Tag: vampires

One Month to Affliction

One month from today Affliction will be on the shelves! I know I’ve conditioned you guys that the new Anita Blake novel hits the stores in June, but I needed the extra month to write a longer book. Affliction has a page count of 570, which makes it the longest book since Incubus Dreams. It would have topped 600 pages, but a choice in printing format means no extra pages at the end of chapters, so you lose a few pages that way, but they would have been blank, or half blank pages, so now every single page is full of story!
I would love to give hints here about some of the surprises that await you in the new book, but I truly suck at hinting. I either don’t give enough information, or I tell far too much. I will run hints by my agent and editor and see if we can come up with some that don’t give away too much, but for a Sunday lets let all the hardworking people in New York have their day of rest.

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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?

Why I Threw Out Everything I Wrote Yesterday

So many of you wrote in and feared for the lovers in Anita’s life. They are in peril. This promises to be a very hard book, but two days ago it wasn’t that kind of trauma for Anita and me. She did her duty. She stayed at her post. She made the hard call in the midst of death and violence. She was a good cop, a good soldier, a good . . . she did her duty. She did not panic. It ended up with her in the hospital and it cost her the life of someone she valued. It also cost the lives of good men and women who stood shoulder to shoulder against the great bad thing. There are losses that aren’t about romantic love. There are losses that are about a different kind of love. The people that will go into the bad place with you and not panic, but stay at your side shooting, fighting, risking it all for the goal, the objective, the mission, but there will always be moments that come down to just surviving. The men and women who stay with you through something like that – you love them. They love you. It’s not romantic love, but it is a bond that will make you answer a phone a decade later and say, “What do you need? What can I do?”
It’s also the kind of emotion that will make you not answer the phone ever. It is a level of pain and trauma that makes you want to forget. You don’t want to relive it. You don’t want to look at it, or talk about it. You want to move on; forget. sometimes in that effort to push it away you will destroy everything in your life to avoid the pain of it, the truth of it.
I have had the privilege of knowing men and women who have served their country, worn the badge, and come away with the real deal. I have dated, and been friends with men that are still haunted. I know when they share their stories with me in any way that it’s a privilege to be trusted with those moments of truth. a lot of them are told with laughter, but every once in awhile their eyes grow haunted and the pain comes too close to hide.
Anita had one of those moments and I spent the next twenty-four hours trying to ignore the pain. I was willing to blow up my imaginary world and throw all the hard work that Micah and Jean-Claude had done to bring together the preternatural community so that we could have a crisis and Anita and I wouldn’t have to deal with what was really bothering us. We were willing to ruin our relationship with Micah. Willing to ruin our relationship with other lovers. Anita and I tried to sink ourselves into sex. Nothing worked yesterday. Some of it was good pages, but really I was blowing up my world, destroying books and books of relationship building. It was my husband, Jon, who told me not to do some of it, that it made no sense. I was angry with him, though we didn’t fight, because I knew something was wrong with me and how I was reacting.
This morning when I woke up I understood what I’d been doing. I also knew what I needed to write today. I have to look at what happened in the shoot out. I have to let Anita feel the pain of what she had to do, and what it cost her and others. I was willing to blow up my world, Jean-Claude’s world, Micah’s, sacrifice Damian, hurt Nathaniel, or try to just skip to sex and comfort. I fought with myself all day and at midnight I called it, because I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I just knew it I wasn’t thinking right.
This morning it was so clear, even logical. I’ve spent twenty years writing Anita. I’ve interviewed people about what it feels like to take a life in the course of their duty. I have been blessed and trusted with the stories, without them this series would have been so much weaker. I wouldn’t have understood, and there are things that I will not understand because this is fiction for me. I’m not there. I’m not going through the real doors. I’m not having to look down the barrel of real guns and make choices that will be irrevocable. In real life there is no rewrite, more’s the pity.
Today Anita has to wake up in the hospital with that moment of confusion of “where am I, what happened,” and then the memory will return. She’ll remember the moment. The gun, sighting down the barrel, pulling the trigger and watching him drop. She would make the same choice, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be haunted by it. You can be right. You can be brave. It is some comfort, but in the end the people still died, and you couldn’t save them all, and sometimes killing the killer is just one more trauma.
There are losses that make you weep, that drive you from sleep to pace the darkened house, because sleep is full of dreams, nightmares, or sometimes it’s just too quiet and alone with our thoughts isn’t that great. I should have remembered that yesterday, but it took me time to work it out – to remember.
I’m just lucky that what I do is fiction. That I didn’t ruin my actual relationship with the man I love, and I have a chance to rewrite the fictional mistake. That I didn’t blow up the political structure of our country for real, but just on paper and I had a smart man to tell me, “This isn’t logical.” Thanks, my husband. Lucky for me, and for Anita, there is a do-over today. It won’t be pleasant, in fact it will be emotionally pretty horrible, but when she’s faced it, worked some of it through, then she will still have the loves of her life, the men she depends on, and the careful political structure that Jean-Claude and Micah have worked so hard to make will still be working. I am dreading writing this, but I feel strangely peaceful about it, too. This is what comes next and the days when Anita would destroy her love life, her friendships, to avoid the pain of what she’s had to do in her job are past. I’ve had better therapy than that, and so has she.
As I write today I will think of my friends who have done, and are doing, this for real. To the men and women who put on a uniform and do their duty, thank you for your service.

Kiss the Dead tour – Huntington Beach

I swear I’ve been chilled since we got to Seattle, and Huntington Beach was about the same temperature. *brrrr* I needed to bring a sweater, but it was warmer last time we were here, or maybe I’m just remembering it as warmer. Southern California just sounds like it should be warm, even though living her for a few years let me know that most mornings are chilly and it doesn’t usually get that hot, at least not in Los Angeles. But even though I know better I still had hoped it would be warmer. *sigh* and *laughing* at myself. I so know better.
Thanks to everyuone who came out to participate in the show, and to everyone at the Barnes & Noble in Huntington Beach that helped make it all go so smoothly. I know we got some new questions, but I admit that I’m getting punchy at this point in tour and can’t remember them. The only one I do remember is the request for the title of the book that I read to our daughter, Trinity, when she was about eight to ten about the facts of life. The book is at home and I can’t remember the title. I’ll blog it later after we get home and I hunt the book up.

Time to get some food, before we see you all in about two hours. Looking forward to seeing everybody tonight at the Carlsbad Library.

Kiss the Dead tour – St. Louis

Kiss the Dead – St. Louis

We kicked off the tour for Kiss the Dead in our home town, St. Louis, Missouri. Venue was the downtown location for Left Bank Books. Thanks to everyone at the store that helped make the event work so smoothly. I signed books ahead of time, because the ticket admission gets you a signed book, and the show. Yes, it’s supposed to be a question and answer session. What Jon, my husband, and I have come to call, “Laurell and a microphone show.” Anyone who’s ever seen me on stage for a Q & A will understand why we call it a show. I pace and prowl the stage like one of those big cats in the zoo that paces their cage. I’m not sure why I do it, the pacing I mean. I was taught to use most of a stage so that everyone gets a good view, but it’s more than that. It’s something about the energy of the crowd, the night, the event, something that makes me need to move. Years ago people would put me in a chair, but I can’t sit still and do this, I can’t. The only time I’ve sat down on stage was when I came into the event injured, or when I shared the stage at a convention. The latter wasn’t a full two hours, but if I have to share the stage and the microphone I can, and do. I’m all about the sharing if you guys have come to see more than just me. Charlaine Harris and I shared the stage in St. Louis for an event to benefit the library there, and it was a lot of fun. She’s good people, and we’ve known each other for years. But most of the time it’s just me, with an occasional guest spot on the mic from Jon, as we answer questions.
In St. Louis it was a space in the basement, and my microphone was on a cord like a leash to keep me in one spot. It does short leash me, so that I can’t wander as I’d like, and there’s always the chance I’ll trip over the cord. I managed not to do that, but it had been so long since I’d been on a cord that I forgot one important safety tip. I tend to bundle the slack of the cord in my free hand, so I don’t trip. But I also sometimes try to gesture with my hands, I forgot that I had the cord in the hand not holding the mic, and I hit myself in the face with it. All I could do was laugh, and not do that again. Important safety tip: don’t talk with your hands when both hands are full.
I think the original audience was supposed to be about two hundred people, because that’s how many books I signed ahead of time, but as always seems to happen the audience magically grew. Jon and I estimated about three hundred because most ticket holders brought at least one person, sometimes two, to four extra people, sometimes more. Though, I don’t think there were groups larger than that in St. Louis. There were more people than seats, and some stood for two hours. Thank you for being willing to do that.
The bookstore had put a microphone on a stand near the front. That works much better than someone trying to move through the crowd with a mic. It’s much quicker to have the mic set up, so that people can line up and I can answer as many questions as possible. The only issue was the aisle was so narrow people couldn’t line up without getting in each other’s way, so important tip for next time, wider area so we can have the line, and people can move back and forth without having a traffic jam at the microphone. There’s always a learning curve for each new space, and venue, like trying to fit the whole band on a stage, you learn how each space works best. Before someone asks, no we do not travel with a band, it was a metaphor. (For those who thought, of course, it was a metaphor, why did she over explain, trust me sometimes over explaining on the blog saves time and disappointment for fans later. I will leave live music to Neil Gaiman and his very talented wife, Amanda Palmer.) We have had music by S. J. Tucker at one event, she played while I did a more traditional signing, but she kept playing some of our favorite songs, so that Jon and I wanted to dance. It’s hard to sign books and talk to people when you’re trying not to dance. It was a great night, but S. J. is a wonderful singer/songwriter and it was like being at a concert, but having to work the whole time. Wanted-to-dance! *laughs*
We got one new question that I was anticipating, what did I think of Fifty Shades of Grey? No, I have not read the books yet, but lots of people have sent me scenes from the book and asked for my opinion, mostly the bondage scenes, okay, it’s always the bondage scenes. *laughs* Those who’ve been reading me know that I’ve been writing bondage scenes for years. E. L. James may finally have brought bondage into the mainstream, so yay! Anything that makes people more comfortable with their sexuality is a good thing. I’ll probably be hearing this new question a lot this tour.
There was one brand new question from a fan that we first met in Milan, Italy. *waves* Had I thought about a reality show? In fact, yes I had, or rather I’d discussed it with my agent, but in the end we decided not to pursue it. Why? Because I can’t imagine having cameras following me around filming my life. How would that work? I think that about the time things got “interesting” I’d be making them turn off the cameras and get out. Some reality show contracts have clauses in them that dictate under what circumstances you can tell the cameras to leave, or stop, and what they are allowed to film, or not allowed to film. I just don’t think I’d be comfortable exposing my family to that. One of the reasons not to do it, was illustrated in the follow up part of the question. She said, I’d save marriages across the country if I’d do a reality show.
I asked, “What about me doing a reality show would save marriages?”
I can’t remember the exact wording, but the gist was that I’d inspire couples to have better sex by sharing my fantasies on camera. *blink, blink*
“And that would be an example of when I would make the cameras leave,” I said. Though, laying out a line of toys and props, letting the camera do a loving close up of it all, then kicking them out and locking the door has it’s amusement value. But actually filming “fantasies”, um, I think that would be over my comfort level of sharing my life. Ah, nice lady fan, you naughty girl you. *shakes finger at you* *laughs*
We put one of the new business cards in every book I signed. The card had a new bit of technology on it, a QR code. If you use a smart phone to scan it, or have Jon give you the uber secret code at the signing you can get to a secret website that will have Easter eggs that you can only get with the code. For those who don’t know what I mean by Easter egg in this context, it’s extra, or bonus material. Best example is the very last scene in The Avengers where all our heroes are eating shawarma, as Tony Stark, Robert Downey Junior, suggests at the end of the fight. Its just this little scene at the end, but it was totally worth waiting to see it. To see the bonus scene in The Avengers you have to wait through all the credits, to see our Easter eggs you have to be at an event, or get someone who was at an event to share the super secret code with you.
What kind of bonus stuff is there? Little videos and pictures, and some explanation, or written content that isn’t available anywhere else. It is actually the new tech of the smart phones that gave us the idea to try. If all goes as planned I’ll be putting up new content throughout the tour. Something new every day.
We did pictures after the show in St. Louis, and found the images already up on my Facebook that night. You guys are fast! Thanks for making our kick-off for Kiss the Dead so much fun! See everyone in Seattle, Washington next!

Beauty – a preview

So many of you have asked, or said, you can’t wait until it comes out, so . . . Here’s a sneak peek at Beauty the too hot to handle outtake from Kiss the Dead which comes out as an eSpecial May 8, 2012:

“I finally let myself look at that face, and I felt like I had from almost the first moment I’d seen him, that he was simply one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen. The black curls touched the edge of his face, as if bringing attention to the curve of his mouth, the line of his cheek, and those eyes. They always looked blue, but they were so dark. Midnight blue with their double edge of black eyelashes like dark lace to frame the deepest blue I’d ever seen in anyone’s eyes. His eyes were a blue like deep ocean water, where it runs cold and will eventually spill down into something warm and mysterious, where creatures the light has never seen live and thrive. Those gorgeous eyes looked at me, and there was love in them, but the second he saw me in the doorway, walking toward him, there was lust, desire, and just a heat that brought a blush to my face and an answering heat to my own eyes. Six years after we’d first started dating I was still a little amazed that this most lovely of men wanted me so badly. They talked about burning for each other, and we still did. I never seemed to get over the surprise of turning around and seeing him there. You’d think I’d get used to seeing such a beautiful man and knowing he was mine, but it never grew old, as if his beauty and the fact that he was mine, and I was his, would forever surprise me.”

Beauty, eSpecial, or the Sexy Outtake

Whenever I tweet, FaceBook, or blog, that I had to delete a perfectly good scene because it no longer worked with the plot of the current book, a lot of you ask to see the scene. You’ve even suggested that I share my Anita outtake file with you. Well, guess what, Beauty, the eSpecial that everyone’s been asking me about is an outtake from Kiss the Dead. It’s a sex scene that unfortunately had to be cut, because character decisions made it impossible as written. More unfortunately it was the scene between Jean-Claude and Anita. I really wanted them to have some up close and personal time in this next book, and it was a great scene, and . . . I still had to cut it.

But one day I was talking to my editor, Susan, on the phone, and I bemoaned the loss of the scene. She thought it was a fabulous scene, too, and regretted it’s loss. That was the point that she and I came up with the idea of doing the outtake as my first ever eSpecial. I thought great, and it’s already written, but like much in this whole e-experience that wasn’t quite correct. I had to write a new beginning for the scene, because it was taken out of the early middle of the book where the world, the characters, relationships, everything had already been explained, but suddenly the scene had to stand on it’s own without all the earlier pages. So, I did add a few paragraphs to introduce the world, Anita, and her relationship to Jean-Claude and Asher. Yep, try as I might in Kiss the Dead to give Jean-Claude and Anita their alone time, Asher was just not going to be left out. When things work well between the three of them it’s so worth it, when it doesn’t, well . . . it’s just a freaking disaster. So I did the extra bit up front so the scene would not be quite so naked to everyone who buys the eSpecial, and then it was done. Okay, except for the whole editing part when it came back from New York, but other than that it was done.

But one of the weird things about publishing of late is that e-books are still evolving in how they are handled, and before I’d ever seen Beauty back from New York, before I’d even signed the contract, and sent it back to them, I had people asking me about it on the internet. People were asking what Beauty was, and were thrilled it was coming out on April 24. Since my editor had told me that Beauty was scheduled for a month before Kiss the Dead came out on June 5, I was a little confused. I called her up and she double checked, and the actual date for Beauty is May 8, because the whole idea is that it comes out about a month ahead of the novel, that it’s an outtake for, so . . . No one at my publisher is sure where the first date of April 24 came from, but it is now corrected on line to its actual release date of May 8, so yay, for that!

So, Beauty is my first eSpecial. It’s the first outtake from any Anita Blake novel that I’ve allowed to be published. It’s a very hot, steamy, outtake with Jean-Claude, Anita, and Asher. It comes out May 8, as a sort of preview for Kiss the Dead which comes out June 5.

Links to preordering Beauty –

Amazon Kindle edition

Barnes & Noble nook edition

Halloween 2011

I went to bed with stars shining overhead, and woke with them still gleaming in a pitch black sky. A wisp of pale clouds trailed across the darkness like some huge remnant of ghosts that must have marched through someone’s dreams trailing cobwebby veils and offering to dance. There was the faintest touch of chill in the air, an autumn kiss. It is five days before Halloween.
Everyone thinks that this is a big time of year for me, since I write paranormal thrillers. I recently had a woman ask me what kind of paranormal I wrote, and after much going back and forth, I finally realized all she wanted to know was it vampires, werewolves, or something else. I told her all of the above and more, and she seemed happy. What does someone who writes about monsters do this time of year? Well, this year, I will be at the Annual Anne Rice Vampire Lestat Fan Club Ball on October 28th in New Orleans. Yep, I write about vampires and I’m going to a vampire ball in New Orleans, it seems perfect, doesn’t it? But my husband, Jon, and I are only staying a short time in New Orleans after the ball, because we need to get home to our daughter, Trinity. She still thinks we’re cool enough to hang out with on Halloween, and we’ve vowed not to miss spending the actual day with her until she decides that she has more grownup plans that do not include parents. All our other friends with teenagers tell us that this dreaded moment will happen soon, but right now she wants the holiday to be a family one, and that works for us.
Halloween has always been one of my two favorite holidays, the other being Christmas. I loved the dressing up, the trick or treat, the candy, the walking around on the chilly Indiana nights. One year we actually had snow and I had to wear a coat over my costume, I was so bummed. It doesn’t get that cold that early here in Missouri, and that’s just fine with me. Snow sucked much for trick or treat.
But its not me being a vampire writer, or going to the Anne Rice Vampire Ball, or having a child, or even nostalgia that makes Halloween truly special, it’s the fact that it’s one of the major holidays for my religion. We’re Wiccan, as in pantheistic, nature honoring, God and Goddess worshipping, as a rough overview. It’s like trying to explain being Catholic in a single sentence to someone who doesn’t know anything about it; try it sometime, harder than it sounds. The most important thing that every Wiccan agrees on is this; “So long as you harm none, do as thou wilt.” That harm none part means you, too, by the way, so harm no one, not even yourself. That means that every decision should got through this filter. You can do what you want, as long as you harm no one, not even yourself. Some Wiccans carry that to animals, and go Vegetarian, or Vegan. Not me, and my family, we’re carnivores, but one of the things that most Wiccans value greatly is their independence from having to follow the same rules that everyone else follows, we’re sort of the anti-organized religion, which is why the one bit of “harm none” is about all everyone can agree on. Our household are eclectic Wiccans, which means that even among ourselves we don’t all do the same thing at our altars, or call on the same Deities on a regular basis. Group rituals must be agreed upon, but beyond that it’s very individual. Halloween is All Hallows Eve, Samhain, for us. It is a time when the veil between the worlds is thin, and most Wiccans do a ritual to honor their dead. It is saying good-bye to the recently dead, or making peace with someone that did you wrong long ago. It can just be an honoring of the dead in general. For us, we still do a more typical American celebration of dressing up, trick or treat, and watching a marathon of Ghost Hunters, or favorite scary movie. I think this year we’ll be watching Ghost Hunters and whatever location wins their contest to be a live investigation on Halloween night.
But I’ll see some of you guys in New Orleans on Friday the 28, for the Anne Rice Vampire Ball, hosted by Voltaire, the musician and all around performer and artist, not the dead philosopher. It’s the vampire ball, but it’s not that kind of vampire ball. There will be other wonderful musicians, costumes, and fun to be had. Come on down to New Orleans, dance with some vampires, or at least people who write and sing about them, beyond that, can’t guarantee anything, but it is New Orleans, and it is two days before Halloween, you never know.