Kim Harrison's Blog, page 65

Cover reveal: We got’s legs!

After a quick consultation with my publisher, we’re scrapping the original “aim for the 20th” date, since that’s a Friday, and go right for it. Thank God, because I can’t take anymore of this waiting stuff. Today, I give you . . . legs, boots, and a snappy skirt!

Tomorrow I give you . . . more stuff. Hair, maybe? Location, perhaps? Something even better, by chance? (I’m dying a slow death here.)

Cover reveal-Here’s how we’re going to do it

Howdy, campers! As you might have noticed, there’s not been a breath of a hint about the new cover for THE UNDEAD POOL, and you know we’re getting close to the February 25th date. I’ve been working with my publisher for a while about the cover reveal, and because it’s the most fabulous cover to date, they gave me the honor of it.

Because I’m a terrible tease, I’m going to prolong the agony and release it piecemeal over the course of next week.  (Sorry. Not next week, the week of the 2oth. I’m such a goober.) One excruciation piece at a time until you find out if Rachel is alone, or with someone, wearing an evening gown or party dress, going with her curly hair or a hair straightener charm, and if it’s set in reality or the ever-after.

First piece is revealed on Monday,  (Next Monday, the 20th) and the only hint you get from me between now and then is that this book’s color scheme is . . . blue. (Which might not preclude it being in the ever-after. Or not.)

Pre-order Amazon

Pre-order B&N

Pre-order Kobo (not available yet)

Goodreads can’t wait for list 2014

 

PS What do you mean, there’s no Monday the 20th in September? Gawwwd, I need a calendar in my office.

Going to be tight lipped from here out

I have seen a disturbing trend this last week or so with my answers to many of the questions I’ve been getting on my “Ask Kim a Question” page. Really, I’m not putting you off by telling you the answer would be a spoiler, but they are. We’ve got two more books to go, and only one of them has an editorial rewrite, which means it’s pretty well set as to how it ends, and I don’t want to ruin it. I just can’t say anything anymore. And I’m sorry, because I love hearing your ideas and thoughts.

So you can keep asking questions, but please don’t think I’m being brusk or avoiding you when you get “I can’t tell you.” I just can’t.

Shelly/Sheldon for the win!

I asked, and you spoke. The turtle in my pond will be named Shelly or Sheldon. As soon as I can catch the critter again to get a close look at the nails, I’ll let you know which one. -laugh-

 

Signed Books and turtle names

You guys must really like turtles, because I got over a thousand suggestions yesterday between here and facebook. I went over them last night, and pulled out some of the repeated ones and put them together for a name-off. Pick one, and we’ll have this reptile named by Monday.

Also, I got a call from Nicola’s yesterday. (I’m going to be in Nicola’s calendar this next year! Happy laugh!) Apparently some of you are on the ball, trying to order signed-note copies of THE UNDEAD POOL. If you don’t mind waiting, that’s okay, but make sure you give them an email and address that is going to be good for the next six months. But if you’re after a signed EVER AFTER? Yep, they have first editions of those to go out right now. I’ll be going in this weekend to sign their stock, so if you want a signed copy of EVER AFTER, or any title, for that matter, they will have them. [click to go to Nicola's Kim Harrison titles] And as always, it is signature only right now. I only do the signed note through Nicola’s right around a new release.

Turtle names:

Shelly/Sheldon

Yertle

Zip/Flash/Speedy

Donatello/Leonardo/ Raphael/Michelangelo

Bob (yes, there were like four Bobs)

Sherman

Winny Bago

Call for turtle names!

I’m sitting at my desk this morning, trying to figure out what I did yesterday after work to decompress, and my thoughts are so full of Rachel, Trent, Ivy, Grace, Wallace, and Jason that I can hardly remember. Oh yeah. I knitted a dragon head before bed. But before that, between the copy edit and dinner, I know I did SOMETHING! Wait . . . wait. There it is. I picked out a sink. Phew! Sane for another day. (laugh) Now I can go back to my imaginary friends.

The turtle is still in the pond, so I need a name. I’m leaning toward Roadkill, but Guy wants to name him after the road he found him on. What do you think? Best turtle name wins.

Pond scum and other delights

One of my favorite smells in the world is pond muck, the rich decay cleansing and filtering, and the new earth a sensory delight taking me back to my single-digit years when I’d muck about in my grandparent’s lake looking for whatever I might find. It might just be those deep-seated sent triggers that keep compelling me to put a pond in where ever get transplanted to. Looking back, I’ve had one for almost twenty years, and I’ve lived in three houses in that time.

It’s more than the sound of water that compels me, it’s the hint of swamp that I catch when it rains, grounding me with the memory of earth and sky and water mixing in equal proportions to create life.

My current pond is actually the second on this hopefully final property, moved and expanded from the side yard to the back yard when the view out my office changed. It’s just about done now, and critters have moved in, some by chance, (Frogs. Yay!) and some by design. The turtle is a new edition, “rescued” by Guy on one of his rides as it tried to cross the road. Usually he just moves them to whatever side they are headed for, but this little guy was small enough to fit into his water bottle, and so he brought them home for me–best present ever since the five pots of moss he bought unexpectedly last month.

It’s not as if he’s in a cage, so the moment he decides he is moving on, he can, but I’m hopeful that he stays. He’s got a place to sunbathe to raise his temperature, and places to hide, and lots of friends for eating if he so chooses, but until he leaves, I will be enjoying his steely gaze and quick splash into the water when I walk by. Here’s hoping!

(Yes, I know reptiles can carry diseases. The bottle has since been tossed, and hands have been scrubbed.)

Labor Day Shenanigans

And Guy thought he was going to have a relaxing Labor Day. Alas, it was not meant to be after a drive-by price check of patio stone turned into a heavy back end and an afternoon of laying it. I wish I could say this was a spontaneous patio production, and in a way it was, but we’ve been working on this area of the yard for two years, having taken out the second drive (the house used to be divided into apartments) and landscaping it. This area doesn’t drain well and it’s shady, and though a patio was our first idea, it gets really hot in the afternoon with the trapped heat and I didn’t want to remove all the grass. I was reluctant to stone it all, so we tried grass for two years, and we put in a 10×10 patio went where the grass didn’t grow well. The path around my office to the garage was a bonus, and I’m tickled in how clean it’s going to be. Still needs a few blocks cut to finish it, but we got 95 percent of it done.

That’s a lilac growing over it, one of the few plants we allowed to stay when we bought the place. Everything else needed to go, being sun-loving plants who had been lost under new tree growth. We cut back a tree to give this one more light, because it takes forever for them to get that old-tree-growth habit, and it finally bloomed this spring. Little bit of heaven.

I’ll admit that there was a small bit of carrot involved in getting Guy to spend his day laying stone, and you can see that brand new grill sitting proud. It didn’t take long to break it in. Mmmm, burgers and dogs on the patio. Works for me.

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Oh, nothing on my mind today, but I’m glad the temp is in the mid 60s this morning. We’re looking at 90 later, so the warm-up will be dramatic. Right now, though, the windows are open and the air is laced with a cool moisture in my office. Nice to breathe. I won’t be putting in a full day because the copy edit for THE UNDEAD POOL came in, and I quite honestly can’t look at more than 60-80 pages a day before my brain shuts off and everything looks okay even when it’s not. But I’m excited for it because this is pretty much my last chance to catch the continually errors, and believe me, there is one in there. There usually is, and I usually don’t catch it until here or the page proofs, and not just a little one like sitting down twice, but an embarrassing whopper like a fault in the world building or magic that only someone familiar with the world would catch, not the copy editor, a faceless person who often changes from book to book. The one time I skimmed, a reader caught it in the ARC, and it was embarrassing. (waves at reader)

So I’ve dropped Grace for a week to take care of it. Quite honestly, Grace is the most broken up manuscript I’ve ever worked on, spread too thin and with too many months between opportunities to work on it, but I’ve got two chapters to go, almost hitting my “done by summer” goal. It’s close enough, and I’m good with it.

However, as I said, it’s broken up, and it needs a good three months of rewrite before I can even think to have another set of eyes on it. I’m seeing a far more complex antagonist in my mind than is translating to the page, and the paranormal rules are still evolving. Still, being at the end, I can now see what needs fixing.

Swallows of Capistrano? No, not really

Capistrano has swallows. Dallas has bats. My town has chimney swifts, and I saw them last night when a late dinner downtown turned into an impromptu bird watching moment as the small birds swirled like bats over the city rooftops and dove into a huge industrial chimney all at once.

Too cool.