Author: Jonathon

Nine pages today. Still not done, but instead of beating myself up about that, I’m going to pat myself on the back that I made progress. I’ll estimate five more work sessions to the end of the book. We’re looking at six hundred as the next hundred page mark. It’ll be under, but I’m no longer sure how much under.

Darla had a meeting on the phone about the publicity for the book I’m not done with yet. Always, a nice reminder that the wheels are turning, and time and tide are not waiting. Jon had to do part of his job he hasn’t had to do in several books. He had to baby sit me. What does that mean? It means, that he sits in my office at a different desk and basically I turn periodically and get reassurance that it’s okay. What’s okay? Me, I guess. Strangely, I didn’t need that much reassurance. By afternoon the book was ready to be written. I’ve totally let Merry have her head, and end the book as she pleases. I’m still waiting for my bloodbath, but Merry has other ideas. It’s her book, and her life. I just work there. I don’t have to live there, so who am I to complain?

We watched the first Hellboy movie tonight after dinner. Trinity was wanting to see the new one in the theaters, but I wanted to be sure she was cool with the first one before we all went out to the movies. She loves scary stuff, which is probably my genetics, but she also some issues that are closer to her father’s take on spooky stuff. My ex never enjoyed horror, at all, even mild scary stuff turned him off. I know, I know, how’d he end up married to me, right? Just one of life’s little ironies, I guess. We both read science fiction and fantasy. How different could our tastes in the field be, well, as it turns out pretty different. I think he was as surprised by the violence and darkness of my writing as I was at his lack of sympathy for it. He loved NIGHTSEER, and he did read GUILTY PLEASURES, but he didn’t read another Anita book until our marriage was actually breaking up. The idea was that if he read some of my books it might give him some insight into me. Marriage therapists, they’re a hoot.

I’m not sure I’d want anyone to read my books and try to use that as a plan to stay married to me. But, at the time, I didn’t have any better suggestions.

Trin thought Hellboy was cool and scary. So, Jon and I can take Trinity to see the new movie. If I finish the book this week, we’ll celebrate with a family outing to see a demon that’s chosen to be a good guy save the world from yet another apocalypse. Sounds like fun.

I’ve been sitting here for awhile typing away, and not doing myself much good. Yes, I’m past deadline, but Merry takes more out of me than Anita, and this book has been low page count. I did ten pages this morning. I should be celebrating. Instead I’m beating myself up because my muse and I are done for the day. We are stick a fork in us, honey, done. I feel like a dried up pool, and if I keep trying to get water out of the mud, come tomorrow morning it’s just going to be dry dirt. So, I’ve tested my understanding with Jon, and had my ephinay. I’m done for the day. Ten pages is great, especially for the rhythm of this book. So, I’m off to do something else. I’m off to see if I can find things to put some water back in that dry pool. Writing is so different from other jobs. It really is about filling up that well of ideas and energy. Right now, I’m shoveling from the bottom, and I need a fill up. So, we’re going to get me out of the house for awhile and see if I can relearn how to take a deep breath.

Nine pages yesterday. Good visit with our friends. Jon burned meat on the grill. Yummy steaks and hamburgers.

Ten pages today. Lunch finally. Then back to it. I think, I hope, I pray, I can finish today, though it will probably be a late night finish. Looks like I’ll be getting out my NINE INCH NAILS CDs tonight. Today, it’s all about the Christmas music.

Happy 4th of July, everyone! The birthday of our country is something to celebrate. Traditional is fireworks and cooking meat outdoors, or going to large crowded areas to ride rides, and eat fair food, and watch fireworks as night falls. Here in St. Louis the big event is Fair St. Louis downtown by the Arch. Everyone have a good time, but Jon and I are not going anywhere near that many people today. If crowds are your cup of tea, then enjoy, but it’s not for us. In fact, we’re not even burning meat until tomorrow, when we’re having a few friends over. Next year, we may try to widen the invite and have more people, but I knew not to do it this year. Why?

Because, my goal for the three day weekend is to finish SWALLOWING DARKNESS. My work session will not end tonight until the wee hours, unless I finish sooner. If today doesn’t get it done, then tomorrow all day until our friends arrive will be more work on the book. If it’s not done tomorrow then Sunday will be a marathon session. The book was due the last day of June, so I’ve missed my deadline. I don’t normally do that. I can’t go back in time and fix it, so I’ll do what I can, which is work my ass off, and get the book done this weekend.

What are Jon and I doing to celebrate the holiday? We slept in this morning. Between being sick this week, and still having the soft tissue damage to my leg, it’s been a physically trying week. I think extra sleep was just what the doctor ordered. Usually I can’t sleep in much, and if I do I feel sloggy, but today we slept in until almost eleven and it was great. A nice, slow morning, breakfast for lunch, which always feels sort of decadent, then I almost got caught by the marathon their running of LAW AND ORDER, but luckily I had to call and confirm for tomorrow with my friend Mark about when he and his family are coming over, and to concentrate on the conversation I had to turn the television off. Simply not turning it back on worked wonders for that magical draw that the T. V. can have on me sometimes. It’s especially alluring when I don’t want to write and know I have no choice, but to work. So, a slow start to the day, but I’ve already read over what I had on the book, and there’s nothing wrong with it, except my head had gone ugly that day. I find that true most of the time. When you’re really being negative in your head, and the editor on your shoulder, as Barry B. Longyear, called it, is too loud, then just step away. Let yourself cool down, and the next day dawns brighter.

The cool down was a movie last night. Jon and I met Charles at the theater and saw WANTED. We laughed out loud, and found it just way too much fun. But be warned, we were the only three people laughing at much of what seemed utterly humorous to us. So, bear in mind that your humor mileage may vary. Also, the violence, though some is pure movie physics, is more realistic than you may be used to seeing. Realistic enough that I spent a good portion of the movie pressed back in my seat, going, "Oh, ah," and ,"Oh, that’s gotta hurt." It wasn’t an edge of your seat movie. It was a press back away from the screen, gripping hard, and flinching movie. Some of the stunts made me do that thing where you move in your seat with the action, as if your moving with it. I can’t remember the last film that made me do that. So, three thumbs way up from us. Though, it is not kid safe, let me just be clear on that. Trinity is not seeing this movie anytime soon.

We did take her to see KUNG FU PANDA last weekend and it was a blast. Very fun for her, for us, and for our friends Pili and Kari that went with us. It’s a very positive, upbeat movie. You come out feeling good about the movie, yourself, and it’s just hopeful. There are lines I would quote, but I’m not sure if they would be spoilers. But we all came out quoting lines to each other, and Jon and I would be willing to see it again. This was Trinity’s second time to see it, and she was perfectly happy to repeat it. There aren’t a lot of movies that wear that well through a second viewing. This one Jon and I liked it enough that we know we want to own it when it comes out on DVD.

Okay, I think the read over of SWALLOWING DARKNESS has percolated enough in my mind. I’m going to go back and get a few sentences, maybe even paragraphs, then I’ll break for a late lunch, then back to work. What’s Jon doing today? He’s playing computer games, reading books, and basically enjoying the fact that no one is here but us, and that this is one holiday that everyone seems to take off, so there’s no work to do. A quiet day to putter, and be cheerfully anti-social is sometimes a very refreshing way to spend a day. Or so, Jon and I both feel. I’d be joining him for the cheerful anti-social thing, but the book doesn’t write itself. Where are those book writing fairies when you need them? Oh, wait I’ve got all of my imaginary fairyland waiting for me to sit back down and finish up.

We keep getting asked how to tell if a writing group is a good group. First, are people actually writing, or just talking about writing. Talk is great, and if all you want to do is hang out with other people that want to talk about writing that’s fine, but be wary. Writers don’t just talk about writing; they write.

Second, sometimes it’s hard to be in a group if you write genre of any kind. A lot of writing groups are sort of snoppish. Any group that tells you that what you want to write is bad just because it’s horror, or science fiction, or romance, or mystery, or any other genre, is not the group for you. Don’t let anyone talk you out of what you know in your heart is what speaks to your muse. If the group doesn’t approve of your type of writing, then find a different group.

Third, beware of sharks. Sharks are people that are just in the group to draw blood. They do nothing but criticize in the most vicious terms. They say they’re giving you constructive criticism and trying to help, but trust me, sharks are interested only in destruction and hurting. Some sharks throw off all pretense and begin to attack the writer personally, and not the writing. These are people that are only interested in causing you pain. Any group that tolerates people like this you do not want to be a part of.

Fourth, the group that only says good things. If you’ve written something good, then it’s nice to know, but no one is perfect, especially at the beginning. If you get nothing but praise then you can’t improve your writing, because you don’t have any feedback telling you what your weaknesses are. But true constructive criticism is just that construtive. It contains solutions to help you fix things. It doesn’t just bitch at you.

Fifth, the dominant personality. Beware of a group where one, or two people, but usually one, does all the talking. They’re opinion is the only one allowed, and their critique is the only one that counts. If anyone disagrees with them, they get shouted down, or humiliated until they give up on giving an opinion that is different from the dominant person. Most of these people are just in the group to make themselves feel wonderful, usually at your expense, and they tend to have one, or two, members of the group that are simply there as their Greek chorus. A sort of, "Yes, Sophocles," thing. This group is crippled by their pet Sophocles, leave him and his chorus to their little stroke party and find a group that actually encourages opinions.

This is advice that was hard won for me over the years from personal experience. I hope it helps some of you not have to go through what I endured before I found my own writing group, the Alternate Historians. We’ll be celebrating twenty years as a group. Between us all we have over forty books, and innumerable short stories published. Not bad for a group of people that hadn’t sold anything when we met. (The exception being Sharon Shinn, who had sold several books before she joined us. Our good fortune to have her with us.)

We’ve been discussing how to organize the work here. We have lot’s of ideas, but in the end, all the ideas crash against the same barrier. Me.

I am a writer. That means that my pages can take two hours, or eight, to accomplish. It means that my best hours are the first hours of the day, so those have to be kept fresh and open, if at all possible. It means, that part of everyone’s job is to help me be able to work, because if the books don’t get done then none of the other work really matters. The books are the thing, the foundation. The comic books are great, and fun, but they’re based on the books and the world of the books. It all goes back to the novels. So, that’s the work priority. It has to be.

But, what about everything else? The comic, interviews, the blog, the newsletter, card ideas for the fan club, merch ideas for the fan club, meetings, covers to look at, artwork, more and more meetings. More demands on your time, and more coming, and the more successful you are the more demands there are, it is the nature of the beast. It is everything we all work for, but one thing keeps banging up against it. Me.

Writers need a certain amount of down time. We need time to wonder about old bookstores and libraries. Time to visit odd places, and talk to people. Time to lick our wounds and get new ones. We are odd creatures. Each of us so unique, so that what will fill one writer up, will drain another dry. An idea that will spark and burn for one writer, will just lie there on the sidewalk unnoticed and unwanted by another. You’ve got to find what feeds your muse. What keeps you going.

The more success I get, the more sympathy I have with the tabloid darlings. Success can be as deadly to your career as failure. I mean, most of us, have dealt with failure for years before we finally sell. We know how to fail, and dust ourselves off and hit it again. If you’re going to succeed as a writer you’ve got to know how to take a hit, and keep swinging. It’s a harsh business, and your ego better be able to take the beating. A little success is amazing and feels like fine champagne, but there comes a point where success begins to feel more like drowning in champagne than drinking it. You begin to feel like there’s too many people wanting your attention and not enough of you to go around. What do you do when you’ve succeeded beyond your wildest business dreams? Celebrate, yes, but what then?

I said, I’m the stumbling block for organizing the business, and I am. How do you organize a schedule that can get everything done in four hours one day, and not get done for ten the next? How do you explain that a few minutes of interruption can destroy two hours of momentum, and loose you all you’ve gained for that work session? Everything waits on the book being finished, but it’s not done. Progress was nonexistent today.

Merry won’t let me destroy everyone. Every time I think I’m getting the blood bath I wanted, she stops working with me. Today, she just dug her heels in inches from the abyss, and would not play. Tomorrow I have to take my issues off the table and let her have her gentler solution. I don’t want gentle, but it’s not my story, it’s her’s. I just write it, I don’t have to live it, she does. Merry needs to end the book her way, and I need out of this book. I need onto something more visceral, more violent, more rough. I ask Deity to help me give compassion to those who hate me, but it is not my nature, which I suppose is why I pray for help to feel it. These people have hurt Merry, and killed those she loves, they deserve to die. They’ve earned it, but she is not me. She would give life where I would give death. She would give compassion where I would give back the rage visited upon us.

How do I explain that I’m having trouble scheduling a meeting with my accountant, or my doctor, or my whatever, because my imaginary friend won’t cooperate. How do you explain that to people whose jobs deal with facts, figures, and flesh and blood people? Hell, there are days when I can’t even explain it to myself.

Okay, this is my third attempt at a blog today. Why?

Because the other two were too whiney for me to post. So, here’s hoping third time is, indeed, the charm.

I’ve been inching along towards the end of SWALLOWING DARKNESS. I thought five hundred pages would hit it, but if I ended here it would be a true cliff-hanger. I swore never to do that. But, I’m left with wondering how many pages until I can find a satisfactory end. The book was due today. If I could finish it this week, then it’s not so bad. If I’m twenty pages from the end then it’s possible, but if I’m fifty pages, or more from the end, then this week is not looking good.

I’ve never come to the end of any book and been writing so slowly. I’m doing two pages, three pages . . . I haven’t made even my four pages over the last few days. It’s no way to write a book. My leg hurts, and it does distract me. Today, I managed to be actually sick on top of it. Okay, that’s it, no whining.

Maybe third time is not the charm. But this has been my day. Sick, tired, in pain, trying to find a place to end this book that will be satisfying, but not drive me and my editor crazy on the deadline. Even Christmas music didn’t cut it today.

On the plus side, this is my first night back up in the office to do the blog since I hurt my ankle. Jon’s taken a guest shot, or I’ve worked from the island computer, or I’ve done the blog earlier in the day. Tonight, I came back up to sit in the dark and the quiet of the office and type this. I guess that means one of two things. Either I’m hurting a little less, or my body is adjusting to the pain. Either way, you begin to feel better. Anyone that doesn’t understand that last bit, has never had an injury that didn’t quite get back to normal. Lucky you.

Anita should ache in some of the injuries. Ache when the pressure changes. Ache when you stress it. Ache when you sleep on it wrong. Ache when you over use the muscles that have compensated for the original injury. I guess, if she heals most things, that she might get to skip all the after effects, even of the scars she already has; cool.

Got into see the orthopedist yesterday. I’m off crutches, and in a splint. She wanted to give me more pain meds, but due to stomach difficulties, I can’t have most of them. So, I’m pretty much on Tylenol. No, it doesn’t take all the pain away. The only med I can have, actually only takes the edge off, and it makes me sleepy, so I haven’t taken it today. Do I hurt? Yes. But I have five pages of Merry. The final battle in this book is well underway.

I’ve been listening to musicals for three days. For those new to the blog, that means that I’m having trouble concentrating. But the musicals are working; at least I haven’t had to resort to Christmas music in June. Christmas music is what I listen to when nothing else works. So, it could be worse concentration wise. I’m off crutches, which is better.

I thought I was doing pretty well with the crutches, but Jon informed me, that maybe I wasn’t doing as well as I thought I was doing. He described my progress through the house thus:

He said, "I’d hear you, and think, she’s doing pretty good. Then, bang, "Ow, f**ck." Then the sound of me moving forward, then, bang, "Ow, f**ck!" Just repeat that part over and over.

One of the reasons that Jon and I work as a couple is that he doesn’t let me get too full of myself, and he makes me laugh while he does it.