Music

Thanks to everyone for all the music suggestions. Darla told me that she's had quite a few suggestions and that they are a very, varied group of suggestions. Sometime this week she'll forward them to Jon, and he'll go through them, and discuss them with me. His taste in music has always been eclectic, and he's more likely to know who everyone is talking about. When Jon and I were dating, turning on the CD player in his truck was always an interesting experience. I never knew if I was going to get the original Andrew Sisters, or black death metal. This actually happened, no exaggerating from one date to the next. I told him to give a girl a little warning next time and he did.

We did go music shopping over the weekend. Right now I'm listening to the sound track for THE PUNISHER. I've also picked up Seether's Disclaimer II, Fuel's Natural Selection, Type O Negative's October Rust, and My Chemical Romance's Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (I don't know if I'll actually write to Chemical Romance, but it's a very fun album. The video for their song "I'm not Okay, I promise" is wonderful. And the song holds up without the visuals, which is not always the case.)

I wrote most of the early part of the Micah story to Revis's Places for Breathing. Very good album. Gets better the more I listen to it. But I listened to it during the sex scene, and now I'm raising zombies. A very different mood. So different, that I had to put the Revis away until we get back to the interpersonal stuff. I may try the new Tori Amos The Beekeeper, which I wrote a lot of the story to, until I had to do the sex scene, then I needed to change again. The Beekeeper will stay with the play list for this story and the book itself, that I'm sure of, but it's like I'm needed more specific music for different moods. What do you listen to for raising the dead? Try going into a music store and asking that of the clerk. No, don't really do it, they get really weirded out.

Penguin mugs and imaginary friends

I know I'm in the groove today, because . . . I was searching in the cabinet today for the mug I wanted to drink tea out of. I couldn't find it. I finally asked Jon and Darla to help me find it, then I realized something. I was searching for my baby penguin mug. I don't have a baby penguin mug. Anita has a baby penguin mug. I was searching for my character's favorite mug, not mine. She collects penguins, I don't. Moments like this used to creep me out, but no longer. I take it as a good sign. The novellette is going very well, and will be done soon. I am having a great time, and eager to finish, and just as eager to get back to working on the main book.

Good news all around. Gotta go.

Music for Micah

Driving myself nuts trying to find music to write to today. I'm actually doing a novelette where Micah and Anita go out of town. I need to know more about Micah, and one of the ways I've always done that is to throw the main character and the character I'm having trouble with into a situation and see what happens. Micah only came on the scene in book ten, and by that time there was so much back story with the other guys, that sometimes I feel like he just hasn't had enough time on stage. But, as with Richard, he doesn't talk directly to me. So I have to sort of coax him. Nathaniel used to also be difficult for me, but after last book INCUBUS DREAMS, this is no longer true. I created a disc (or rather Jonathon did) of music to help me when writing Nathaniel scenes. Now I'm looking for one to help with Micah scenes. But so far, its sort of a bust. I mean I've got some that are ball parking, but not a home run. I think part of the problem is that it's also a sex scene today, and those can be difficult. I mean, how do you describe on paper something that is so tied to the senses? How to paint with only black letters on white paper something that needs to be in rainbow technicolor? I always struggle to do literary sex justice. To make it as real as possible on paper. And, I'm also, oddly, carrying the torch for the men. I'm their only voice to do a good job in bed, so there's always a little performance pressure to make sure that all the men get a fair chance to be great in bed.

Gotta go. Where did I put that Revis CD?

Home?

Went home to visit family last weekend. For all of you who think a visit back home is a grand thing, congrats. Do you see yourself in the people who raised you? Do you talk to them and hear echoes of who you are, and who you were? Or do you look around at the people who raised you and realize that they never knew or understood you, nor you them. That you were always a stranger in a strange land, and time has not changed that.

My visit to my childhood home has left me not knowing what to write here. Not knowing what to share, and what to leave out, so I've written nothing. I know it's popular these days to share every ounce of your life with everyone. But I don't buy it. Somethings are private, and are meant to be private. So until I can decide what's private and what's okay to be public, we'll just leave it alone.

A few days away

We're back from our mini-vacation. Four days in Florida. Jonathon and I realized we had only a few days before the next book would need to be started, or real life would interfere. So away we went.

It was colder in Florida than it was here in St. Louis while we were gone. We were very glad we'd dressed in layers to get us to the airport, because we wore all those layers while in Florida. The biggest selling item of clothes there was sweatshirts, because everyone else had bought only shorts. We saw some very cold looking tourists. One day was rainy and cold. That cold autumnal rain that just seems to chill you to the bone. Jonathon and I felt quite cheated. We'd gone away to get warm and relax by the surf. Instead, we bundled up and watched the waves through the windows, because most of the time it was too cold to want to linger by the water. We did a lot of walking though, and that was good. Using the pedometers we discovered that I have to do more steps to keep up with Jonathon's longer stride. But then why should he be different from most of the people on the planet. For my size I have a very long, commanding stride, because I've spent most of my life with people who had longer legs, and bigger natural strides. I don't even notice it anymore. But the technology does not lie.

We've decided that sometime in the next two years we must scout around for a truly tropical place to do our long weekends away. Some place where it will be warm no matter when we go. The cold made it harder to lounge outside and read a book. No, impossible. We didn't lounge much of anywhere but in the room. We did eat at some great restaurants. We did sleep in late. We did have room service. We did get to spend some grown-up time that was way over-due. But we did miss the warm weather.

Forgive the one or two words that the spell checker and I are arguing over. You can either have a new blog today, or a perfectly spelled one. Not both. Sorry about that, but if we're to make lunch on time so I can get back and make more pages on the next Anita book (which I have started) I must stay on track time wise.