Sorry that you couldn’t all be at DragonCon to hear my special announcement. It would have been awesome if everyone that had wanted to be there had been able to, but I hope the rest of you had a great labor day weekend. Jon and I had a blast!
How do you celebrate twenty years of writing a serious like Anita Blake? I’m writing on the new Merry Gentry, A Shiver of LIght which will be out summer 2014, but if I’ve done all my pages on Merry then I’ve been giving myself permission to work on anything I want to write in the afternoon, or evening. So, what have I been writing? You’re about to find out, because you’ll be able to preorder the first story, Dancing, tomorrow September 5!
I mention a lot of throwaway lines in the Anita books, scenes we never get to see in the novels, because there just isn’t time in the middle of the mystery. One of those never seen scenes is Sergeant Zerbrowski’s annual police family cookout where Anita takes Nathaniel and Micah. I wrote a novelette where we get to finally meet Zerbrowski’s entire family, and see him and his wife, Katie, at home. We also see how Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel’s relationship has grown from the events in Affliction. Anita and the guys happen to be babysitting Matthew, so we get to see them do the whole family thing with all the other cops’ families. Of course, something goes pear-shaped, but then it wouldn’t be a story if everything went smoothly, right?
How do you celebrate twenty years of a series? For me, I’m planning to write some of the scenes we never get to see on stage in the novels, and things the readers, you, have said, “I’d really like to see that.” Well, guess what, me, too.
I’d planned on maybe putting all the short stories in an anthology of Anita stories, and maybe we’ll do that someday, but thanks to technology you don’t have to wait for this first one, Dancing, you can preorder it as an e-special tomorrow, and have it on your computer, or e-reader, September 17!
Depending on how this one does you may get more of the shorter pieces as e-specials, and we might even do more out-takes like Beauty, but starting this month is your chance to encourage my muse and me to keep writing these extra adventures, and sharing them with you almost as fast as I can write them. Come dance, laugh, argue, and prove that love and friendship just might conquer all. Come Dancing with Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel tomorrow.
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