I apologize ahead of time. This entry is pretty much going to be a rant, so I apologize now. But I'm still going to rant.

My daughter's school has a wonderful program where they adopt a family. Each class adopts a different family, but there is a giving tree with gifts listed for everybody's families. You donate food and household goods to specific family per room, but clothing items are just all on the tree. Such a good idea, right? Right.

I went today to pick an ornament off the tree, because I think it is a great idea. There was a woman there to do the same thing. We were standing there reading the different gifts requests, when she said, "Size twenty, isn't that sad?" I said, "No, why?" Her point was that a size twenty listed for a girl was sad. My point was that it wasn't sad. I informed her that the average size for women in this country from about age 15 to death is size fourteen. Size fourteen is average. Not size 4, or 3, but 14. The woman presisted in her saddness for this poor girl who was a size twenty. I pointed out that maybe she was tall, because I wasn't making my point any other way. The woman, who was shorter than I was, conceeded that that might be true.

What is wrong with women in this country? We're supposed to be ashamed if we're over a certain size? Why? If you're healthy, and it's not impacting your body in a negative way, embrace your size, whatever it is. When I was growing up if you were below a size 5, you had to shop in the children's section, because women weren't that small. What the hell is a size 0, anyway? I mean, doesn't 0 mean nothing? Is that the message that fashion in this country is going for, that women must be nothing to be perfect? Is that the message they want us to take? And if we aren't a size 0, aren't nothing, if we have substance and hips and breasts, then we are ugly, someting to be pitied?

There are girl's as young as eight and nine in this country right now in treatment for anarexia. I've been to birthday parties where most of the girl children refused cake. Only the girls, a bunch of eight-year-olds refusing cake. Now here's the real kicker for you moms and dads out there. You can talk healthy to your kids all you want, but if they see you on diets, hear you talk about your body in a negative way, then that's where they get their self-image.

When my daughter, Trinity, was only two or so, I was standing in front of the mirror in hose and panties and bra. I looked in the mirror and said outloud, "My thighs are fat." (Actually, they weren't. I think my thighs are fat at 106, or 140, weight has nothing to do with how I feel about my thighs.) But I said it outloud, and walked away. My daughter, the toddler walked up to the mirror and looked at her own legs, and I watched her look at her body, and frown. I vowed in that moment that no matter how I felt about my body that I would never say another negative thing about it, in front of my daughter, and I've kept that vow. When she was eight, she asked me, "Mommy, what's a diet?" Because girls in her class were talking about it. She has sat at resturants and told the waiter, "No diet soda, diet is a four letter word, and it's bad for you." I was so proud. She has an abosolutely wonderful body image. I'm hoping that my attitude will see her through high school and college in health and happiness.

So all you women out there, love yourselves. It's almost never men who complain about size on women. Men like curves. Love yourselves so our children will learn to love themselves, instead of learning to hate themselves. Though, to be fair, one of the fastest growing groups suffering from eating disorders is colleg age men. So don't just assume that it's just a girl problem. I'd hoped equality meant we'd share the best of eachother but women are dieing of heart attacks at an every growing rate, and men are now suffering from eating disorders. Let's share the best of what it means to be male and female, not the worst. Love the body you're in, and remember that little ears are listening, little eyes watching. Love who you are, not who you're going to be ten pounds from now. There, that's my rant. Gotta go.

I see that Darla has handled talking about the wonderful event at Misouri Center for the Book Festival. I'll just say thanks to everyone that was there, and everyone who worked to make it happen. A special hey to Mark Tiedemann who if he hadn't asked me as a friend, I would have passed. I had a bad experience once at a library talk years ago. It put me off them, almost permently, but Saturday went smoothly, so maybe libraries are safe once more. Thanks to our security Officer Jack for making sure of that.

I do have to say how amazed I am that people will drive, and fly from such distances, just to see me. I don't think there's anyone on the planet I would do that for. Nobody living anyway. If I start listing all the people who made such an effort to get to the signing, talk, reading, I'll never get done, so back to business.

I tried listening to non Christmas music on Friday. Tori Amos's new album, Scarlet's Walk. Early in the book, this was the album, but I'm still not ready to leave Christmas land. I got no pages worth keeping on Friday. Saturday was all about getting ready for the talk and signing. We managed to sign the last book as the library was closing at 6:00. We got dinner with Jack and Darla, and went home to rescue the puppies. Pippin, the new puppy, had not messed his crate. The two pugs, who are all grown-up, had. Weird. So Saturaday was wonderful, but no time to write. This is one of the reasons I take so few offers to speak. I mean, if I don't get the books written, nothing else really matters, right?

Which brings us to Sunday. We slept in as late as the dogs would allow, or could stand, then grabbed lunch with our friend Richard. (No, he has nothing to do with the Richard in the books. I didn't even meet him until much later. And no, they look nothing alike.) By afternoon my plans to work and for us to catch a latish movie were a bust. I was taken ill. Funny, I felt fine earlier in the day. So Sunday was a complete bust where work was concerned. It just turned into a very unpleasant day.

That brings us to today, Monday. I'm not completely over whatever hit me Sunday. I mean up and moving, but just not quite feeling my best. But not feeling so badly that I can use it as an exscuse to avoid writing for the day. The problem as I mentioned in a blog entry earlier is that even a day away and the heat begins to fade out of my creative fire. I've now had three days away. The book just sits there and stares back at me. A cold book always seems sort of sullen, as if it won't give up its secrets easily. You have to fight for it now. Before it was coming like water out of the proverbial cleft rock. Now, it's time to dig into that rock, and hunt for the water that I know is in there. But it won't come easy.

I am listening to the Carol of the Bells CD my husband, Jon, made me. It helps. Though frankly I may have to send him out to find thirty different versions of GOOD KING WENCESLAS to put on a CD next. Even Carol of the Bells is beginning to wear thin. Or maybe DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH, or WE SAW THREE SHIPS A SAILING, something, anything. I'll dig through the Christmas albums and see what I can find. I've even got a YANKEE candle burning in my office. The scent? Christmas Wreath, of course. At the rate I'm going I'll be trying to stay in a Christmas state of mind through the acutal holiday and beyond. I hope not. I really hope not. Gotta go try and make pages.

Hi everyone! Well it is the day after the Center For The Book Festival. First, thanks to everyone who came out. You made it the best event they ever had. Thanks also to Mark Tiedemann (excellent author by the way who donated some books for our upcoming Christmas Charity Auction) for inviting Laurell and coordinating the event. Everything went very smoothly. Thanks to Jack the security guy also for being so attentive. Thanks to the staff at Schlafly for all their hard work too! You all were really wonderful.

We still don't know what was up with the lights. Twice we ended up in the dark for a few moments. I think the first time someone leaned on the light switch. But that happens when you end up with Standing Room Only crowd. We will see about having more chairs in February. Yes, the signing will be in the same place. So look for that February 5th.

Many thanks to those who traveled a distance to attend! We had folks from L.A. (a young lady and her father who were here to celebrate her 16th Birthday. This was the gift she chose.), San Francisco, Boston, New York (and you ladies drove down too!), Memphis and Indiana. Or at least those are the ones I remember.

We would also like to thank the staff from Left Bank Books. You were wonderful, and next time bring more books. :) It was practically a sell out from their table. They did take some signed books back to the store to sell also. So you can contact them if you want a signed book for a gift. They are in St. Louis on Euclid Ave. Look in the online Yellow Pages for St. Louis. Try Yahoo, I know it is listed there.

The event went very well from our perspective also. Laurell read the first four chapters of the next Anita book (still untitled) and it got a excellent reception from the crowd. Then she talked a bit and answered questions. We did have it taped and I will be working with our videographers (thanks Dwayne and Vicki) to get it put into a workable format. Details to follow on that one. Also thanks Jason and Nadine for helping pass out magnets and door prize tickets. Shame on those of you who ducked out before we gave away the prizes. We averaged three draws per ticket before we found our winners! So see what you missed! But you made the others very happy.

Don't really want to hand out spoilers here on the book. There are some on the message board for those who cannot wait.

For me personally it was wonderful to meet so many of you that I know from the boards or emails. Nice to have a face to put with a name. Paula, your letters always crack me up, Mei Ling - I will keep a happy thought for you. So many swirling in my head right now and I know I am forgeting people. Sorry!

So thanks again to everyone. We look forward to seeing you all in February.

Darla

Okay, so we're finally over three hundred pages in. Great, yea!, whoopee! Of course for almost the last two hundred of that three hundred pages we've been off the outline. That means that nearly two hundred pages of this book is already new stuff. Not stuff I've budgeted for time wise, but extra goodies that needed to happen before we could get moving back onto the outline. I'd estimated that the outline would be about five hundred to six hundred pages, now add two hundred extra on. Eight hundred pages. That is a long damn book. It's also thrown my time table off, of course. I've been trying to organize us like an office, but books aren't like widgets, or tables, or cars. You don't set out the plans for a car and end up with an extra steering wheel because you needed it to make the car go. You don't end up making the table legs 50% longer, because the table just doesn't work without. A book is like nothing else I'm aware of. The two hundred unplanned pages are good pages, necessary pages, and remind me all over again why we hadn't been seeing much of Richard or Ronnie in awhile. It takes pages to let Richard and Anita argue, or do anything else. It takes pages to have Ronnie and Anita have girl talk, long over due, I might add. It takes pages for Damian's back-story, which we've gotten a lot more of this book than I'd planned, but I've learned not to argue with my subconscious on how much to put in this book, because every time I put my foot down, and say no, we don't need it, I end up having to put it back in before the book can be finished. My subconscious often knows more of what is going on than I do.

Nathaniel has made himself a major player this book. Which surpirsed both Anita and me. Looking back I realize that it shouldn't have, because what has Anita been forcing him to do for books and books? Be more independent, think for yourself, don't be so submissive. What she and I forgot was that independent people can argue with us, and make demands on time, plot, and energy. He's doing exactly what Anita wanted him to do, just not at all in the way she wanted him to do it.

I'm finally back in my outline, and have been for a chapter. We got Bert on stage and he and Anita still have that nice bickering chemistry. No one is really as fun to fight with as Bert. We also finally get a brief mention of Bert's girlfriend, Lanna. She's an interior designer who has painted the offices a nice homey, warm, browns, oranges, deep yellows. So that the clients will feel more loved. Anita has informed her that it's not her job to love her clients, and never to touch her office again. Lana has been alive on paper, in notes, for several years. I knew she exisisted about two or three books ago, but this is the first time she's even gotten a mention. Funny how that works.

I'm still listening to Christmas music. No matter how many pages I'm doing a day, I know until the Christmas music gets retired I'm not really over the hump. Oh, well.

(The puppy just peed in the floor. Did I mention we have a new dog? His name is Pippin, Pip, and he's wonderful, but he's not housebroken yet, and he has taken a postive shine to my office floor. I had three dogs, why did I want four? Insanity, temporary insanity, is all I can plead. Jon has come to fetch the puppy and run him downstairs and outside, while I clean up the mess. Ah, the glamourous life of a writer.)

A book is like a fire, at least for me. There comes a point when it gets white hot, and if you feed it fuel it will stay and grow. But if you neglect it, it begins to die down from lack of fuel. Fuel for me and my books is pages. I've tried to organize us like an office where regular business gets done, but the book itself is not business as usual. The rest, yes, we can delegate and organize, but the book, the book needs attention. I've reached that point where at least a few pages must come out every day or the fire begins to die. I used to think I was a work aholohic, but I'm not, not really. I'd much rather be visiting with my daughter, or my husband, or my dogs (well sort of my dogs, when they're not peeing on the floor), but I also do not want to go back to crippling along at two or four pages a day. I am blessed that when I'm in the groove, the zone, the whatever, that over ten pages a day is average. Most writers can't keep that kind of schedule up, and at the beginning of the book neither can I, but somewhere in the middle of the book. Middle has only a little to do with actually page middle, it's more the middle of the plot. For an Anita book we've got to have had at least one murder scene, and some sort of interaction with whichever monster is going to take precedence in the book. Not always, but those are good indicators. So I'm in the middle, sort of, and it's at that blazing heat. But that heat means even one day off and I've lost it. The fire dies to ashes and it's like starting over almost. It feels wonderful when the book is like this. It flows and I can do in two hours what usually takes me eight, or more. But the pages need to come no matter how you feel physically, or what's happening in your life, like new puppies, or homework. So I'm off to do the first scene between Anita and some of Animators Inc. 's clients. I've got another tenetative scene with another group of clients, but I'm beginning to get the feeling that it'll have to wait for another book. One client meeting, references to the rest but not on stage, then drop Nathaniel at work. Did I mention he's sitting out in the waiting room while Anita sees clients? I didn't, oh, sorry. He is. He's staying close just in case, because Micah spent all night babysitting a new werewolf and trying to make sure said werewolf didn't shift and eat his girlfriend and her child. Why is Nathaniel near by just in case what, or why? Hmm. Should I share? Should I be sadistic and just leave it at hints? Hmmm. Let's just say that Anita is learning to control the arduer better, but if something goes horribly wrong at work, we don't want to be left without choices. The plan is we'll actually get through the day without a problem, but Anita doesn't know that, and neither do I, not for sure. But that's the plan.

Drop Nathaniel off at Guilty Pleasures, and off to raise the dead for Anita. Probably another murder tonight, but again, not a hundred percent sure. Tonight, or tomorrow night at the latest. The book is talking to me. It's time to go make pages. Bye for now.

Happy St. Marcel of Paris Day. He is the saint to be invoked in case of vampire attack. Honest. Some of the coolest stuff I don't have to make up, because it's just the truth. Unfortunately for St. Marcel of Paris (You've got to add the Paris part because there are several St. Marcels) he also shares the day with the Feast of All Saints. I mean how cheap is that, that he has to share his one special day with everybody else. Anyway, I am finally over the two hundred page mark, and happy with it. Finally.

I am still listening to Christmas music, in fact my husband (tech wizard that he is) has made me an mp3, or maybe a cd, he'd have to explain the difference to you, of about thirty different versions of CAROL OF THE BELLS. The near franticness of the carol just seemed to fit my mood when I was stuck in character depression hell. We've moved past that, all my imaginary friends are feeling better, or at least coping better. Which makes me feel better. Funny, that. Though better, for the forseable future it will be Christmas music. I'm bouncing between two different Mormon Tabernacle Choir albums and the cd my husband made for me with CAROL OF THE BELLS. Until I stop listening to Christmas music, I won't really be doing well with the book. Christmas music means that it is still slow, and I still need that emotional comfort. Ah, well.

By the way, did you know that CAROL OF THE BELLS is originally a Ukranian New Year's Day song. Not a Christmas carol at all when it began.

Well, I need to get back to making pages on the book, so I'm off for now. Happy St. Marcel's Day, happy All Saints Day, and for those of you who are Wiccan, happy new year. If there are any holidays I've missed, e-mail the fan club and let me know. Bye for now.