Damian Archives - Laurell K. Hamilton

2017 GONE WRITING, BOOK 2018

First things first, there will not be a big book from me this year. There probably won’t even be a little book from me in 2017, but my muse sometimes hits very suddenly so I don’t rule something smaller completely out. The next major book from me will be in June of 2018. Why am I taking this year off from publishing a book? Because my new editor and I decided we’d like the extra time.
My editor that I had worked with for twenty years, give or take, retired. Dead Ice was the last book that Susan and I worked on together. I was very happy for her to be able to retire early to all the wonderful plans she and her husband had made. I honestly didn’t think anything of it for my own writing process. I mean, I’d had six or seven different editors with the Meredith (Merry) Gentry series in as many books at Random House, and I’d done all right. One infamous Merry novel changed over three editors during the writing of it. I didn’t think the fact that I’d had only two editors in over twenty years at Penguin Putnam with the Anita Blake series might have impacted my writing process; the consistency, I mean. But it threw me more than I thought it would to lose an editor after that many years and that many books. I am hopefully settled in with my new editor, Cindy, for another long run.
Crimson Death was our first novel together and it was a nightmare. That wasn’t Cindy’s fault, at all. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, except my over ambitious nature. I should never, ever promise deadlines at the end of writing most novels, because at the end the muses are singing and writing usually spills forth like water from the proverbial cleft rock. Since I’m usually doing ten to twenty pages a day at that point I think that’s what I always do. I forget that at the beginning of a novel, sometimes I’m lucky to get four pages a day. It takes time to build up steam for the end of a novel, and I always forget that. Crimson Death was also the first Anita Blake novel set in a different country. I set it in Ireland, I’d read all these books, and looked at pictures . . . I don’t know, I thought that being in a different country that spoke English wouldn’t be that big a difference to my writing process. I was wrong. I was really wrong.
And then just before we left for Ireland our pug, Sasquatch, passed away. He was fourteen and we knew it was coming, but having to make that decision, holding him while he passed away in my arms – nothing prepares you for it. It’s always upsetting to lose a beloved pet, but Crimson Death was the first novel I wrote without a pug at my side in about twenty years, maybe longer. I know I had no pug when I wrote my first three novels, but other than that I’ve had at least one pug, or more, in the office with me. I started out joking that I don’t write as well without one, even with my other wonderful dogs, but as I write forward on the third novel I’ve attempted since Sasquatch passed, it’s beginning to feel more plausible.
If I could do it over again, I’d have done another Anita novel set here in the States where I was more familiar with everything and I’d have done my research at leisure. The trip to Ireland that suddenly became absolutely necessary was eye opening, exhilarating, and humbling. Nothing I had read prepared me for the Emerald Isle. I had researched the wrong questions. I had to let go of my preconceptions and the book became a very different book than the one I’d planned. Research, good research, will do that sometimes. The other problem was that this was finally Damian’s book. He’d been in the series since book six and this was book twenty-five. I had hundreds of pages done when Damian got loud in my head and said, “This is what you do to me? You make me a victim again?” He wanted to be the hero, or at least strong and not the perpetual victim the first version showed him to be, and I couldn’t argue with him, though I tried.

Ireland inspired me in a way that I didn’t anticipate. I was doing twenty pages a day in Dublin. I was hitting that end of book page count per day in the first third of the book. I thought, great, this is one of those books that writes fast! Um, no. What had happened accidentally is my muse and I had found the place we wanted to write the book, but it would still take months to complete it. I couldn’t stay in Ireland for months when I had planned on only staying for weeks. My life wasn’t that flexible. I had commitments in England both for my first ever European convention and for a research trip for a different novel. We left Ireland after less than a month and the moment we got to London I couldn’t write. I have no idea why, but I never write well in London and I’ve tried multiple times. The novel that had been going great guns in Ireland stopped dead once I left the country. If I get to the twenty pages per day point with a novel, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, that is how I write that book. Change anything at that point from running out of the tea I’ve been drinking, the view, my chair, my desk, the computer I’m writing on or the software I’m using to write, my office pets, a lover having to travel – basically once the book is in the white, hot, heat phase, draw a circle of about fifty feet around me and everything within that circle has to remain the same or the book grinds to a halt.
I knew that about myself as a writer, but what I hadn’t anticipated was that a few days in Ireland would jump start the page count to that level of heat. Then we left the country for very good reasons and for wonderful adventures, but the book didn’t recover its speed for months. Then the other thing happened that couldn’t have been planned for, Crimson Death became the longest novel I’d ever written and I’ve written some long novels. Up to that point, I believe that Obsidian Butterfly was my longest. Interestingly it was set in a state that I’d never visited, New Mexico, so maybe its researching places I’ve never been that makes books super long for me?

The difference between the two books is that Obsidian Butterfly was pretty much the manuscript you got to read. Crimson Death I cut by a third, before it went to New York for final edits. I believe the rough draft was over 300,000 words which makes it well over a thousand pages. I have never written a draft that long. Again, maybe it’s the research, but whatever the cause, it meant that the first deadlines came and went, so we got new deadlines that could not be missed if the book was coming out on time. My first novel with my new editor became a series of emergencies. I wrote more than one day round the clock, literally. My husband, Jonathon, our girlfriend, Genevieve, and her husband Spike took turns bringing me endless cups of coffee, or just checking on me. Anyone who thinks they want to marry a bestselling writer, or a famous artist of any kind, should see that artist through a serious creative work before they say, I do. Artists, and I’m not any different, are moody bastards, and when the work isn’t going well it’s worse. I’m usually a nice person, but when the writing is going badly I roar like a dragon at any interruption. Genevieve and Spike hadn’t been living with us long, though we’d been dating them longer, so it was sort of a domestic trial by fire.
By the time the book went to its final rounds in New York, my two newest domestic partners begged me to write something else next time. They were full up listening to me talk about Anita and the gang. None of us wanted to go through another book like that. I think even my editor, Cindy, and all the wonderful people at Penguin Random House that helped make Crimson Death a reality were ready for a break. Yes, my two main publishers for the Merry Gentry series and the Anita Blake series are now one publisher. One of the largest mergers in publishing history.
I know that at the end of the process for that last novel I was drained. I felt like a seashell washed up on the beach, empty like a pretty piece of bone, caressed by the sea. So, in the end we all decided we needed more time for the next book to be written and edited. We didn’t want to go balls to the wall again. Cindy and I need time to understand each other as editor and writer. I need to let myself mourn twenty years of editorial partnership. I need to let myself mourn the loss of Sasquatch, and think about whether with three dogs, a cat, and a lizard, we can really add a pug at this time. I want to enjoy the first draft and not feel like every word has to be written in stone, because there isn’t time to revise without it becoming a publishing emergency. I need time to spend with my family, friends, and to take care of my body, mind, and spirit. My muse and I need to find our way back to a writing process that works smoothly. So that’s why there will be no new novel from me this year. See you in June 2018!

Crimson Death, the book that would not end.

I wrote this weeks ago, but was so busy actually writing, and living that I forgot to post it.
It’s raining here today. The kind of rain that settles in like a guest before the cozy fire with a cup of hot tea and a good book. It’s that kind of day, but I can’t curl up with someone else’s book yet, because I have my own to finish. Crimson Death is written, but now it’s page proofs which are the last chance to catch any small mistakes. If you find any large ones that would require pages to fix, or even paragraphs, you are out of luck. The book has been to the printers and these are the finished sheets, so small changes like the fact that I keep trying to give Cardinale green eyes to match Damian’s, when she is introduced books ago with blue eyes, that can be caught and changed. You can add, or cut a sentence here and there, but beyond that the book is the book – it’s done. But like so often in publishing, it’s done, but it’s not. Crimson Death is almost set in stone, but here are page proofs to show that the stone can still be polished a bit more.

I have now read and reread this book so many times that I’m having to fight not to change things just to change things, so it will read differently. I’m somewhere between bored with it and terrified that I’ll miss something that will haunt me later. Today is the last day though, tomorrow the page proofs MUST be in New York. My editor, my publisher, the entire long suffering production team, everyone who has touched this book and helped it along are waiting for me to finish this one last pass through the manuscript, which now looks like the final typeset of the book. It’s still loose pages when printed out, but it is now set like it will appear between the covers of the book. The art department has that lovely cover waiting to go around these pages like a lover’s hug to hold it safe, warm, and made to feel pretty. The book is done, but it’s not.

Crimson Death more than any other book in memory has been done, until I realize it’s not done – yet. That first ending that didn’t work at all. That second climatic ending that in retrospect didn’t seem all that climatic. My old editor retired happily, and I’m happy for her, but my new editor and I are still finding our feet. I think I may owe her flowers after the grueling literary slog this book has become on our end. Or maybe we just need to meet at a bar somewhere and have a drink, or three. I don’t normally drink, but on the research trip to Ireland for Crimson Death, I finally learned to appreciate it. So cliche that I had to go to Ireland to learn to drink. This book is leaving me thinking that I might curl up in front of the fire on a rainy day with something a little harder than tea. Maybe some Glendalough whiskey shining amber in a crystal cut glass, while I finally put my feet up and get to read someone else’s book, but not yet.

New Pub Date for Crimson Death

Crimson Death, the new Anita Blake novel, will be published on September 13, 2016. For those of you who follow my blog, you know I’m still writing the book, what you don’t know is that I finished it once already. I typed, The End, one glorious morning as I watched the sun rise; but once the euphoria of the writing high faded and I got some sleep, I knew something was wrong. I’d known something was wrong for weeks, maybe months, but definitely weeks. I was too close to finishing the book, so I ignored my muse and my characters arguing with me. One character in particular wasn’t happy. Damian, who started life as a Viking until one dark night he and his brothers in arms tried to raid the wrong castle. She-Who-Made-Him, a master vampire that traumatized him so badly he’s afraid to speak her name, held him as a virtual slave for centuries. She let him go, and he still doesn’t know why, but he was allowed to go to America where he became a manager at one of the hottest dance clubs in the country, Danse Macabre. In fact, he first appears in the book that introduces the club. The Killing Dance is the sixth book in the series, and this is Damian’s introduction:
“I TURNED to find another new vampire. He was tall and slender with skin the color of clean white sheets, but sheets didn’t have muscle moving underneath, sheets didn’t glide down the steps and pad godlike across a room. His hair fell past his shoulders, a red so pure it was nearly the color of blood. The color screamed against his paleness.”
Originally, I thought Crimson Death would be a short novel like my books, Micah and Jason, called Damian, but very quickly I realized it was going to be a big book. I believe my largest word count was 300,000 words. I’m one of those writers that writes long and then cuts, but this was excessive, even for me. It was another clue that my muse and I were debating with each other. The original plot had Damian kidnapped and Anita coming to his rescue. It would take me typing to the end, or what I thought was the end, to be willing to listen to my muse, and to Damian. He finally got through to me and not literally said, but basically told me, “I’ve been in the series since book six and now I’m finally getting my own story in book twenty-five and I’m just the damsel in distress. All those newer characters that have come on stage and been heroes, or major love interests, or something more than just the victim du jour, and now I’m just as unhappy, just as powerless, just as afraid as I began. Nineteen books and I haven’t grown at all.” He was right, and it was unusual for me, because I’m all about the character growth and letting my fictional friends have interesting lives, except for him. Damian had been almost static, I don’t know why, but he finally stepped up and threw the gauntlet down.
“You can do better than this,” he told me, and he was right. I turned my plot on its ear and now Damian is going back to Ireland to help solve a mystery. He’s going back to face his greatest fears to save lives as a consultant with the Irish authorities about their sudden vampire problem. Sudden, because Ireland isn’t supposed to have any vampires. It’s one of the few countries on the planet that has no folklore about them. The only dead that walk in Irish myths are ghosts and the shades of heroes. But Damian knows differently, he knows that there is a vampire so powerful and so frightening that to even speak her name is to risk her power seeking you out, even across an ocean. She-Who-Made-Him says the vampires plaguing Dublin are not her doing, and that she’s grown weaker since Damian left her side. U. S. Marshal Ted Forrester, AKA Edward, is already there acting as a consultant. He wants fellow marshal Anita Blake to come help hunt the undead and to bring the only vampire that might know the truth about what’s happening. Anita thought Damian was going home, but Ireland was never home, it was the place where he died.