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This is supposed to be a journal about the writing of the twelth Anita Blake novel. But, of course, it will be about other things, too. Journals always are. Journal comes from the same root word as journey. This journal will be about the journey from the blank computer screen to several hundred pages of finished book.
Of course, I’m cheating already, because the moment for Anita 12 to be blank screen was over a year ago, maybe more. I finished CERULEAN SINS, as in typed THE END, and opened up a new computer file. In that new file, full of nothing but blank whiteness like being lost in a blizzard, snow blind, I wrote words. The begining of the twelth book. Sometimes I keep the beginning almost intact, but often it is thrown away later, when the rest of the book is written.
I often rewrite the very beginning, last. Because a beginning is almost the most important part of a book. Why? Watch people in a book store. Watch how they browse. They open the book. They read the beginning. Sometimes they open to the middle and read, just to see if the beginning matches the rest of the book. The beginning of a book is like a promise to a reader. A promise that this is what the book is about, and that you won’t bait and switch on them later. Your beginning sells your book, and, they say, that the end of your book sells the next one. Maybe.
I actually have to go make pages on the book now. Talk to everyone later.