Frost, but today, as promised, features Doyle, once the Queen’s Darkness, and now, new father, and happily part of a “couple”.

New Blog: Frost

I got my box of, A Shiver of Light! We’re only 8 days away from newest Merry Gentry book hitting the shelves, and you get to read the next part of her story! To celebrate I’m going to pick random pages from, A Shiver of Light, and post them here leading up to the first book launch in L.A. on June 2 at Huntington Beach Barnes & Noble.

I’ll be using the list of favorite Merry characters that you put up on my FaceBook page, and on the BingeReads question that my publisher put up earlier this month. We’ll start with Frost on screen first, and tomorrow we’ll do Doyle. Hope you enjoy this page tease!

New Year’s Resolutions and Working Happier

You know those New Year’s resolutions that we all make, but never keep? Well, I made one to read some of the books on my to-be-read pile. I started with Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and enjoyed it. It was thought provoking, though I don’t agree with everything he proposes, it still had a lot of new ideas, new ways of looking at things, and that turned out to be something I needed. I came away with one personal insight that was very valuable to me. I realized that the one positive thing I hadn’t been able to give my daughter was to show her my happiness with my writing, my life’s work. She saw the deadlines, the tours taking me away from her, the research trips that did the same, and I guess I put all my negativity that I wouldn’t allow anywhere else in my life on my work. I didn’t realize I had done it, but I have. Maybe that’s why my very artsy daughter doesn’t want to make a living as an artist of any kind. “It’s too hard, mom,” she says. She’s right. If you don’t want it more than anything else in the world art will eat you alive, and spit you back out. Most of us never make enough money to live well, if at all. Many writers have to keep their day jobs forever, and write on the side. Most actors spend more time waiting tables than being on stage, or in front of a camera. I have worked very hard for my success, and been very lucky that what I want most to write so many people want to read. I’m one of the ones that made it, but for every amazing success like mine, there are hundreds that aren’t so positive.

The next book I picked up was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and that was also very well timed, because it got me thinking about happiness. I’d been working on my personal life for over a decade to make it happier. It had led me to leaving my first marriage and finding my husband Jonathon. I realized that one of the things that made my first marriage fail was that I wasn’t really cut out to be monogamous, so from the beginning Jonathon and I were polyamorous. It means to love more, even before we knew that poly was a word and there were other people out there doing it, we dated other people and added them to our lives. Thirteen years together as a couple, or more, and it just gets better. Part of truly being happy for me meant letting go of old ideas of what I thought marriage would be and embracing what worked for us.

Which brings me back to my career, my writing, what was once the passion of my life and had become a job. I’ve worked harder, faster, smarter, but I decided that I would try to work happier. I started to try and figure all this out while I was writing the newest Merry Gentry novel, A Shiver of Light, I gave myself permission to write anything I wanted part of the day, as long as I got my pages on the book done, too. Before this, with rare exceptions, I had forced myself to stay on one project at a time and write until it was complete, but when I was writing two best selling series for two different publishers, the deadlines were crushing. It was one of the things that led me to consolidating my two series under one publishing roof, though ironically the two publishing powerhouses have merged. Allowing myself the new freedom to spend part of the day on other projects didn’t slow me down on writing Merry, but seemed to energize me. It led to two e-specials. Dancing which is a novelette featuring a more happy domestic and relationship side of Anita Blake, my other series character, and tow of her boyfriends, Micah, and Nathaniel, along with a visit to see Detective Zerbrowski and his entire family at home. It was a lot of fun to write and many of you have told me how much you enjoyed reading it, so yay! I also wrote, “Shut Down,” which was an e-special gift to all of you for free while our government was behaving so childishly. I couldn’t make the politicians do their jobs, but I could give you a short story featuring Richard, our handsome, but self-loathing werewolf, and Ulfric (wolf king). Then I started what I thought was a Jason short story, and it got out of hand. It wouldn’t end and I began to fear I had a short novel on my hands. I finally had to stop working on it and let Merry and her world eat everything for awhile. For me, as a writer a book eventually consumes everything. It’s not unusual for me to work eighteen hour days for weeks on end as I finish a novel. I’d love to not work like that, but it’s simply the way my muse and I work best. Every time I try to write a few hours, then quite, and hit it the next day, my productivity grinds to a halt.

I finished the Merry book, and was exhausted, drained, used up, as I usually am at the end of a long novel. This book had been unusually exhausting and emotional for me. It was the first Merry novel in four years, the babies were finally born, and I had to remember some personal sorrows so I could do Merry and her story justice. I went to some pretty dark places to write this book. I cried more than once, and came away feeling like I’d broken my own heart. As you can imagine, it takes a bit to recover from something like that, so I didn’t force myself to write something else right away, as I usual did. I didn’t even make myself finish the Jason piece. I wrote if I was moved to write. I wrote if an idea came to me. I made notes on ideas. I made notes on Anita. Eventually I even made some notes on Merry and her crew. I’m world building at least three brand new worlds, and some day, one of the three will raise it’s hand and be ready to be written and shared with all of you.

I thought I’d be finishing the Jason novelette first, but then two other shorter ideas got my attention and I wrote on them, but . . . they weren’t ready. As my writing group, The Alternate Historians, says, “it wasn’t soup yet”, so I let the stories simmer and didn’t push myself, normally I would have. Then came two weeks of travel that included one of the most fun Geek-loving weddings Jon and I have ever participated in – we got to be part of an arch of light sabers for the Bride and Groom to exit through! Yeah, that kind of wedding! We flew straight from that out of state wedding to Spring Break with Jon’s parents, and our daughter, Trinity.

We left this overly long, overly cold, overly snow-filled winter behind for tropical beaches, Caribbean blue oceans and 80F temperatures. It was glorious. I usually try not to write when I’m on family trips. First, it’s incredibly difficult with so many demands for my attention. Second, because sometimes, I feel punished when I’m writing while everyone else is playing in the sun and surf. It’s like being in a pretty cage. Yeah I can see the sunshine and ocean, but if I can’t touch it, what’s the point? But it had been so many weeks without really writing for me, that I began to search for a place to write.

I was poking at every flat surface that would hold my iPad and full-size keyboard. I put on my new Bose headphones and made notes. But one day, I wrote enough that it felt like writing, not just notes and it was an older idea, but suddenly a new idea had bumped against it, and there was a spark. I wrote until that spark faded, and it was time to have dinner with my family.

I’ve been letting myself write on whatever my Muse and I wanted to work on, and that’s been fun. I’ve had more ideas come to me in the last few months than I’d found in years. I’ve let my Muse and I play, and it’s been glorious, but I need a deadline, a focus. Its been so long since I’ve let my mind wander through the Looking Glass without worrying about where I’m going, or when I’ll get there, that I’d forgotten that deadlines are my friends, not my enemies. They help me concentrate and narrow my vision down to a laser point and create. I had three stories ready to go, but no idea which was cooked enough to be soup. I let myself write on any of the three, and then suddenly one of them took the lead and we were off!

Today, for the first time since I typed, the End, on Shiver of Light, I wrote so long and so hard, that when Jon interrupted me for lunch, because when you eat healthier you really have to eat regularly during the day, I was inpatient, snapping at him. I knew it, I apologized, but I felt like if he didn’t get out of my office and let me finish the scene I was writing I would scream. He kissed me, and left to fetch lunch. He let me know when he got back, but today was his day at gym, not mine, so he had to eat on time, I could fudge it a little. When I was done with the scene, my injured arm hurt like hell. (It’s a permanent injury, more muscle helps which is one of the reasons for my dedication to the gym.) I was dazed and almost stumbled downstairs with the dogs trailing around me. I joined Jon in the other part of the house. We had a few minutes together while I started eating and then he had to go to gym. I put my feet up for a few minutes and cuddled the dogs on the couch and watched CSI. It’s one of my go-to shows when I’m writing well and want to be entertained, but not distracted from my story. I think we got through the first five seasons while I was writing Merry, so today was the beginning of season six. Then I went back to work. It was mostly notes, but I know exactly what happens next in the story. I know which idea I will finish next. I’ve given myself about two weeks to complete the story. I want it done before we get on the next plane for our next trip, which is about two weeks away. (I actually didn’t make that deadline, but finished it on the plane for the trip.)

I told Jon that I knew what I was writing next. He said, “I know.”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“Because this is the first time since you finished Merry that you were frantic to write and shushed me, so I’d leave you alone to write.” He smiled, kissed me, and left me to work.

I love my husband, and part of why loving each other works for us, is that he understood that me practically snarling at him today was a very good sign. He didn’t take it personally, he understood. He married me after I was established as a novelist, so he knew what he was getting into as much as anyone can that marries an artist. We are not always easy to live with, and if you expect us to play by muggle rules then you will be sadly disappointed. But since Jon is no more a muggle than I am, it works for us.

I don’t know if I’ve figured out all I need to work happier, but I’m getting there, and it’s not the view from the top of the mountain you need to love, it’s the climb up, because you can’t stay at the top of the mountain forever. That gets you one goal accomplished. I’ve got a whole mountain range spread out before me, and I want to climb them all.

Post Book Blues, or I finished my novel, now what?

Restless as hell. Don’t want to watch anymore TV, movies, even the great book I’m reading is just irritating. If we have anymore sex we’re both going to have rubby spots. Somewhere around day three after I finish a book, I get so restless I’m almost angry. It just seems to be part of my process of post-book down time. It doesn’t matter where I go, I’ve tried the ocean, heck I’ve gone to Disney World, and still this awful restlessness takes possession of me.
The day I wrote, The End, on the newest Merry Gentry novel, A Shiver of Light, I was on such a writer’s high, it was awesome! When the high left, the tiredness hit like it always does. First full day of not writing the book, was a day of my mood going up, and down – up and down. This mood swing is also just part of the post-book process for me. I know it and I don’t let the sad rain all over everyone. I know what is happening and I just ask my husband, Jon, “Happy, sad, happy, sad; do I always do this?”
Jon says, “Yes.”
The only thing I didn’t do per usual was I didn’t have a whole day of what I call, “The little lost lamb day,” where I wander around the house, or wherever drifting from room to room, or yard, as if I don’t know where I’m going, or what I’m doing, which is pretty accurate. Months, or a year, or more, of concentrating on this one project and suddenly it’s gone. The structure to my day, the thing that consumed me for so long and it’s done, and I’m at loose ends. I think the reason that I didn’t have as much of the “lost lamb” day is that this book was so emotionally draining I was happy to be done, and happy to begin to rest up before edits come back from New York.
Now, I’m tired, but don’t want to sleep, as I said at the beginning I don’t want to do any of the things I was looking forward to catching up on, or I’ve done them for three days and enough is enough.
I’ve tried leaving as soon as I finish a book and going some place warm with an ocean view, but I still go through the same post-book process. I’m just restless and angry staring off at amazing Caribbean blue water and palm trees, instead of St. Louis in the winter. It usually just pisses me off that I’m someplace great and still can’t be happy. But I’ve finally embraced the truth, that all this emotional angst is part of me coming down from writing a novel. I wish I was one of those writers that doesn’t go through all this, but a writer doesn’t choose their creative process, anymore than they choose what ideas come to them. J. K. Rowling says in the Harry Potter books, “The wand chooses the wizard.” Well, the idea chooses the writer.
I think the same is true of how our entire creative process works, from how we gather ourselves to write a novel, to the writing of it, and the celebrating and grieving process after it’s written. Some of us struggle to get enough ideas to write, others of us have more ideas than any one lifetime can allow us to write. Some need silence and solitude to work, others need a busy cafe around them, and still others do solitude with music blasting; we are all as different as our stories.
Now, I’m going to take this restless, cranky mood and get on the treadmill, because until I work some of this energy out I won’t sleep. I almost went to gym today, but was afraid I wouldn’t concentrate well enough for weights. Next time I’ll listen to myself and do gym sooner, but for right now treadmill. Gotta walk some of this off.

Don’t Feed the Trolls

I’ve been getting two new questions online, the last few days – One how did people get my brand new Anita Blake novelette, Dancing, early? Two why are they giving it one and two star reviews, and is the novelette worth the money if it’s getting such bad reviews? To answer the first question, none of the people leaving those reviews have read it yet, they can’t have, but yet they’ve “reviewed” it. This happens a lot with books, movies, music, any kind of art. People decide they hate it, before they’ve read, seen, or listened to it, which means their opinion is uninformed, at best. Most of these people will actually buy my novelette, and they will then hate on it with more detail, but remember they have decided to hate it, which makes them trolls. All haters are trolls on the internet, please ignore the trolls. Whatever you do, don’t feed them.

Yes, I know that even writing this blog feeds the trolls, because they seem to thrive off of any attention be it negative, or positive, but I felt that the people that are asking me how these haters got the novelette early, needed to know that the haters don’t have it early. They don’t have it. They don’t get it, the “it” not being the novelette, but more what I do, what all artists do. We create, haters just try to destroy. The world is divided into two main camps, one tries to build things and build people up, the other side tries to tear things and people down. At the end of the day, I am happy to be in the camp that creates, builds, and tries to make the world a better, more positive place. Those that can only hate and try to cause harm, I’ve never understood them, its too alien to who I am.

So, for all you readers out there asking if you should pay attention to the low star reviews out already for Dancing, the answer is, no. Now you may hate the novelette, you may think it’s not worth the money, that I can’t control that. If you hate it, I’m sorry, but I enjoyed writing it, and thought it was very fun to finally get to share Zerbrowski and his family with all of you. I loved watching Nathaniel, Micah, and Anita interact with other police officers and their families. It was fun as hell to have Anita and the men have little Matthew in tow, and Anita have to do the family thing at the cookout. Now, if none of that interests you, by all means skip this one. But I’ll say that you will miss a deepening of their relationship, and revelations about Zerbrowski and his family that will play a part in at least one more novelette, and maybe a novel. I was really trying to keep the Zerbrowski clan out of a novel length piece, because such bad things can happen in my novels, but I’ve written the beginning of the story, so we’ll see.

So, to sum up, no one has Dancing early, the low star reviews are trolls, please ignore the trolls. On the question will you think the novelette is worth the money, I have no idea, I don’t know your criteria for that, but if I didn’t think the story was interesting and added to my character development and world building, I wouldn’t have written it. Maybe you’ll get it and hate it, I hope not, but regardless of how you feel about my story, or anyone else’s art, try not to feed the trolls. I think if you let the trolls drag you down to their level you risk becoming one of them, and no one likes a troll, not even the trolls. Try it sometime if you think you’re friends with a troll, try disagreeing with them about anything and see how fast they turn on you. Haters are gonna hate, its what they do.

Affliction is Done!

I thought I posted this two weeks ago, but apparently not. *laughs* We were both pretty fried for the week after I finished Affliction, but then Jon and I went for a week’s vacation some place warm and tropical. We snorkeled in the open ocean and it was wondrous. We did a lot of fun, relaxing, and spirit renewing things for our week and a day, now I finally post the blog I wrote just after I typed, The End, on Affliction the 22nd novel in the Anita Blake series.

I finished writing Affliction, the newest Anita Blake novel, at twenty minutes till dawn on Sunday/Monday morning. Jon wanted to wait those minutes and watch the sunrise together. Jon doesn’t normally stay up for the 0’dark-thirty finishes and I was still riding an incredible writer’s high, so agreed happily. We found the perfect window in my office, wrapped our arms around each other, and waited. The sky lightened and turned to streamers of pink and purple to the east, with the bare winter trees like black paper cutouts against the light, but Jon said, it wasn’t dawn yet. Though we both agreed that any vampires out and about would need to be worried and headed for cover. In the growing light we saw the Great Horned Owl silhouetted between the darkness and the dawn. It was this huge black outline in one of the trees near my office. You forget how big he is, until you see him like that, big as a large Red-Tailed hawk, hunched and waiting for the light, or maybe settling down for the day? And yes, I’m pretty sure he is the male, because the slightly larger female must be sitting on their eggs if they’re going to have them. They are both very big birds even for Great Horned Owls.
I admit that by the time that the sun rose and the sky was blue, I was tired and ready for bed. I’d finished a twenty hour day of writing with only short breaks for food. I’ve done those marathon sessions before. In fact most Anita novels finish in a great burst of time, energy, and creativity, but for the last several books of any kind including Merry Gentry novels I’d ended drained and half in shock left like an empty shell on the shore, spent, but not this time. This time I am more energized, and less dead, more vampire, less zombie. 🙂 In a few days I feel that I may rise to shapeshifter and feel all warm and fuzzy again, but for now I’m just happy to feel good about the book, the writing, my life, myself, all of it. Really, when all is said and done, what could be better?

Cover for Affliction

The above image is the cover for the next Anita Blake book, Affliction, and it looks very very beautiful.

Joy Requires Effort, or Finding My Wunjo

I wrote this a few days ago, but never got to post it, so here it is,one of my lessons for the year. Enjoy.

I got up just past dawn to write on the new book, Affliction, but I’m only now getting to my desk at 8:07, so what was a doing for the last couple of hours? What was so important that it kept me from my desk and work? Glad you asked.

I had to take the dogs outside before I dared to bring them over to my office, so I grabbed leashes, and found the lower third of two of the leashes wet – one was very wet. I smelled my hand and it wasn’t water. We have three dogs, two males, I knew it wasn’t water, and in fact if it had been it would have been worse, because that would have meant a leak in the ceiling somewhere, that would be worse than Sasquatch our pug having peed on the leashes, really that would be worse, but standing there with dog pee on my hand and two useless leashes I wasn’t thinking that logically. How do I know Sasquatch was our perpetrator of pee? Because for some reason Mordor was still in his crate. When my sister, Chica, left for work she must have put him back in, and let me say his crate will need to be cleaned out later. *sigh* I grabbed extra leashes from the back of the pile and finally managed to take the dogs out. I then cleaned up the pee underneath the leashes on the floor and on the pair of snow boots that have been sitting there for months. Why didn’t the snow boots go somewhere else? I have no idea, they aren’t mine. *deep breath* *let it out slow*

It was a beautiful chilly autumn morning, almost cold enough to see my breath, and there was a flock of birds in one of the tall trees. I think it might have been cedar waxwings, one of my favorite birds, but I didn’t have binoculars so I couldn’t swear to it. Normally, I’d have taken the dogs in and run for the bionocs, but I knew I had to clean the leashes first, so I soaked them in soapy water, applied anti-urine stuff to them in the hopes that the dogs won’t now think they are markers to be remarked forever, then I washed the leashes again, marveling at how our twelve-year-old pug had gotten this high up on the dangling leashes. He’s spry for his age apparently. *grumble* The leashes are now hanging in the downstairs bathroom to dry. By the time I got down the flock of maybe cedar waxwings had vanished, of course.

I was grumbling to myself, “I bet James Patterson doesn’t have to clean up his own dog mess.” I was being childish and a very grumpy bear, so when I got to my office and treated the dogs with their favorite snacky bit, I decided I’d mediate and get back into the headspace to write.

I lit my candles, I knelt on the meditation cushion, but was still too agitated to meditate, so I reached for my runes, the Norse runes. I have several sets made of different types of semiprecious stones. I find often when I can’t still my mind and heart that picking my rune for the day helps me find that inner quiet, that inner strength. Yesterday’s rune was rose quartz and I was going to put it back in the velvet bag and reach for another one, but in picking up the bag I spilled all the runes out in the storage area underneath my altar. I thought, “Really? Really!” Well, yes, really the universe seemed to say, and I proceeded to hunt the spilled runes through all the other paraphernalia underneath my altar.

Rose quartz is a heart stone, and for me it’s always about emotions and heart issues, as I hunted and searched trying to make sure I didn’t lose one of the runes it was not lost upon me that I’d just dumped all my “emotions” and was having to gather them back up. I had to laugh, because I love the Norse pantheon, and Odin especially has a sense of humor, or of the obvious, and this was such a lesson. I said, “Thank you, Odin.” I found a stone I hadn’t worked with in months, but it’s box held one of the pink rune stones, though the stone is black and holds a star within it. Black star diopside, in fact. Most of the stars in my life have come from very dark places, and it also represents the blackness of space full of stars and I need to look outward more and not narrow my vision down quite so much. The mundane things have to be done, like cleaning up after the dogs, but I can’t let the mundane mire me into it, because I’m supposed to be following my star. That was one lesson, but the other was more important. I couldn’t find two of the runes. One Mannaz ended up still being in the bag with two other runes that hadn’t even fallen out, but the one I couldn’t find was Wunjo. I found a whole unopened bag of rose quartz rune stones that I’d forgotten I bought as a gift for someone. I thought I can use the Wunjo from this, but I wanted my Wunjo, my rune.

The meaning of Wunjo is joy. I’d lost my joy, and as I sifted through everything underneath my altar I was determined to find it. The rune turned out to be somewhere I’d already looked, I swear, but it was my altar and like altars is a place of mystery and miracles, so one misplaced stone isn’t that surprising. I found my Wunjo, my joy, but it was upside down, reversed, which means the opposite of it’s normal meaning. I had found my joy, but I wasn’t joyful, and I wasn’t. Spilling the runes had calmed me down, but I was still grumpy and prickling with all the small issues that had delayed me this morning, and they were small problems. It’s funny, no matter how much death and destruction you live through, there will come a morning where the mundane problems make you insane again, and then you have to remember, or be reminded of your joy.

We have had Sasquatch for twelve years. He’s the oldest purebred pug I’ve ever owned, and he’s my third one. The other two died by the age of nine from heart complications, or some other genetic defect. Every day extra with our olden dogger is a blessing.

Our two Japanese chins, Keiko and Mordor, make me laugh and roll around on the floor with them more than any other dogs I’ve ever had.

I get to be in my beautiful office which I helped design. The trees are turning their autumn colors gold, orange, scarlet, as if the world is beginning to smolder. The view is great. There was a time in my life when the kitchen table, or a type writer stand on wheels was all the office and privacy I had to write, and now I have this huge room of my own.

I get to work on the twenty-second Anita Blake novel, Affliction. My first novel, Nightseer, was supposed to be the first of four novels, but my editor at that time rejected the second book, because the first one hadn’t sold enough, as is typical of a first novel. I remember when I got the first contract for the Anita Blake novels, the first one was complete and they’d bought it, but they gave me a contract for three books. I remember thinking, “Well, at least I know there will be three books in the series.” I am writing the twenty-second novel! That is so cool.

I have eight books in the Meredith Gentry series, and yes, there will be a ninth, but Merry and I are negotiating with each other on what that next adventure will be. I was pretty grumpy that my main character wasn’t cooperating to the degree that I had to miss a deadline and wait for her to talk to me again, but to have a fictional character so alive in my head that she argues for her life and her happiness is an amazing gift. I have faith that when Merry and I finish our lover’s quarrel/feud that the book that comes from it will be better than anything I could have come up with on my own without her input.

I’m a writer, all I’ve really wanted to be since I was about fourteen. How many people get to follow their dreams and be successful at it? I mean, that’s pretty cool when you think about it. Sometimes I get caught up in the deadlines and the work, and forget just how amazing that is that I am a #1 New York Times Bestselling Writer, and I have exceeded every goal I ever had a as a writer. How amazing is that?

Two huge crows have come to sit in a tree near my office. One is calling out over and over, I thought there was a hawk, because that’s what the call means. Apparently, there is no hawk, but it is time for me to get back to making pages on Affliction. You think it’s just two crows that happened by, well maybe, but then again, maybe not? There is more magic around us every day than most of us realize, and there is more joy to be had even on the grumpy bear days. I’m off to honor my Wunjo, my joy, because part of what the rune means is that joy in the face of whatever may come. It is going smiling into battle, not because you know you will win, but because you get to go and try yourself against the odds, against the others, the elements, all of it. Go joyous into your day, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s your day – yours- own it, love it, find your joy, just remember sometimes you have to work for it, hunt for it. Joy requires effort to find it sometimes, but it is so worth it.