News

I know why I only got six pages on Friday. Okay, this is not so much a spoiler, as a tease. I don’t mean to tease, but it’s either tease or give away an important part of THE HARLEQUIN. I always struggle here on giving you guys a view into how it is to write these books, and not giving away too much, or tormenting you with hints. I’m not sure I’ll ever get the right balance between all that, but I felt that this issue was important enough to share with you. Behave yourselves about it, though, okay. A lot of fans have asked in the last year or so, why hasn’t anyone died in the series in so long? I tell them I made a promise after GUILTY PLEASURES when we killed off you know who (in the odd chance someone reading this is reading the series backwards, which happens, I don’t want to give away who dies, those who have read the book know who I’m talking about)a promise to Anita. That if she truly cared for someone I wouldn’t kill them. Is it the bargain we would all make with Diety if we could. A guarantee that no one you loved would be taken from you. I just didn’t have the heart to do it again. Let alone to someone she truly loved. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why Anita has suddenly found a romantic, or at least sexual, interest with so many of the men. The promise covers them, then. I don’t think this was conscious on my part or Anita’s but there it is. On Friday we killed someone. Not a main character, because that breaks the promise. But someone we’ve seen over the course of more than one book. I wrote the death, but after seeing the injury I put it all off screen. As neat and tidy as I could, but death is not tidy and neat. I know it is not. I know better. But it was easier this way, less painful to her, and to me. I woke up yesterday morning knowing I’d done it wrong. Knowing I had to rewrite the two chapters leading up to it, expand certain parts, and make the death have more impact. It’s the first person we’ve had die on us in years, it should mean something. But the death and the violence that led to it has taken the heart out of me. I was enjoying this book, and now I am not. I used to enjoy playing policeman on paper, now sometimes, I’m just tired. I know my reality is a hyper-reality, and though I’ve done my police research it’s not that close to the real thing, not really, it is fiction. It’s certainly more violent than most real police work, and it is more unrelently violent than most real police, or even combat. I joked that I needed to write an Anita vacation book, where she and a few of the guys got out of Dodge and did something fun. I can take a vacation, but it’s almost as if Anita is my alter-ego, and it’s not just me that needs a break. A few days away with the family rests me, but it doesn’t rest Anita. I’m actually beginning to wonder if I need to write Anita getting that vacation on paper. It’s almost as if it’s not just me that’s tired. That my imaginary friends need a break, too. A real break, like on paper, not just telling them okay, guys, go off and have fun, see you in a few months. Because most of my imaginary friends just wait for me to come back to the computer, they don’t have fun on their own. Oh, Edward does, and Jason does sometimes, but most of them wait for me to come back and tell their story. So unless I sit down and do the vacation, they don’t seem to get one. Trouble is I don’t think I could behave myself for very long on paper. I don’t think I’m capable of writing hundreds of pages of fun in the sun. No, eventually, I think of bodies on the ground, or in the ground. My mind just runs to that. Maybe we could compromise, maybe the first half of the book could be vacation, or maybe we could just have a case that wasn’t a freaking serial killer case, or one this violent. Maybe we could see if I could find a cozy mystery for Anita to play in, something kinder than this. An Anita cozy mystery? It seems impossible, but damn I may be ready to try. I am tired of death. Life appeals to me more, and it’s no longer enough that Anita by killing the bad guy, saves lives. We’d like to be there saving the victims before hand, not cleaning up afterwards. Anita is tired of being the clean-up crew, and so am I today. This death is not a major character, but it’s still hard. I’ve still got to write the scene where Anita watches this person die. I cannot flinch from it. If I’m going to do it, then I have to do it. Do it right, or don’t do it at all, that is the rule. I did it wrong on Friday, I flinched, hell I damn near ran. No more running. Face it, run towards it, run through it. Most of the time I regret most when I give into my cowardice, being brave cost less in the long run. Though there are days when being brave fills like this crushing burden, but it’s not the bravery that crushes, it’s the fear. The overwhelming fear of a thing, and every time you give into that fear you give it more power over you, give it more strength, and you make yourself weaker, less able to fight back. This death will not just be the loss of this character, but there will be emotional shit to clean up for books, not just in Anita’s head, but in other character’s minds, as well. This is why everyone lives, it is not a Star Trek episode where everything is neat and tidy at the end, and next week we have life as normal. No, the great bad thing happens and it impacts our world, changes our world, and the people in it. All you people who wanted someone to die, I hope you enjoy it, because I have not.