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”.
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!
Here’s a link to a live interview I did last night at BookTalkNation answering questions about A Shiver of Light, Merry Gentry and all her men, plus yes, the babies will be born in this book! Uterine liberation, at last! I also answer questions about Anita Blake and her cast of characters, my writing process, how I world build, and my best advice for all you beginning writers.
If you order by 8PM tonight you can have a signed, and personalized copy of A Shiver of Light. I will not be personalizing at most of the events across the country, sorry, so this maybe your chance at that. Apparently, to sign as much as you guys want me to I’d need the biceps of Arnold Schwarzenegger. *laughs*
http://booktalknation.com/video/hamilton
One of my goals for this year was to work happier, so I gave myself permission to write anything I wanted, and that was great for awhile. I’ve made some notes and even chapters, or pieces of chapters in a brand new world. I’ve learned that I need dozens to hundreds of pages that aren’t for publication while I explore and world build. I’ve tried skipping this part of my process and it’s what led me to throw out 70% of the first Meredith Gentry book after the editor had already accepted it and start the novel over. The book was immensely better for it, and the world, my main character, plot, everything vastly improved, but I learned my lesson. Unless the muses give me a book opening and world whole and complete through near magical inspiration, I need to write out my world building before I write the first book in the world.
I finished a brand new Anita Blake short novel that’s even longer than Micah which was my last original paperback surprise. Eventually, I had to look at my deadlines and my goals for the year and realize it was time to get down to brass tacks and begin the next full-size Anita Blake novel. This year, 2014, will see the first new Merry Gentry novel in almost five years, 2015 will be Anita’s turn, but to make that happen I have to write the book. Funny, how they don’t write themselves.
I usually know what I’m writing next with Anita, but I did something I used to do years back, but had stopped in the press of deadlines when I was delivering two big books a year. A decade of doing that put a lot of things on hold. There just wasn’t time to do my usual process and meet those deadlines, but see that goal to “work happier”, so I was trying to recover some of the pieces that had made things more joyous for me and my muse. I used to tidy and sort my office between writing projects, but I’d fallen so far behind on that I had literally boxes of papers on the floor, and sticky notes on the wall so old the ink had faded.
I went through every file folder, every piece of paper in my office. The desktops are cleaned and ready to go for the next book, but which one? Because in going through all the notes and scrapes of paper I’ve got a wealth of possibilities. I thought I’d chosen a follow up on Sampson, the mermaid/man, and his rather dysfunctional family situation: sirens, vampires, and murder, oh, my! But I think that Sampson’s story maybe a short story, or a different book than I thought, so – not yet. I have this great opening that I wrote on the plane back from Paris a few years ago. It has Nicky featured and I thought, cool, we’ll do a book where he takes center stage. Um, no, not ready. That opening may have Nicky in a main part, but I think it’s a book more about Anita’s necromancy and the power boost/side effects from the Mother of All Darkness. (You didn’t really think all that happened without side effects, did you?) But the book isn’t soup yet, not done, not ready, so . . . Valentina, our forever five-year-old vampire, has a story to tell, and a modern spin on her own fate, and I thought that was next, but as I tried to write it . . . it slowed down, and . . . Edward’s wedding finally? No, that story isn’t ready yet, close, but not quite ready. Olaf’s return? Maybe, but not yet. Nicky will be going home to make sure his abusive mother doesn’t get parole and Anita will go with him for moral support, but not this book. (That may actually be a novelette, or short story, and not a book at all.) Bartolome trapped forever in the body of a twelve-year-old boy, has more to tell, but again he’s not ready to tell the rest of his story. I’ve got a short story/novelette with Micah doing his job for the Furry Coalition, but so not soup yet. I’ve got a Jade novelette, or short novel, and that maybe close, but not sure. I’ve got the beginning of a short piece where Jean-Claude and Asher tell an adventure they had when they were a happy threesome with Julianna. I know the whole plot there, I think, it’s more how to tell the story without running into the traps of “telling a story,” where you know the people survived, or they couldn’t be telling you the story now. I’ve got two short pieces where Richard is on stage, and one that revisits his family, his brother Daniel in particular, but that’s not even close to ready to be written. I’ve got several pages of a story about Jean-Claude, and Nathaniel, and we find out something from both their pasts that intertwine in a way that totally surprised me. That seems to be the front runner at the moment, but again it feels more like a novelette than a novel. There’s a piece that features Detective Zerbrowski and his son, and that’s close to being ready, but again I don’t think it’s a complete novel. It may even be a short story. I found notes about a visit to Philadelphia to visit Requiem in his new home. A book set in the Carolinas that was inspired by a horrible hotel room my husband, Jon, and I had in Charlotte, North Carolina once, but though a great beginning, it’s just an idea, a book length idea, but it needs another idea, or two to bump into it before I sit down and begin in earnest. That’s just a few of the ideas I rediscovered, or tidied up into folders for later.
I’d forgotten that I did that, shed ideas like flower petals in a high wind, so that the path is strewn with wonders, and curious notes. My office is clean and neat as a pin, but my imagination is cluttered with fragments of this and that idea, character, plot, so that it’s like I’ve smashed a stained glass window and covered the floor with bright, shining, pieces, but which to pick up first?
1 Do not date drama llamas. Do not date people that are prone to drama, just don’t. No one is that pretty, no sex is that good – no drama queens, or kings.
2 Remember that you aren’t perfect either. No one is perfect, don’t expect it, don’t look for it, because if you do, you are doomed to be continually disappointed.
3 Love means different things to different people. Do not assume that because your last girlfriend loved getting flowers, that your current girlfriend doesn’t see them as funeral flowers, and is trying to figure out a way to tell you, “Please, stop buying me dead plant matter.”
4 People have different hierarchies in love: I put great sex near the top of my list, if that’s not present, then I will not even date you, let alone get into a serious relationship, but I know a surprising number of women that put sex fourth, or lower on their “love list”. Some of the things they put higher on their list ; financial security (whatever that means to them), someone who wants to be the breadwinner, wanting children, good father. Not all men put sex at the top of their list either. I’ve run into several that put emotional security, companionship, good mother, wants to stay at home with kids, or doesn’t want to stay at home with kids, higher on their “love list’. Make sure the love of your life has the same priorities in this area, as you do, otherwise it will eventually destroy your happiness together.
5 No one wants to think they are wanted just for sex. I’ve found that even if the relationship begins with sex, even if the man and I negotiate that it’s going to be about hot, monkey sex, eventually he will feel bad if he doesn’t feel appreciated for other fine qualities. Even your friends with benefits, if it’s to continue as a relationship, needs to know that you like them, even if your friendship is mostly about the booty call. Make people feel appreciated, and make sure they know what you need to feel appreciated to.
6 Men are not mind readers – let me repeat that – men are not mind readers. That’s right my fellow women, the men that want to date you, are dating you, are in a relationship with you, married to you, cannot read your minds. So, it’s up to you to tell them what you want, how you want it; what makes you happy, what makes you sad; you must communicate with them. If any of you have ever said, “If you loved me, you’d known why I was mad at you.” You are setting your lover, boyfriend, husband, up to fail, or get so frustrated there’s going to be a serious fight. Talk to the man, or woman, in your life, ladies, please.
7 Men, most women need you to talk to them and tell them what you need, want, and what makes you happy, or sad. Yes men, I’m talking mostly to you, though any women who date women you get #6 and #7. The strong silent type is fine, but not if it leaves your girlfriend, lover, wife, in the dark as to your emotional wants and needs. We can’t make the shared relationship wonderful, if half the couple is a mystery that never talks to us about anything important.
8 Ladies, don’t push too hard on the communication if the man has never been taught, or encouraged to talk about his emotional needs and wants, it’s going to be weird and uncomfortable for him. The men need to try, but we need to encourage their efforts in this area, but not too hard, or too constantly. Baby steps if they’re one of those men that isn’t an emotional sharing sort of person. If you think 7 & 8 contradict each other, not really, it’s a dance between the two of you, to figure out what’s comfortable for both of you, and how much you both need from each other in this area.
9 If a woman asks a man, “What are you thinking?” and the man says, “Nothing.” Just believe him, men have this wonderful ability to actually still their minds and think nothing for minutes at a time. I know, as a woman, it’s hard to believe that everyone’s mind isn’t going a thousand miles a minute, but it’s true of most men, and even some women. If you insist they had to be thinking something, they will be pressed to make something up, or get angry that you didn’t believe the truth.
10 If you’re with a woman that changes her clothes a lot before going out, please, do not get angry about it. Do not grab a shirt, or shoes, and say, “This matches, let’s just go.” Or, “You look good enough, let’s go.” If your lady is the type to do this, then just budget enough time to let her try on a dozen outfits, before she’s ready to go out. You don’t have to understand why she does this, when you think she is beautiful in anything. Honestly, I’ll do it on occasion and it’s like a compulsion, even I don’t understand it. You will not break a woman from doing this, if she does it, so you can fight about it constantly, or just accept it, and deal.
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.
30 pages for the day in three sessions of 12, 13, & 5. Still not completely out of this section of plot. Was hoping to finish before bed, but I give, need dinner, but the muse & I have played happily today. I still got to have lunch with my husband, Jon, and went to MMA class. Also, Dancing, the new Anita Blake e-special came out today! Thanks for all the great comments, everyone! Glad you are all enjoying it!
You can order Dancing from Amazon or Barnes & Noble
To top the day off I was in Jennie Breeden’s comic, The Devil’s Panties
This has been a wildly productive & truly awesome day!
It’s the 20th anniversary for the Anita Blake series, and to help celebrate that I asked you to tell me what the books and characters had meant to you, and how you found them. The response has been overwhelming and wonderful – Thank You.
I’m sitting in my office with just our three dogs for company, as I usually am when I write. It is a very isolated job, writing. Authors spend most of their lives in a room by themselves while the world passes by outside. The inside of my head is full of a slightly different world populated by people so real to me that sometimes it feels wrong that I will never be able to touch their hands, see their smiles across a table from me – not for real. I call them my imaginary friends, rather than my friends, because in years when I just said, my friends, some fans misunderstood and thought that Anita, Jean-Claude, Richard, Micah, Nathaniel, Jason, all of them were based on real, flesh and blood people. So, I started saying my imaginary friends so people would understand that I did not base my characters on real people. It also started cutting down on fans asking for the phone numbers of my imaginary men. But one thing many of you made clear was that my imaginary friends had become your friends, too.
In fact, you told me that my imaginary friends, my world, my creations, had helped you guys get through some really tough times. That the books had been what you read at the bedside when your families were in the hospital, or even been a refuge when you had to face the death of those close to you. Some of you told me that Anita had taught you how to be strong, how not to back down, and that until Anita a lot of women, especially, hadn’t realized how to be strong. I’m always amazed by that, I guess because I was raised by a very strong woman, so strength and being female was just a given to me, but I’m glad I could share some of the strength I learned growing up, and building my life. I’d already lost track of the number of women who had told me at signings that they’d left abusive relationships, because they knew Anita wouldn’t have taken it. I am very proud of that, and I know that Anita would be, too.
I asked who your favorite characters were, and wasn’t surprised by most of the answers. Jean-Claude is big fan favorite, and he’s earned it. I think that he was more surprised by how he and Anita have grown as a couple than even she is, after all it’s not every woman that can surprise a man that’s over five hundred years old, but our girl keeps doing it. I think the key to that is that Anita keeps growing and changing, willing to be pushed outside her comfort zones. Many of you told me that you’ve learned to go outside your own comfort zones from reading my books. You know what? I’ve learned the same thing. I joke that I haven’t seen my comfort zones in at least ten years, and that’s true. It’s not a comfortable way to live, but it’s never boring, and it’s led me to be happier than I ever thought possible. What I hadn’t expected was to hear how many of you had learned a similar lesson. I guess, we’ve all grown together.
Trying to do justice to the hundreds of years of lady’s man for Jean-Claude led me to learn how to walk in high heels, and has totally changed my clothing choices. he’s like this voice in my head that pops up and goes, hmmm . . . what if you wore this today, or that would look lovely. I probably take more clothes advice from him than Anita would tolerate. *laughs*
I expected Micah to be a favorite, and the Wicked Truth, though Damian is very underused for someone that so many of you like. I’m sorry for that, but he’s happy being monogamous with Cardinale and who am I to argue with that? We may be seeing more of him in the future, but I’m trying to figure a way of doing that without wrecking his relationship. Zerbrowski is one of my favorites, too. I’ve actually made notes about a short story that would let us see him at home with his wife, Katie, and their kids. We’ve referred to Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel, going to cook outs at their house with the other cops, but never seen it on stage. Something about hitting this anniversary has made me look around the series and go, “What is it that we’ve never seen on stage that would be fun?”
Richard still has his fans, though admittedly most of you are not. Richard really is in therapy, and is making peace with himself and the conflict between the life he wanted and the life he has, which are miles apart. He’s been talking to me again, and I’m hopeful. I swear, that I brought him on to marry Anita. It was my solution to breaking her up with Jean-Claude and not having to kill him. It would take me years to realize that Richard was my ideal man, at the time, but maybe not hers.
The character that more of you mentioned than any other, either in a list with others, or alone, was Nathaniel. I knew he’d be on a lot of people’s favorite list, but I hadn’t anticipated what he’d meant to you so many of you. Some of you told me that him talking about his own therapy helped you be willing to see your therapy. That’s wonderful, because I’m a big believer in good therapy. It’s made a huge difference in my own life, and still does. I am so happy that sharing Nathaniel’s story has helped so many of you understand that just because something terrible happens to you, that isn’t the end of the story. We can heal, and grow, and learn to be happy. Thank you for telling me how much watching Nathaniel’s journey through the books has helped all of you understand that you can be happy, too. I know that would mean a lot to Nathaniel, too. Writing him has taught me, and Anita, that strength doesn’t always come full blown, sword in hand, but that some of the bravest people are the ones that learn to be brave.
In fact, several of you have told me that my books taught you that true bravery isn’t when you’re not afraid. True courage is being scared to death and doing it anyway. It was such a given to me that bravery is acting in the face of fear, that it never occurred to me that everyone didn’t understand that. It is one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned and I am very happy to share it with all of you.
Thank you for so many of you telling me that my characters have helped you understand that you have to stand up for what you believe, what you want, who you are, and not let society tell you different. Anita and I both started the series so conservative, and now here we are so very not. 🙂
I would be a different person today if I had never written Anita. I would be a different person if I had only written the original three books I was contracted for, and stopped, or even stopped with the first six. The research I did into real crime, real violence, showed me things that I didn’t always want to know, but it helped me make Anita’s police work, more real. I believed that if I wanted people to believe in zombies, vampires, and wereanimals, that I had to make the real life details as real as possible. I haven’t always gotten it right, but I thank all the police and military personnel over the years that have helped me try, all mistakes are mine and mine alone. You guys did your best with this writer that has never worn any uniform for a job. But more than the true crime, the research into alternative lifestyles opened my eyes and showed me a much broader definition of . . . nearly everything.
Some of you have been with Anita and me from the beginning, but I hear from people every day that have just found us. Thank you for being on this journey with us, whether you found us with Guilty Pleasures, or somewhere in the middle, or just watched the video for Affliction and thought, I want to read that. Me, too, it’s why I wrote it, why I still write Anita, because I want to know what happens next.
I did not sleep well, at all, last night. I’m still sick from the virus and sinus infection that I caught sometime last month, which went undiagnosed. Yes, I went to the doctor. I’ve slept most of the last few days. So much, in fact, apparently I can’t sleep anymore. My mind is too full of ideas, goals, things I need to do so other people can do their job to keep resting. I made myself sleep until 5 AM, but after that I allowed myself to get up and start getting dressed. If I felt wretched, then I’d go back to bed, but if I could manage it I wanted to be up.
In the bathroom as I dressed, I could hear the dawn chorus of the birds at their spring best, that spurred me on, energized me. Now, of course, the energy is ebbing and I’ve got a fine tremble in my arms as I type this, so perhaps not the smartest thing I’ve done, but . . . I called circle to the music of the birds in a choir all around me through the open windows. The cool, spring air is still caressing my bare legs in the skirt I’m wearing. I’m wearing orange and black for Halloween colors, which makes me smile, and because orange is the color for the navel chakra, and I’m wearing citrine set in gold, because those are colors that are good for the solar plexus chakra. These two chakras have been depleted, or blocked for weeks and now I know why. Sometimes I can keep pushing on sheer will power and guts, but eventually I pay the price, this illness is that price, but I push, that’s who I am. I push myself and I push those around me, not push them around, but I always want the best for and from those closest to me either in my personal life, or business. I want us all to be happy and to be the best possible us we can be, I don’t apologize for that, it’s who I am. Never apologize for who you are if it works for you and is your true self.
I called circle and entered sacred space with the moon still shining overhead in a veil of clouds, and the spring air soft on my skin, every bird in the neighborhood singing their hearts out like a blessing in the air, and darkness still thick enough that I had to light my candles carefully in the dark, so I didn’t trip over our three small dogs. For those who don’t know, I was lighting a candle for each element – earth, air, fire, and water. I also light a candle for spirit, and then invoke God and Goddess. If you haven’t guessed, I’m Wiccan, some of us use the term witch, but I do not. I find the word is too dramatic for most of the people here in the Bible belt and explaining that our path of faith is Wiccan, as they are Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, works better than other terms. Some words are hard to separate from their past associations like witch, or inquisition.
The three small dogs were very happy that I was up and wanting to come over to the office and meditation area. They know they get treats and which drawer they’re kept in, and if they were bigger dogs they would so have had it opened and burgled months ago. I’ve caught our two Japanese chins, Keiko and Mordor, worrying at it, and trying with mouth and paws to open it. Our pug, Sasquatch, awaits his orders when they need muscle, like ramming doors that will not open. It’s given him his umpteenth nickname of Rhino. Sometimes Rhino finds doors too solidly closed and you hear a thump, and he staggers himself, but mostly he gets the doors in the older parts of the house to open, but most doors open promptly by their human staff, if they’re allowed in that room at that time.
I watched the first glow like a cut in the darkness that allowed the light to seep through, and then dawn spread in a pink, mauve, purple, lavender neon extravaganza lighting up the eastern sky just behind my eastern candle and I was able to greet the light, praise God and Goddess, though dawn always feels more feminine to me. I asked for their help in healing, and being positive while I healed, and finding the lessons that I’m supposed to be learning during all of it.
Now, the dogs are over with our daughter Trinity, who’s job it is to feed them, and I’m left to bird song and the first sounds of my neighbors rising for their days. The sun is a visible ball of fire through the trees like an orang-yellow spotlight and the sky is soft blue with clouds. I’m finishing the first tea of the day in my new chipmunk mug, and feel better than I’ve felt in two weeks. I can see the two silkie bantam hens grooming and searching for insects in the grass of their yard, and I am feeling all together domestic and biology loving, and that always makes me want to write. For those who are new to my books, or who know me only through the mirror of my books, you will find more about nature and animals in my blog and personal musings than violence, sex, vampires, or werewolves, or wereanything. I work in a world that is incredibly violent, but I try not to live there. I need the other sides of myself to nurture the parts that are drawn to the violence, and as for sex, I still haven’t decided how much of that to put here, or anywhere on line. I simply can’t decide my comfort level, so I leave it alone for the most part in these personal writings. If I find my comfort level at some point that may change, but for now there will be more of writing, ornithology, faith, and puppies in my blog than sex and sadism. If that isn’t what you want there are other writers that seem more than happy to share their most intimate details with you, or share the intimate details of others, but I am not one of them. I still feel that intimate reality is a gift to be shared with those who actually get to see you naked on purpose for happy nefariousness, not something to simple titilate and tease for more readership. Which is weird since I put more details in my books during the sex scenes than pretty much anyone out there, but that’s my fiction, and I’m comfortable with that. Don’t get me wrong, I love sex, but sharing my personal sexual details with the world, still not sure that’s a good idea, so – more of blossoms, than blow jobs, in my blog. Yes, that is a tortured reference to Dickens.
Now, I hear crows and they’re letting me know they’ve found a hawk, or perhaps the fledgling great horned owl that our pair raised this year, and I want to see what they’ve found. It sounds more like their, “We’ve found an owl, than we’ve found a hawk,”. Grabbing my binoculars . . . owl!
Today is my birthday, but this is a present for all of you. One late night of writing as I fought towards the latest deadline, I got on twitter and decided to play a game with everyone. I was writing a sex scene, which was a nice change from all the zombie slaughtering and just violent crime fighting in this latest Anita Blake novel, Affliction. I offered that if someone guessed exactly who was involved in the scene and where it was taking place that I’d post it as a blog. The game was a mixture of sexy clue, and twenty questions. Someone did win, and I was going to post it, but then realized this scene was too far in the book and potentially spoiled some things in the plot and character arc, so what to do? I decided to use a scene that takes place earlier in the book. It does give away a few things plot-wise, and certainly character-wise, but all good sex scenes help develop character, and even sometimes world build. But this earlier scene seemed less like I was revealing too much, so here are two chapters of Affliction which will be out July 2, 2013.
Chapter Fifty:
Chapter Fifty-One:
I hope you enjoyed my Birthday present to you!
