Yesterday was an amazing day – day one on sale for AFFLICTION –
but today I get to share some more excitement! I get to answer one of your most asked questions. Will I ever write another Merry Gentry novel? Yes! I wanted to make a hundred percent certain that Merry and I were both happy with the book before I announced it, and when I cleared that first triple digit goal I knew we had it! The new Merry Gentry novel will be my next book to be published, in summer 2014. This will be the first Merry novel since DIVINE MISDEMEANORS in 2009!
Tag: Merry Gentry
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?
The Creative Toll
I keep saying, I’m not usually this emotional at the end of a book. Jon, my husband, assures me I am. He also assures me I’m beautiful, intelligent, & sexy, that I have it all, but yes, I do get exhausted & cranky at the end of every book. Strangely, I forget how much it takes out of me each time. For many of us it is a grueling, amazing, painful thing to have a literary creation. For other writers it seems to be unemotional & much less visceral. I envy those cooler heads at this point in the creative process, but if I were one of them I’d be a different person & a very different writer. Could I have created Anita Blake, Merry Gentry, & all the other characters if I’d been less invested in my work? Would all my readers feel as close to my imaginary friends, if I didn’t bleed a little over every book? Somehow I think if the cost were less for me, it would mean less to all of you.
Merry Gentry novel, or the next one
I have blogged about what Merry and I are doing about the next Merry novel. I’ve twitted and I could have sworn FB posted about it, but one more time.
I didn’t abandon the Merry series, she and I fought the good fight for nearly six months. She didn’t like my plot for the next book because it screwed up her happily-ever-after. She is demanding a book plot that doesn’t make her now happy life into a misery. She stopped cooperating as a character and I missed a book deadline for the first time in twenty years of writing. I backed off, and let my stubborn Merry have some space, as I’ve moved off to play with Anita and even brand new stories, Merry has slowly begun to deign to talk to me again. I am hopeful that she and I will reach a compromise.
I just need to tip-toe through the minefield so that I have an interesting book that ties up lose ends from Divine Misdemeanors , but doesn’t blow up Merry’s life with Doyle, Frost, the new babies, and everyone else. If nothing bad happens to anyone it’s not a book, it’s a very long vignette – like a day in the life of. Story needs conflict; Merry needs her happy life, and therein lies my dilemma.
Kiss the Dead Tour – Seattle
I’m writing this blog about our wonderful event in Seattle while looking out at palm trees and Southern California ocean. Much warmer, sunnier, and just different from the great Pacific Northwest. Both have an ocean, but this is all sand and beach goers, and Seattle is more about the city, and what comes out of the sea, rather than dipping our toes in it. Jon and I love Seattle, but I admit that I’m glad to have sunshine and no rain.
Thanks to everyone that came out last night to the Seattle Town Hall, where University Books sponsored yet another great event for us. Thanks to the whole crew, but especially Duane, and Art, who helped keep us secure, and Michael who risked life and limb to take the pictures. We really thought he was going to back off the stage a time, or two. 🙂 Some of the fans said they’d seen us at least three times, or was that four? I know you guys want the new books as they come out, but I’m amazed that you also want to hear the question and answer session, the show, again and again. I’m glad I can entertain you for two hours at a shot, and keep so many of you coming back.
One question I figured I’d get a lot this tour was when’s the next Merry Gentry novel coming out. Most of you knew it was scheduled for December. Last night I asked, “How many of you follow me on twitter, or FaceBook?” Over half the audience raised their hands. I then asked, “How many of you have noticed that I’m having trouble with this Merry book?” Again, a lot of hands went up. I’ve been listening to a lot of Christmas music which is what I go to when I’m really struggling with a book. Merry has not been happy with this book from the beginning, and neither have I. I wasn’t sure what was wrong at first, but eventually Merry told me, if you stop arguing with your characters and let them talk to you, most of the time they’ll let you know what’s wrong. What’s wrong is that to have a book you have to make your main character’s life unhappy. To make an interesting book you have to have things go wrong, and Merry is truly happy for the first time in her life, or at least since her father died, and she doesn’t want me messing that up. She has her twins, the men she’s in love with, and the men she loves, and it’s all good. I honestly think I should have stopped the series at book seven, Swallowing Darkness, but I was still under contract for more books and I still love the world. I also couldn’t imagine never writing about Merry, Doyle, Frost, Rhys, Galen, . . . heck everybody. But if I had stopped with book seven I could have given her that happy-ever-after-ending, and moved on. But I didn’t, I wrote book eight, Divine Misdemeanors, and even that could have been the end, but I left one huge plot point looming. Queen Andais, Merry’s aunt, has gone completely bug nuts and is basically a serial killer except she’s picking on victims that can’t die. If they could die, she’d be torturing her nobles to death. They are fleeing to Los Angeles and to Merry and her men. Andais won’t tolerate that forever, but more than that Merry can’t leave her people to the ministrations of Andais. If I had not added that last bit of insanity to the queen we could have walked away, but I wrote it and now we’re stuck. Merry can’t leave Andais on the throne, but she fears she will die in a duel and orphan her babies, and lose everything. Merry wants to be left the fuck alone, and I can’t really blame her. So, what to do?
I took a day to clear my head and write something else, because sometimes an idea will block the creative pipe. Fifty pages later I had the beginning of the next Anita Blake novel. It was ready to write and ready to go. Okay. I went back to Merry, because that was what was due next. Again, the writing slowed to a crawl, so I took a day, and thirty-forty pages later I had the beginnings of a brand new book set in a brand new world, with a brand new main character. That book is almost ready to write, I just need a little more time to world build, but the character, the voice, and the opening gambit are written and set. It’s based on a sticky note that I’ve had on my wall of stickies for ten years. I love it when an idea finally lets me know it’s ready. Then I went back to Merry, and the book never picked up. I crawled along at a pace that was never going to make deadline. I finally had to call my agent and my editor and tell them it wasn’t happening. There will be no Merry book in December this year. Sorry, guys but there won’t be. Merry has put her foot down and simply doesn’t want her life screwed up this badly. I have tried everything and anything I can think of, but in the end Merry won’t play ball. I’m leaving her alone, and going to let her and the muse that plays with her sit and think. I think we’ll work it out eventually, but I have no idea when. I know we will though, because I have scenes written when the twins are in kindergarten in L. A. and they are fun scenes. We will get there, but first we have Andais to conquer, seduce, or something. I have some ideas, but they aren’t ready yet. It’s cooking, slowly, and in the mean time . . .
If I had still been at two different publishing houses I’d be in serious trouble, because the other publisher would want the Merry book, but this sort of thing is why I decided one publisher in the U. S. would be a good thing, because now whatever book I write is theirs, so they won’t get a Merry book in December, but they’ll get the next Anita book, though not in December. Sorry, even I don’t write that fast. They’ll get the new book when the time comes, too. Whatever I’m working on is something they get to publish and make money from, so they stay happy, and I have the luxury as a writer of actually writing what speaks to my muse, and wants to be written next, regardless of deadline pressure. This is the first time in twenty years, thirty books that I’ve ever had to miss a deadline completely, and just say, “I can’t.” I hated doing it. Hated saying it, but once I worked through the issues of having to do it, it was a huge relief. I should have called it a couple of months ago, but I’m nothing if not stubborn, and I was just sure I could force my way through it. But writing isn’t like making widgets, it’s not just tab B into slot A, if it was then anyone could do it, and you’d get a Merry book this Yuletide season, but there is an element of mystery to it that even I don’t completely understand. I do know that by forcing myself to stay with this book long after I, my muse, and my main character, were done with it hurt me as a writer, and pissed my muse off. She left me for a bit, my muse. She left me to the harsh mercilessness of the blank screen, and no words. I’d never been so empty, not since I was twelve. It was one of the most horrible feelings. I had been disdainful of people with writer’s block. That it was a failure of confidence and that wasn’t really something I suffered from as a writer, but it’s more than that. The muse, whatever it is exactly, needs a certain amount of care and feeding, and trying to force feed this Merry book down it’s throat damn near made us both choke.
My muse wants to play with Anita, and the new story, and other ideas are coming, but only after I came to my senses and stopped treating my gift, my muse, my inspiration, like an assembly line where you can just put a book together because it’s time to do it. I’ve done it that way for twenty years. I have never, ever abandoned a book in place. Hell, I sold the first book I ever wrote, Nightseer. Most writers have trunks of unsold, and mostly unsalable books, but not me. I write it, I sell it, its what I do, but not this time. This time my muse let me know that I had to cut this shit out, or she was packing her bags and leaving, so . . . I cut this shit out. I listened to that mysterious part of me, and I am learning what feeds my muse, what inspires me, and what starves her, and what harms me as an artist.
Eventually I’m pretty sure you’ll get the next Merry book, but I don’t know when. You will get the next Anita book, because I’m writing it now, and you will get the brand new adventure because it’s alive in my head and I’m making more notes, and there will be other short stories, because my muse and I have reconciled like a feuding couple rediscovering that they love each other, after all.