Sex Scenes

I did eight pages this morning on Merry, but the chapter ended so that the next chapter begins, or is entirely, a sex scene. I've learned through hard experience never to end the day's work where the first thing in the morning I'm facing a sex scene. I have no idea what mood I'll be in come morning. Maybe I'll be thinking about sex, maybe I won't. But I certainly won't be thinking about it by the time we have breakfast, get the kiddo off to school, take care of the dogs. Pippin has got to have a longer walk, or he's going to start eating some of the other dogs. By the time all that is done, the odds of being in a sexy mood is sort of small. So I've learned some insurance. Insurance in this case is doing at least a few sentences of the sex scene, or preferably a few paragraphs. Just enough to get through the foreplay, or to have the actual sex, whatever it's going to be, in progress. I find it much easier to write a sex scene if I've left the choreography in mid-dance, so to speak, then having to come up with the entire routine cold. So I'm back to Merry, and trying to drag a few sentences more out of myself today. Frankly, the eight pages tired me out, and if I hadn't left off with sex as the next thing on the list I'd be done for the day. I'm tired, but tomorrow morning when I sit down to write I'll be happy I made myself start the scene. So, a quick writing tip, and I'm back to it.

Long term loves

This was a blog I wrote Monday, or late Sunday. Meant to put it up, but just didn't manage it. So here it is.

I remember now why I need to write Merry every day with no stops. Because Merry is like a lover, that you still love, but not as much as the husband that has your heart and soul in their eyes. Every book makes me love Merry and her world more, but no fresh love can compare with a relationship of a decade. Not when that relationship has met my needs so completely as writing Anita does. I am not one of those people who thinks that first dates, the beginning of a relationship, is the best part. I dated when I wanted to, but I find those first fumblings to be sort of boring compared to the relationship after it's been tended, after it's had a few hard knocks, and it still works. Nothing excites me as much as a long term love. Merry is still new to me, and thus, she's like a new lover. You still don't know each other completely. You still have those awkward moments, that it takes years to work smooth. Maybe by the time I hit book eight with Merry, it will be like it was when Anita and I hit BLUE MOON, her book eight. That was the point when I totally fell in love with Anita and her world. I've found the other landmarks of series building have been true between the two series. Book four was magically, the book that I finally felt comfortable in the world. The book where the characters talked to me more freely. Book six for Anita was a turning point for the series, and the character, but if Merry has a turning point in book six, it will have to be a very different turning point. It will be interesting to find out.

But now, it is book five. Not quite the magic number of six for me, and four is past. The world is working, but the characters do not capture me as much as Anita and her crew. It's the difference between five years and fourteen. So much learned about each other, so much shared. Merry is still finding her way, and I with her. I made the mistake yesterday of listening to Anita's background music when I exercised on the treadmill. Of course, I got the first copy of MICAH, hot off the presses, and I found myself reading it, and reading the first chapter of DANSE MACABRE that's in the end of it. The book reads well, I got caught up in it. But it was a mistake to read so much Anita, to think so much Anita yesterday. Today I got up thinking about book fourteen, not book five. When I sat down to work, it was Anita who spoke to me, not Merry. I thought, what harm could it do? I could just get the notes down. Yeah, right. Who was I fooling? So, I made myself stop, and reread the plot outline for this chapter of Merry. Even if I make only a few sentences today, it will make tomorrows work day easier. Some progress, before Anita's world rears back up and overwhelms me. I am not easily turned by a new face. I usually prefer the old. Old friends, long term loves. Heck, I have a pair of jeans that are about as old as my daughter. They are so soft, so wearable. They are so not in style. They don't even look good anymore, but I love them. I love the way they feel. Sadly, there's a hole along the thigh seam, which means I only wear them sparingly, because one wash day, they will be gone. I've delayed long enough, back to the fight scene. If it was an Anita fight scene I'd know what do, and how to do it, but Merry in a fight scene still puzzles me. I'm outta here.

I got six pages done. Cool. It reads well. It's writing well. I just need to keep my head down, my blinders on, and keep concentrating on this book until it's done.

Happy Year of the Dog

I opened up, had a lovely idea for a blog, and now I can't remember what the heck it was. I think that's a sign that my blood sugar's falling, and I need lunch, and also that I should get some pages done before the blog. Didn't I just say that yesterday? Happy Lunar New Year! It's the year of the dog, which Trin is thrilled about because it's her Chinese Zodiac sign. Some of our friends would say it's always the year of the dog at our house. Hard to argue that, since we have four dogs. I'm outta here to find food and get some progress made.

What are weekends for anyway?

I feel I have to apologize for not having given an entry for awhile, but strangely, I find, sometimes, that writing the blog feels like writing to me. Which means that some days writing the blog seems to take the edge off that compulsion I feel to write. So, instead of doing the blog first thing before I write on the book, I started writing the book first. I did four pages, eight pages, twenty pages, thirty-one pages, nine pages. Merry 5 is over two hundred pages, and moving very nicely. Yea! I'm not a hundred percent certain that the blog is the problem. Maybe the book just needed to reach a certain point to take off. But the blog entries may be fewer and further between, and definitely the blogs will be at the end of the day and not the beginning. Book first, then blog. So now that all the explaining is over, on with the blog.

It's Saturday, the weekend, but I got up determined to Do Things! Jon and I were going to do the big workout, because we missed it on Thursday. I was going to work, a little go keep the momentum going on the book. Homework for Trinity. And, if time, a movie. It turned out Trin finished her homework at Grandma Mary's, except for reading. We finished breakfast, and I was ready to work. Jon and Trin wanted to watch the newest Mythbusters, where they revisit the Archimedes Death Ray. We'd Tivoed the show from Wednesday night. I said, "I'm not sure it's a good use of time for us today." Jon said, "It's the weekend. The weekend isn't about a good use of time." Strangely, I couldn't argue with him. We ended up sitting on the couch, all three of us, plus the four dogs, and watching Mythbusters. It was a big, warm, comforting pile of family and puppies. The show was fun, as always, and it was special time that we got to spend with our daughter. Somewhere while she was snuggled up against me, so happy, I realized that maybe, just maybe, Jon is right. Maybe the weekend isn't about a good 'use' of time. Maybe it's just about a good time. Having said that, Jon and I did exercise. So that was accomplished. But I have yet to work. Yeah, maybe I've earned a day off, but . . . I don't do day's off very well. It just seems to make me more tense later. So on one hand, it's been a good day, and on the other hand, I'm all up tight about not working. I know from experience that sometimes even a day off without progress can impede the flow of a book. So, it's not a fear without foundation. But I also know that it's 6:00 on a Saturday night and my chances of working are nil and nothing. We're prepping for dinner. Part of me is wondering if I'd feel better if I did steal away to my office for a few minutes. I finally realized that my writing is my time alone time, my me time. My work is stressful and deadlines are a bitch, but it is my alone time, and I value it. Other people watch soap operas, or collect stamps, or ski down mountains; I write. I finally realized that my job that started out as my hobby is still my hobby. Nice to know.

A note before bed time

No pages today. Jon and I exercised with Keath, as did Darla and Mary. Again, in the afternoon my fever came back up. I thought I was better. I'm beginning to think it's that whole not resting enough. Maybe. Me, push myself, never. Trinity is doing remarkably well. I can hear her singing in the other room. When I finish this it's off to read a chapter of Nancy Drew. I'd like to say the morning will be productive but our contractor has finally told us that we must pick out the rest of the lights and plumbing stuff. Must. So tomorrow morning instead of writing I've got to do that. We were going to do it this afternoon, but Mary was delayed, and I had to pick up Trinity from school. But dance class was a no, her jaw hurt, and we had three tests to study for, for Friday. We were all tired. Jon is under the weather, too. It was nearly seventy today, and tomorrow will be around forty. No wonder we're all sick. Such weird weather.

Two blogs in one day, it must be the fever

It's official, not just allergies, but a low grade fever. I'm still on antibiotics from the sinus and middle ear infection, so it must be something viral. Great. I had two pages done, half way to the four page goal when Mary brought Trinity home from her dentist appointment. Trinity had found a bump on her gum and wanted her dentist to see it. It didn't look like much to me, but I told her to tell her dentist. She did, and good that she did. The tiny bump was an abscessed tooth. Eek! The tooth had to be pulled. Once I heard what had happened that was it for work for the rest of the day. I sat on the couch with the kiddo and watched Danger Mouse. She loves the show. Mary says she was very brave, and that the tooth fairy should give extra for this one. Grandma said this in front of the kiddo, but Trinity has informed us that she wants us to tell the tooth fairy that he doesn't need to stop by, because she wants to keep the tooth. It's a whopper, with a whopping good story to go with it. When Jon went to pick up her medicine for pain, he also got a get-well card and a little Valentine's day toy puppy. She wants to take card, puppy, and tooth to school for some impromptu show and tell.

Unfortunately, among all the other unfortunate stuff is that there's a math test tomorrow. Frankly, I'm such a wimp about the dentist that she could have charmed me into just saying no going to school tomorrow, but cooler heads have prevailed. I'm not even going to tell her, let's wait and see how you feel. I know how she'll feel if she thinks she has an option. She was stuck on part of her work sheet, and Jon asked her, "What have you been doing a lot of in math lately?" Trinity thought for a moment, then said, "Whining."

I laughed out loud, completely lost it, and with the laughter all my parental authority went bye-bye. I had to leave Jon to manage the homework while I got my giggling under control. I got myself under control and sat back down with them, but truthfully on the math he's much better at explaining it than I am.

I hear the kiddo. I'm going to go read with her. We're doing Nancy Drew: The Thirteenth Pearl. I've taken something for the fever. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Morning was a bust

I woke up feeling less than my best today. I just thought my allergies were acting up, and maybe they were. But sometime this morning I sat at the island in the kitchen, and laid my head down on the computer there. Like laid my cheek down firm and closed my eyes. I continued to talk to everyone, then realized that it felt so good to just lie down and close my eyes. It was not a normally comfortable position, but it was the closest I'd allowed myself to resting. I said, with my head still pressed to the computer, "I think I have to embrace the fact that I don't feel well, because this feels really comfortable." Everyone thought that was pretty funny, because they'd all figured out long ago that I wasn't feeling well. Admittedly, my allergies are severe enough that many mornings are full of nausea, and other vague flu-like symptoms. Then sometime after lunch I'll 'recover'. I'm beginning to think we're going to have to switch some of my allergy medicine around again. It just doesn't seem to be keeping up. Sigh.

Yesterday ended up being so productive and this morning was a total loss on page count. I did look at some e-mails, and make a business call, or two, but frankly, I still only count pages. I know that the rest is work, too, but the writer in me just doesn't really count anything as work-work except pages. Anyway, I'm at my desk, and the musical of choice is on the player. Just four pages. I can do it. Just four pages. It's not so much. If I get more, great, but the goal is only four. Gotta go make the count.

That end of the day rush

My goal was just four pages for Merry today, but I managed to do fifteen. Yea! Early in the day, before lunch, the pages were dragging out of me. I was counting progress in lines, not pages. I had a page and a half done when we broke for lunch. Lunch out of the house was a welcome break. I had forced myself to keep at it an extra half hour in the hopes I'd do those last page and a half, but no go. Then lunch, and back to work. Again, it was dragging out by lines. I thought, only eleven more pages for this page, then one more page. I wasn't sure I could manage it. Then, finally, I had four pages. To finish up my thought I did just a little more onto a fifth page, then the next thing I knew I was pages past it. I'd worked all day. All day, and it had been slow, dragging, agony. Then at the end in less than two hours, after hours of slogging, I did more than I'd done all day. I have no idea why it works like this sometimes. Why all day it's awful, and then suddenly the muse strikes and you manage to do a glorious rush of work. The question I'd like to know is if I didn't drag my butt through all those hours of nothing, would I get the rush of pages? Do I need the slow, agonize, sitting to work through to that rush, or would I have been better off doing something else instead, until afternoon. Okay, wait, I can answer this. If I don't put my butt in the chairs I don't get pages, period. So, yes, unfortunately, I have to sit and not get pages, to finally have that page count at the end of the day.

I finished work, called down to Jon, and away we went to exercise. Our trainer, Keath,from Shark Fitness, was here yesterday. He worked us all very hard. I left a sweaty imprint of my body on the new floor of the new exercise room. Yesterday was our first day in the new room. We worked out together just the two of us, without Keath standing over and making us. We try to do that, but admittedly, Darla is more consistent about it on the days Keath is not with us. One of my new year's resolutions was to change that. So far, so good. Other resolutions; to cook more at home, less take-out, to read with Trinity more often, and to exercise more. Anyway, dinner is ready. Soup for the cold Winters night.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Let Freedom Ring!

Work and Play on the Weekends

I've been sick this week. A double infection; sinus and middle ear. I hadn't had a middle ear infection for almost twenty years, but I remembered the feeling. It's like having a storm tossed ship inside your own head. Your own little private motion sickness experience, like some kind of vomitous ride inside your head. God, it was awful. Antibiotics are a wonderful thing.

Yesterday was the first day back to work for me since doing twenty pages on Monday the ninth. Twenty pages, then next day so sick I couldn't stand up without help. But yesterday, Friday, I went back to work in the afternoon. I still wasn't a hundred percent so my concentration wasn't up to snuff. Any noise seemed to interrupt me, so I went to my new office in the still unfinished addition. My office only needs lights, shutters for the skylights, and drapes for the windows. It was done enough for government work, as they say. Jon had set up a small desk in the office and worked on the script days ago. We've both discovered that some days we need more privacy to not be distracted. This need was one of the things that prompted the building of the new offices. When I asked, why he'd put the desk in my office, and not his own, his reply, "You have more windows." No lights, windows are important if you want to see what you're doing. But Friday, I used the desk. It is light weight and I was able with Jon's help to move it so that an entire bank of windows was my view. It started to snow in the afternoon, and it seemed to energize me. I'd forgotten how much I like to work when it snows. That whole hibernating inside warm, while the world is cold, I think. Truthfully, I don't know why, but something about that swirling snow just made me want to work. I didn't argue, but I did find that I needed the extra quiet. So off to the new office, and God, it was quiet. That empty office building after hours quiet. It was great. The snow, the silence, and me rereading the first hundred or so pages of Merry 5. Truthfully, the twenty pages on Monday had been the new Anita book, not Merry, but it was Merry that I needed to reread. I'd tried to just take up where I left off, but it had been too long since I read it over. I read, edited, then was done for the day. Tired. But I made notes for, and outlined the next three hundred or so pages of the book. I had my map.

Today, my ex-husband called saying his new wife's sister had called. They were coming to town, and bringing their little girls. He wanted to know if it would be possible for Trinity to join them on a trip to the Science Center to see the Titanic exhibit. I knew she wanted to see it, and that Jon and I weren't going to be doing anything that fun today. I'm still not well, and Jon made a breakthrough yesterday on a scene in the script that he was finding it difficult to take from the book and convey in script format. Since we'd both made progress we wanted to do at least a little work today to keep the momentum going. (Jon taught me how to relax a little and play more. I've taught him how to work harder. Not sure it's a fair trade, but there it is.) Jon actually suggested working before I did. But only after we'd gotten our girl off to her visit to the Science Center. I hear her now, so I've got to go. I got six pages new of Merry done today. I'm tired. I had ambitions about working on Anita after I'd done all I could on Merry, but I'm done for the day. Even if the kiddo hadn't come home. So I made progress. I'll find out if Jon did, and I'm going to take the dogs down and see how Trinity enjoyed the exhibit.

The deep end of the pool

Well, I've got a little over a hundred pages for Merry. It was originally the beginning for A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, but I felt like we needed to back-fill some story issues. I also felt the need for a stronger mystery plot. I did that, and found that the original beginning no longer worked for the book at all. It was all important stuff and necessary, but not yet, not here. Well, unless I change my mind again, it's the beginning for book five of Merry. I think it is. I'm almost a hundred percent sure. So, suddenly, I'm a hundred pages ahead. Cool. Weird, but cool. Last time I thought these hundred pages were the middle of a book, but they are the beginning. They just are.

Beginning a book is like getting into a body of water. You can dab a toe in, test the temperature. You can wade in slowly, adjusting. You can throw yourself into the deep end of the pool. This beginning is definitely deep end of the pool. Actually, it feels more you were peering over a cliff edge at a river far below, and someone comes up behind you and shoves. We'll hit the water screaming together, I guess. Welcome to the deep end, ladies and gentlemen. It's pretty much where I live.

Migraine hangovers and page counts

I got a migraine coming back from Illinois last night. I won't talk about my family here. I haven't decided how much to share. So we'll skip that for now. Maybe grief should be private, and sharing doesn't make it better. But I got a migraine on the way home, and didn't realize in time what it was. I hit the door and ran for the bathroom, very sick. I hate migraines like that. I woke up this morning with a migraine hangover. It means you feel like crap, light and sound sensitive, and that if you don't take care of yourself you can have another migraine. I spent most of the day wearing dark, wraparound sunglasses, and avoiding loud noises. Late in the afternoon though I couldn't stand it anymore, I had to do something, accomplish something. Jon wasn't feeling much better than I was, so my plans for errands together made him give me the look. He was content to embrace the fact that he wasn't feeling well. I was the only one feeling restless, so it was my problem to deal with. He was right, but I was still bitchy about it. What to do when you're feeling bitchy, and taking it out on people you shouldn't? For me, it means go to the office and try to work. Put that grumpiness to use. I find that anger and most strong emotions translate to energy on paper.

I was worried that the computer screen might make the headache worse, but I have a good screen. No flickering, because I can't stand flicker. It was a nice overcast day, and I turned on only the smallest of lights in my office, slipped my prescription glasses on, and went to work. I had a few pages in my notebook to transfer to paper. I really wasn't thinking I'd get much done today. I felt like shit, but I thought a few pages, a little progress, and I knew I'd feel better when I got up tomorrow. Well, thirty pages later, I'm done for the day. Thirty pages from around 2:00 to 6:30, or so. That's a lot of pages. I wrote earlier that this Anita book is ready to go, and I was right. I've got seventy-one pages of it. All from days when I just mean to do a few pages, just enough to help me do the outline. Yeah, right.

I chose to try and work on Anita because I knew if I could work on anything with my head feeling this miserable, it was Anita. I was right, but I've got to figure out a way to get Merry 5 going. I may try to work morning's on Anita and afternoons on Merry for awhile, until I get Merry up and running. I've still got to finish reading the last Merry book and make notes. I have over a hundred pages, but it's not the beginning of the book. I need to figure out what chapter one is going to be. Until I figure that out, I won't be able to get a lot of pages in a row. Any way, I'm tired, but my head feels much better. I guess work helps me relieve stress.

The last thing

This is the last trip I will make for Aunt Bev. I knew Uncle Jessie was ill, so we were able to go see him when he was still able to visit for a few hours. It was a good visit. For my aunt the first that most of us knew she was ill was that she was in the hospital getting, last I was told, a quadruple bypass. She never recovered from it. So the last thing I can do for her, is go today, with my family, and pay our respects. It's a three and a half hour drive one way, but that's close enough. We'll drive down, do the viewing, and drive back. Truthfully, the trip, like the funeral, is for the ones she left behind. My Uncle Toots had been married to her for nearly fifty years; forty-eight or forty-nine. Another uncle and aunt were unable to agree on which, and since that was before I was born, I couldn't break the tie. I was not going to call up Uncle Toots and say, which year were you married? Not a question for now. But whichever year it was, that is a long time to be married. I can't really imagine one of them without the other. I'm sure my bewilderment is nothing compared to my uncle's, or their two children, and their grandchildren. I know what it's like to loose a mother, I've done it twice, so I understand some of the grief, but not all. Grief is too personal, too intimate a pain.

Aunt Bev was one of the few other people in my blood family that read. She didn't read the same kind of books I did, but she read. The summer that I stayed at their house, she took me to the library a lot. She, like all of my family, never argued with my choices in books. No matter how odd. She was kind, and she was smart, and I didn't really know her. She was Aunt Bev, and I spent more time with her when I was a child than I did as an adult. You grow up, you get a life of your own. Aunt Bev and Uncle Toots lived in a different state from the rest of the family, so when we visited Granny, they weren't Johnny on the spot. So there are other relatives that I saw more often. But Uncle Toots and Aunt Bev took me on their family vacation one year. Their kids, Denise and Bret, were a year and two years older than me, respectively. So my aunt and uncle went on a car vacation to the east coast with three teenagers in the car. This was in the days before portable video players, or iPods. Bret did have a tape player with something either headphones or an ear piece. I read. But, at some point they started threatening to throw my book out the window. I'm sure I did more accidental irritating things to them. Three teenagers in a car without any portable electronic amusements; not a peaceful way to travel. We had a good time, all in all, but I'm sure we drove my aunt and uncle a little crazy. We went to one of the Carolinas, I honestly can't remember which one. I saw the sea for the first time. It was leaden and gray, and cold. I remember being disappointed. But I appreciated the trip, because it was the only trip I ever went on that wasn't to see relatives. It was the only trip I was ever on, until college, that was just to see somewhere new. They had neighbors that had moved there, and they were visiting them, but it was a vacation, not a pilgrimage on the altar of family obligation. It was new places, and new sights, and things we'd never done before.

Now, one last trip to see Aunt Bev, though, of course, we aren't seeing her. She's not there anymore. I told Jon that I'd like to visit some people before they go in a box. I think I'll make that part of the new year's resolutions. But this one, I'm hoping to keep.

Happy New Year

Well, it's official 2006, thank God, thank Goddess, pick an appellation for Diety. My own family has now lost three people this past year. My grandmother, who raised me, I know that I've mentioned here. I believe I also mentioned my uncle who died of cancer very suddenly this spring. Now, at the end of the year we lost my Aunt Bev. Very sudden. We'll be headed out of town for it tomorrow. I was talking to my Uncle Monk, and it was he that pointed out what a rough year it has been for the family. It has.

2005 was a funny year for us, and for the country, I guess. What went well, went very well. What went badly, went badly. Some of it not as bad as it could have gone, God knows, but bad enough. We had some close friends that survived some rather harrowing medical problems. We had emergencies that didn't go as badly as they could have; no one died. So all in all, not a bad year.

It was an amazingly good year for business for us. Both Anita and Merry continue to sell beyond any dream I once I had. Doing this well, I am now setting my sights higher, because that's what you do in a career. You do as well as you can then try to figure out a way to do better. We signed a deal with Hollywood, at last. Jon and I are doing the script. A new adventure opens up. The fourth Merry Gentry book came out; A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. I wrote two books this year; MICAH and DANSE MACABRE. The first was the very first novellite. Too long to be a novella, but not long enough to be one of my novels. DANSE MACABRE is the thirteenth Anita Blake novel. Amazing that I'm that far in any series. All the Merry books and all the Anita books since we went into hardback have hit the New York Times list. Like I said, business is good.

Jon, Trinity, and I, are doing well, personally. We are healthy, happy, and every year Trin gets more interesting and more of the person she will be. I could talk about the family deaths, and how that effects me, us, but I won't. It is enough that we are well, and I'll leave it at that. Now, I'm going to find all the new calendars and put them up in their various spots. The Airedale terrier calendar goes on my office door to remind me to be courageous, to never give up, to have fun, and that I am safe. The Cobblestone Way calendar goes in my office. It's the one I use to keep track of page count. I've used this calendar for years, it just pleases me. The pug calendar goes in the kitchen as the family calendar. Trin has a calendar in her bathroom that she uses to keep track of things, but I'm not sure she picked one yet. And the last calendar goes in the master bath; a songbird calendar. It comes with a CD of the bird songs for each month's bird. Don't ask me why I put a calendar in the bathroom, I'm not sure. But I know that the birds remind me to keep it light, and that there is beauty and song, and joy, even when things aren't going so well. Different birds can remind you of different lessons; it can be surprisingly helpful each month's new little bird. Anyway, that's the calendar rundown. I actually bought a few more, every since that one awful year when no calendar in my office made me happy with the book I was doing. Heck, I think that was the year, or year and a half that I wrote A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT and INCUBUS DREAMS. I must have gone through nearly a dozen calendars on my wall, and door, and nothing made me happy for more than a few days. I even tried a Penguin calendar. It may work for Anita, but it didn't work for me. I do buy it every year for her, like a gift I'll never be able to give her. Funny, I guess.