LKH Blog

Mother's Day 2

2008-05-13T07:34:00.000-05:00

I usually hate sequels. They're never as fresh, or enjoyable as the original, but this is one sequel that I'm happy to have. The blog that I did in the morning for Mother's Day was dark, but by evening it was better. Why?

Trinity gave me one of those Hallmark cards that you record your voice and it plays music. When she is very grown, I will still have her voice as a little girl, and that's pretty cool. Since my bad mood had made me unable to come up with anything I wanted for a gift, Jon was on his own. Oh, dear, as any husband knows, you always want a clue. It's just safer that way. But Jon did fine. He got me the collector's edition of SWEENEY TODD. A gift I wanted, and one that my progressively grumpy mood had made me forget was even coming out. So, it was a good surprise.

Then I got to do what I wanted to do with the day. I wasn't forced to cook a huge meal for everybody and work on my holiday. I didn't have to go out to one of those huge, impersonal, restaurants where you get food cooked in huge vats. What's with that, anyway? Eggs, and most meat need a little more of a personal touch than that. Vegetables, well, my grandmother was a Southern cook which meant all veggies were cooked within an inch of their life, so cook it in a vat, all the same to me. Jon and his family have introduced me to steamed and grilled veggies, and it's good, but soggy works for me. I grew up on it. Except for okra. Slimy, over-cooked okra is evil. Oh, and black-eyed peas, there's nothing you can do to them to make me want to eat them. Yuck!

We went out and saw Iron Man with Trinity and our friend Richard. Neither of them had seen the movie yet. Why had we seen it without Trin? Because, she's still a little iffy on some of the violence or sexual content, so Jon and I preview movies. Just in case. You know the rule, whatever goes in their minds, sometimes makes a home, so be careful what you allow inside. Does that sound weird coming from me? Why? Just because I write about sex and violence doesn't mean I write for children. I most certainly do not write for children, and I've never pretended otherwise. The few times I've been informed that my books were discovered shelved in young adult weirded me out.

And, please, do not ask me if your teenager is old enough to read my books. I don't know your kid. By my daughter's age I was reading some very scary stuff, but she is not me, and stuff like that bothers her. Every child is like every adult, an individual. Know thyself, know your child, work from there.

The movie was so packed we had to split up. Jon and Richard sat together and Trin and I sat farther down. Uncle Richard would have taken the kiddo, but it seemed wrong on Mother's day to not sit with my girl. Besides, having seen the movie once, part of the fun was watching Trinity's reactions.

After the movie we ran home, rescued the dogs. Okay, let them out so they didn't have any accidents inside. Then we went out for dinner. We went to one of our favorite sushi restaurants. We all love sushi. Okay, good sushi. Bad sushi is like some of the worst food you will ever try to scarf down. I lived in Los Angeles when sushi first hit big, and I had some really bad stuff at dinner parties. Sushi, like most everything else in Japanese culture is an art, and you can't fake art. I've only recently been brave enough to retry, and found that I like sushi just fine, if it's prepared well.

So, the four of us sat, ate, visited. We drank really good green tea, salmon rolls, a lot of nigiri of various kinds, and a few appetizers. It was good, and getting out to a nice restaurant was exactly what I needed to cap the day off.

I think we'll make a movie and dinner out a Mother's Day tradition for the kid part. Uncle Richard went home, and once the kid was in bed, then Jon and I had more grown-up plans. I'm sorry, it's my holiday, I may not have known what I wanted him to buy me from a store, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do with him afterwards. I may not be easy to buy for, but I'm easy to please, okay, scratch that. I'm not, but I do try to make it worth the effort. I'm all about rewarding for good behavior.

Mother's Day

2008-05-12T07:04:00.000-05:00

This was the blog for yesterday, but when we discovered that the podcast hadn’t uploaded properly, we decided to fix that and let you guys enjoy it, before I shared with you how I was feeling early on Mother’s Day.

If what you want is a happy Mother’s Day message, then skip this post.

Everyone skipped? Okay, here goes.

I started noticing that I was getting depressed. No reason for it. I mean everything is going swimmingly. In fact, everything is wonderful. So why was I down in the dumps? I finally made the connection at the end of April. April 29th is, or was, my grandmother’s birthday. Anniversary depression, who me? Maybe.

I saw the perfect gift for her in the bookstore. I actually reached out for it, held it in my hand with that well of satisfaction, that flush of pleasure at how perfect it was for her, then there was that drop of the heart. All of you who have lost someone important to you, know the drop I mean. You forget for an instant, you react to something as if . . . as if . . . Then reality hits, and it’s like your heart just fell out of an airplane without a parachute and ends crashing into your feet. (What was the perfect gift? A book of odd, or famous obituaries. My Grandmother kept two Whitman Sampler chocolate boxes, gifts from other grand kids in the past, full of obits. Some of people she knew, or we knew, but mostly strangers. She’d cut out obits that were particularly pitiful or horrible and keep them. She liked to read them to me when I visited.) So the book would have pleased her, and she could have spent hours pouring over the sad contents and enjoying herself. But, she’s past needing birthday presents.

Now it’s mother’s day, and I realized that three years ago, her funeral was on Mother’s Day. One of my uncle’s, joked that Granny finally got her wish. I asked, what was that? To get us all together to visit her on Mother’s Day. There were about eighty plus of us from all over the country, there to pay our final respects.

I have the cards and presents from Jon and Trinity. We’re all going to see a movie later today with our friend Richard. We went out yesterday plant shopping with our friends Kari and Pili, and though we got wet and cold from the rain, it was a good day. I had to go back out this morning and make sure that the wind hadn’t done too much damage to the pots waiting to go in the ground. Pili came up with a garden design, and I just picked anything that caught our fancy. I stopped worrying about whether it’s supposed to grow here, or not. I just picked what I liked and we’ll plant it, and see what happens. I’ve spent eight years planting my front yard carefully, and it looks like crap, bare and too formal for me. I want the front to look like the pond area, lush, and a riot of color and shape.

I bought any plant that pleased my eye, or Pili’s. Jon and Kari totted and fetched. Trinity wandered around finding this plant or that, or just helping the basket lady plant new mother’s day baskets. She has an eye for putting things together that I would never have thought could match, but they do. It was a good day, other than the rain, and even that got us a huge rainbow in the sky above the second garden center, the one where we got the most roses. It was a round, fat rainbow, with several layers of violet in it. A good day.

It’s a mother’s day when I have no mother’s left. I’ve lost two in my life time, that seems plenty. I guess Jon’s Mom will just have to live to about two hundred or so to make me happy.

Podcast

2008-05-10T22:54:00.000-05:00

OK, We’ve done another PodCast. Its available here. Its big. 26 MB big, but download it and let it play. Laurell answers a dozen questions from the message board.

Enjoy.

Saving my Sanity

2008-05-09T16:24:00.000-05:00

I’m still in a bad mood. I’ve begun to figure out some of the reasons. Mostly to do with the fact that apparently my lesson for the year is patience, and dealing with ambiguity. Neither of these is my best thing. I’m very impatient and I like things very black and white. No waffling; thank you. But, if I already knew how to deal with it, it wouldn’t be a lesson, would it? Sigh.

But one thing I do when I’m feeling blue, or just overwhelmed by all the many blessings in my life. Yes, you read that right. One of my lessons is to allow myself to enjoy my success. My Grandmother raised me that God was a sort of cosmic loan shark, or hitman. If you got too happy, then God would get you! It meant that my grandmother didn’t let herself enjoy much of anything, because if you enjoyed it, then bad things happened. So when good things happened, she made herself miserable to keep God from doing it, and when bad things happened it just confirmed her dark view of the universe. Most of the time I’m all right, but every once in awhile my Grandmother’s voice fills my head, and I’m filled with fear. Things are going too well, so bad things will happen. This kind of thinking leads some people to sabotage their lives so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t do that. I work hard, and try and make things better. But sometimes, the darkness in my head, just overwhelms. Not the fun dark, but the night sweats. That 3:00 A. M. waking up in the dark, stare at the ceiling, with your heart pounding, and your pulse filling your throat. Nightmare, or did you really hear a noise? Or the worst of the 3:00 A. M.s; you just lie awake, convinced that everything has gone to shit, and there is no help for it, or even worse, nothing is wrong, everything is wonderful, but you are filled with an overwhelming sense of dread. I’ve been having those kinds of feelings in broad daylight. By my grandmother’s rules, I should have something horrible coming. I know the universe doesn’t work the way she seemed to think it does. I know God and Goddess is about love more than punishment, but old habits die hard. I think, three years after her death, I’m finally starting to let myself grieve. You’d think that would be healing, but it’s not, it’s raised old demons, and I walk through my day haunted.

What to do when stuck in therapy hell with your inner demons seeming to gain ground? When all else fails, I donate to a rescue group, and try and help one of the pups. Today’s happy recipient of my dismal mood was Delia.

The Mid-Atlantic German Shepard Rescue has been hit pretty hard just recently with a lot of high needs dogs. So, if you’re wondering what you can do to make a difference in the world, donate a dollar. This is my charity for today, but pick a different one if you want to. You don’t have to be rich to make a difference. Remember that every million is made up of one dollar at a time. We can do more together than alone.

It's a grumble-bunny day

2008-05-08T08:46:00.000-05:00

Woke to a rainy, messy, chilly, day. Maybe it’s the weather, but I’m a grumpy-bunny. How grumpy?

I’m wearing my badger shirt, my bear pentagram, drinking out of the mug that reads, "Psycho Bitch from Hell,", and wearing a new button I got yesterday. What does the button say? "I haven’t had my coffee yet. Don’t make me kill you."

I was only showing the new buttons to my mother-in-law this morning, but when she came to this one, she said, "Oh, that’s you." Gotta love family that knows you well, and still loves you.

So, I’m wearing the button, and I’m trying not to embrace the less pleasant aspects of badger and bear. But this is the sort of day when I want to go into my den, cover the entrance up, and sit and brood. It’s okay to go into your hidey-hole and think about things, but brooding is counter productive. I know that, but as I cling to my Psycho Bitch mug, with only my third dose of hot, caffeine for the morning, I fight not to brood.

I don’t want music. I don’t want to cheer up. I bought a second button yesterday, that sums up my thought on cheeriness right now, button reads, "Well, aren’t you just a ray of freaking sunshine?" And no, the original button doesn’t say freaking, but I can’t remember the rules for everywhere the blog goes up, so I’ll err on the side of caution.

I feel like a grumpy bear today, and I just want to sit in my cave and be left the frak alone. How do you spell frak? Does it need an "e" on the end, or not?

All right, I’ve made myself put up the Psycho Bitch mug, and I’m drinking tea out of a fine, china mug. It has a badger on it, but also squirrels, rabbits, fox, and even cats. It’s all drawn like a wild life scene, in fact, I believe it’s from the Dunoon wildlife collection. I tried to make myself break out the Brambly Hedge mice teacup and saucers, but I’m not quite ready to be that happy. Baby steps.

I’m going to try and work now, though, God, knows, I don’t want to. I just want to wrap this bad mood around me like a well-worn blanket, sit in my big, comfy chair, nurse my mug of tea, and stare out at the rain. But deadlines wait for nothing and no one, not even my moods. Curses, to quote one of my favorite cartoon villains. Who am I quoting? Mojo-Jojo, of course. Power Puff Girls rule, and Buttercup kicks ass.

Play

2008-05-07T13:22:00.003-05:00

I'm anxious; why? I think it has something to do with the fact that Pippin is laying at my feet. Well, he's actually on one foot. He hates storms and we've got another round of pouring rain, distant thunder, and even a little lightning. Pip hates it all.

I'm actually beginning to think that I'm picking up on his anxiety. I know, I know, weird, but I'm still beginning to think it's true. I was fine until the puppy decided to be a canine limpet and attache himself to me. But I can't in good conscience make him move, because I know that the close proximity makes him feel better.

Earlier today I finely got SWALLOWING DARKNESS back out. It was time. I was all prepared to decide how much to cut. I'd estimated loosing at least forty pages. But strangely, when I reread things, I didn't need to loose anything. I'm not wrong on where the book needs to go and what needs to happen here. I was wrong about what the outcome will be of the events for the next few books, but I'm not wrong about this fight. We need it, and we need it here.

It's time for Merry and her guys to show everyone that, they might, just might, be picking more of a fight than they bargained for.

I'm supposed to be working on Anita right now, but my head really isn't into it. I think I may have a second short piece moving liquid in my head. The idea was that the second writing session of the day was about fun, and working on whatever I wanted to work on, not about deadlines. But I keep falling back into the habit of making it all about work, and not about play.

What do I want to play today? Is it time to actually just open up a blank file and see what my muse is trying to tell me? If I do, then it will be the first time in over ten years, maybe longer, that I've given myself that kind of freedom. Hmm, wonder what it will feel like? Best to find out. Maybe it will be another short story, or another novel-lite, or some idea that's been bubbling around in my imagination, that's finally ready to talk to me.

I'll leave Anita, Edward, Olaf, and Bernardo, on the sidewalk in the summer heat. We can question people tomorrow, after I start the big fight at the end of DARKNESS. Fun day tomorrow, but right now, I'm going to go play.

Stephen King Puts Foot in Mouth

2008-05-06T20:29:00.003-05:00

"I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that." -Steven King

When I first heard the unfortunate statement that Stephen King made on Book TV on CSPAN 2, I was angry. I felt that I had to defend the honor of our nation's military, but you know what? I don't have to defend their honor because they do a damn good job of defending themselves.

First off, the friend that brought the statement to my attention, Charles, is ex-army. He really enjoys reading. He's one of the few people, outside my writing group, that knows more esoteric quotes than we do. In fact, when he was stationed in Iraq in a forward area, he joked that he couldn't get away from me. Why? Because, of the four books available, two of them were mine. When he got back to St. Louis and ended up being assigned to be my security, he told me the story. I loved the idea of my books, set here in the Midwest being out in the sand box for our soldiers to read.

I've lost track of the number of military men and women, who have said that reading my books helps them forget where they are, what they're doing, and how far from home they are. That I help them escape, for a little while. What higher praise is there, than that?

Thanks to Darla, who first brought it to my attention, we've been sending books to our military men and women for years. We've actually sent to all branches at this point. Libraries on ships; deserts; bases in Europe; anywhere that someone wrote in and asked. But, not just my books, as much as I'd love to think that I'm every one's cup of tea, I'm not, and also you can't reread just one series forever. Everyone wants a change, so we send other books, as well. The solider that we just sent a box out to, requested action/adventure, and mysteries. Mine qualify, but we also sent him others. A book can be a very good friend when you're far from home.

Maybe Mr. King never had the pleasure of being friends with anyone in the military. I have both very good friends, and family that are ex-military. My father-in-law, Art, is one of the most intelligent men I've met. He has a master's degree in Theology; forgive me Art for not remembering the exact degree. He retired as a Major from the Air Guard.

Shawn, who has been my friend for eighteen, or is it nineteen years now, is one of the people that I call for advice. He's well-read, and thoughtful, though he might deny it. He's a policeman now, but he was a marine, though I'm not sure past tense actually applies to marines. You never really get it out of your system.

I have had ex-military personnel help me with research over the years. They have been generous with their time, their experiences, and helped add a level of reality to my fantastic fiction, that wouldn't have been possible without their input. Thanks again, guys.

Domestically Challenged

2008-05-05T21:30:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed my weekend off, but today I’ve got no pages. Sometimes it happens after a weekend off, I just have trouble getting back in the groove. It’s one of the reasons I so seldom take an entire weekend away from work. Sigh.

Jon had a doctor’s appointment this evening, just a check-up, and Trinity and I did errands. By the time we were all back home, it was too late to have the dinner I had planned. As in, dinner would have been at Trinity’s bed time. We have staff to help organize us during the work day, but no one in the evening. At night, it’s just us to do the whole grown-up thing. Some day’s we’re better than others, but today was one of those moments when I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have a wife? Not a real wife, but that 1950’s ideal that never really existed. Someone that is organized and helps you be organized, and makes sure that we don’t forget that to have dinner before bedtime, we have to start at X o’clock. I ended up going out and bringing in food. It was healthy food, sort of, and we ate. Trinity is now tucked into bed, and we are finishing up so we can go up soon. So we got everything done that needed doing, eventually, but when I realized that I’d missed the window for dinner, I felt like I’d failed.

There are days when I think, wouldn’t it be nice to have that organized grown-up in the house. But it’s not me, and though Jon is more practical than I am, he’s not the most practical person. But, you know what, I’ve never been attracted to anyone that was terribly practical. Even my first husband wasn’t organized or practical. In fact, one of the things that contributed to our divorce was that both of us kept looking at the other person, waiting for them to notice that the lamp shades were dusty, and the dinner needed to be put in the oven, or purchased from the grocery store in time to have for dinner. Now, my Chief of Domestic Operations, Sherry, takes care of the dust, and someone else buys the groceries, after I make the meal plan, so all we have to do is cook it in a timely manner. You’d think we could manage it, and most days we do, but every once in a while the absent-minded professor/artist kicks in, and we just forget. But, in the end, we got dinner, and the kiddo in bed, and it all got done. But it is one of those days when I think longingly of having one extra more practical person in the house, but let’s face it, even if Jon and I could find a third adult that we wanted to cohabitate with, we’d never be attracted to someone organized and practical. When we were both dating, our choices ran high to artist, techies, writers, and scientiests. None of these jobs, or degrees are likely to net you an organized mate. Now, now, I know there are some out there in all those categories that are the exception to the rule. Those professor types that are far from absent-minded, must be out there, but I never dated them, and neither did Jon.

So, even if we added another person to the household, we’d be no better off. We might have fun, but the chance of us bringing someone into the house that would actually help us be better in a practical manner, is slim to none. I think one of the reasons that Nathaniel in the Anita books is so domestically oriented is pure wish fulfillment on my part.

But as one good friend said recently, simple, and well-organized is boring. Well, yeah, but there are days when I wonder what it would be like for someone in the household not to be an artist, or a techie, or both. It wouldn’t work, but the lamp shades would get dusted, and dinner would be on time.

Blood Noir Auction and Drawing Winners

2008-05-05T15:14:00.000-05:00

The auctions have ended. The drawings done. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on how it came out.

Peggye O of Colorado donated $625.00 to Granite City APA!

Rebecca U of New Jersey donated $610.00 to Midwest Pug Rescue!

Thank you both so much for the wonderful bids!

Now to our drawing winners.

The fan club member who was the random drawing was Tammy M of Ohio.

The random email drawing winner was Kristen T of California.
I think this was our biggest drawing yet. We have 14,392 entries. Whoo! That�s a lot!

All the winners have been sent an email.

Thank you to all who entered.

A Weekend Off

2008-05-04T18:00:00.001-05:00

I'm a big one for work, as you guys know, but this weekend has been about fun. I have actually taken the entire weekend off. Trinity is with her father, so Jon and I have been on our own. Friday was socializing with the writing group. Saturday Jon and I watched three hours of Tivo television that we'd been trying to see all week. Since we average about an hour of television a day, three hours was pure indulgence. But I didn't feel guilty, it was relaxing. Sometimes a little coach potato time is exactly what's needed, especially when watching with my sweetie beside me.

Saturday night was serious date night and grown-up time. I'd tell you what we did, but then I'd have to kill you. Your clearance is not high enough, yet.

Today, Sunday, we saw Iron man with our friends Mark and Sarah. The movie was way fun, and though I had my doubts about Robert Downey Jr., well, he is Iron Man. We had lunch before the movie at The Blue Owl in Kimmswick. They have great food, and deserts that are so dangerous that just looking at the case gives you a sugar rush. The restaurant has appeared on the food channel, and deservedly so. Sarah and I have been going there for a girl's lunch for years, but it's only been in the last few years that we've included our husbands and made it a couple thing.

The decision for the evening is do we eat dinner, or do we eat the deserts we got from the restaurant? There's no way to do both.

Solo drive

2008-05-02T16:34:00.001-05:00

Remember the blog last weekend where I made the decision that the Foose was my car, at last?

Well, I did my first solo drive. My goal for this week had been to drive the car by myself, and yesterday, I did it! It was very cool that I did it on Beltane, which is sort of the Wiccan version of Valentine's Day, but not. It's more about fertility than romance, but the two aren't mutual exclusive, as all those babies prove. Beltane is a major holiday for us, and a time for celebrating the return of the sun, the warmth, and life. It's been a long winter, and now we celebrate.

Well, Jon and I celebrated more traditionally later that night. (It was a kid free evening.) But during the day, I celebrated by driving my car all by myself. I'd earned a little leisure time, because I'd already done eight pages on the short piece, and finished it! Yea! I'd then turned around and done fifteen pages on the new Anita book. Yes, the one after BLOOD NOIR. Then it was off to the allergist for shots, oh, joy. I drove to the allergist, had a little excitement in the parking lot. Why is parking so challenging in this car? But even with killing the engine a couple of times, I still had made my decision. I was done with work for the day, and I was going to solo.

I dropped Jon off at the house, and off I went. His parting advice to me, "What's rule number one?"

I answered, "Don't panic."

"What's rule number two?" he asked.

My reply, "See rule number one."

Good rules for any new endeavor. I drove off to do errands. The Foose is a car that encourages you to find excuses to drive. I'm a little rough going from first to second gear, but I'm smooth the rest of the way up. I muttered under my breath, "Easy off the clutch. Don't stab at it. Give it gas, but not too much." Once I got up to speed, I was able to drive like a sane person and not talk to myself, but any stop light, or sign, was met with a litany of out loud advice to myself. It helps me concentrate.

I no longer break into a cold sweat when I see a light turning red. I fear no stop sign. Though a downward slope does still give me pause, if it's behind me. But I'm working on it. The other goal was that next writing group, I drive the Foose. Well, it's tonight, and guess what? The Baby and I are driving.

Juvenile Diabetes Auction

2008-05-01T10:24:00.004-05:00

Brenda Novak�s Auction for Juvenile Diabetes Research is up and running today!

General info on auction:
Click Here: Auction Info

http://www.brendanovak.com/auction_index.php

Auction Items:
Click Here: Auction Items

http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/

Stuff donated by Laurell:
Click Here: Laurell's Basket

http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=989584&_UserReference=D1D0771246B6C686C8FE8378EB654819DFA7

In this fabulous Laurell K. Hamilton Goody Box, you'll receive an Anita Blake Hunter Series sterling silver chain necklace with a set of vampire teeth
An Anita Blake Hunter Series chain pull
An autographed copy of ANITA BLAKE VAMPIRE HUNTER GUILTY PLEASURES Comic Book, Volume 1
Autographed copy of STRANGE CANDY, a collection of short stories by Laurell K. Hamilton
Autographed copy of A LICK OF FROST (Hardcover)
"I LOVE SIGMUND" stuffed penguin
"I LOVE NATHANIEL" stuffed bear
Winner's choice of one T-shirt from the Laurell K. Hamilton Fan Club Brochure
Autographed copy of THE FIRST DEATH (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter) Comic
Unabridged MP3-CD Audio Version of MISTRAL'S KISS (Autographed on cover)
Danse Macabre coaster
A LICK OF FROST magnet
"Anita Blake was here" sticker
Complimentary one-year membership to Laurell K. Hamilton Fan Club
Laurell K. Hamilton CD (Center for the Book)
"Asher Slept Here" Night-shirt
Fanged rubber ducky
INCUBUS DREAMS on Compact Disc (Autographed on cover)

links to video

2008-05-01T07:03:00.002-05:00

I put up a blog yesterday about the video reading from BLOOD NOIR on You Tube and My Space, but forgot to add the links to the videos. My bad, and my tech mistake. So, here they are with Jon's help to make it so.

[Jon here]
The YouTube Channel

The MySpace Page

Note for the non-MySpace savvy: You'll have to click on the videos link under Laurell's Picture to get to the videos.
[/Jon]

videos on You Tube and My Space

2008-04-30T21:41:00.003-05:00

The HARLEQUIN came out in paperback yesterday. It's Anita #15. Just writing that seems odd. BLOOD NOIR will be #16, and I'm two hundred pages into #17. We are so closing in on #20. I've no idea why, but that is a magic number for me in a series. The concept that I could have twenty books in one series is entirely too cool.

I think I am so enamoured of the idea because my first series that began with NIGHTSEER died a tragic and abortive death. Because my first series never got a chance to live beyond one book, makes the success of Anita and Merry all the sweeter.

Interestingly, THE HARLEQUIN has chapters from BLOOD NOIR in the back. A little preview for those of you who don't want to wait until the new book comes out. The truly interesting part is that it's taken Jon awhile to get the tech in line, and we've only just this week gotten the video up on You Tube and My Space, of me reading the first three chapters of BLOOD NOIR. The reading was originally at the last Wolf Howl at the Wild Canid Research Center. We read inside either because it was cold, or raining. I can't remember which now, but inclement weather put us inside. Many of you have complained that you only have the first three chapters on the video, and you can't wait. Well, in the paperback of HARLEQUIN are four more chapters that you wouldn't have to wait for. Between the video of the reading and the preview in the paperback, you've got almost the first ten chapters.

Oh, and BLOOD NOIR breaks a rule that I've had for years. I put the first sex scene in a book more than sixty pages in, because most readings last about an hour. I read about a page a minute. So if the sex is more than sixty pages in, then I never have to read the scene in public. Well, it just worked out that the first sex scene is very close to the beginning of the book. Close enough that I'm reading it on the video, and you can hear the crowd reaction.

Why did I decide to break my rule after so many books? Because I realized the rule was about being embarrassed. I just realized one day that I'm not embarrassed about what I write, so why should I be embarrassed about reading it aloud? The result is the beginning of BLOOD NOIR. I hope everyone enjoys hearing, and reading the opening, as much as I enjoyed writing it. Go team.

The Harlequin

2008-04-29T12:13:00.002-05:00

The Harlequin: Anita Blake Vampire Hunter #15 is out today in paperback.

It's my car, and I'll be scared if I want to

2008-04-29T06:57:00.001-05:00

Sunday our daughter, Trinity, made comments about the fact that she'd never seen me actually drive the Foose. I hadn't realized that all my practice driving had been either when she was at school or with her father. I hadn't done that deliberately, or maybe I had. I mean when driving a stick shift for the first time in twenty-five years, do you really want to have your kid see the learning curve? I guess my ego was fragile enough to avoid that last humiliation. And humiliation it has been.

Yes, Charles and Jon have both told me that I've been doing well, but I didn't think I was doing well, and in my world, in the end, that's what decides how I feel about something. I had decided to feel bad about the Mustang. I mean it was impractical, and it was flashy, and it was . . . It was so not me. I found excuses not to drive the car, or to have Jon drive the car. I hadn't realized how bad it had gotten until Trinity made her remarks, and I realized she was right. She had never seen me drive the Foose.

So this weekend when we went out to see a movie with our friend Richard, I drove the Foose. Drove to lunch and drove to the theatre. Yes, I killed it a couple of times in the one parking lot of the first restaurant, that turned out to be closed until far too late to be useful, but it was okay. It's okay that I'm not perfect, other than that moment, I was fine.

We saw FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, and it was good. It was a Woo-ping Yeun, so it was great wire-fu. I mean it's a movie with Jet Li and Jackie Chan in it, so it was fun, and visually wonderfully. It was nice to see Jet Li in a movie where he got to laugh.

When we came out after the movie it was raining. The Foose, the Baby, was getting wet, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that Jon asked if I wanted him to drive home. I was insulted at first, then realized that it was what I'd trained him to do about the car. I would drive us somewhere, then he'd drive home. If it got dark; I didn't want to drive the Foose for the first time in the dark. If there was a line of traffic, I didn't want to work the clutch in stop and go traffic. If there was a chance of ice anywhere, I'd let him drive. I realized that I had found excuse after excuse not to drive the car. And given Jon excuse after excuse to drive the car. I mean what sane man is going to turn down a chance to drive the Foose?

But as we stood there in the rain, and I considered his offer, I realized it pissed me off. Both that he'd offered and that I was actually considering it. We let Richard and Trin get in the back seat out of the rain and we discussed it.

I asked, "Is it really that much more dangerous to drive this car in the rain?"

"A little, but you know how when you spin the wheels you tend to panic?"

"Yes."

"In the rain, that will be worse."

He was right, I had been panicking when the wheels spun, or I gunned the engine accidentally. I had panicked when I killed the engine. We stood in the rain, and I thought about all of it. I thought about how I'd been giving up. I thought about a lot of things as the cold spring ran came down. Finally, I made my decision. It was my car. If it was truly my car than a little rain didn't change that. Screw it, I was driving home.

And that's exactly what I did. I had no trouble, other than a bumpy moment shifting, but only once. It was no harder to drive in the rain. I'm sorry, wet or dry, the Foose hugs the road like she's got Spider powers. Admittedly, I made sure I remembered where the windshield wipers and light switches were before we started moving. The fact that I still didn't know where everything was, tells you just how much I'd been avoiding my car.

I drove home, in the rain. I drove home and didn't fear the lights as they changed, or having to shift. I'm not perfect, yet, but that's okay. I'll get better. The important thing is that, for the first time, I decided that the Foose, truly is my car. Rain or shine, day or night; it's mine. Jon will have to get his own muscle car to play with, because I've finally decided that the Foose is mine.

Too Terrible

2008-04-28T11:02:00.003-05:00

We use the radio for our alarm. We woke to the news. I was half asleep the first time the news cast talked about the man in Austria that had kept his daughter captive for twenty-four years, and fathered seven children by her. I thought I'd dreamed it. It couldn't be real, right?

I was getting dressed when the news repeated, and Mother of God, it was real. This is one of those real life events that make me realize that nothing I write will ever be as awful as what real people are doing to each other. Researching real crime has made me know things I didn't want to know, but this case is too bizarre to be real. You couldn't have used this plot in a book or movie as fiction because it would have been too unbelievable. Surely, no one could keep their daughter captive in a basement for that long, fathering children by her, and no one notice.

The neighbors are asking themselves that in interviews. Three of the children, two of them nineteen and eighteen had never seen the light of day. The oldest girl fell gravely ill, and the man took her to the hospital, where they appealed for the mother to come forward and give them more medical information. It was supposed to be a case of a bad mother having abandoned a sick child with their long suffering grandparents. Then the man (I won't call him father or grandfather, he's just the man) brought the mother and all the other children up, and out. Then the truth came out.

Several people have asked, why he brought the girl to medical attention? Why didn't he let her die? I think I can answer that. If you listen to most molesters they don't think of themselves as bad people. They aren't evil in their own minds. If he had let the girl die, then he would have been evil even to himself. He could not bear that. So, he tried to save her. Why did he finally bring the others up? Maybe, at 73, he wondered what would happen if he died, and they were trapped down there. He didn't save them for them, never mistake that, he brought them out into the light because if he had died knowing that they would slowly starve to death, he wouldn't have been able to see himself as anything but evil. No one, even monsters, want to believe they are wrong.

This story is so overwhelming, that I had trouble settling down to work. I spoke with a couple of friends, and they, too, were having trouble not dwelling on it. It was simply too inconceivable to be real, but it was real.

But bear in mind that today the three children that have never seen sunlight, are seeing it. The woman who has been enslaved for over two decades is free today. As terrible as it all is, today is a better day. Today, there are people who truly care about all of them, taking care of them. Today there is hope. And there are moments when hope is all there is, to act as our shield against the unfathomable evil of our fellow human beings.

Don't try and understand what has happened, because most of us cannot understand it. It is so awful, so unthinkable, that our minds just can't wrap themselves around it. People are going to be trying to make sense of this for years, but I tell you now, there is no sense to be made. We are sane, and we are not evil, so we will not understand this person, or what he did. There is no set of circumstances where this sounds like a good idea to us. It is so far beyond the pale, that there is no conceiving of it. For the few people that heard about this, and thought, even for a moment, that it sounded like a good idea, don't get cute. Keep it in the realm of fantasy, and know that there are some of us who understand that, some of you, didn't react with horror. Some of you, thought, wow, I wonder. The answer is, no. You can't get away with it, because this person getting caught makes the rest of us realize that this is possible. Him getting caught makes it harder for the rest of you. Though, most of you, will be comforting yourself with the thought that you would never do it to your own daughter. Only strangers. I suppose that is some comfort, some line to draw. I suppose in the end, for the people who didn't react with outrage, that any line you can draw is safer for the rest of us.

Some of you think that last paragraph was too dark, too creepy? You don't know what's out there, and you don't want to know. Worse, you don't know what's inside the mind of the person next to you, and you don't want to know that either.

I spent the day writing about the morgue, and my own created serial killer, Olaf. This was one of the days when what I was writing, paled beside what was happening in the real world.

LKH Bit Correction

2008-04-28T08:37:00.002-05:00

Hi! Well, I messed up the auctions. You do not have to pick it up in St. Louis. We will pay the shipping. Sorry for the mistake!

Darla

Irony

2008-04-27T08:55:00.003-05:00

I have what amounts to an allergy hang over. My friends that drink tell me that the symptoms are surprisingly similar. Headache, body aches, sensitivity to light, sore muscles, and just an overall grumpy not feeling so well. Spring has sprung and the pollen is attacking my immune system like a well organized army, or at least a persistent one. Damn trees having sex, stop getting your pollen all over me! That sounds like something you'd protest at a bad night at a really bad club. Worst thing I ever gotten on me for real was wax from a novice performer that got overzealous and missed most of her partner and got the audience. You ever try to get wax off of silk? Another reason not to sit right next to the stage.

One of the ironies of the allergy hangover is that I don't get hangovers from drinking. All right, in my limited experience I don't. The one and only time I got drunk enough to truly be drunk was on vodka and orange juice; screwdrivers. Somewhere around the sixth or seventh tall glass there was precious little orange juice in them. I slurred my words, and things that weren't funny were very funny at the time. The next morning, my friend who had joined me had classic hang over symptoms. I woke up bright eyed and bushy-tailed, cheerful and no worse for wear. She hated me that day. She, of course, continued to be a drinker for years to come, and suffered numerous hangovers. I who did not get hangovers and could have drunk without that penalty, just didn't like it that well. Proof that the universe is both ironic and unfair.

More irony; two of my male friends that are straight and one of female friends that is gay all have absolutely no gag reflex. Now how unfair is that? The rest of us that could use this talent must struggle on, and learn to work around our deficiencies.

But as I sit here nursing my first hot cup of tea of the morning, and trying to fight off the headache that is trying to take off the back of my skull and neck, I think about the fact that my drinking friend has absolutely no allergies at all. Maybe, in the end the universe is fair, after all.

Now, if I could just figure out a polite way to ask my three friends with no gag reflex what little misery they've got instead, I'd really know if the universe was fair. But some questions are not meant to be asked even between close friends. Not unless liquor is involved, and alas, I do not drink.

LKH Bit 04/25/08

2008-04-25T10:25:00.000-05:00

Blood Noir Charity Auctions and giveaway, Brenda Novak's Annual Juvenile Diabetes Auction, Blood Noir Tour, Spring Newsletter, Promo Banners, Conestoga Podcast, Free Stuff and Widgets, Full Moon
Sale

SIGNED BLOOD NOIR CHARITY AUCTIONS AND GIVEAWAY
----------------------------------------------------------------
The auctions are up! There are only two this time. We didn't get as many copies. :( Both auctions end May 2nd!

Item : 140227725287 Granite City APA
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140227725287

Item : 140227725779 Midwest Pug Rescue
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140227725779

GIVEAWAYS!
I only have two more arc's. So one is being given away randomly to a fan club member. But the second will be given in a random drawing.
Please follow these instructions!

One entry per person.

Email your name and adress to accounts@laurellkhamilton.org
Email Subject Line: Blood Noir Giveaway (this is so it will sort right)
Email Body: Your name and address.

Fan club members are eligible for the email contest. But must send in an email to enter.

One winner will be randomly chosen on May 2nd. Should the winning persons package be returned as undeliverable, an alternate winner will be chosen. This has happened.

Contest is open to residents of the planet Earth. (Someone always asks about their non-US country, so this should cover everyone.)

JUVENILE DIABETES AUCTION
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The auction starts May 1st! Be sure to go register and check out the goodies!

http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/

BLOOD NOIR TOUR
---------------------------------------------------------------
May 27, 2008 / 6:00 PM
Barnes & Noble 2722
9618 Watson Road
Crestwood, MO 63126
314-843-9480

June 3, 2008 / 6:00 PM
Borders 421
3140 Lohr Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
Store Phone: 734-997-8884

June 5, 2008 / 6:30 PM
The Civic Center Library
(Poisoned Pen Bookstore)
3839 N. Drinkwater Blvd.
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
480-947-2974
Tickets available in advance from PoisonedPen.com. This is a fund raiser for the library. Please see the website for details.

June 12, 2008 / 7:00 pm
Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy
239 College Street (Lower Level)
Toronto, Canada

SPRING NEWSLETTER
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Spring Newsletter is going out this week and next in large batches.

PROMO BANNERS
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Slowly but surely we are getting all the banners for every book
done. See em here:
http://s186.photobucket.com/albums/x...cember/Promos/"
target="_blank">..src="http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...pseBanner2.gif"
alt="ddecember/Promos" border="0" />

CONESTOGA PODCAST
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Melissa Tatum's interview with Laurell is available:
http://www.sftulsa.org/conestoga/2008/03/10/program-37-laurel-k-
hamilton/

FREE STUFF
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/Merchandise/LKHFreeStuff.html.
Offering right now is a A Lick Of Frost Magnet or an Anita Blake Was
Here window cling.

To get a free item, please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
Laurell K Hamilton PO Box 190306 St. Louis, MO 63119.

Add one of widgets to your website or social site and include the
address so we can see it and we will send along a surprise goodie!

You can now add Laurell's blog to your website. Find the code at http://www.widgetbox.com, search for
Laurell Hamilton.

FULL MOON SALE
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting with May, we will be having a special sale on the Full
Moon. One item from the fan club will get a big discount for that
day only.

Okay, I won't make you keep track of the moon phases and dates.
Instead we offer a widget that will tell you exactly which day it is:
http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/Merchandise/Goodies.html

May 20th is the next.

That's it for this bit! Darla

I can see the end, so why am I lost?

2008-04-24T16:59:00.004-05:00

I've had to step back from Merry for a few days. I'm lost. I just can't seem to get perspective on the plot. Either we really are going to kill one of the main villains of the piece at the end of book seven, which will cut the total number of books by several, or I'm just tired. Not a physical tiredness, but this sensation that comes over you sometimes in a series. You know so much about what's coming, and what's happened, that sometimes it all gets tangled in your head. It's like a knot in a chain. The more you pull at it, the tighter the knot gets. You have to pick at knots like that, gently easing them this way and that. All I've done for the last few days is pull tighter until the knot seems impossible. So, I'm stepping back. It breaks my rule of never stopping in the middle of a book. But I'm not in the middle. I'm at the end. I'm at most a hundred pages out, and I'm freaking stuck.

I don't think I've ever been this stuck, this close to the end before. It is an odd and uncomfortable sensation. If it were earlier in the book, I'd say that I've taken a wrong turn and need to back track. But the end is in sight, and the book that has gone before is good. There's nothing wrong, so why am I stuck?

I have written and rewritten the last fifty pages of this book, twice now. Each of those pages is different. I've thrown out and started over, and it still isn't right. So, in desperation I'm backing off and letting the end cook in my imagination, rather than trying to throw it onto paper before it seems ready. But, there will come a point of diminishing return. If my muse and I don't come up with something brilliant, or at least exciting, and true to the book, by next week, then all bets are off. The book has to be finished. A hundred pages is not a barrier I can stand to leave untouched for long.

You can have all your fine literary ideals, but I'm a working writer. I'll quote Jack London, "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

I'll wait a few days, then I'm getting a club.

Swimming With Dolphins

2008-04-23T16:30:00.001-05:00

I promised you guys that the next vacation blog would be about dolphins. Well, here it is. We went to Dolphins Plus on Key Largo.

I�m having a little trouble choosing pictures for this part since Trinity and I were the ones that got in the water with the dolphins. Why is that a problem? Because I make it a rule not to put up pictures of her on the blog. Pedophiles and other not so nice people lurk on the web. Caution is better when it comes to the kiddo. It�s also why she�s not mentioned as much in the blog as she might be. That and what might be amusing to me, might be embarrassing to her. Again, a reason to be cautious. So, it�s been a problem, because most of the pictures have Trin in them, and it�s a full face shot. Those are not going up. See earlier reasoning. So, some of the best pictures are not going up on the blog. They�ll go in our scrap book, and the family photos, but that�s it. Sigh.

There is an orientation where you learn how to touch the dolphins in a way that they won�t find objectionable. They don�t like to be grabbed at. I guess we don�t either. You don�t get any pictures of the orientation because the kiddo is too visible in all of them. Also, it�s just a bunch of people sitting around picnic tables under a roof, listening to someone talk. Not that visually interesting. You have a chance to ask questions, and test your understanding of what you�ll be doing in the water, and what the dolphins may be doing.

Some of our first views of the dolphins:

Yes, that�s me standing in the shadows waiting to get in the water. I look so serious, don�t I. All pale and unhappy. I�m always pale, genetics being what it is. There were a lot of people from Norway, Sweden, and various Nordic areas, and I was paler than all of them. That�s just sad. Why unhappy? I had to put on a wet suit. The water was only seventy degrees, and water that is thirty degrees, or so, below body temperature will make you cold fast. So, the wet suit, but I hate wet suits. All right, I hate the way I feel and look in a wet suit. Jon says I looked cute, but he loves me, he always thinks I look cute. Trin is off looking at the sea lions. Yes, they had those, too. You can even swim with them. Trin wants us to swim with the sea lions next time. Works for me.

Here we are in the water with the dolphins. We got to swim with the alpha male, L. B., and alpha female, Dingy, and their baby Julie. The baby doesn�t do everything, but she�s learning. L. B. stands for Little Bit, which I guess he was once, but as you can see from the pictures, they had to shorten it to L. B. because there�s nothing little about him now. He weighs over seven hundred pounds. He was impressive, especially up close. Dingy stands, strangely, for Ding-a-ling, though no one explained why.
here you can see all three of them pushing against our feet, to move us around the pool. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to keep the legs stiff enough for the dolphins to push.

Here I am being towed by L. B. and Dingy. Trin got towed, too, but her smiling face is too visible, so you�ll have to be satisfied with just me. One of the things they taught us was how to hold onto the dorsal fin. It�s very delicate and could be injured, so you�ve got to hold on just so. Oh, and my hair looking so red? Not sure. I�m finding more and more when out in direct sunlight I�ve got all these red tones. The more sunlight, the more auburn. Weird.

There�s their instructor on the floaty thing. Being towed like this was very Flipper. More than anything we did with the dolphins, this was the classic thing you think of, at least for me.

Trinity and I watching our neighbors dolphin get some air.

L. B. and Dingy bringing us their hoop.
Julie, the baby, going through the hoop.
The rest of Julie going through the hoop.
Someone bigger going through the hoop.

Someone much bigger.

And now for the kiss. Trinity requested that she get her kiss on her palm, which was an option. I took it on the cheek, because when would I ever get another chance to feel a dolphin touch my face? Too weird, and too wonderful to pass up. Though, I don�t think the dolphin�s heart was in it. But, you know how hard you have to work to stay still in water when you�re treading, even in a life jacket? All right, I have trouble. The dolphins don�t. The dolphin, and forgive me L. B. and Dingy because I can�t remember whose beak was touching me, but the dolphin was almost motionless. Their skin feels not rubbery, but that�s the closest I can come. They actually feel very smooth, clean, and soft, but different. I�ll be struggling with ways to describe it better, and when I nail it, I�ll blog it.

Here we are getting presents from L. B. and Dingy. What presents? They fetch things from the bottom of their pool, and give them to you. Trin and I both got string algae. The same stuff that we�re always trying to get rid of in the pond at home. But what�s an irritation in the water garden seems cool and special when handed to you by a dolphin. Some other little girls got leaves. You can then take your presents to the photo area and they will put them in a laminated book mark. Trin and I both got it done. The two girls left their leaves in the bathroom, and when I brought it to them, because I thought they�d forgotten them, they didn�t want them. We�d just been in the water with these amazing animals. I wanted the slime we got, and they wanted nothing. I didn�t understand that, and neither did Trinity. But each to their own.

Pictures you missed because Trin was too visible, are the dolphins pushing us by our feet, our hands in front of us like Superman. Or would that be Aqua-man? Us, petting the dolphins. We got to rub their tummies. You rub in one direction and you stop before you get too far down the body.

We also got to have the dolphins do that stand on their tail thing, and we touched their flippers. I wasn�t very good at that, and lost my grip, and since we�d been told not to grab, well, I let my dolphin go rather than risk hurting it.
Me loosing my grip on the dolphin.

Not us, the people that were next. But we didn�t get to do this trick, and it was cool.

Air born dolphins. Too cool.

This is Castaway

She�s a deep sea dolphin, notice the darker gray color. She was rescued, then rehabilitated, and released, but she kept coming back in. They tried to release her again, but someone noticed that she didn�t interact with the other dolphins, at all. Someone got a bright idea and tested her further. She�s deaf. For a dolphin that is tragic, they find their food and navigate by echo location, and they are a very vocal people. So, she became a permanent resident at Dolphins Plus. She can�t do the behaviors the way the others do, because she can�t hear the whistles. But she has trainers that work with her while the other dolphins are worked with, and they do other behaviors with them.
Here�s one with more sunlight on her, so you can see herhead more.

This is one of the best views we got of the tail of one of the dolphins. I include it to talk about the souvenir that Jon, Trin, and I got. Dolphins Plus has necklaces of the dolphin�s tails. Not just generic tails, but each individual dolphin has it�s tail photographed, first because the tail can be like fingerprints, so you can recognize them. Second, so someone can sculpt and design a charm that matches each individual tail. I wanted one from the moment I knew what they were, but Jon shooed both myself and Trin away. I knew then, what he was doing, but it�s all about letting your sweetie surprise you sometimes. I distracted Trin, and let him buy the gifts for us. He got me the tail of the alpha male L. B. Trin got the Alpha female, Dingy. Jon bought Castaway for himself. We were all touched by Castaway�s story.

We also got the video of our time with the dolphins, which is extra, but was worth it. I mean how many times in your life do you get to swim with dolphins? How many times do you and your daughter get to swim together with dolphins? It was entirely too cool. Trinity declared this vacation better than Disney World, which is freaking high praise from her. I had to agree, though my heart still loves the Mouse Kingdom, it doesn�t have dolphins.

Oh, and why did just Trin and I do the dolphins? Jon and his parents didn�t want to. Mary and Art, though they thought it was very nifty, still are happy to watch if we go back. Jon though was quite taken with it all, and is willing to swim with the dolphins next time. Besides, if Mary and Jon had gotten in the water who would have taken the pictures for you to see?

Slogging

2008-04-22T10:10:00.006-05:00

Today is one of those gloomy, rainy days. Most of the time I love days like this, but today seems unsettled. Storm is coming, you can feel it like a prickle along the back of your neck. Normally, again, I like storms, but today just feels oppressive, as if something really big is sneaking up on us here. Maybe I'm being melodramatic, I am a writer after all. We artistic types do love our drama sometimes, but it's not just me. My mother-in-law, Mary, is having the same trouble focusing as I am. You go from task to task, and don't really get anything done. You move things around, but nothing is accomplished.

The problem is, that I'm at the fight scene in SWALLOWING DARKNESS. I really need to accomplish something today. I keep staring at the words on the screen and moving them around, or deleting, or talking to myself on screen, but no real forward progress. I can't seem to "see" the scene in my head. I need to feel the seat of the car Merry is sitting in, smell the gunshots. Oh, yeah, you can smell a gun shot, if you're close enough. It's especially easy if a lot of rounds are going off. It's the CORDITE, that you smell. It's not a bad smell, or even acrid, just a smell. It does have an aftertaste of something burning, but it doesn't quite smell burnt. I've come to like the smell.

I need to feel Merry's hand around her sword hilt, and I don't. I don't "feel" it. It's just words on paper today. Crap.

Today is a slogging day. A day when you feel like you're hiking through thick mud, and you can't move any faster, and the harder you try the more tired you get. If you want to see a visual of what I mean by slogging, check out the Top Gear episode 6 of Series 10 (Episode number 88). The Review of the Alfa Romeo 159. Graham Boanas, who crosses the Humber river in a race with James May, slogs through the mud.

Maybe I'm afraid, not that we'll loose the bad guy, but that we might loose another good guy. We lost Frost last book, I don't want to loose anymore, and neither does Merry. Double crap, often my subconscious knows when something bad is coming on paper, long before I know. One of the signs that is happening, is that I begin to slow in the progress of the book, slow until I'm crawling along, or stopped all together. Is that what this is? Are we going to loose another man that Merry's loves? I hope not. There are days when being one of those writers that plans everything, and controls everything, looks pretty good. But it's never been the way I write.

Maybe it's just the weather. Maybe once the storm breaks we'll be fine. If you've got a favorite of Merry's men, then start wishing them well, because I've got that dread feeling. To give you some idea of what that means, the first time I had it was in GUILTY PLEASURES with Phillip.

Playing with my muse

2008-04-21T20:27:00.003-05:00

Eight pages of Merry. Seven pages of the next Anita.

But yesterday my second writing session was something I hadn't done in years: a short story. I have seventeen pages of a brand new short story. Okay, novella, or is novelette? I can't remember which is shorter by SFWA rules. Oh, Science Fiction Writers of America. Whichever is shorter is the one it's going to be. I'd estimate around thirty pages. Maybe less?

The second writing session began as a way for my muse and I to play, then I started making real progress on the new Anita book. Not BLOOD NOIR, but like the newer, as in unfinished one. And you know me, once you get past fifty pages, then a hundred, I started getting goal oriented. I thought, cool, I'll have this book well in hand when SWALLOWING DARKNESS is finished. But then, a strange thing happened, my muse and I had a falling out.

"You promised I could work on anything I 'wanted' to work on in the second session," she reminded. She had a point. I'd made the second session just more work.

So Sunday, I let my muse play. I did two pages of one story, and it's a great opening, but it's not ready to be written, not quite. Then I sat down to my second short idea, and boy, was it ready to go. Seventeen pages in two hours, pretty darn good, even for me. I felt energized, and refreshed when I finished.

Sometimes work is work, but sometimes I remember a time when it was play. It's good to remind myself what it was like when it was just my wish and my hobby.

Movie in the middle of the day

2008-04-20T10:00:00.001-05:00

One of the new things I'm trying to do is enjoy my success. Part of that is that my schedule, though arduous, is flexible. So, this week, Jon and I went to a movie in the middle of the day. Had to get home in time for him to pick the kiddo up from school, but we managed to fit the movie in.

We saw, "Superhero Movie", yes, it was stupid, but not so stupid that it wasn't funny. Though, some of the humor, as with most of these kinds of movies, was a little too over the top sometimes for me. But over all just stupid enough to be funny. I would say wait for DVD, or go to an early show rather than paying evening movie prices.

There were other movies we wanted to see, but either they didn't have earlier enough start times, or they were movies that we wanted to take Trinity to. The middle of the day, just the two of us, movie is about seeing something that wouldn't be kid-safe.

One of the things that I learned from my first marriage going under, was that you have to work at being married. Staying happy isn't accidental. One of the ways you stay happy as a couple is that you don't give up all the things that made you enjoy each other when you were dating, or back when you were both still just friends. What do I mean by that?

One of the things that began our serious friendship and would eventually lead to actual dating was that we both could go to movies in the middle of the day. We both found out, by accident, that we were going by ourselves, and we decided to combine forces. Both of us can, and have, gone to movies by ourselves, but we both agree that it's better with a friend. It was.

But in the last few years, the schedule has been rather harsh, and I just couldn't see my way clear to movies in the middle of a kid-free work day. Logical, extremely, Mr. Spock would be proud. But logic and being a happy couple, are not always the same thing.

So, I made the decision early in the morning that we would see a movie, period, whether I had my pages done for the day, or not. It ended up being, or not, but I was okay with that. My husband and I got to go out in the middle of the day, and see a movie, something we hadn't done in awhile. It was nice, and it reminded us of those early days, when you're first becoming a couple. It's so easy to get in a routine, that is mostly about the children, the job, and other very grown-up things. But sometimes, you need to remind each other what it was that brought you together. Maybe it's sports, movies, books, history, horticultural, music, cars, dancing, so many things bring us together. Whatever it is, don't loose it completely.

People say, and I say it, too, that the kiddo will never be this little again. That is true. But you know what, Mom and Dad will never be this age again, either. If you live your whole life around the kids, your twenties, your thirties, your forties, your fifties, are never coming back. It isn't just childhood that is slipping away, if you don't pay attention. Life is what's slipping away. Someday the kids will be grown and on their own, don't forget how to be yourself, or how to be a couple, because that is what remains when the children go. You, your spouse, and your sense of what it means to be a couple.

May I add for my friends that do not have children, that the same rules apply. It may be less complicated without kids to maneuver around, but work, and other duties, can still eat your life, and make you into strangers with your partner. Make a list of things you used to do, but haven't done in awhile, and see if there's any way to dust that list off and go have some fun.