novels Archives - Laurell K. Hamilton

Edits, Travel, and the Injury at the End

I finished the edits on the next Anita Blake novel, Serpentine at the beginning of March. Jonathon, my husband, and I were already on a romantic vacation, but he helped me take time out to finish the edits that I hadn’t managed before we had to leave for our getaway. At the end I went old school: writing the changes long hand on sticky notes and handed them to Jonathon for him to type into the manuscript edits. I hadn’t written that much long hand in years, but it felt right. I’d already written the book, the edits were small things, or a scene here and there that needed changed for plot or character development. I took out one side plot that had started off as a red herring, but turned out to lead nowhere, so it had to go. I even had to cut a great new character that I hope we get to see later in another book. Larry Kirkland was a character that was actually in one of the rough drafts of the first Anita Blake novel, Guilty Pleasures, but he wouldn’t actually get on stage until book three, The Circus of the Damned. One of my favorite things about writing a series is that characters and plot lines that have to be edited out of one book can still see life later on. Interestingly, Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel try to have a romantic trip in the book, but both her work and Micah’s interfere with it. I wrote that months before Jonathon and I would be on our own trip and my work would cost us the first few days of relaxation, as if my muse knew it was coming. Of course, Anita’s work was a missing person and murder, and Micah’s work was a type of lycanthropy that we’d never seen before. My edits seem so tame in comparison.

I proceeded to take the longest purposeful break from writing that I’ve ever taken. Jonathon and I finished our trip without more work interfering. Then I got to spend our daughter’s spring break with her. My sister and her wife were able to fly into the country and visit with us. I spent all my “vacation” traveling. I’d finally get on the first plane towards home, but in the all out run to make it, I fell.

I was running full out, I was even thinking, “Wow, I can really run now. I’m so glad I can move like this, yay gym!” And then I wiped out. I did a good job of it, because kind strangers came to stand over me, making that face you make when someone hurts themselves in front of you. Thanks to the kind man who offered me a hand up, because I could not have gotten up without help. I wasn’t even sure that I’d be able to stand at all, until I tried. I was finally able to limp to my plane like Igor from the Frankenstein movies, but I was just happy to make my plane. I enjoyed my travels, but I was so ready to go home. I made my plane discovering that I was bleeding from the skin I’d lost, but I was able to walk better as I moved more. I still hurt, but I got to my seat. The flight attendant got me bandages, alcohol wipes, and eventually ice bags to put on my knee. Thanks for the care and attention Delta. Thanks also to my seat mate, Charles, who was a gentleman in the best sense of the word, putting my bag overhead for me when he saw I was hurt and helping the flight attendant pass me things to do some first aid. He also kept my mind off how much I was hurting by having an intelligent and calm discussion about our different paths of faith.

The skin is growing back from the scrapes, but I’ve either scraped my meniscus, or got a micro tear in it, which means no gym or martial arts for awhile. The page proofs of Serpentine have come back for one last chance to read over and catch any small things. It hurts to even sit at my desk for too long without propping my leg up. Sigh.

I’m looking forward to finishing the page proofs and getting back to the gym and dojo, and onto writing the next story.

Creative Emptiness

I’ve been running on empty so long, I don’t know how to refill my tank. Usually when I don’t write for even a few days my dreams turn to violent nightmares and my inner demons and ghosts drive me back to my computer to put it on the page. This time, my inner world is quiet. I feel more peaceful and relaxed than I have in years. I realize now that I never recovered creatively, mentally, emotionally, or even physically from researching and writing, Crimson Death which came out in 2016. I tried to write a Merry Gentry book afterwards, but hundreds of pages in, it fell apart. I thought, well maybe I’m not ready to write Merry yet, so I set it aside. It was the most pages accumulated on any book I’d written where I abondoned it in place. (I will get back to it, but with a different plot. Trust me the darkness of what I’d written – no, just no. Merry, Doyle, Frost, and the babies deserve better than that.) So, I turned to Anita, because she’s always written faster for me than Merry. I had and have dozens of Anita ideas, but even there it was slower than normal. I finally had to admit that I was drained, and that some books take longer recover periods than others, and Crimson Death was one of those. I think it didn’t help that the last Merry book, A Shiver of Light, had left me, and my fans feeling pretty traumatized, too. The Anita Blake novel, Dead Ice, was next written and published, but it, thankfully, wasn’t as hard on all of us. Crimson Death wasn’t traumatic in the same way as A Shiver of Light, but it was almost three times as long as a typical novel. That is a lot of pages to write in a deadline space meant for a book a third of its size. And as my usual I didn’t allow myself time to rest between books, though honestly if I’m to do two books a year, there is no time to rest between, even if I’m doing one book a year if its the page count of two books or more, then again, there’s no time to rest if I’m to meet my deadlines. Which leads me to why the book I just turned into New York will be out in 2018, so both my new editor and myself have more time. Time, the one thing that we cannot create more of, and the thing that so many of us give away the most freely. Its been so long since I had this kind of time to rest and regain myself between writing projects that I don’t know what to do. I don’t remember what I used to do to refill my creative tank. Right now my muse and I want to hibernate for awhile. I feel like I could sleep for days, and yet I’m already restless and fighting not to grow anxious.

I’m feel like a castaway that’s washed up on an island after fighting through a storm of waves and tides. I’m wanting to sit under the shade of the palm trees, but currently feel like I’m still crawling my way out of the surf and skinning my hands and knees on the sand and seashells, as I try not to be swept back out to sea. Eventually, I’ll have to swim back out and find my ship of words again. I’ll need to find my star and use it to steer towards a new horizon, a new story, a new novel, a new world perhaps, but for now I just want to find a place to rest and let myself be happy that I made it to shore.

Witches, Wizards & the Writer’s Craft

Happy Mabon! We welcome autumn in with a revival of the guest blog post. We’re starting off with a wonderful and informative blog from my friend and fellow writer Michelle Belanger. Enjoy the magic of the day and of the words below.

-Laurell

Continue reading Witches, Wizards & the Writer’s Craft

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.

This is why I write

I stepped into my office today with dawn like a knife slash in the east, the light seeped through like pale orange and yellow blood. The crescent moon hung shining silver in the black branches of the tallest tree, as if night and day hung poised, so that it was both at the same time. It was both beautiful and terrible, somehow. I’ve thought that the last few mornings that I’ve seen my office this early. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about why I write this blog. Initially, it was to grow my audience, my brand, to sell more books; but I think most of what I gained in those areas has happened already. The blog probably did most of its original purpose years ago when I was trying to do one daily for a year. So, why do I write this blog? What’s it for? Honestly, I’m no longer certain, but I know one thing that hurts me as a writer in every area, and that is not writing about things. The more secrets I have to keep, the more editing of my life I do, the harder it is to write the blog (which makes a certain sense) but also makes it more difficult to write anything.

My personal life is very separate from my fiction and yet there is some mystical connection that, even after all this time, I don’t understand but I know that it is there, and I know when I do not honor that connection my ability to write suffers. So what haven’t I been saying publicly that’s clogging up the creative pipeline?

Jonathon’s mother, Mary, had cancer this year. She’s gotten a clean bill of health now, but it took chemo to get her there. If you’ve ever seen anyone go through chemo, you know it will take time to heal the effects of the cure. I got her permission to talk about her illness a while back, but it somehow seemed too personal to her to put it here, but if she’s okay with me talking about it, then why has it been something I didn’t want to talk about?

Jonathon buried his Aunt Sweetie just before Thanksgiving, so about two weeks ago. She helped raise him, and when he talks about her it’s more like a second mother than an aunt. She lost her battle with cancer after over twenty years and several remissions. The family is devastated and still reeling as they deal with it. I will miss her, but I don’t have the decades of connection to her that they do. She was not my sister, or my childhood hero, so my loss is seen through the patina of theirs, and my major worry is for those left behind and how they are dealing with it. Aunt Sweetie was ready to go, and her faith gave her peace, so there should be no tears, and yet there are.

Today we will be going to another funeral for a friend’s father, who died suddenly, but his health had been poor for most of the time I’d known the family, so it seems both sudden and inevitable. Our friend is forty, which seems young for burying your father.

The attacks in Paris, the attacks in California, people killed, and for what? To terrify people? To terrify the world? Because that’s what terrorism is, it is literally an attempt to frighten us all, to make us insecure and unsure of our safety. It is a war that kills a few people at a time in the hopes of demoralizing the rest of us. Don’t let them win. Live your lives, be happy, and keep moving, because to do anything else gives them a victory. They haven’t won anything, don’t act as if they have. I’ll admit it’s unnerving, but be hopeful, keep faith that good triumphs in the end. Dark times come, but they do not stay, history teaches us that.

There have been a lot of tragedies this year, both personally and in the larger world. There’s more, there’s always more, but somehow the theme of death and loss seems a thread this year that I can’t shake. But Jonathon’s mother is going to be alright, and that is a miracle of modern medicine. There is good among the bad, wins and not just losses, but sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on the positive when so much negative keeps happening. I know I’m not the only one feeling a bit overwhelmed right now.

Why do I write this blog? Why do I write at all? In part, it’s to reach out to other people and say, “It’s going to be all right.” It’s a way of saying, none of us are alone. We’re in this together. I write fiction to help me make sense of the world and to share a good story, so that as you read my books you can forget the news headlines for a few hours. You can get lost in a good book, where the heroes usually triumph, the villains are punished, and the world is saved. Yes, fiction should make you think, but it should be first and foremost an escape from the mundane world. It should let you slip into a world more fantastic, and more openly magical than our own. That’s why I write my stories and novels. The blog is part explaining how I make that magic happen, and a glimpse into my own reality, so that the magic and the reality of my world brushes up against your own.

I am a storyteller. It is an ancient art. We used to sit in caves, huddled around the fire, listening to noises in the dark, afraid of what they might be, and someone would say, “Let me tell you a story,” and everyone would gather closer to the fire where they felt warm and safe, and they would forget the noises in the dark, listening to adventures. Now, I sit in my office and write words on a screen, that I’ll share with you soon. I’ll finish writing the blog, and continue to work on the latest novel, because you need a good story, and I need to be able to say, “Come, sit by the fire where you’ll be safe and warm, and let me share an adventure with you.”

My Three Best Pieces of Writing Advice

My best advice about writing is – write. Writers write. The more you write the better you’ll get at it. Writing is a skill and like any other skill from basketball to knitting, the more you practice the actual skill the better you get at the game, at making sweaters, or at writing stories. People treat writing as if it doesn’t require as much practice and dedication to craft as other things; why? I believe it’s because anyone can write. Anyone can sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write. Anyone can sit down at a computer and type. The physicality of it is available to everyone who is literate and can read. If you know how to read, you can write something. It may not be a great piece of literature, but it’s words on paper and they’re right there in front of you. See – anyone can write, but not everyone can write well. That takes practice, dedication, and a lot of perseverance.

The above is the primary piece of how to be a writer, without it nothing else matters. But I’m about to give a second piece of advice that I’ve never put in a writing blog before because I didn’t realize how big a problem it was until recently. What is this new piece of advice? Stay off the internet. Yes, you read that right, stay off the internet. It’s a great tool for building a social network and promoting your work, and can be a good jumping off point for research. Never use other people’s websites as your only source for research, because most sites have no one policing them for veracity. Start on websites if you must, but don’t end there. That’s lazy research, which leads to lazy writing. It’s obvious that too much social media is like talking to your friends on the phone or having too many “business” lunches. It may all be helpful, even talking to friends can refresh you so you go back to writing with renewed vision, but if you do too much social anything it can hurt your productivity. Most writers can avoid picking up the phone and making a call, or going out the door to see people in person, but online socialization is harder to resist. It’s so easy to tell yourself, well I’ll just get on line for a few minutes; half an hour later and you’re still on line. I’ve done it myself. I’ve found that Pinterest and YouTube are especially time consuming for me. Twitter is easier, because there is a limit of 140 characters and then I’m done, or that’s how I felt at first. Now, I’m not so sure, because it’s also easy for me to think Twitter isn’t that big a time use, because of the individual messages being so short, but if I do too many short messages in a row, then it can add up to a lot of time. But what about promoting yourself and using social media as a business tool? It can be a very effective business tool, but not if you’re so busy trying to promote yourself and gain a larger online presence that you don’t get time to actually write. FaceBook was such a problem for me that I hired a media minion to post there, because I felt FB was too important to ignore, but it was also a huge time use that took away from my actual writing. I still do my own Twitter, but I’m trying to police myself better, because if I think its also taking too much time and attention, I may have to stop posting personally, which would be a shame since I enjoy Twitter.

I said time and attention above, and that second part is the other danger of the internet. I have found myself thinking, this, or that, would make a great tweet, or that would be a good blog. Now that’s all well and good, but if I find myself thinking about how to tweet, or Facebook, or blog, etc . . . and not about writing my novels, then something has gone wrong. The online media is supposed to support and promote my writing, not be more important than the writing, and if my first thought is what I’m going to tweet, Facebook, or blog, and not the novel I’m writing, then the social promotion is taking too much of my subconscious, and that part of my brain needs to be concentrated on writing my book. One of the most important tools for any writer is their subconscious. I know I’m in the zone for a novel when the book wakes me up early loud in my head with notes and the first few lines of the day. If I wake up thinking about any of my social media instead, then it hurts my ability to immerse myself in my novel, and immersion is what I need to be productive and make my deadlines. This leads me to the third piece of writing advice: Protect your prime writing time.

It will take some trial and error to figure out what your prime writing time is, and bear in mind it may change as you get older, or even with different books. Most writers have a time of day, or night, that they work best, once you find it, treat it like gold, because it is the time when your muse is talking the loudest to you. I work best first thing in the morning, let me add I wasn’t a morning person when I started writing like this, but over the years I’ve become one. I need to wake up and just go straight to my desk, if at all possible. I’m one of those writers that needs to not have anyone talk to me, or distract me in any way before I sit down at my desk in the morning. Anything more than tea before the first pages hurts my page count for the morning. The smallest interruption can disrupt me, and hurt, or even ruin, my morning writing session. I knew to avoid actual, in person people. I even wait to feed the dogs until after I’ve got a few pages for the day because if I take the time to take the dogs out, feed them, and then wait to take them out again, then I’m derailed. It’s the difference between sitting down at my desk ready to set the keyboard on fire, and sitting down at my desk with some of my energy spent, wasted on mundane things that could have waited for a few minutes. The dogs get a treat in my office while they wait for actual breakfast, and the dogs think that the office treat drawer is awesome. I’ve found that most of the mundane things that distract me from my desk first thing in the morning are all happy to wait until later; after I get my morning pages done.

So, in a nutshell: Writers write. Stay off the internet. Don’t let mundane things interfere with your prime writing time. Now, stop reading this blog and go write stories that only you can write.

First Dog and First Book

The picture with this blog is of my original copy of Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White. As you can see it is a much loved book. I’ve had the book for about forty years, but that’s not why the book looks so beaten up. I bought this book through the Scholastic Book Club in junior high. I think I was twelve. I got off the school bus with my new book in my armload of school things. I ran towards the house eager to start reading this new adventure, but when I got inside the house I couldn’t find it. I searched every inch of what I’d been carrying in my arms, including my sweater, but the book was nowhere to be found. I finally looked outside and found my dog, Jenny, chewing on something in the yard.

I ran out and, of course, Jenny was chewing on Charlotte’s Web. I grabbed the book from her and I was furious. The cover was ripped off, there were tooth marks all over it. The book was ruined! I yelled at the dog, and can still remember how angry I was with her. I marched back inside with my damaged book and she stayed out in the yard where she always was because my grandmother didn’t believe in indoor dogs, or indoor pets for that matter. I was able to read the book, but every time my fingers touched the tooth marks it made me angry all over again. I was livid about the book being damaged for a long time. Fast forward a little to the serial dog poisoner that was killing in our small town. The coward even put poisoned meat inside fences and cages where the dogs never got out to bother anyone. If I’d been the grownup in my life, I’d have brought Jenny inside to live with us and put her on a leash – always – until the poisoner was caught. But I wasn’t the grownup in my life, and my grandmother only allowed Jenny inside the house one day a year, on Christmas morning to get her presents. You can guess the rest, one morning we discovered Jenny stiff with her body stretched out in a painful bow. I know enough about poisons now that it was likely strychnine, which is a painful way to go.

I dug the grave for my dog in our yard. I ground was hard, or maybe I’m remembering other pets and other graves dug. It all sort of gloms together in my mind, digging in the dirt of the yard to bury something I loved.

In the years to come I would value this copy of Charlotte’s Web all the more, because it holds the toothmarks of my first dog, the only dog my mother would ever bring home to me because she would die the summer of my sixth year. The marks that had irritated my fingers when I touched them before were a touchstone that comforted me and reminded me of things I had loved. No, I suppose in the end this book reminds me of things I still love. You never forget your first dog. The one that was beside you on the first adventures out of the yard. The one who roamed the woods at your side. Jenny even risked her life to protect me, taking on the most fierce dog in the town. One so dangerous that even his owners knew it and kept him on chain, or caged, except with them. He got loose one day and tried to attack me, but she threw herself at him. The other dog was almost four times her size but she never hesitated. This was her child, her pack! The big dog’s owners heard the dog fight and my screams and came running. They dragged the other dog off and miraculously Jenny wasn’t hurt. He’d gone for the throat and her thick wooly coat had saved her. But I can still taste the fear on my tongue when the dog attacked and the surprise when my little dog that had never picked a fight in her life launched herself at the other animal. Ironically, the other dog would be one of the first victims of the poisoner, who put meat into its outdoor caged run.

Would I have read Charlottes’ Web so often if touching it hadn’t reminded me of my lost dog? I don’t know, but I do know that this was the book where I first began to figure out how a good sentence was constructed, how a descriptive paragraph worked, how a story is built. For decades I would read Charlotte’s Web once a year in the autumn. Eventually this, my first copy, got so fragile that I bought other copies to read so this copy could be saved. But when I think about reading Charlotte’s Web, this is the book I think about reading. This texture of toothmarks, and tears, that one rip. I know the feel of this coverless book in my hands better than almost any other book I’ve ever read, save perhaps one. This book helped make me a writer, and those precious teeth marks helped me learn another invaluable lesson. That there is no anger, no fight, worth being truly enraged at someone/something you love. It’s not every book that can teach you two life lessons, and its not every dog that can help you learn them.

You never forget your first dog. I’ve had other dogs since, but once I got to be the grownup in my life and had a way to make choices, all the dogs have been indoor dogs. I would never lose another pet because I could not protect it. As I trace the bite marks on the pages, I wonder would I have loved this book so much if Jenny had not chewed it up, and then died, so that it was my remembrance of her? Since this book was the first one that began to teach me the trick of being a writer, would it have happened without everything that I think of and feel when I touch this book? What goes into making a writer? How does the magic happen? I don’t write about dogs much, or pigs, or clever spiders, and I certainly am not a writer of children’s stories, but I know, absolutely know, that this book was critical to my development as a writer. For the first time, I wonder if maybe my first dog, Jenny, was more important in that development than I thought. I’ll keep this book forever, because a writer never forgets that first important book, and a girl never forgets her first dog.

Down the Rabbit Hole and into the Maze:

The White Rabbit from The Nursery Alice by John Tenniel, Held and digitised by the British Library, and uploaded to Flickr Commons. A higher resolution version may be available for purchase from BL Images Online, imagesonline.bl.uk, reference 065443

I fell down a rabbit hole this week, not a literal one, but a literary one. No, I didn’t reread ALICE IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carrol, but that’s where the original idea of following a strange rabbit down it’s hole and falling into something, or someplace, totally unexpected came from. I first heard the term ‘rabbit hole’ used for writing by Emma Bull on a panel at Archon, a science fiction convention here in St. Louis. I was in the audience back then because I had yet to sell a single story of my own. I had read and loved Emma’s book, “War for the Oaks,” and listened to any bits of writer wisdom from her with great attention.

She and her husband Will Shetterly both explained that for a writer to fall down the rabbit hole meant an idea, or subplot, that led you off your plotted path. They seemed to think rabbit holes were always a distraction and the writer should climb out and get back on their plot path as soon as possible.

Years later with my own writing group, The Alternate Historians, we continued to use the term in much the same way. If you are a writer that plots and outlines heavily then rabbit holes are truly a bad thing, but if you are an organic writer like me, sometimes the rabbit is right. I believe George R. R. Martin calls them gardeners as opposed to architects.

What does it mean to be an organic writer? For me, it means that sometimes all I know is the first sentence of a short story, but I’m going to sit down and write that sentence and see where it leads me. It means that once the world building is done, or sometimes in the midst of it, I’ll often start writing the first draft of a book because I learn things about my world and my characters by actually writing. What I learn goes into the character building, or even the world building. I often find that what looks good in notes, or plot outline, doesn’t work at all when you are in the middle of the story. I’m very much a throw it out if my characters have a better idea that comes more naturally to them and their world. A word of warning here: do not edit heavily as you write your first draft, especially as a beginning writer. You do not know how your process works yet, so don’t do what I do, be cautious, save everything, and edit once you have a complete draft.

For an organic writer chasing rabbits down their holes can lead to new ideas that help grow your world, your characters, and just make it all into your own Wonderland. Or it can be just a distraction that wastes your time, energy, and derails your book just like I was warned all those years ago. The problem is that you can’t tell the difference from the outside of the hole. You have to crawl inside and risk falling down and down, before you know if you’ll be talking to a hookah-smoking caterpillar, or just trapped in the dark, covered in dirt.

In other words, the hole could lead you to things you need to discover as a writer, or it could just get you lost and covered in rabbit poo. To find out which way it will go you have to chase the rabbit and be willing to climb into the dark and follow where it leads.

The Anita Blake novels, and the Merry Gentry series, have both benefitted greatly from me chasing rabbits through their tunnels. It has led me to some of my most creative and innovative ideas, or most poignant scenes, but it’s also led me to the dark end of a lot of tunnels, where I had to dig my way out, or back track and cut out all the writing I’d done while I was in that particular scene “tunnel”. I’ve lost a week, or more of work this way. Hundreds, if not thousands of scenes, characters, all useless in the end, but I’m still not certain that writing out the useless bits doesn’t shake something lose that I need.

When I was in high school, I read an article by Ray Bradbury, I believe it was exerts from, The Zen of Writing, but I’m no longer certain. I do know that I translated his wonderful, and much more poetic advice into this, “Every writer has about ten thousand words of crap in them, so you better start writing early and get the bad stuff out, so you can get to the good stuff.” I think sometimes books are like that for me, I need to write the stuff that doesn’t work, then cut it, to find the stuff that does work. I can’t prove that this is true, and maybe I just tell myself that to feel better about all the lost pages, but I can’t prove that isn’t true, either. I’ve written over thirty novels this way, so I’m not going to change my creative process, it works for me, but I’ll admit it’s imprecise. I think all creativity is imprecise, if you could measure it out to be precise it would be science, not art, though there is more than a bit of art in most good science.

I don’t mind following the white rabbit when I know that’s what I’m doing in a book. I’ll run the new idea, or scene, up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. If they don’t then I delete it, probably put it in an outtake file, and go back to the original plot point where I diverged and keep writing. What I do mind is when I don’t realize it’s a rabbit I’m chasing and I think its more unicorn. For a unicorn, which is an amazing idea that will make the book even better, I’ll drop everything and give chase, but I hate it when I see a horn and think unicorn, but it turns out to be more jackalope.

Last night when I finished writing I began to suspect I had fallen down the rabbit hole. I was hoping I was wrong, because my deadline was upon me. I went to bed hoping I’d wake up and it would all make sense, but instead I knew it didn’t. It wasn’t a rabbit hole, it was a rabbit warren full of tunnels and it was all dark, dirty, and even the rabbits had fled. I had to own that I would be throwing out about twenty-five pages, or more. Days worth of work when I honestly can’t afford to lose the time, or the pages, if I am to make my deadline, but there it was, the brutal truth. I was trapped in the maze in the dark, and the only thing I could do was try to find my plot thread in the dark, and follow it back to the last point where the book really worked.

As a beginning writer it was easier for me to tell when the plot thread broke, because the writing wasn’t as good, but as I’ve had more practice, I’ve gotten better. In fact, I’ve gotten so good that my writing is great even when the character development, plot, or world building, has derailed. It all reads well, but that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it the best the book, the characters, the world, can be.

I had to go back through this morning and read, painfully, where that character wouldn’t have done/said that. Oh, there’s where the magic system that I have so carefully built and explained to the reader totally imploded. Yes, it was an exciting scene, riveting, but it isn’t the way the magic works, so out it goes. Okay, so that whole scene goes. Wait, that entire plot line is out. It’s far too late in the book to throw in something this big; it will distract from the mystery which we have to solve in ex-number of chapters. I’m not an obsessive outliner, but I do plot my mysteries out in broad strokes, the closer to the end of the book, the more that outline is filled in and eventually becomes fixed. This close to the end of a novel I have to keep my eye on the goal, which is to solve the mystery in a fair manner that helps the reader feel that all the clues were there. I dislike other writers who cheat by pocketing clues and just almost lying to the reader, so I try to play fair myself. Yes, I am aware that some really big names in mystery hide clues from the reader all the time. I adore Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, but Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie are both guilty of hiding clues to keep the reader in the dark. Sometimes it works brilliantly, but it’s still a bugaboo for me as a reader myself, so I try not to do it to other people.

So here I am in the maze, which is the worst possible kind of rabbit hole. Not only am I in the dark, covered in dirt and maybe worse, but it’s not just a straight tunnel. I can’t just back up a few pages and keep writing, because there are tunnels leading off the main tunnel, so many lefts and rights that I’m not entirely certain which is the main tunnel, or if I came this way, or that.

I begin to suspect it isn’t rabbit droppings on my shoes, but Minotaur crap, and that’s much worse for the book, and for my deadline. My plot thread has broken off in the maze somewhere. I only know it’s not ahead of me, so I can’t keep writing the book from here, I must go back. How far back? I’m not really sure, but I have to find where the thread broke, so I can follow it back and rewrite from there, because the thread still in my hand leads to the heart of the maze and the ruin of the book.

I know I will find my way out of the maze, because I’ve been lost in here before. I know I will find my broken thread and trace it back, and then write myself out of the maze. I know, because I’ve done this before, and that means I can do it again. That’s really what an experienced writer has over a beginning writer, we know that we can do it, because we’ve done it. Success is like a shield to protect you from the monsters, both the outside obstacles and your own self-doubt.

So for all you fellow writers out there both experienced and not, if you find yourself lost in the dark take courage. First try to just back up, if it works, then it’s a rabbit hole, and you’ll soon be out. Dust the dirt off and keep writing. If you realize that some of the tunnel was great ideas, then dig your way up and out, and keep writing from there. If the worst happens and you realize you’re standing in the middle of the maze with a broken thread in your hand, and Minotaur crap on your shoes, then keep moving. You will find the other half of your plot thread, eventually. Once you find it, grab it and drop the other end, because the other end only leads to the heart of the maze where the Minotaur waits to smash you to has-been, or never-was pulp, and dance with castanets on your creative soul.

Celebrating being #1 on the New York Times List!

The newest Anita Blake novel, Jason, is #1 on the New York Times List! Thanks to everyone that bought the book and showed how much they loved Jason the novel, and Jason the character! Thanks to all the booksellers virtual and brick and mortar!

When I sold my first story, my first husband took me out to a fancy dinner. When I sold my first novel, Nightseer, it was my Dungeons and Dragon group that surprised me with a party to celebrate.

When Guilty Pleasures, the first Anita Blake novel, sold, my writing group, The Alternate Historians, made me a cake shaped like it’s cover and we had a party.

When I hit the New York Times List for the first time I was alone on tour for A Kiss of Shadows. I thought I was being calm, cool, and collected until the room service waiter brought my hot tea. I had about an hour before I had to get ready for the signing that night, so I’d ordered tea to relax. I was so calm about the news that I accidentally gave the waiter a fifty dollar tip. I caught my mistake and fixed it explaining I’d just learned about the Times List, and then added, “If you came back with a fifty dollar tip they’d think you did more than just deliver tea.” He didn’t think I was funny. My media escort took me out later to a very nice restaurant with a view of the sea.

When I cracked the top five with Narcissus in Chains, my second husband, Jonathon, was on tour with me. It was our first tour together. In fact, it was the first time I’d brought anyone on tour with me. We used up the cell phone batteries in his phone, my phone, and our media escort’s phone calling his family and my writing group to tell them the news. We were in San Fransisco, because we went into China Town there and bought a necklace to commemorate the event.

When I made #2 for the first time with Cerulean Sins, I went to a wonderful local bakery and bought three to five cakes of flavors that they didn’t make cupcakes in, so we could finally taste them. We invited Jonathon’s parents and other friends over and had a cake tasting party. This was before I started exercising again, or watching my nutrition. Though honestly, I have a serious weakness for cake, not sweets, but cake is yummy.

I made #2 with A Lick of Frost for the Meredith Gentry series. There were other times that the Merry books hit the List, but I honestly don’t remember what I did to celebrate for each book. But there was only one Anita Blake novel, Incubus Dreams that hit #2 before Micah brought home the gold medal.

How did I celebrate that first #1 with Micah? Which, incidentally, was my last original paperback novel; like Jason, it was a shorter piece featuring the title character though it was a mystery complete with zombies and mob connections and background on Micah that even Anita didn’t know. Years before this I’d told my friend Joanie that if I ever made #1 I’d take her family and we’d all do a trip to Disney World. When I called to tell her the news, she reminded me of the promise and that’s what we did. Joanie, her husband Jim, and their daughter, Melissa went with Jonathon, our daughter Trinity, and me to Disney. Yep, that’s right, I celebrated my first New York Times #1 book by going to the Mouselands.

I can’t remember precisely what I did to celebrate my first hardback #1 Blood Noir. I know we did dinner somewhere nice, but after going to Disney World for Micah, it was just hard to top that, especially because I was deep into writing the next Meredith Gentry book, so there wasn’t time for a trip.

So how did I celebrate Jason hitting #1? I got the calls from my Agent, Merrilee, and then my editor, Susan, while I was changing for gym. I continued getting dressed, and when I got off the phone the first thing I did was tell Genevieve and Spike. This included much jumping up and down, hugs and kisses. Jonathon wasn’t at home. I debated on texting him, but waited until I could tell him in person, much kissing ensued. Then . . . then I went to gym. I had a great workout, came home, showered, and celebrated with my happy polyamorous foursome. My real life has become special enough that my normal plans are a celebration. Realizing that truth made Jason being #1 a very special milestone.

The flowers in the picture on this blog are from my U.S. publishing team at Penguin Random House, thanks guys!

New Blog – We have a Title! And Two Winners!

And we have a winner!

Okay, technically we have two winners, which is even better!

When my editor, Susan, came up with the idea to ask you, the fans, to help give a title to the next hardback Anita Blake novel, I thought, “Okay, that’ll be fun.” I had no idea how enthusiastic your help would be. *laughs* Eight thousand-two-hundred and fifty-four; wait, lets see that in numeral form: 8,254. Six hundred pages, yes you read that right, 600 pages of entries were received. There was a glitch in the spacing and for a bit it was 1,200 pages; wow! Ah, gremlins. Those numbers were just between 2:40pm on Monday, September 8th and 8am on Friday, September 12th, some of you kept posting ideas after that, but in fairness to those that made the deadline, we considered only those that made the time frame as stated. That amazing number doesn’t count how many people gave multiple ideas per each entry. Media Minion Jess estimates it would be well over nine thousand if every idea was counted separately. Thank you to everyone who participated, you are all awesome! I mean that, I am continually floored about how much you love my writing, my characters, and my worlds; thank you.

I personally went through the lists after Jess weeded out repetitions, or things that were inappropriate (you know who you are). She left some in that were just fun, but couldn’t work as the book title. Some of those made me laugh out loud, for real, and some of you wrote essays about why your entry should win, or just your reasoning behind your choice. There were a lot of repeated ideas and in that case the person who got the title in earliest got to be the one that was considered. Some title ideas just didn’t work for this Anita Blake novel, but will go in a file for possible later use. If I use your idea later, I’ll mention it. Some titles will work better for short stories than novels, you can be longer, or more esoteric, when it’s not smacked across the front of the cover. Who knows maybe one of the saved more short story friendly titles will inspire a brand new story, again, if that happens I’ll let you know who got to play muse for me. 🙂

Without further ado, here are the winners:

Next Anita Blake hardback novel – Dead Ice.

Thanks to Peter Orca for that one.

Jewelry store creating Anita and Jean-Claude’s rings: Étoile du Soir, which is French for Evening Star, or Star of Evening.

Thanks to Isis Maria Hess for the name.

Étoile du Berger is also listed as a synonym, but it translates to guiding star, so I stuck with the original entry of Étoile du Soir. Anyone who is a native French speaker, particularly France as opposed to Canada, if you find anything incorrect in the above, please say something soon. There is still time to make changes to the actual manuscript, but the title is set today; why?

The first two chapters and a partial chapter three of Dead Ice will be in the back of Jason coming December 2, 2014. Jason went to the printers today, and the Dead Ice excerpt is in the back of it. You get a brand new adventure featuring Jason, with more on stage time for Jade than ever before, in time for the holidays, plus the beginning of the next adventure; how cool is that?

Both our winners will get a signed edition of Dead Ice as soon as I have them in my hot little hands. They will also be listed in the acknowledgements of the book. Thanks again to everyone who participated, you guys rock!