Kim Harrison's Blog, page 89

Nothing to report here. Same old crap as Friday.

Seriously, I’m dead in the water, with nothing to do.  That’s usually when I get bored and make life difficult for other people.  Bored, bored, bored.  I tried making Peri’s life difficult, and it was a no-go.  She’s right there with her attitude telling me her story is just about perfect, so back off, babe.  Rachel’s story is also a no-go since I’ve got book 12 at rough draft and 13 sketched out, and not enough time to open anything up before I need to close it.

So I’m trying very hard, but it’s difficult.

 

Mistake?

Mmmmm.  So yesterday I pull open an old file to try to get something meaningful done this week.  If you’ve been hanging around the drama box for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me talk about Peri a little and might even remember that this is what I’d like to work on after the Hollows finish, or even that I’ve written the first one.  After the stringent rules and logic issues that being on the 11th book require so you don’t trip over yourself, the freedom of Peri was like swimming naked, both exhilarating, sensation rich, and a feeling a little naughty.  But with all that freedom, I worried that the story wasn’t as tight or effective as it might be.  I left it last year feeling as if it’s got some real issues, but I just couldn’t see them.  It’s a different kind of writing, and though I’ve been playing with it over the years, this is the first time I’ve tried it to this extent.

So I pulled it out, planning on spending two days reading through it to get a rough idea of what I’m going to have to do with it when I get the chance.  (Like next year, maybe.)

Where’s the mistake, you might ask?  Well, I’ve got one more Hollows to write, not to mention another to rewrite, and after spending some time with Peri, I don’t want to leave her.

Sigh

It’s a happy sigh, though.  Peri kicks ass.

Kim Harrison to be Literary Guest at NYCC in October

Whoo-hoo!  Well pack my bags and call me a dead carp, I’m going to Comic Con New York again!  The timing is perfect for the release of INTO THE WOODS, and I might have a few early copies of BLOOD CRIME as well, but that will be very iffy since it doesn’t come out until the 31st.  It runs from the 11 to the 15th, and I don’t have my schedule, but I’ll be there as long as they let me.  :-)  For someone who still feels like she’s trying to to fit in, Comic Con comes pretty close.  I’m not quite geeky enough.  -laugh-

Hope to see some of you there.  If you’ve never been to a comic con, you owe yourself the treat of seeing the unabashed exuberance of the fans.

Comic Con NY

Indibooks

Barnes and Noble

Books-A-Million

Harper Collins

Amazon

Snark, snark, snark

 

I’m in a snarky mood today, so watch out.  Dialog for last chapter went well, so I’ll be turning that into real text today, and then maybe trying to squeeze in a rewrite, but it seems kind of useless since I’ve got copy edit for EVER AFTER landing on my desk in less than a week.  It feels too early to start shifting the website over to EVER AFTER and INTO THE WOODS, but that’s what I might do.

Oh, Mr. Fish is doing fine.  A month or so ago, he was practicing his sideways swimming, and I gave him two weeks.  He’s feisty, but has lost his long fins.  Now I give him six months.  (snark, snark, snark . . .)

Slooooooow morning

I’m having a rather slow morning today.  My mom and dad took all of us out for an afternoon yesterday, and they ran us into the ground.  Ti-i-i-i-ired!  We are all tired.  :-)  But it’s a good tired.

Today and tomorrow are going to be rather light on the work load, so I might get some last planting in before I call it quits for the year and just sit back and let it grow.  Just one final chapter to write for this rough draft, and I have no idea how I’m going to do this since all the things I was going to settle in this last chapter have unexpectedly been taken care of in previous chapters.  Must dig deeper and use the opportunity to lead into the last Hollows book.

I’m feeling the chill of autumn, of winding down, the damp cold of an early fall morning–so to speak–as I set my thoughts on my work today, not in the actual weather, mind you, but in the story flow.  In this last chapter, I’m seeing shades of the final book–and smiling.

The trick is to write it so you feel it, too.

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

It’s Rachel’s birthday today!  I wanted her to be a Leo, what with all that hair, that sated cat  satisfaction she often has, and that nasty temper when someone treads on her territory.

There will be no cake at my house to celebrate, but I might make some zucchini bread, zucchini pancakes, or zucchini cupcakes this weekend to try to stop the zucchini madness going on in my garden.  I only put in four plants.  I should have known better.

In the post

If you partook in last week’s Manic Monday, the last of them are in the post today!  It was a long haul, but we got all 250 of them out.  And you know what?  I still have more to go, so keep a look out in a week or so for another offer.  Harrison hardcovers are next . . .  I’d do it this week, but Guy needs to recover.

Smelling the barn

I hammered out another chapter yesterday leaving me two or three left.  It is rough, but all the elements I wanted are there, and it is a good base to build on.  I can better see what I need to do, I guess.  I took most of yesterday afternoon sketching today’s work out so that the chapter after that does what I want.  These last two are tricky, more tricky than usual.  -shrug-  Rachel has a lot on her mind, and it’s going to be a cold slap when it hits her.

I’m hopeful that by seeing the end things might go a little faster, sort of like tired horses steps it up when they know they are almost to the barn.

At least the heat has broken for a day or two.  We topped out somewhere around 88 yesterday, and I swear, it felt pleasant after the 100 degrees we’d been having lately.

These are a few of my favorite things

I’ve had people ask me before if I had a foot fetish, which I don’t, but I can understand the question because in one series I did (The Truth books) bare feet were extremely provocative, as if seeing someone entirely naked, and Rachel is always looking at people’s feet, actually forming opinions on what she sees.  One of my favorite photos in my family album is of the front door and about 20 pairs of shoes.  Most of them belonged to boys who didn’t call our house home, and it is a reminder to me of a different time in my life.  So when I snapped the picture below, I couldn’t resist sharing.  Shoes are great, but footprints are even better.  Especially when they are outside and not made of mud.

I’m in the home stretch of this latest rough draft.  If I haul butt, I can have it done before the end of July.  Yahhhhoooo!

Friday? I think I love you. Yewo!

I truly love what I do.  The high demands of the job suit me perfectly, and the challenges don’t let me get bored.  But I love my weekends.  Yes I do.

This is one of those few weekends that is descending on us with almost no demands.  The weather looks like it’s going to cooperate and allow for a niece, easy entry into Saturday and Sunday on my back porch with a pot of tea / coffee.  Wish me luck.  It’s these easy ones that usually leave me tired and sore and eager for Monday.

 

Also, my grief and sympathy go out to the victims and families of the senseless Colorado shooting this morning.