Whooo Hooo!!!!

We're Number Four! We're Number Four!

The New York Times Best Seller List Came out yesterday and Seduced by Moonlight was #4!

Thanks to all the fans.

Me, again. First let me thank everyone that e-mailed, or wrote in, to let me know not to let some of the publicity get me down. Thanks.

Second, let's talk about the event in Huntington Beach, CA. It was wonderful, as always. Chara the manager always runs a very smooth ship. It's one of the reasons that we've been back to her store so many times. We saw a lot of familiar faces in the crowd. It's been about three, or four years of going about once a year, or more, to this same area, so we learned that some people's children had graduated from high school. Some fans had graduated from highschool, or moved, or were in college, or graduate school. Entire families of fans coming now that they're kids are old enough to read all the books. Some people are married, celebrating anneverseries. Sort of like old home week, in a way. I know that some of you in other areas of the country are frustrated that we never visit your part of the world, but honestly the publisher picks the areas we are to visit. Our input mostly consists of what store in that area from a list that we've been given to choose from. One, the store needs to have enough space to hold that many people. We average around two hundred people per event, but it's been over five hundred, and close to six before. That's more unusual, but it happens. That's a lot of people for a store to hold.

Since I lived in Los Angeles for about three years once upon a time, I'm usually not that impressed with the weather. I mean, one of the reasons I wanted to leave was I missed the seasonal changes. But it's been an unusually cold and presistent winter here in St. Louis, and for the first time when Jonathon and I got off the plane, 70 degrees and that nice gentle air felt wonderful. For the first time in my life I understood why people take vacations to warm places in the middle of winter. Normally, I like winter, but I think almost everyone east of the Mississippi has had a little too much of it this year. Heck, I guess everyone east of the rockies.

But it wasn't just the long winter that made L. A. seem more user friendly, it was that it was the beginning of tour, not the end. Usually we hit the west coast somewhere in the later part of a month long tour, and no city, no matter how lovely is lovely when you are two weeks or more into a plane a day, a city a day, and publicity all through it. My hat is off to all the actors and singers and comedians who do this kind of thing for months, or even years. All the performers who live more on the road than off, I do not know how you do it.

I begged off the big tour this time. Because it's not just the month you loose, but weeks before in preperation, and weeks after in recovery. My husband and I always manage to be a little ill when we get back. Plane air, or the change in climate, or just a bug, who knows, but it happens darn near every time.

I'd love to visit every part of the country, and out of the country, that wanted me to come. If teleportation really worked, it might even be possible, but I am not one of those people who can work on tour. A little, a few notes, but not pages, and pages is what I need. Because pages will finish a book and notes won'ts. I'm still not finished with INCUBUS DREAMS. Until I finish it I cannot begin the next Merry book.

I've reached the point I reach with every book, I just want it to be done. No matter how much I enjoy the characters and the world my deadline looms, and is now in the rearview mirror, and the book is still not done. I finally realized that I'd been interrupted so many times by one thing or the other, mostly business related, that I had to get the last hundred pages and reread it. I couldn't remember what we'd said, exactly what we'd done, so I had to back up. I hate doing that, because to me only pages count. Darla and Jonathon are both trying to get me to count the days when I make notes, or need to reread, or have to research, but it just isn't real to me. Pages are real, pages count. I have a page count. I do not have an idea count, or a research count, or a I-can't-remember-where-we-are count. But the gist of it all is this, about fifty pages need cut from the last hundred, because we repeat and wonder around too much.

You get Richard and Anita together and it gets wordy, or painful, or both. Add Jean-Claude and it takes time. But as I feared because I would go days without being able to write on the scene I had begun to repeat myself, or leave my outline further and further behind. So some major trimming and cut and paste to decide if this fact needs to stay, or this bit of dialogue, or if that is simply too cool to cut. Sometimes the really cool stuff gets cut anyway, but I mourn it more. Anything that makes me laugh outloud I try to keep in.

Some of the pages read incredibly well, and some of them, well, Jean-Claude got to say what I was thinking. "The two of you shall drive me to maddness." (is that shall drive, or will drive, I'll decide later.) His comment about Anita and Richard, and I whole-heartedly agree. But the three of them together on stage again was some of the funniest and most poignants moments yet, and that's in a book that's been pretty darn funny, and even more poignant. So it works, whether I agree with what we're doing or not. (yes, I know that whether implies a choice so technically you don't need to say, or not, but it always looks bare without it to me.)

As you can tell by my asides, I'm still thinking through grammar in this draft. If I really sweated grammar I could never do a blog entry again. I've got to get back to work, back to cutting and pasting, and whittling down this scene. I always have a scene in every book I've ever written that I call the-scene-that-would-not-die. It's usually in the later half of the book, or at least a hundred and fifty pages, or more, in, and it's a scene that just never seems to end. It usually averages between fifty and a hundred and fifty pages. At least half of it needs to be cut every damn time. Since I know that this happens every book, you'd think I'd get better at realizing that it is happening, thus preventing it, but there is something about that endless scene that is necessary for my process. Something shakes loose in all the stuff that needs trimming later, and the book usually goes along much faster and cleaner from that point on. I guess I can take courage from the fact that this is the scene, and once I've edited out some of the repitition and the stuff that needs to be saved for later books, the rest of the book should come faster, and go smoother. My, that is an encouraging thought, isn't it?

I'll stop blogging now and get to work before my brief spate of optomism fades. Late in a book, I'm always pesimistic. Don't worry, just part of the process for me. I'll cheer up about fifty to a hundred pages from the end, when everything is flying, and I get that writer's high, sort of like runner's high, but you don't have to get all sweaty to experience it. Bye, for now.

Hey everybody, it's me. First the event at the Schlafly Library here in St. Louis went well, despite the forecast of an ice storm. We got a about a hundred and fifeteen brave souls to challenge the weather and come out for my talk. Those that did come got to hear me read from the first chapter of SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT, the new Meredith Gentry book. And this group is the only group that will get to hear me read it. There were children in the audience, like ten and under. I remember now why I police the first chapter so that it has no words that aren't at least pg rated, and no situations that don't work for a group of all ages. Merry is harder to police in that way then Anita is, but I now remember why I try for the first chapter to be calmer. First, I came to a word that I wouldn't say infront of my daughter, so I won't say it infront of anyone else's children. It was used once in the entire chapter, but early on. I thought I'd changed it, but it didn't really matter because of something that was later in the chapter. There is no sex in the first chapter, but the situations are adult enough and suggestive enough that I was not comfortable reading it infront of the under ten crowd. So I just had to stop reading and explain to the audience why. They laughed and thought it was cute, or at least amusing. People are welcome to bring their children to events, but I think in writing the first chapter I'd been thinking more about how to begin the book and less that I'd be reading outloud in public. I forget such things at the price of my own discomfort.

The questions and answers went well. We were being filmed part of the time by LIVING ST. LOUIS, KETC Channel 9. I've finally gotten comfortable infront of a moving camera. Comfortable means you no longer get stiff when you know it's there. That you no longer worry more about the camera than what you're doing infront of it. That you be yourself. Okay, yourself plus about ten to twenty percent more. Don't ask me to explain the more, because I can't. But I know that infront of you guys as a group that I am a little shinier, a little more on, then in the privacy of my own home. I much prefer talking and interacting infront of an audience then those static camera interviews where there's just me and the interviewer, and the crew. I'm getting better even at those, but I don't know if I'll ever truly enjoy them. Not fearing them isn't the same as liking them. You're so at the mercy of whatever questions are being asked, and you rarely know ahead of time. I have started practicing answers to the more awkward questions so I don't get caught with no answer, or one that makes whatever they've asked worse.

I heard from Darla that we had a couple of people that took offense at my herd blog. Sorry about that. As Darla said in her own blog entry, the herd is great if that's where you're happy, but I've spent most of my life being told that I'm bad for not being comfortable in the herd. There was a long period in my life where I would have given almost anything to be a happy herd member, to fit in, anywhere. But you've got to be who and what you are whatever that means to you. Be the Zebra if that's who you are, or be the lion, or be the monkey. Be who you are, that's the big message. Be who you are, and don't let anyone make you feel bad for being the person that makes you happy, not even me, not even by accident.

I think one of the reasons that I did the herd blog, and some of the others recently is the publicity. It doesn't take long for me to grow tired of questions that imply or outright state that there is something weird or wrong with what I write, and how my mind works, and, mustn't forget, my morals. I mean I'm a woman that writes about sex and violence; there must be something wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm okay. But the seemingly constant questions that imply or outright state that there is something intrinsically wrong with sex, especially sex written by a woman, begins to get under my skin. I don't get mad, mad is for private, and interviews are business. But you'd be surprised at the number of interviews that imply that just thinking this darkly, this violently on paper means there must be something wrong with me. That it's a kind of sickness or perversity. Sickness, no, perversity, well, it depends on your definition. I've interviewed people that thought anything but missonary position (man on top) was perverse. I'm not making that up. Interviewers keep wanting to blame how my mind works on the death of my mother, the absent father, but I've been attracted to things that go bump in the night from my earliest clear memories. Scary stuff, flowers, and animals. Books followed when I was old enough to appreciate them. Okay, I guess truthfully the flowers, the animals, then scary stuff, then books. Yeah, those are the clear memories. I'm one of those people that has true memory from before I was two. True memory because no one in my family told a story I remembered, I went to my Grandmother and told her about remmbering purple bearded irises againts a fence. I was standing, looking up at the irises, and they were huge to me. My grandmother looked startled, then said, "You can't remember that. We lived in that house before you were two." It's my earlies memory, and I still remember the wonder of it.

I guess I'll leave you all with this. We never get too far from where we start. The things that bring us joy when we are very little, are often, the things that give us joy when we are all grown up. Remember your joy, don't let the world tell you that's it's wrong. Be the widebeast, be the elephant, be the gorilla, be the meerkat, be whatever you are. For those who found their herd early in life and loved it, my envy. There is still a part of me that wonders what it would be like to have been embraced by those around me and been loved for who I was, not merely tolerated and puzzled over.

Goodness, I don't think any blog has generated as much mail as the one on being part of a herd. First we heard from those who are not a part of a herd, or a part of the wrong herd would be more accurate. Now we are hearing from those who are herd members and resent the implications. So let me be a bit more clear.

Nothing wrong with being part of the herd as long as that is where you belong and you want to be a part of it. It is when we try to pretend to belong and struggle to fit, or the herd tells you you should and it is not you or your place, that it is wrong. I suspect the herd is actually far smaller than it appears. Too many folks spend their lives unhappy trying to be a part of a herd because they think they should. If what your doing is causing no harm, then be yourself. If that means running with the herd, wonderful! But if it is causing you pain then split off and find the group you should be with. Life is too short to spend it unhappy or pretending to be whom you are not.

The majority of a herd, is content. They are happy to be there, happy to have those around who are just like them. Safety in numbers and all that. And that is a good thing, to feel safe and happy. But for every herd, there is a small number who probably don't really belong to that herd. They are unhappy (I suspect they are in the herd because they think they should be, not because they want to be) and use that unhappiness to try and hurt others. That is wrong. If someone is not hurting anyone else, then they should be left to follow their own path. Not made to feel guilty, or wrong in some fashion for not sharing the herds ideas and values.

That was the point. If your trapped in a herd then life is truly miserable. If your spouting the herd line and using it to batter others, that is really wrong. People need to realize that it is okay to be different. Different doesn't mean wrong or bad necessarily.

The truly scary ones are the herd leaders who play on the fears of those in their herd and encourage them to harm others because they are different. In the movie The American President, the last few minutes the president is giving a speech, and he talks about how you win elections. By telling people that others are responsible for their unhappiness. You point a finger at those who do not share the herds ideals and tell them you would be happy if it weren't for those people, over there. Them, it is there fault. Life would be better if those people would disappear or join the herd.

The fact is it is not true. Nor would life be nearly so interesting if they did. Diversity is a part of who we are. Sameness is an illusion. We feel safer if we think we know what the rest of the world is doing. If we think they are just like us. Well, not everyone shares the same ideals, not everyone wears the same clothes, spouts the same lines or follows the same religion. Different doesn't mean wrong. It really doesn't. Too long that has been used by those who are want to be a power, petty people with delusions, frightened people who fear others. So they convince the herd that the those outside it are somehow to blame. It leads to fear and hatred and violence. And it is so unneccessary.

Is there anyone who wasn't looked down on by another group in school? Who wasn't made to feel less in some ways because they didn't fit some other groups ideals of what they should be? Wasn't bullied or picked on, made fun of for being different? It is the whole problem magnified. You think as adults it would disappear, but it doesn't.

Herds are fine. Just find the one you belong too. Find the one that makes you feel good about who you are and doesn't feel the need to make others feel like less because they are different, one that doesn't believe in harming others for not being members. Find your herd. Find yourself. Be proud of who you are. And when you run across a member of another herd, try smiling at them. You might be surprised to find you have more in common than you think.

On the road again... just happen to be on the road again... not making music, not seeing friends, I just happen to be on the road again.

sorry, had a moment, It's past.

We're here in LA in preparation for the second event for Seduced by Moonlight, a signing at the Huntington Beach Barnes & Noble. We're looking forward to the event, and seeing everyone from the LA area out there.

Going to run and rest.

I've spent the last week planning a fight. THE FIGHT. The fight where Anita and Richard finally say everything there is to say, and she walks out. I've spent the last week doing pub for SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT, and dealing with bouts of illness in the family. I'm never at my best when I can't immerse myself in the current book, but leaving it where I had to leave it, was just crappy. I avoided it for a solid week, partly because I truly had no real time, but also because I was dreading the fight. I've reread the chapter presiding, to get back into the flow, and to my great surprise, I don't think we're going to have a fight. I said in an earlier blog that Richard is that part of me that didn't want to be who and what I was. That part that wanted to be 'normal' ordinary, whatever that means. I thought I'd come to terms with that part of me, and that Richard was the last remnants of it. But I realized that I don't hate Richard because of Richard, I hate Richard because he's a piece of myself that I still hate. How weird is it to hate the part of you that makes you hate yourself? Hating the hatred. I hate how he treats Anita and himself. But most of all I hate being reminded of that part of me.

I haven't truly embraced all of me. There are still parts that I hate, or am afraid of. Dealing with Richard reminds me that I still have work to do inside me. God, I hate this ongoing process of self-discovery. When does it end? When do you get done? When do you run out of shit to shovel? Never is what it feels like.

I'm fighting with myself. Don't you hate that? I know I do.

How do you embrace yourself when most of your life you've been taught that what you are, and what you want, and what you're good at, is wrong, even evil? How do you shake a lifetime of negativity? How do you let it go? A piece at a time. One small, bloody, painful piece at a time. Let it go, and feel how much lighter you feel. Let it go, and know that there's a reason that you are the way you are. There's has to be a reason, or all is madness.

I believe that the universe is an orderly place, and thus it can't all be madness.