writing Archives - Page 6 of 11 - Laurell K. Hamilton

New Blog: My Daemons are Crashing

My daemons are crashing, the computer tech said. I thought I’d misheard over the crush of the computer store, but then she repeated it. My smart phone wasn’t working because the computer daemons in it were crashing. Computer daemons are programs that wait in the background until you call them into service, sort of like the original idea of genies, or jinn, that give magical help if you have the power to call and control them. Not too far off from some of the mysterious workings of computers.

Once I was a technophobe, but as I stood there in the computer store waiting for my phone to come back to life, and I felt bereft. I couldn’t call, text, check e-mail, or . . . my hand held office was broken. I have not only embraced technology, but I have drunk deep of the technological Kool-aid. I didn’t realize how deep until the moment I stood in the buzz of the computer store and mourned my non-functioning phone.

I was suddenly a writer that couldn’t write, because I didn’t have a pen, pencil, or piece of paper to my name. I was so distressed that I left my husband to babysit the phone while I ran down to the brick and mortar bookstore to buy a pen and a notebook. I also picked up a new book to read, because I was a writer in a bookstore, come on, I had to buy a book. What book? Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, which I’ve actually never read. I decided recently that I needed to fix that, and there’s no time like the present. It was somehow reassuring to hold a real book that was written long before the thought of computers, back when a writer had to have good penmanship so that his editor could read his manuscript. I admit I’m glad I don’t have to write my novels by hand, in fact, I write almost exclusively on my iPad and iPhone, and main computers now. I even take notes on my phone most of the time instead of sticky notes. I’m writing this on my iPad, while we watch, “Fast & Furious 6” on the big screen LED TV with a Blue Ray DVD. Does anyone remember when if you wanted to watch a movie it had to be on the three, maybe four channels, that you could get on your rabbit-eared TV? The smart phone you’re holding in your hand has more computing power than the computers that sent the Apollo spacecrafts to the moon. How freaking cool is that?

How many of you remember Space Invaders, and how everyone was mesmerized by those little blips on the screen? Now the graphics on the latest games are so amazing they look like mini-movies. Would any of us have guessed how far the computer revolution would come into our homes and change the way we do not only business, but our recreation and play? E-books, electronic books are perilously close to outselling paperback books. Time spent in front of our TV and computer screens take more of our days than being outside in the real world. I know I had no idea when I watched that first rough game move jerkily across the monochrome screen what was coming, and how much of modern life was going to be so closely intertwined with it that one of the things our government fears most is an EMP, electromagnetic pulse bomb that would take out all the pretties that we use everyday.

My daemons are coming when called again, to work their spells. The magic smoke is back in the little box in my hand, and the world is strangely more firm.

Happy Summer Solstice Harvest!

Happy Summer Solstice! Blessed Litha for my fellow pagans! Today is the longest day of the year. More sun, more light, more warmth, and tomorrow there will be a touch less, as we head towards autumn. This is a harvest festival for us, because it is traditionally when serious bounty began to come in from the fields, back when we couldn’t just run down to the grocery store and buy strawberries in January.

So, what good is a harvest festival in modern times where some people don’t even know that tomatoes grow on vines?

It’s true that the closest some of us get to a field is an apple picking afternoon at one of the local orchards, or the local organic isle, but harvest isn’t just about the stuff that feeds the body, it’s also about what feeds the heart, mind, and soul.

Harvesting means you’ve chosen what you wanted to grow, so you could get the right seed and plant it. You found out how much sun, how much water, and how many days until it would mature into a yummy vegetable. Pick something you want in your life, a better job, new couch, water garden, a family trip to Yellowstone, a romantic trip to Paris without the kids, hike the Appalachian trail, get pregnant, own your first designer watch, once a week date night, eat a more balanced diet, exercise more, take horse back riding lessons, take some college classes, be happier, love yourself more, knit your first sweater, finish your first novel, finish your 33rd novel, find a girlfriend, find a boyfriend, spend more time alone – whatever you want to bring into your life, that’s your seed.

Now that you know what you want, you need to figure out how much sunlight and water it needs, because some things need more shade, more solitude, others need bright sun and for you to reach out to more people for help, or instructions, or just to get them on board with the plan. The trick is to decide what steps you need to take, or things you need to do, or not do, to bring your harvest in before the end of the year.

For me, I want to finish the latest novel I’m writing by Thanksgiving day of this year. That’s going to require serious dedication to putting my butt in a chair and typing out pages on a regular basis. The light and water needed to finish the book is time, consistency of effort, and faith in myself and the book. On a good day, I’m so sure of myself that I’m unassailable in my certainty. On a bad day, I’m equally convinced I’d be killing trees to no purpose if I print the pages out. Oddly, I took today off from writing, to pursue two other things I wanted to bring to harvest in my life. I wanted koi for our water garden. I accomplished that by putting my name on the waiting list at the local pond store, because the fish go fast, and the big, pretty ones go faster. The fish were so gorgeous I was giddy with their beauty, and spoiled for choices. I began to laugh out loud as the clerk caught the fish I pointed out. I helped some, and was quickly splashed from glasses to sandals with water. We had one fish leap completely out of the tank to avoid being caught. I’d never seen such energy and fight in carp. It was so much fun, that I came home laughing and smelling slightly of clean, well-cared for fish. Watching them flit through the water in our pond made me smile a lot.

I also talked to the other half of our poly foursome today, and that feeds into another harvest goal, that I want even better communication to make sure that everyone’s needs get met, and most of their wants.

Jon, my husband, and I also got to visit with our friends, Sam and Eric, and since one of my goals is to see more of our friends, more often, that was perfect for today. They got here in time to help with the adventure of acclimating the koi to our pond, thanks for the help guys. What do you want to accomplish? What are you willing to put time and energy into so that you can harvest it by the end of the year? Think on what you need, what you want, and make it happen.

New blog: We’re #2 & #5!

A Shiver of Light is #2 on the New York Times List combined fiction & e-books list! Yay!

A Shiver of Light is #2 on the New York Times List on the e-book list! Yay!

Apparently my fans buy a lot of e-books! Thanks everyone!

A Shiver of Light is #5 on the New York Times List of adult hardback fiction! Yay! Not so Yay!?

A Shiver of Light is the #7 best selling book in the country on USAToday list! Very yay! Thats fiction, nonfiction, children’s, young adult, old, new – books out the door regardless of when published. Example the book ahead of me on the list when I last checked was, Dr. Suess’s “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” Apparently, there’s a preschool reading program that just started across the country featuring Dr. Suess’s wonderful books. It was fun for, A Shiver of Light, to be rubbing literary elbows with Dr. Suess. At the beginning of the school year you’ll have all the regular required reading books near the top of this list.

Am I upset that I didn’t get #1 on the Times List? Yes, I’m not even going to bother with all that, “It was an honor to be nominated crap . . .” Yes, it’s an honor to be duking it out at the top of the New York Times List, and I am happy to be on it and up so wonderfully high, but . . . if anyone on the List would really prefer not to be #1, I haven’t met them yet.

Congrats to Stephen King who is #1 this week! He maybe #1 on all the lists, but honestly I haven’t checked.

Is there a chance that I’ll rise higher next week?
Yes, but generally that’s not been my pattern.

How could I move up the list?

If enough people got super excited and went out and bought even more copies of, A Shiver of Light, maybe I’d go up the List.
If I could be involved in some juicy and major news worthy scandal in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, then maybe I’d hit higher on the List.
If I was part of some major tragedy, I might move up the list.

But I see no scandals on the horizon, I have no desire to be involved in a tragedy, and most of the people who are are likely to be really really excited about A Shiver of Light, have already purchased their copy and have read the novel. At least once. Some of you are waiting for pay day, hardbacks are expensive, or having some major life event that is keeping you busy. (I’ve been reassured by a number of you that you will get my new book as soon as your life is not at sixes & sevens. Good luck and Godspeed!)

I’d planned on doing this blog Sunday, today, and only realized as I started to type that it’s Father’s Day. The first Father’s Day since Merry had her babies, so in her fictional world it’s the first one for the men in her life. I know her timing in months isn’t the same as ours, but I like the idea of her planning that first Father’s Day for all the new dads’ of her triplets. By the way, I did my research and it is possible for a woman to have multiple babies with different father’s in one pregnancy. All you need is to have sex with more than one man in the same night, and the woman to have multiple eggs waiting to be fertilized. Its even possible to have different genetic parentage of the same baby, though even the scientists aren’t entirely sure how that works, but Google Chimerism. Make sure it’s the genetic variety, not the fictional entries, because I’m apparently not the only writer to be fascinated by this real life topic.

Happy Father’s Day to all you real life Dads!

Our daughter, Trinity, is off on her post graduation trip, so it’s just Jonathon and myself to celebrate. I never had a father so the holiday was never that important to me. Actually it, like Mother’s Day, was just a reminder that all the other kids had parents and I didn’t. My grandmother would eventually allow me to get her cards and presents for the second holiday, but when I was very young she was adamant that she wasn’t my mother.

And below are some of the wonderful interviews that I did while I was on tour. I found some of the questions made, even me, think hard before answering – Enjoy!

This one is from, Searching for Superwoman.

Here’s Barnes & Noble interview with Paul Goat Allen.

New Blog: Filling up the Emptiness

You know that empty spot inside you? The one that feels like a bottomless pit that’s as wide as the Grand Canyon? If you don’t have one of these desolate places inside you, then you don’t need to read any further. Enjoy your happy and issue free life! But if you are like many of us and understand exactly what I mean, welcome.

I don’t know if I had the empty spot, before my mother died, but since I was only six at the time it’s hard for me to judge. Whatever the reason that caused that dark space inside me that nothing seemed to fill up, I did try to fill it up with many things. I tried books and reading, then I found writing and that worked for a long time. Then I fell in love for the first time and I thought that would do it, but no love outside of ourselves can completely fill that void. Years later, the marriage broke, and I vowed I’d give up on love, but dating led to falling in love with a friend. I thought this is it, this will work, and it did, it has, it is, but it doesn’t fill up the emptiness. Love is a light in the dark, but it does not destroy it all. I say again, no love outside of ourselves can fill that space of need. If religion fills that void for you, then wonderful, but though I am devoted to my path of faith it does not fill the hole. What Deity showed me, was the isses that dug the hole in the first place, and how I might heal the damage. If I was willing to work hard and experience most of the pain again, then I could heal, but it wasn’t guaranteed. If your God, or Goddess, promises you an easy path, and surety of success then you may not be hearing the voice of God, but the voice of something you want to be true. True faith is a path filled with many stones and thorns, because it is not the easy road that makes a warrior. If the word warrior doesn’t work for you, then find another, but its a good word for me.

I kept writing and I was successful, beyond my wildest dreams successful. I never thought I’d hit #1 on the New York Times List, or be the #1 best selling paperback in the country ever. These are all goals I’ve reached, but never had on my list of goals to reach. My goal for my writing was much more humble. I simply wanted to make enough to support my daughter and myself after my divorce. I’ve done a bit more than just support her and myself, a great deal more. I am blessed, and lucky, but as with most luck it’s because I put the hard work in before my opportunities came. Lucky people are usually prepared people.

All the success, all the books, and my wonderful characters and worlds, filled up part of me, because writing isn’t just a job for me, it’s a calling. Unfortunately, my calling didn’t fill up all the holes, or heal all the wounds. Having a child didn’t fill it up. I love our daughter, and she is great, but it’s not her job to make me feel whole, nor is it my job to make her a whole human being. Parents are supposed to give their children wings, but the kids have to learn how to fly with them. Hard to let go, but necessary.

So what fills up the hole? If love, success, money, art, children, marriage, sex, religion, faith, God, Goddess, if none of that fills that horrible emptiness completely, then what does?

I don’t know if anything does, there, that’s the truth. I wish it wasn’t. I wish I had a magic word, or pill to share with you and we could all be happy and healthy and whole. The only thing I know that helps that black emptiness fill up some is therapy, and facing the issues, the wounds, that dug that piece of my soul out. Therapy is hard, good therapy is very hard, but it’s the only way I’ve found to truly heal and cope, but that alone isn’t enough. For me, I need a strong faith, a personal relationship with Deity every day. Loving relationships, because what one person damages, another can help you heal. Animals, dogs right now, because I find that they are damn near essential to my happiness. Exercise, because it effects my physical health and my mood. For me it takes hard and frequent exercise to get me where my orthopedist says I need to get and stay, but staying out of surgery is worth it. Good nutrition, again effects health and mood. Time management, there is time to do it all, but not if I sit down and watch three hours of television, or more of movies a night. I like TV, love some shows, and love some movies, but I’d rather spend couple time with my husband, or our girlfriend and her husband, or have a good heart to heart talk with our daughter. I’m trying to get outside at least once a day, five days a week, because I feel better when I do. That’s the trick to filling up the void inside, to find what makes you feel better, truly better, which means when you do this whether it’s religion, exercise, dating, marriage, sex, parenting, building model airplanes, sculpting, collecting stamps, or playing the sport of your choice, whatever it is that makes you feel better, also makes your life work better. If what you’re doing dulls the pain, but makes your life worse, then it’s a crutch, maybe even an addiction, seek professional help and cut the destructive shit out.

You know how I said, love outside of yourself won’t fill up that empty space? Well, love inside yourself may. You need to love yourself. I know it’s hard, but its necessary. We have to love ourselves in the end, because if we don’t we continue to look for validation everywhere but inside ourselves, and in the end, we’re all we’ve got. Lovers, husbands, wives, children, bosses, jobs, houses, cars, flowers, pets, everything, comes and goes, but we remain. The face we see everyday in the mirror is our only constant companion. I used to think that was lonely, but I’ve come to understand that it’s not lonely, it’s just hard, but doable. If we’re following the path we’re meant to follow and doing the things we’re supposed to be doing we will find the people that we need and want in our lives. They will come to us, if they do their work, and we will help each other be better. That emptiness inside can fill up, I know, because mine is much smaller than it was, the difference between every ocean on the planet and now just a swimming pool and even that is getting smaller. I am healing. I am walking my path and meeting the people that I’m supposed to meet. I am learning from them, and they from me. We impact each other far more than we know, but as we heal and become more solid, we are less impacted by others, and our influence on them grows. So walk softly as you heal, and understand that others may not be so far down their paths, but walk softly and carry a big stick as Teddy Roosevelt said. Or as my faith would say, “Do no harm, but take no shit.”

If sharing part of my journey helps you, I’m glad. If you read this and are totally puzzled by what I mean, then you didn’t need this message. If you need it, I hope you do understand it, and f not now, then someday. Be well, be safe, be brave, trust yourself, and find people to trust, and be worthy of any trust that is placed in you.

New Blog: Doyle

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”.

New Blog: Frost

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!

Signed copy of A Shiver of Light, if you order by 8PM tonight!

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

What Feeds Your Muse?

People ask, what inspires me, well nature inspires me. My short story, “Geese”, came from me walking out my door years ago and seeing Canadian geese settling down for the night on the shores of a lake. I have a biology degree, as well as an English degree, and I have always found equal inspiration in nature and in words. Though I think that nature feeds my soul a little bit more than it feeds my writing. What follows is my early morning. It didn’t translate into many pages for the day, but it was a mood recharging beginning, and sometimes as a writer you need that more than pages.

My first animal of the morning, besides our three dogs, was a chipmunk. How can anyone look at a chipmunk and not smile? Then worms were fleeing across the walkway, well, as fast as worms can flee. I looked to see what the disturbance was and – mole! I watched the earth heave and roll as the little digger chased worms underground. Worms, especially earthworms, are some of their favorite foods. Yes, moles disturb your lawn, but they also aerate it, which is something we pay men with machines to do, right? Why not let the mole do it for free? They will also eat harmful grubs that destroy your lawn, flowers, and vegetable garden. By the way moles have the softest fur I’ve ever touched, though today’s mole never let me see him/or her at all. I carry the memory of the mole that got into our house in Indiana like a sensory touchstone. Mole fur makes mink feel rough.

I saved one worm that got lost on the bricks, and put him away from the mole’s hunting area, and then a bird sang high and bubbling in the holly tree just beside the house. It sang out several times the sweetness of the song falling down around me as if joy could be translated into sound. I’ve checked and double checked and the small bird that I barely could glimpse through the thick branches, I believe was a field sparrow. They are supposed to like more prairie than we have in our yard, but we do have a hedgerow area, and with habitat vanishing maybe they’ve gotten more adventuresome, or maybe he was just passing through for the running water. We’re getting birds to the water that wouldn’t normally bother with suburbia. It might have been a warbler who’s song I’m unfamiliar with, but it moved more like a sparrow, and wasn’t quite as small as most of the warblers I see in this area. I’m always loathe to bird just by ear – I don’t seem to trust it without another birder to say, “Yes, that’s the song.” But for right now I think it was a Field Sparrow, and whatever bird it was, another male answered in the distance. I’ll have to check that direction and see if there’s a grassy field area. If I’m closer to the right habitat then them coming for the water makes more sense.

To top it off I had a pair of Cedar Waxwings just outside my office in the big sugar maple right by the pond. They are one of my favorite birds! I never saw any until just a few years ago. They love the water garden. One of our robins chased them off, because Waxwings are fruit eaters and so are the robins. Everyone is raising babies, so they guard their food sources.

Will any of the above translate into more story ideas? I don’t know, but one thing I’m learning is anything that fills up the tank of my energy, creativity, or happiness is useful in some way. I spent too many years trying to just write without thinking about where the creativity comes from, or what feeds my muse, what feeds me. In the last year I’ve really looked hard at that, and one of the first things that sparked that excitement that is so necessary for an artist, or a scientist was ladybugs and irises. I remember squatting in the grass by a tree, pushing the grass aside and finding a cluster of ladybugs like bright red and black jewels, so shiny in the sun when I revealed their hiding place. There were purple bearded irises growing against the white picket fence. I stood and gazed up at them as they rose above me. It was the white picket fence and irises, that my grandmother had never mentioned to me that convinced her it was a real memory. We’d rented the house so briefly that she’d almost forgotten it herself, but it bothered her that I remembered it, almost scared her, because babies under two aren’t supposed to remember details like that. I don’t remember anything else about the house, but the wonder of those tall flowers, and the cluster of insects, that first sharp smell of ladybugs as I poked at them with my fingers, that remains. Flowers, insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, all of it can still fill me with wonder and joy. It still feeds a part of me that first toddled out into the sunshine to stare up at flowers taller than I was like some pre-school Alice in Wonderland. As an artist you need to find out what feeds your inner child, because a sense of wonder needs to be a permanent part of you as an artist. I know it’s cool to get jaded and world weary like Hemingway, or Fitzgerald, and Gods know that I can get weary of the world, but if I let it make me feel jaded I lose something I need to create. It harms something I inside me if I forget to admire the beauty and life around me. Think back to your earliest happy memory, what was it? What thrilled you as a child? Usually whatever that was is something you still need in your life. It will refresh your heart, cleanse your soul of that harshness that seems to gather. It will feed your muse.

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; –
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away . . .”

William Wordsworth (1710-1850)

Don’t give your heart away, you need it to create, to love, to be.

The picture is of me about the same age that I saw those irises and ladybugs. That may even be the same house. That’s my mother with me. She died when I was six, and she was twenty-nine.

How do I do it all?

I’ve gone through every picture that was in the boxes in the guest room. Decades of pictures. Some made me sad like ones from my first marriage where it’s obvious I’m head over heels for my first husband, because I know how it ended, and I looked so happy. I also prove again and again that I had not yet discovered the right hair care products for my curls. *laughs* But I found one picture that I thought I’d lost, or rather didn’t know I had, at all.

People are always asking me, how do you do it? Write books, have a career, how did I write 35 novels and one short story collection, and have both my book series be best selling series, and hit #1 on a regular basis? How do I have a husband who loves me, and who I’m crazy about, and successful poly relationships, plus a daughter, and a writing career? How do I do it all? Well, I found a picture that sort of answers the question.

That’s me writing in my office, in the first house I ever owned. Yes, that’s a very tiny, Trinity laying across my arms, as I type. Why was I holding her like that? Because she cried if I put her down, and I needed to write. The rhythm of my arms and hands moving soothed her. That was how I wrote a lot of the the fourth Anita Blake novel, Lunatic Cafe, with my newborn balanced across my arms, lulled to sleep as I typed. At three months she went across the street for two hours and I wrote furiously while she was at daycare.

Something about writing the latest Merry Gentry book, A Shiver of Light, made me ready to go through all those old memories. I think it was Merry having her own babies, that made me want to go through all my own photos. There’s something about mile stones, even fictional ones apparently, that make you look back, as well as forward. You get to meet Merry’s newborns on June 4, 2014 when A Shiver of Light is published. You can see my only newborn in this picture. I’m so glad that Trinity wasn’t a multiple, one was hard enough. *laughs* Of course, Merry has many more fathers to help her than I did. One mother and one father seemed outnumbered by one newborn. 🙂

How have I succeeded at so many things? I think this picture says, how I’ve done it, better than almost any other I’ve found. How do you accomplish great things? Be driven, be as determined as the woman in this picture, because I was committed, dedicated to succeed. I was obsessed! Writing isn’t my job, it’s my calling.

What’s Next for Anita Blake?

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?