Author: Jonathon

That first hard cold of winter always makes me want to hibernate, like a bear. I just want to climb into my den, and not come out until Spring. I’ll feel better later, but that first cold snap seems to make me resent having to continue with life as normal. It’s Winter, damn it, we should be able to sleep more, when the frost makes the grass crunchy underfoot, and the roses are black with the freeze. So, in that grumpy bear mood, I’ll leave you with a brief list of things I did today. I got eight pages on the next Anita book: SKIN TRADE. Business meetings. Phonecalls. Signing things. Meals. Meditation. Tired. Thanks for all the positive feedback on SWALLOWING DARKNESS.

Now, I get to go hibernate, at least for seven hours, or so. For tomorrow morning; brrr.

What we did this weekend:

Saw Max Payne. Visually stunning, but ultimately unsatisfying. There were plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. The police work was badly done, and we had an ex-cop with us to confirm it. Yes, that was Charles.

Lunch with our friends Mark and Sarah. It was only Jon’s second lunch out since he got on crutches. We went to The Blue Owl Restaurant in Kimswick. It’s been one of our favorites for years.

It was the most out and about Jon has had since his operation. He was pretty happy to see something besides the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom.

Finished the lettering for the next issue of The Laughing Corpse comic, and e-mailed it to New York.

I was going to sleep in today, but around six, or so, I had a vivid dream, and woke from a sound sleep to adrenalin pumping awake. Why? Because in the dream someone had knocked on a door, and I would have sworn that someone had given two forceful knocks to our bedroom door. My first thought was that real life and dream had merged and that Trinity was knocking. When the kids knock at odd hours, you know it’s not for a good reason. Okay, once they get above a certain age. What is it about toddlers, the just don’t sleep much. But, I was actually sitting up to go check, when I realized that Trin is with her father this weekend. In fact, I was in bed with the only other human being in the house, and Jon was fast asleep. So, he didn’t hear anything. Which meant, my own dream woke me. Crap.

But I’m nothing if not stubborn, so I lay back down and did manage to fall asleep again. Yea! Then suddenly, Jon gave one of those tremendous whole body jumps and the next thing I know I’ve been wacked in the head with an elbow. I yelled, "Ow!" Which woke him, and left him puzzling as to what happened. The hand on my head, and the ow that woke him clued him in, and he apologized with his eyes still wide and panicked from the dream.

It was now seven in the morning. I gave up on sleep. I made sure that Jon knew there was no hard feelings about the flying-elbow-of-death, then got dressed. I could hear Sasquatch downstairs barking. He’s a lot less happy in his crate now that he doesn’t have Phouka to sleep with him. She was our puppy keeper. Both Sas and Pip slept in her crate when they first arrived. There’s no puppy whining when they’ve got someone to cuddle with, and now Sas misses it. We are looking for another female pug. I don’t dare bring another boy in with Pippin being so nicely Boxer dominant. I’m trying to find an older dog, at least not a little puppy because of the housebreaking issues. I don’t want a puppy having accidents on the floor with Jon still on crutches and forbidden to put any weight on one foot. It just has slippery disaster written all over it. Don’t you think? I’m trying to be so good, but it’s hard. Two dogs lost in one twelve month span; the house seems empty. It would be so easy to get talked into the wrong dog, right now. So, I’m trying to be careful. There’s a lead on a one-year-old female pug, but again it depends on how Pip and Sas, and she, get along. It’s always interesting bringing a new dog into your pack. But our pack seems awfully small right now. Sigh.

Darla just called me with a pug puppy alert at the local Humane Society. I know I’m trying to avoid puppies, but . . . Called, and she’s gone to her home. Good for her, and her new family. Temptation has been put out of reach, again. Also, on top of everything and everyone else I take care of, do I want to add a puppy to it? No. Really, no. Out there, somewhere is the slightly more grown-up dog just waiting for us to find her. Patience is, indeed, a virtue on this topic. I will try to stand firm, and avoid going to all rescue events. The last two times I found a dog that I would have gladly taken home, if I hadn’t been so uncertain on his welcome by our pack. But they weren’t pugs, one was a Shih Tzus, and the other a poodle. Neither breed is one I’ve owned. If I had no other dogs, or it was just Sasquatch I might have taken them both. Bad idea. But, I think about them both, especially the poodle. But he was five, and a boy, and I just don’t know how either of my boys would take to one the same age as Pip. I think younger and female will be less likely to cause problems. And I need to stick to breeds I know and understand. I love Pip, but I’m still struggling to understand him. I get Boxers, sort of, but the mix of that with Brittany, has me puzzled after five years. I don’t want to be puzzled anymore. I want to be comfortable, and not have that wistful sadness that still comes over me when I miss Jimmy or Phouka. Jimmy’s favorite bed in my office seems empty. Strangely, it’s still not a favorite of our remaining two boys. They’ll use it occasionally, but they stick with the beds that were always their favorites. Sas likes the soft, and squishy ball of fluff, and Pip likes the Orvis hard-chew in the corner. Jimmy’s bed was supposed to be big enough for all of them, but it was rare for all the dogs to use it together, it just became the Oldendogger’s bed. I’m off to take the boys out, because they’re giving me that "I’m full" look. Then wake Jon, and let the day begin. Of course, I’ve already eaten breakfast, so I guess my day is pretty much already on the go.

What I accomplished today:

I did physical therapy for my ankle. That pesky tendon is still not tightened completely.

I did yoga.

I worked on the lettering for issue three of THE LAUGHING CORPSE in comic form.

I fixed three meals for the family.

I answered lots of business e-mails, and even a few personal ones. I’m getting better at that whole evil-mail thing.

Signed lots of stuff. Guys, if you send in a box with fifty to a hundred, or more, books that you want me to sign, then your box goes to the end of the line. People who send in one book, or a few books, or comics, are going to get signed first. Because I open up the box and it’s so packed, that it’s just discouraging to think about signing it all. So, for all those who have sent the big boxes, that’s what’s happening.

I went to parent teacher conferences at Trinity’s school. President Elect Obama went to his kid’s conference, so I couldn’t figure out a way to say my schedule was too packed.

What I did not accomplish today:

My page count. Very discouraging, that. I actually spent a lot of the morning trying to figure out how the metaphysics of the scene would work, because we’re involving real magic, not just the made up stuff. Always harder when you’re doing a hybrid of real and imaginary. I think I’ve got it figured out, but I really did need to know how it would work before I wrote the scene. But, by the time I figured it out, it was time to eat lunch if I had any chance of it digesting enough before yoga. Then, yoga, then parent teacher conference, then it was like time to come home and be thinking about dinner. The day was gone. Sigh.

Tomorrow is another day, as they say. My grandmother was fond of saying, "The sun will come up tomorrow, and if it doesn’t, then it didn’t matter anyway." Always the cheerful one, my Granny.

Six pages today. I think the amazing productivity of the two preceding days, just tired my muse and I out. I actually spent most of those six pages rewriting, so that one of your favorite vamps from St. Louis could get in on the action. No, not Jean-Claude. But, strangely, Asher wanted to come. I hadn’t planned on him being in this book, except for a cameo where we see him near the beginning dead to the world in a nest of sheets with Jean-Claude. We’ll run it up the flag pole tomorrow and see if it works, or if I end up redoing and lowering the cast number again. Won’t know until we try, I guess.

Darla wanted me to state, absolutely, that SWALLOWING DARKNESS is not the last Merry book. I thought I’d done that in the blog before. I know I’ve answered the question at signings. But it seems like no matter how many times I state the facts, the rumor presists. So, here, to try and make Darla not have another 109 e-mails in one morning with the same question goes one more attempt to set the record straight.

SWALLOWING DARKNESS is not, repeat, is not, the last Merry book. I am still under contract for more, for one thing. For another, I still have ideas with the characters and the world. Besides, don’t we all want to see Merry through to the birth of the twins. Unlike some writers, I don’t skip a lot of time in my books, so we’re going to get to see pediatrician appointments, and the whole nine yards of pregnancy. Just because you’re a fairie princess doesn’t mean you get a skip on any of that. Besides, with the interesting genetics of the fathers, I’m kind of curious to see who the twins take after.

So, does that do it? Are we clear? There will be more Merry books, okay? I promise.

I was also asked to put up our brand new twitter account, so here is the address: www.twitter.com/LKHamilton

I’m a little fuzzy on exactly what a twitter account is, but I think it’s like a one, or two line blog, but it’s more instantaneous, I think.

Thanks to everyone that has bought SWALLOWING DARKNESS. Did any of you actually take the book to read in line while voting? I’d suggested that in a blog earlier, so just curious.

The second issue of THE LAUGHING CORPSE comic has hit the stores. Anita in the bloodiest of her early murder cases.

Again, it was kind of weird not to do a signing on the release date for DARKNESS, but 27 pages yesterday, and 24 pages today on SKIN TRADE. I would not have been able to get that on the road for tour. I am over six hundred pages in, and just now introducing the secondary plot, pacing being what it its, that means I’m nowhere near as close to the end as I’d hoped. For you, the readers, it’s great, more book. For me, the writer, a little frustarting. But I knew once I had Edward and Anita out hunting vampires and serial killers that it would be a longer book. I was just hoping not quite this long. Sigh.

Strangely, ideas for the next Merry book keep popping into my head. I don’t usually have Merry’s world so alive in my head when I’m this far into an Anita book. I guess turn about is fair play, but it means that seven books in, and Merry is more real. Her, her men, her world, is just beginning to pulse through my head the way Anita and company does. It’s a good sign. I’m almost a hundred percent sure, maybe ninety-nine percent sure, what the opening of the next book will be. I usually write the opening chapter as I finish the last book, but SWALLOWING DARKNESS seemed to take more than it’s fair share of energy from me, and I was simply too tired to face the thought of beginning again so soon. But it’s moving liquid in my head, and I’m making notes. Ah, new sticky notes to take the place of the ones that this book made me have to throw out. I write on SKIN TRADE, going at a white, hot, heat, but Merry moves in my mind like that first warm breath of spring, a hint of warmth to begin the long process from idea to finished book. Merry threw so many of my plots to the wind in this book, that I honestly don’t know what the major plot will be of the next book. That should fill me with panic, but it doesn’t. I feel strangely, calm, and at peace with Merry. She’s content in my head to let the next plot build slowly. It’s almost as if by letting her have her head on this book, she’s whispered a promise to me, that if I’ll just follow where she leads, it will be all right. I trust my imaginary friends to do what they say they will do. I trust Merry to lead us to an idea, a plot, and a book. I’ve trusted Anita for years, it’s time I trusted my other girl, too.

What did I do on election day since Jon and I had already voted? This was the first time, I think ever, that we did no signing for the kick off date of a book. SWALLOWING DARKNESS hit the shelves, but I did not have to hit the road. Jon is still unable to travel with me because of the knee surgery, and it would just be weird to travel without him. But another reason that I begged off on the touring, besides the fact that all anyone wants to interview about is the election, was what else I did today.
What did I do? I did twenty-seven pages over three work sessions. Almost thirty pages on SKIN TRADE. If I’d been gearing up for a signing for SWALLOWING DARKNESS, that would not have happened. If I’d been on a plane tomorrow, there would be no follow up. The book moving eager and ready in my head, would be reduced to notes on the plane rides. When a book is going well, and I have to leave it even for a few days, it’s like having to re-dig a mountain one shovel full at a time, when if you’d been able to stay with it, you could have used high explosives. Now multiply that by being on the road for weeks. The record was 26 cities in 28 days. By the time all that happens, the book I’m currently working on is ice cold when I get back home. There is no way, that I’ve found, to prevent that. So every body’s book takes longer when I’m touring for the other book. But tomorrow I get up, and I get to work at my own desk, in my own office, and I know exactly what I’m doing tomorrow. What scene is up, and what new characters are on stage, and what old characters are finally hitting the stage. The book is eager and alive in my head and hands. As much as I love seeing everybody at events, as much as I love going out and talking to people about book A; SWALLOWING DARKNESS, I am just as glad that I get to stay home this time and work on book B; SKIN TRADE.
The thing I’ll miss most is getting to finally talk about DARKNESS with people who have read it, but honestly in the first week there are so many people who haven’t read it all the way through that we all have to behave ourselves, and not let the pixie out of the sack, to the point where we can’t talk freely. Then there are those of you, who have already read the book, and will already be asking me, where’s the next book. The next book is in your hands. The book after that is still in my head.

I’ve tried three times to record the early chapters of SWALLOWING DARKNESS. Each time the tech has failed. The goal was to put the early chapters out in a video before A LICK OF FROST came out in paperback, because the chapters four through six is in the back of FROST. It’s what I did for the last Anita paperback/hardback. But whereas that went smoothly, this attempt to do it for Merry just has not worked. Tomorrow is the release of SWALLOWING DARKNESS, and our last attempt tonight has failed again. I guess somethings aren’t meant to be. So, I guess by the time we put up me reading, the book will be on the shelves, and there’s no help for it.

So, tomorrow SWALLOWING DARKNESS will be on the shelves. You can buy it and read it in line while you vote. The lines are predicted to be long, take a book, or music or something to entertain yourself. Now, no hints, no teasing, tomorrow you can read what happens next. Enjoy.

Sometimes you nail the interview; sometimes the interview nails you. For some reason when I’m interviewed for Time magazine whether online on in magazine I always end up feeling like I’m the one that got nailed. It’s no reflection on the reporter doing the questions, but at some point during the process I end up getting thrown off my rhythm and never feel like I get back on it. It usually happens when you have your answer set and ready to go, and they want a different answer, or they ask a question you’ve never heard. I guess, in a way, it’s a compliment to Time magazine that their reporters are more likely to do that. But it’s not until someone asks you a brand new question, or takes a question in a new direction that I begin to realize how knee jerk I’ve gotten with my answers. I’ve heard the questions so many times that I know the answers, I’m ready, until I’m not. I often think I sound like a babbling idiot, when later I listen to a recording and I sound fine, but sometimes it’s not just delusion on my part. How can I tell the difference? Is it insecurity of the moment, or did I really drop the ball?

The interview on Time.com sounds fine, but I might have said different things if I hadn’t thought of those different things about fifteen minute after I hung up from the interview. Yeah, that quick, and I remembered what I really wanted to say. What I would add to the interview if I could, is the part about what I got to explore with the Merry series that I couldn’t do in Anita. Well, initially it was the sexual content, but as we all know the series have sort of caught each other up. But what I get to explore more in Merry than Anita is what it means to be a leader. A true leader, and not just a politician. What does it feel like to know that you are responsible for so many, and that if you fail they could die because of that failure? How far would you go to protect those you love, or even just feel responsible for? That’s is admittedly a theme in the Anita series, too. Apparently, it’s a topic that interests me, or puzzles me, because I explore it in different ways in both series and many of my short stories. What does it mean to take care of people? What is loyalty, friendship, love? All this, and more, but I choked, and the interview is mostly about the sexual content, no fault of the nice reporter, but just me fumbling the ball. It’s still a good interview, and I’m particularly pleased with getting to talk about my religion, but in the end, I hung up and went, damn. I’m beginning to realize there are only two kinds of interviews. One, is so much the same questions that you answer by habit, and don’t have to think. Two, is the one that surprises you, shakes you out of the old patterns and leaves you scrambling. If you get enough of #1 in a row, #2 will catch you off guard, every time, or it does me.

Happy Day of the Dead. Happy All Saints Day. Happy Saint Marcel of Paris Day. Day of the Dead is a celebration South of the Border, where you party, and have picnics in the cemetery with your dead realtives. All Saints is a Catholic feast day celebrating all the people that have died and attained sainthood. Tomorrow is All Souls, and celebrates all the faithful departed. Today is also, the feast day for Saint Marcel of Paris, the patron saint to be invoked to protect you from vampire attack. So, a busy holiday.

To celebrate all these fun things, I put on a shirt with skull and bats on it. Once appropriately dressed the three of us sat down to the tivoed marathon of Ghost Hunters from Halloween night. Trinity had gone trick or treating on the night itself, but today we spent watching Ghost Hunters: plumbers by day, ghost hunters by night. That’s for the two senior and founding members of the TAPS program. Though, after watching nine, yes, nine hours of the show we were left wondering what day jobs the rest of the TAPS crew has that allows them to do all this ghost chasing. Oh, TAPS stands for The Atlantic Paranormal Society. There are family branches across the country apparently, but none of the others has their own show. Though, Ghost Hunters: International does, and they are a spin off from TAPS.

Trinity doesn’t really like vampires and werewolves. Whereas I, as a child, loved best the monsters that could eat me and cause the most bloodletting, she prefers her monsters less visceral. She’s loved ghosts and mummies since she was quite small. Jon and I didn’t really like Ghost Hunters when she first started wanting to watch it, but it’s grown on us. I still can’t believe we watched nine hours of anything, but it was a family activity that Jon with his crutches could participate in, and spending the Day of Dead watching people use science to try and debunk haunted places seemed appropriate to the spirit of the day. No pun intended. Besides, we really do enjoy the show now. Trinity’s stoked that she won us both over to it.