C.S. Harris's Blog, page 18

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Great Whatever You Celebrate

So I finally got my tree up...


It was so late, I didn't put my village and train at the base of the tree this year. But I did set up the one on the buffet...


My packages are all wrapped, the Christmas cookies are all baked (and mostly eaten!), and this year we finally did something I've been wanting to do forever...


We went up the river to watch the lighting of the Christmas Eve bonfires along the levee in St. James's Parish. This picture was simply snapped with my phone, but hopefully I've some better ones on my camera that I can upload after Christmas, because it was really quite spectacular.

At any rate, I hope everyone is having an enjoyable holiday season. Cheers!

Finished!

I've finally finished Who Buries the Dead, the tenth book in the Sebastian St. Cyr series. This one has been giving me fits and is technically late in terms of its deadline, although since it won't be published until March 2015, it's actually early (the publishing world is weird). At any rate, it's FINISHED. So now I'm filing papers and cleaning up my office and my house and trying to do all those things I've put off for the last year, except there are so many of them I know I'm never going to get around to even a fraction of them.

And the worst part of it is, it's Christmas time. I haven't done any shopping, or bought a tree, or done any decorating. Much of that is due to the fact that I'm finding it hard to get into the spirit of what is normally one of my favorite times of the year; my older daughter is now living in San Antonio and my younger daughter has been spending that past two weeks in England for the wedding of her half sister. Add in the extent to which all these sick cats have consumed my life, and who has time for Christmas? Maybe this weekend...

New ANGELS Cover

In recent discussions with my publishers about what we could do to attract new readers to the Sebastian St. Cyr series, I raised the possibility of redoing some of the previous covers that I've always felt sent the wrong message about the books, beginning with the totally inappropriate cover of What Remains of Heaven. I thought it would be great if we could move toward a more uniform look for the series, using the cover of Why Kings Confess as a model. To my amazement, they agreed.

Then they told me they had decided to begin with the cover What Angels Fear.


"But--but--but," I said. "What about redoing What Remains of Heaven? I love the cover of What Angels Fear!" Yes, I was told; the Angels cover was nice, but they want to do a promotion using the first book in the series, and promotions are most successful when there is something new about a book, so they want to redo that one. Sigh.

What's amazing is how fast they can produce a cover when they want to; the prototype landed in my email inbox just days later. It's now gone live on Amazon (thanks to Sabena for the tip; no one told me!), so I asked for the final version of the file, and here it is:


I still love the original version. And I must say I don't particularly like this model's looks. But  everyone at NAL is excited about the new cover and I do agree that it is very striking. So what do you think?

Back to Answering Those Questions...

I've let this thread slide far longer than I'd intended, so without any further ado, here are the answers to some more of your questions:

LOgalinOR asked, "I have thoroughly enjoyed all of your historical romance novels. Any chance of writing any more in the future?

The reason I quit writing historical romances was because I was being pushed into a direction I didn't want to go. I enjoyed setting my stories in whatever period or place best fit the romantic conflict I wanted to explore, and I happily ranged all over the place--the American Civil War, Medieval France, nineteenth-century Australia, etc. But then publishers noticed that authors who wrote linked series with 5 brothers/7 cousins/4 good friends sold best, so I was told I had to "pick a time and place and stick with it."  I knew I could never do that; it seems such an artificial way to come up with story ideas, I don't know how people do it (although some do it very well). So I decided that if I had to pick a time and place and stick with it, I'd rather write a historical mystery series in which I could explore the lives and conflicts of my main characters over the course of multiple books. Plus, I understand from authors who still write historical romance that the genre's list of do's and don't is far, far more restrictive than it ever was (they always say to me, "How did you ever get away with the things you did?). So I guess the answer is that as long as the genre is headed in its current direction, I could never write in it. That said, I really, really enjoyed writing the romance that is an important part of WHY KINGS CONFESS.

Lesley asked, Have you considered writing another Jax and Tobie book?

I found being contracted to write two books a year very difficult, and when my mother started failing and we moved her in with us, it became impossible. I didn't exactly decide not to write another Jax and Tobie book--I had lots of ideas for future stories. But I finished that contract first and decided to focus on the Sebastian series since I was still under contract for more of those books. Then the Sebastian series started doing much better, and I wasn't happy with the way the Jax and Tobie series was being published, and after my mother died my grief provoked a serious period of writers' block. The thing about the publishing industry is that you can't let a series slide; after a certain amount of time goes past, publishers think readers have forgotten and so they don't want another. At this point, probably the only way I could ever get them to consider another Jax and Tobie book would be if Hollywood made a movie out of one of the earlier books.

I doubt I'd ever want to be contracted to write two books a year again. But I do think it's important for me to occasionally write something different in between the Sebastian books because I believe an author needs the challenge of stretching and trying new things to stay fresh. So, ideally, I'd like to write other books but not under contract and--full confession here--I did just that last year. I wrote a mainstream historical set in the American Civil War about what happens to the women of a small Southern town when a thirteen-year-old girl kills the soldier raping her mother. The book has received lots of praise from most of the editors who read it, but the topic is touchy and no one seems to know how to market it, so I haven't sold it to anyone. Writing it was not a logical or wise decision--I knew the subject and setting would make it difficult to sell. But I can't regret doing it; it was a magical experience, and I think it grew me as a writer.

The above photo of is of the climbing rose that grows up in my lemon tree. My roses are covered with buds and my lemons and oranges are almost ripe, so I really, really hope this nasty weather headed our way doesn't bring us a freeze.

Girls Who Read

A lovely poem to bring a smile to the hearts of girls who read...



Of course, it also goes the other way!

Cat Update:



First, the good news: Huck is through his nasty four week course of antibiotics and is getting better (and feistier) every day. As for everyone else, Angel has decided we don't love him anymore because we only give him tasteless food to eat and shove medicine down his throat every night; we've decided to let nature take its course with Baby, whom we're hoping still has some good months ahead; Thomasina will be going back to the vet soon for more tests; and the kittens... Well, the kittens have unfortunately suffered what looks like permanent neurological damage from a bad reaction their shots and need to be hand fed and given physical therapy daily. I don't have a life, I have sick cats...

A Cat Named Angel

Angel is my mom's old cat. He was born feral under a neighbor's porch and when he was about a year old, my mother enticed him inside with freshly cooked chicken livers. He became the companion of her twilight years, "helping" her garden and sitting on her lap while she read or worked her crossword puzzles and stretching out on the bed beside her for a daily afternoon nap.

My mother let my girls name him, and because this was the late nineties and he had a buff colored litter mate (who was not as interested in food and therefore stayed feral), my girls named him Angel after the vampire in Buffy.


When my mom evacuated to my sister's house in California after Katrina, Angel went with her. And when my mother moved in with us six years ago, Angel came, too (much to Huckleberry's disgust). He adjusted amazingly well to becoming an indoor cat. And the night my mother went in the hospital, he crawled into bed with me and has slept with me ever since.


As he once "helped" my mother garden, Angel now "helps" me produce my books. He sleeps on my chapters. He sprawls half on my lap and half on my computer table when I'm trying to type. He lays on my right arm or bats at my hand wanting pets while I'm trying to write with a pen. He's fifteen years old, grumpy and opinionated and intensely affectionate, and I love him dearly. And yesterday I learned that he is in stage three renal failure.

Two of my other cats, seventeen-year-old Baby, who lives with my older daughter in San Antonio, and fifteen-year-old Thomasina, who now spends most of her time up in Baton Rouge with my younger daughter, are also seriously ill at the moment with unrelated problems. It is a human tendency to try to create order in a chaotic universe, to seek a reason for heartache. But there is no reason for all these sick cats; it simply is. And words fail me.

Old London

Ever wonder what it would be like to take a stroll through old London?

A team of students from a university in Leicester have created a wonderful, detailed, 3D animation of the streets of London before the Great Fire of 1666, based on an original map of the area around Pudding Lane (which is where the fire started, by the way). This is 150 years before the Regency period, but there were lots of parts of London--namely the older, poorer parts--that still looked like this in Sebastian's time. So come with me, back in time...



For more about the production, see  http://puddinglanedmuga.blogspot.co.uk/.

Huckleberry update: One of the last of numerous tests our vet ran actually uncovered what was wrong with my baby. He's now undergoing a brutal three week antibiotic treatment, which on top of seventeen days of fever is taking its toll. But he's still hanging in there, and we're hopeful he's going to make it.

Cautiously Optimistic!

Huck's fever has finally broken and stayed down for three days now. He's starting to eat and drink on his own, and slowly regaining strength, so we're hopeful he really has finally turned the corner and is on the mend.
Our vets never did figure out what caused it, and I'm still terrified that my other cats will come down with whatever it was. But I'm over the moon and very, very grateful to still have my baby with me.
Needless to say, I've written almost nothing the past two weeks. But I have received a box of ARCs for Why Kings Confess, and I'll be posting a photo soon. My publishers have also started redoing the covers of the first eight books in the Sebastian series, and hopefully I'll get approval to show you the first of those new covers within a few weeks.
Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. 

Six Days of Hell and Counting

My big black cat, Huckleberry, fell ill with a strange, raging high fever on Saturday morning and has been barely hanging on ever since. Blood tests indicate it's a virus that attacks the white blood cells. We've no clue where he got it, since he's an indoor cat and we've been very, very careful to observe good hygiene practices with the new kittens, which are still isolated. He was the first such case the vet had seen but they've now had four more come in. So New Orleans cat owners, be warned.

It's a nasty, nasty bug, and Huck is barely hanging on with the help of regular subcutaneous fluids and anti-inflamatories. He's neither eating nor drinking, and has spent the last six days simply curled up in the rocking chair beside my bed. He was in great shape before this hit, but he's now twelve, almost thirteen, and I'm not sure how much more of this my poor little sweetheart can take.

Some Questions on Characters

Rebecca asked: Are any of your characters based on real people, historical or living, loosely or firmly? 

The murder victim in What Darkness Brings was loosely inspired by an historical figure,  a diamond merchant named Daniel Eliason who is known to have possessed the Hope Diamond in September of 1812. But that was all I knew about him; the nasty, twisted character of my victim, Daniel Eisler, was all my own invention.  Sometimes I will take isolated aspects of people I know and use them--a physical characteristic, a personality trait, a gesture, a habit of speech. But I rarely go beyond that. Only when I'm using a known historical figure, such as the Prince Regent, or Marie Antoinette's daughter, or Jane Austen, do I try very hard to make my portrayals as accurate and true to the person as I can. But usually my characters just....come. It's a rather magical experience, and one of the aspects of writing I find most enjoyable.

Paz wrote: "My questions are all about Tom. I am terribly intrigued by Sebastian's relationship to him... What inspired the character? Do you have plans to develop Tom's backstory? How do you see Tom's relationship with Sebastian developing?" 

This is a tad embarrassing because the truth is I don't remember exactly what was going through my head ten years ago now when I came up with the character of Tom. He was one of those characters who leapt off the page as I was writing and quickly became far more than I'd envisioned. I do know that his backstory was inspired by a book I read long ago, The Women of Botany Bay, about the mothers who were transported from England to Australia and how many of them were forced to leave their children behind to simply fend for themselves. As a mother, that always horrified me.

I have very much enjoyed Sebastian's interactions with Tom, how it brings out sides of Sebastian we don't otherwise see. I have toyed with the idea of doing more with his backstory in a future book, but whether I do or not will probably depend on whether it fits in well with one of the murders. As for how I see Tom's relationship with Sebastian developing, it will obviously shift as Tom grows older. Exactly how, I don't think I'll plan. I try to let those sorts of things develop naturally.

And if your wondering about my CH kittens, we almost lost them last weekend after they reacted badly to some aspect of their vet visit. We're now bottle feeding them kitten formula every 4-6 hours, and they're slowly regaining strength, although they still can't stand up or feed themselves. It's all been very emotional and exhausting and time consuming. Although the silver lining is that my once wild kittens are now tame little sweethearts who love nothing better than to be held and petted and told how much they're loved.