Tag: Laurell K. Hamilton

The College Professor and Dr. Seuss

The cover of Green Eggs and Ham

Once when I still believed I’d get my doctorate in English literature, and write on school breaks, one of my favorite teachers had an epiphany in our upper level lit class.

 

One fine spring day, a literature prof named, Dr. Lalka declared that he would not read children’s literature to his soon to be born baby. He would read them only Literature, serious Literature like Shakespeare and Chaucer, Keats and Shelley. Children’s books he doubly declared, damaged a child’s brain and ruined their chance to love real Literature.  

 

The eight students sitting around his table all looked at each other. He called them his little Cherubs, and they called him, Doc. They were the pride and joy of his students. The best, the brightest of them all. Those eight shining stars stared at each other and then with shared smiles began to recite, GREEN EGGS AND HAM by Dr. Seuss. His little cherubs spoke very word from beginning to end, leaving out nothing, remembering it all though it had been many years since they had read it.

 

That college professor named, Doc began to blush, pink at the beginning then red and redder and reddest of all until he had to bend down his head and recover himself. When once more he could speak, he said, that perhaps there was more to these children’s books than he had first thought and maybe among all the Shakespeare and Chaucer he might sneak a few stories with less thee’s and thou’s and more Sneetches and Loraxes.  

 

His little cherubs rejoiced in that college classroom, knowing they’d saved Doc’s baby from the doom of being forced to grow up far, far too soon.

 

Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss! Happy World Reading Day to everyone! Hope you’ve had a lovely one.

Listening to the Silence

   It’s 11:00 in the morning and I have no writing done. I’m on deadline and I have no writing done. This is usually my cue to beat myself up emotionally which feeds all sorts of issues which if fed enough will trigger the chorus line of personal demons that I think most of us have in our heads. Once that chorus begins to chant their negative messages and dance their little dance not only is writing unlikely to happen today, but my day will be wrecked. I will be wrecked emotionally and it just goes downhill from there.
   Often when I’m behind in my morning routine for work I try to hit the writing hard and make up for lost time, sometimes that works, but not when my head has already started going dark. On days like that I’ve learned that I need to do one of two things, maybe both, get on the treadmill and walk off the black mood, and/or mediate. I light a candle and try to focus not on the stressful morning, or all the things that are feeding the bad day, but on listening to that still, small voice that we all have inside us. The voice of our good angels, our totems, our spirit guides, that little slice of God/Goddess that is there to help us if we take the time to listen. It’s hard when most days are so rushed, but I’ve learned that if I can take even a few moments to stand outside in the sun, or hug a tree, or do anything that helps me be still and truly listen, that there will be comfort, or wisdom, or I’ll think of something I didn’t think of before that helps. Think about how powerful that is, that inside each of us is a spark of the Divine that will guide us, teach us, steady us, and it is always there, if we enter the silence and listen for it. (For all you atheists out there, you have it too, maybe you call it consciences, or inner knowing, but it’s there.)
   I came away from meditation with this thought, “That there has to be chaos before there can be order. Sometimes you need that bad relationship in order to learn the lessons needed to have that wonderful relationship next time. Sometimes you lose an opportunity, because a better one is waiting for you. You make a mistake that turns out to be exactly what you needed to solve a major problem in your life/job/family/romance. A frustrating morning can lead to a life lesson that helps you find your way to a better afternoon, and to happier days in general.”
If I can hold onto this lesson, I’ve already put it in my journal, and I’m typing it here, then perhaps I won’t let the negative things drowned out the positive things, which I have a tendency to do.
   I meditated and then I allowed myself to sit in the big, comfy leather chair in my office, cuddle with one of my dogs, sip tea and read from the book I’d almost finished. It reminded me that life isn’t all about the rushing around and accomplishing goals, it’s also about working hard so you can have the time to enjoy the things that make you happy. Now, I feel ready to start on that second bottle of water of the day, and get back to working on the story that is due. I have hope that I’ll get through the majority of it today, which is a lot better attitude than I had before I took a few minutes to be still and listen.

The next Anita Blake novel…

A lot of you have asked me what the next Anita Blake novel is about, so I came up with a way for you to guess and me to answer without me giving away too much. I’m usually terrible at oversharing when I try to give hints, so let’s try this – the last few weeks the quotes that go up on Monday on my social media have been from one of the books that I reread as research for the latest novel.
Guess why I reread that book and if you’re right it will reveal some of the characters or plot of the novel I’m currently writing. This would have been much more challenging if you had to read the books to find the quotes. I even thought about asking people not to use electronic search for them, but it seemed unfair to make you read over all twenty-six books for this game. Also, you know someone will use an electronic copy and search for the quote, so it’s not fair to those who would play by the rule, so no rule. Find the quotes the way you want to find them. Once you know the book I used for research then let the guessing begin as to why. Why this book? Is it character, plot, world building point that I wanted to double check, or something completely different? There will be several quotes from each of the books I reread as research for the one I’m writing now.
Correct guesses as to why I needed to refresh myself with the novel/s that we quoted from may get a signed book, though not necessarily a copy of the book in question. I say, may, because if a lot of you guess correctly then we may have to pick random winners from all you excellent guessers. Or maybe we’ll ask your reason for the guess, and the best logic trail wins a book? I’m not entirely sure, because we’ve never tried to do anything quite like this before, so like writing a novel, we’re making it up as we go.

Deal Announcment

Publishers Weekly had an exclusive on this news, so I couldn’t share it until after they published it yesterday.

  • Hamilton Re-ups At Berkley

Bestseller Laurell K. Hamilton inked a new three-book deal with her editor at Berkley, Cindy Hwang. The North American rights agreement, which Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House handled, will bring fans her first new series since 1999. The new books feature Detective Samuel Havelock, who works in the Meta­physical Coordination Unit. Berkley said Havelock exists “in a universe where heaven, hell, and our own world converge,” and “he is all we have keeping the Apocalypse at bay.” Also included in the agreement is a novel in Hamilton’s Anita Blake , Vampire Hunter series and a third book, which Berkley said is “yet to be determined.” Hamilton, according co Berkley, has sold more than 20 million books.

 

Signing at Forbidden Planet and Nine Worlds: GeekFest! London this weekend.

  
Hello England, so far you have fed us an incredible dinner, confused us completely on hotel rooms several times, shown us the treasures of ages past, the resting places of kings, and the deaths of queens. We’ve heard stories of treachery, true love, and brutality to rival any modern crime drama. I hope we have the room situation sorted, at last. We are currently having tea in the garden, which does not suck, and may redeem any irregularities because it is tea served with the sweet smell of jasmine riding the soft summer dusk, though summer here has us in jackets against the chill. Its about 90F at home, too hot for tea in the garden. I’m still strangely homesick, which is unusual for me. So, I’m sitting in an English garden, drinking Earl Grey tea, and thinking about things. What things? Glad you asked. I’ll be signing books at Forbidden Planet here in London tomorrow starting at 5pm. It’s my first English signing, ever, which is pretty cool. On Saturday I’ll be a guest at Nine World’s GeekFest, which is my first convention over here. I’ll be doing group panels with other writers, but also a solo panel. Jonathon coined the term, ‘Laurell and a mic’ panel, because its me interacting directly with you, the audience. Questions answered, laughter shared, and if you ask about the racy bits just be prepared for the answers. I’ll be interested to see if your questions are different from the ones I get in America. Fans have been telling us that some of you are coming from other parts of Europe, so you English fans won’t have it all to yourselves, but so many of you Brits have been asking me to do a signing here, and to come to conventions here, that I finally decided to take you up on it. Come out to see me on Friday at the Forbidden Planet signing and Saturday at the Nine Worlds con and show me some English hospitality to chase away this desire to be home.