Karen Marie Moning's Blog, page 4

Am I writing a 6th FEVER book?

Because I keep getting this question, I've realized I've obviously not answered it to your satisfaction:) I'm going to post here and ask that you all help me in spreading the word around.

I'm currently working on a trilogy that features Dani, Christian MacKeltar, Ryodan, and the mysterious 'Dancer,' set primarily in Fever-Dublin. Each installment in the trilogy is a stand-alone mystery, however there are larger plot arcs unfolding in the background. Where Mac was introspective and her story could feel somewhat esoteric, Dani is down and dirty in the streets. Lots of details, lots of action. There's a different feel to the two series, totally different vantage points. I'm having a blast writing it.

For those of you who have been worrying—the trilogy is not YA. If I had to categorize it, I would say it straddles the line between YA and adult uneasily. I don't pull any punches. It may be controversial in some ways. But whose teen years weren't? LOL! Many of the questions I left unanswered in the FEVER series are addressed in this new series.

Exciting news: I've agreed to write two more books after that. Once the new trilogy is complete, I'm returning to the core story begun in the FEVER series, and will resume writing about Mac, Barrons, V'lane, Cruce, the Unseelie king, the concubine, the Song of Making.

All in all, there are five more books coming about the Fever World!

Because I know you guys, I know this is going to make some of you as nervous as it makes you excited. Trust me. I'm making no compromises with the characters or the story. It's all unfolding exactly as it should, true to itself-which means, it's a sometimes rocky road. Dark times ahead, guys. But I write it all with genuine love for the characters, the world, and you the reader.

As a final note, quit scaring Dreamworks with your demands for NC-17, LMAO. I don't write NC-17. You have NC-17 imaginations! Sometimes I think you guys should be telling me stories!

About the FEVER series: author notes (contains spoilers)

I've been getting hit with a ton of email over the weekend asking for more info on the series so I thought I'd post this one more time while I finish working on a cleaner version to add to the website. One of the questions people keep asking is where the idea for the series came from and I answered that just recently in the following...



(There are spoilers at the end of this, I'll give one more warning before you get there.)



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A lot of people have asked me what the hardest thing about writing the Fever series was. Hands down, the most difficult thing was that it didn't follow any of the rules by which I was used to writing. I had to abandon control issues and take a leap of faith.



The entire series came to me one night in a dream. I said that in a recent interview and the person interviewing me looked at me strangely and said, "Wow! That must have been a really long dream."



It wasn't. In the dream I wasn't actually being told the story, or watching it unfold. I was reading a book, turning the pages faster and faster, being dragged along by the throat. The feeling was both exhilarating and uncomfortable. I was thrilled to be reading it. I didn't like anything keeping me so compulsively riveted. It's been a love-hate relationship from the beginning.



When I woke up from the dream, I exclaimed without thinking—or I would have realized I was being handed one of those contracts you have to sign in blood—yes, please, yes. I want to write a story like that!



The floodgate opened. The entire series shunted into my brain like a squirt on a Dan Simmon's fatline. Not piece by piece. Dumped. One minute I didn't have it, the next I did. Complete with names of installments, characters, plot twists and turns, even how many books it had to be and where each installment had to end.



I resisted it for months. Sometimes I took it out for a test drive in idle moments just to marvel at how wrong it was for me to write. It wasn't my kind of story at all. It was first person, not third. It had no neatly defined hero or heroine. It ended on cliffhangers, and was spread out over five books. Then there was the troubling fact that it didn't have a traditional 'romance' which was precisely what readers loved about my books. There were only shades of gray, no black and white. Even worse—it made me think. I read to escape.



I'd made a successful career for myself writing stand-alone romances with happy, complete endings. Not only was there no reason for me to change genres suddenly, there was compelling reason for me not to.



Determined that the Fever series would have to find another storyteller, I sat down to write another stand-alone third-person romance novel. Safety net below me, pole in hand, I knew how to walk that wire.



Nothing came.



I sat there for three months staring at my computer. And nothing came.



I offered innovative bargains to various deities for a little inspiration (ignoring the massive inspiration that was constipating me). I wrote down all the reason I shouldn't write the Fever series. I wrote down all the reasons I was not going to make a career change. I staunchly refused to write word 1 of the first book.



[As an aside, what I didn't know at the time but would soon find out was that I had been bitten by a tick that carried Lyme disease and I was about to embark on a five year journey to hell and back while it invaded my CNS and crippled me. Like Mac, I was happy and carefree. I think the lessons we most need to learn are usually at our fingertips.]



I remember the day I sat down at my desk and stared at the computer screen for the ninety-fifth day in a row of blank pages and, in a trancelike state, picked up a black Sharpie (my husband had to paint over it and has never let me forget it:) and wrote on the wall the titles of the five installments: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever.



I sat back and stared at the wall, contemplating how difficult a career change would make my life.



Then I remembered finding Frank Herbert's Dune when I was a teenager, going through some hard times. I remembered having to face something I was terrified of. I remembered discovering the Bene Gesserit mantra: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.



I remembered the many times in my life I'd recalled that mantra, word for word and how much I'd needed it. I wondered where I'd have been if not for it. How I'd have gotten through.



Something shifted in my head and I got up and wrote below the titles: Hope strengthens. Fear kills.



I began writing Darkfever that day.



There were times I hated taking on this series. There were times I relished it. Days I felt cursed by it, other days I felt blessed by it. I haven't always liked the characters, nor have I agreed with many of the things they've done. In the end all I can say is this:



The story came to me. I told it. And I'm glad I did.



Onto the nuts and bolts…



Though the story was complete with names, character, plot, etc., I still had to decide how to write it. Structure, theme, vantage point. These are some of my notes made during and after in no particular order. I think of them as the steel girders for the building.



• The Fever World is a dark one, pierced infrequently by light, literally and metaphorically. I kept in mind a famous quote by Kahlil Gibran as I was writing: "Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you."



• I wanted to explore two completely different characters: an innocent who'd never known sorrow of any kind and the only rules she lived by came from The Bartender's Guide for Mixing Perfect Party Drinks, and a borderline sociopath who'd constructed a frame of ethics for himself. I wanted to give them both something life-changing then sit back and watch them change. I wanted to capture the urban fantasy world as the pivotal transformation was initiated—not after the vampires had come out, or once the weres/witches/ zombies had legal rights. I wanted to chronicle the characters that were in the line of fire before the walls crashed, and see how they behaved as their world melted down.



• When every other novel I was picking up in the bookstore announced: Vampire/Werewolf/Demon hero on the cover, and was marketing it on the basis of that paranormal creature's mythic resonance, I wanted to write a story with a male center-stage character that defied labels, and wouldn't permit one. I wanted to make the reader choose to take him or leave him without the convenience of a pre-packaged tortured-hero caricature to slap over his outline, and no easy answers about whether he was good or bad. I wanted to write a paranormal creature and never tell the reader what he was, because I believed they would ultimately see him more clearly in his everyday behavior, than through the distorted lens of someone else's legend.



• Barrons says, "Judge me by my actions" and makes the reader do the same. At the end of the series, I want the reader to answer the question: Who/what is Barrons? the same way Mac does: Who cares? He's Barrons.



• In the vein of showing, not telling, I want my characters to love each other—but never tell each other that. I will show it in their actions, in the choices they make. Words are easy; lies as simple as parting your lips and breathing.



• Although Mac begins as an innocent, she doesn't stay that way long. Her sister's brutal murder takes her to Dublin on a quest for justice and revenge. With Alina dead, her everyday life rapidly transforms from sunshine and carefree dreams to a dark, frightening shadow-realm with monsters in every cobwebbed corner. It rains incessantly where Mac is, inside her head and out. Most of the crucial action takes place at night, in an urban decay setting. I want to achieve this feeling: When the sun manages to penetrate the storm clouds hanging over the Temple Bar District, or one of the dazzling Fae strolls across the page, the leavening effect must be jarring, breathtaking.



• I want the series to function as a Janus head on multiple levels, highlighting contrasts and creating a play of tension between opposites compressed in a volatile reality to illustrate the point that Jean Paul Sartre makes in Being and Nothingness when he explores the concept of anguish at the point of absolute freedom: The only thing that matters are the possibilities, what you choose, what you commit to. All potentials exist in every character, at every moment. It is their actions that define and separate them.



• When we first meet Mac in Darkfever, the only carving she's ever experienced is cutting up limes to wedge into the neck of a frosty Corona while hanging out on the beach, playing volleyball. I like that about her. She's going to be easy to break. I wonder how she'll get back up. Her sister's gruesome murder is only the beginning of her fall. Barrons, on the other hand, will be a tough one to rattle.



{SPOILERS begin}

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• By the time Mac encounters the Fear Dorcha in Shadowfever, the fifth and final book in the series, she will have been tortured, gang raped, turned Pri-ya, survived attempts on her life from multiple sources, had her parents kidnapped, found they weren't even her parents anyway, and come to suspect—with good reason—that of all the monsters she's had to face since her sister's death, she's quite possibly the worst. At that moment she must stand her tallest, shoulders back, spine straight, unflinching.



• Jericho Barrons says the only reality you can control is the one you're willing to face—and who would want to live in a reality that was controlled by someone else? It's a cage, no matter how gilded. Sartre's faith of bad faith is the greatest hypocrisy and frank absurdity to him. Every lie a person tell oneself forges another link in the chains that bind. Barrons cares about only this: How much truth can you face? How free do you dare to be? If the choice is yours—and it is—wouldn't you crave absolute freedom? The more clearly one sees that there's nothing within, the more power one has to create whatever one wants without. Barrons understands this and because he does, he is truly free. For this same reason, he's Unseelie king in the making.



• V'lane understands this, too, and is another shadow hero, a doer of great good or great evil depending on the standards by which he's being judged. As the king will say at the end of Shadowfever, in another reality, V'lane would have become the king and Barrons Cruce, or Barrons would have become the king and imprisoned War, perhaps V'lane might have been Barrons…perhaps where Mac is concerned, he is…but this time he doesn't get the girl. The three of them: Barrons, V'lane and the king are mere choices away from having been the other.



• Mac can't even spell existential angst but is going to get a crash course in the day-to-day application of it, and along the way become fascinated by the two nearly omnipotent males that are so dangerous and attractive. A woman doesn't get something like Barrons or V'lane without paying a high price. Mac 1.0 is like a peacock, one of the showy males strutting around showing off her fabulous plumage, trying to get the king of the jungle's attention, but to survive in Barron's bed she'll have to lose her tail feathers and grow claws. Part peacock., part lion, Mac 5.0 won't know what she is any more and won't care because she knows this much: she's unbreakable and she likes it.



• Mac, Barrons and V'lane are complicated, self-aware characters. Each is flawed. There will arguably be no heroes in the series. With a minor twist of the lens, those who are perceived as the villains might be viewed as the heroes, and the heroes might be villains. It all comes down to who's writing the press releases. I may eventually have to tell it from someone else's point of view.



Character notes:



• Jericho Z. Barrons: Barrons is hard, cold, brutally efficient killing machine, brilliant, cunning and utterly focused on what he wants at all times. He rarely smiles and if he does, it's a brief softening, a faint uplifting of the corners of his mouth—never a full smile. Since he met Mac, he has smiled on several occasions. Once, he laughed out loud. JZB is not a man for expressions of happiness. At best he radiates self-satisfied calm, a big cat at rest. Harsh, forbidding, controlled, a man of intense discipline, he emotes anger, mockery, challenge, irony, raw sexuality, animalistic fury, but no tenderness. He's a hard man. There are no cracks in his walls but the one Mac can slip through—and he hates that but he accepts it because it is the truth and to pretend otherwise would be an exercise in futility. Whether he likes it or not, she gets under his skin and makes his dick harder than any other woman ever has. He wastes no time examining the whys of it or resisting her effect on him. He focuses his energy like a laser, slicing and dicing, rearranging reality to suit what he wants the best way he can get it. Since the moment he met Mac and accepted that he wanted her, he has been ruthlessly altering her, making her ultimately suitable for him. The only question in his mind is: will she survive what he's doing to her?



• MacKayla Lane: Mac is a woman on the verge of…everything: A complete psychotic episode, a life-changing epiphany, becoming something truly good or truly evil. She often feels bi-polar—because she is. A sweet, southern girl with refined taste and pretty manners, she's a shining star with a great, sucking black-hole at the center. The evil she's been hunting so assiduously, the mind-numbing, soul-crushing monster of twisted destructiveness she's been tracking through the rain-slicked streets of Dublin—is her. Every dark spell, all the dangerous power, the vicious rage and hunger crouches inside her. It never intended to let her find it in the streets until she'd found it in herself.



• V'Lane: V 'lane had a lousy publicist. He's the center-stage male character I gave a label: Seelie, shining death-by-sex Fae, erotic, brilliant, ballsy and no more sociopathic than Barrons. With V'lane, I can't help but play the "what if" game: What if the night Mac rushed through the dark zone seeking sanctuary, Mac had found V'lane instead of Barrons Books & Baubles? What if he'd taken her to Faery and told her the truth, the full truth that very night? Would she have been swayed by his desire to save his trapped brothers? How different is he really from Barrons and his eight? V'lane may have rebelled against the Unseelie king's wishes but he was only trying to set the rest of the Unseelie free. He was beautiful, powerful, he could have left the icy prison and abandoned them, and pursued his own pleasure. But he wanted all the Unseelie to have a chance in the sunshine and beauty of the world. He was a freedom fighter, a renegade, a determined, cunning, patient, valiant crusader. Doesn't the world need War? Isn't he the only reason tyrannies topple, empires fall and humans change? War is the catalyst, the means by which wrongs are righted, scales are balanced, and the world transformed. Isn't V'lane the real hero?

I'm featured at Barnes & Noble!

When Barnes & Noble asked me to compile a list of my favorite romances, I was thrilled. Before I changed career directions and began writing urban fantasy (or should I say before urban fantasy abducted my muse in the Dreaming and began torturing her if she didn't write the Fever series) romance was my first love. The opportunity to return to my roots and compile a list of my all time favorites was just the excuse I needed to sit down and re-read a few of them.

Among the list which can be found here are some of the rock my world classics that helped shape the writer I would become.

I remember reading Linda Howard's Son of the Morning when it first came out, and thinking, "wait a minute, she thumbed her nose with impunity at multiple romance novel conventions. How did she do it and get away with it so well?" I read it twice in a row for sheer enjoyment, then four more times to learn from one of the best. I LOVE the scene on the steps in the castle near the end! Nobody writes alpha heroes (or squirm in your seat sex scenes) like Linda Howard. Written in 1997, this time travel novel that involves the Knights Templar is a classic.

Then there's Lisa Kleypas breaking more rules with Derek Craven's story: Dreaming of You, the sequel to Then Came You, a book in which she created a secondary character so riveting that Derek simply had to have his own story, and in my opinion eclipsed Lily and Alex's story (which is saying a lot because it's one of my favorites, too). I recently gave Dreaming of You to my niece. It was originally published in 1994, and I was curious to see what someone in her early 20s would think, reading it seventeen years after it was first published. My niece was as crazy about it as I was, and embarked on a total Lisa Kleypas glom. Some romance novels are timeless.

Another "rule-breaker" is Connie Brockway, who set one of my all-time favorites—As You Desire—in the Egyptian desert, which simply wasn't done in the romance novel writing world back in 1997 (or today for that matter, it's still a tough sell to publishers, unless you're the incomparable Connie Brockway.) Much to my delight, she has finally written the sequel: The Other Guy's Bride, which is scheduled for release November 1.

Then there's Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love writing together in Blood Trinity, Book 1 of the fantastic Belador Series (Book 2 comes out this fall, Alterant, Belador Code), a classic Julie Garwood that still makes me laugh out loud reading it today, and my favorites by J. R. Ward, Jude Devereux, Julia Quinn, and Kresley Cole, all wonderful reads, some of the best of the best.

Back at my first RWA, in Anaheim CA in 1998, I was invited to a Bantam Dell dinner. I'd sold my first manuscript but it hadn't yet been published. I remember walking into the room and seeing 30 or so Bantam Dell authors (Joan Johnston, Connie, Christina Skye, Virginia Henley, to name a few and back then nobody was writing steamy stuff with quite the balls Virginia had, LOL) gathered around the table talking and laughing and the most extraordinary thing was that there was a seat for me at that table. I remember sitting down and someone asking me how I felt and I replied, "Like the guy who wanted to play pro football all his life and suddenly finds himself in the locker room, thinking, is this a joke? Am I really here?"

I used to go to Barnes & Noble every weekend and spend more money than I had any business spending because books were always more important to me than food. Now, seeing my selections at their website, and on their endcaps, well, I've got that locker room feeling again. ☺

I hope you enjoy my choices. Now tell me about some of your favorites!

LINKIN PARK TICKETS!

I just got some fabulous news. Because of how much money the Maniacs have so generously donated to Japan Aid through my page at Music For Relief, I've been given 32 EXTRA TICKETS! My first thought was: How can I get these tickets to you guys, so you can attend a small venue Linkin Park concert in Los Angeles with me, August 31, 2011? (Along with a special guest who has agreed to show me around his city and join me at the show-think my JZB inspiration:)

Leiha and I brainstormed for hours, trying to come up with a perfectly fair way to offer the tickets, and can't. There is no perfectly fair way. There's only a reasonably good way.

Currently the only way to get tickets to this intimate, small venue show is to raise $500.00 for the Japan Aid relief fund.

But I've talked to the folks at Music for Relief and they've agreed that I can make my extra tickets available to the first 21 people that donate $100.00 or more at my Music for Relief page.

http://www.give2gether.com/projects/m...

You MUST donate at my URL above in order to get the ticket so make sure you're seeing the correct url.

Please keep in mind the ticket is only that—a ticket to the show. If you live in or near LA, it's perfect. But if like me, you live somewhere else, you'll have to pay your own transportation and accommodations.

You're probably wondering why I said the first 21 people when there are 32 tickets. Because we already have 11 people who've donated in excess of $100.00 and in an effort to be fair, are offering 11 tickets to those people. If they aren't interested in attending, those tickets will go into the general pool.

Also please note: if you donate for a ticket, you cannot sell it. Make sure the name you donate in is the name of the person who will be attending, and the name on their driver's license.

As soon as you donate, IMMEDIATELY email us your name and mailing address so we can confirm you're one of the first 21 (or 32, however it plays out.) The only way we have to determine who the first 21 (or 32) donors are is by the time stamp on the email you send to manager@karenmoning.com. Once you donate, email us immediately. We will post at my Facebook page when there are no more tickets available.

I'm so excited about the concert and think it would be terrific fun to get a group of Moning Maniacs there. Any local Los Angeles fans out there? Come join me and let's rock with Linkin Park!

Information about the show:

On August 31, 2011 Linkin Park and B'z, the best-selling artist in Japan, will play a small, intimate show at a secret venue in Los Angeles. This is the opportunity to see Linkin Park like you've never seen them before. Venue will only be announced to those who earn tickets, approximately one week before the show.
After their support of Music for Relief by lending a song to Download to Donate for Japan, Linkin Park invited best-selling Japanese band B'z to play at this unique show with them. Formed in 1988, B'z are guitarist Tak Matsumoto and vocalist, Koshi Inaba. Over the span of twenty-three years, B'z have released 17 albums, and 49 singles, with 45 of those singles consecutively debuting #1 on Japan's Oricon Single Chart. B'z have sold over 80 million CDs in Japan alone, making them the best-selling artist in Japan's history.

*TERMS
(These are Linkin Park's terms)
Concert date is August 31, 2011 and is subject to change.
Tickets are non-transferrable.
Participants are responsible for their own travel/transportation to the show.
Participants must be 18 years of age and over or 16 years of age with parental consent.
By participating each Participant agrees that Participant irrevocably consents to being photographed, filmed and/or recorded in conjunction with all activities connected to the fundraiser (including, if applicable, at the meet and greet and concert), and including content on any fundraising page associated with Participant, and to use by and through Linkin Park, its sub-licensees and assigns, of any and all such photos, films and recordings and content (and the name of Participant) in any and all media in any manner whatsoever in Linkin Park's discretion, perpetually throughout the universe.
Where applicable, Participant assumes all risk associated or connected with use of any instrument provided by Linkin Park and Participant hereby irrevocably releases Linkin Park from any and all claims, demands, actions, losses, costs and expenses, relating to
personal injury and/or any other liability associated with such use.
___
Founded by Linkin Park, Music for Relief is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing aid to victims of natural disasters and the prevention of such disasters. Since its inception in 2005, Music for Relief has raised over $4 million for victims of multiple disasters across four continents. Music for Relief also supports environmental programs including the planting of over 810,000 trees to help reduce global warming. The organization was recently recognized by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon for the Download to Donate program to raise funds and awareness in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. For more information visit www.musicforrelief.org.
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KMM, LLC, and Karen Marie Moning are in no way responsible for this Linkin Park event, or the terms of it, nor are they in any way affiliated with Music for Relief.

A bit about my past...

I'm frequently asked why I decided to become a writer, and what my childhood was like, as if it might de-mystify the process of becoming a successful author or clarify a 'recipe' of a personality type, so the person asking can decide whether they, or their friend or loved one has good odds of becoming one, too. Not only is there no such recipe for success, all the writers I know had remarkably different childhoods, and remarkably different reasons for wanting to be a writer.

I've always shied away from the question in the past. Dude, past is past, as Dani would say. But because of something that happened recently, I'll shine a light down a dark alley.



At 12, I was a geeky nerd. A brain. I hated that word. People copied off my tests unless I put both arms around them and ducked my head over the paper, which I usually didn't because it didn't bother me that much that people copied. I found it flattering and interesting, especially if the guys copying were cute.

In ninth grade, we had to split off from the common middle school and go either to public high school or private all-girls Catholic school. You guessed it: I went sans boys, kicking and screaming all the way, on a scholarship. My sister had gone there before me, my little sister went there after me, and my sister's daughter followed.


Three important happened to me in adolescence, the first of which I've already discussed elsewhere (Eros and Thanatos, romance novels and Harlan Ellison, aka Sex and Death.)

The second involved neither choice nor anything for which I bear responsibility: I had long, vibrantly red hair.


The third was all choice and all my fault: me and my best friend Esther (last name omitted so doesn't hunt me down and kill me for telling this and I'll soften it by pointing out that she was smarter than me (but a little geekier:) made a cognizant and intelligent-or-so-we-thought decision to change our image at the ripe old age of twelve and a half. We decided to start smoking Marlboro reds. Nobody thought the druggies were geeks. Therefore we would no longer be considered geeks.

We failed to consider that we would then be considered druggies. It wasn't one of our finer plans.

But I blame the red hair for most of my problems. In a town as small as the one I grew up in, it made me ridiculously noticeable. I couldn't get away with anything. Nothing. I can't tell you how many times I heard over the high school loudspeaker "Would Karen Marie Moning please report to the principal's office immediately!" after the smallest, slightest bending of the rules. Always only me. I would go dragging in and the principal would load me up with demerits for sneaking off campus at lunch to King's Tavern--which, I might point out, yes, I did but with no less than 7 or 8 friends walking right beside me a fact that I groused long and loud about to the principal (not that I'm a snitch or anything) because it got old after a while to always be the only one getting in trouble, and her frosty reply was "we can't recognize them from a distance. You can't be missed. That hair! You should do something with it!" Think Rowena here.

After the third or fourth such incident, I did. I fixed her, or so I thought with appalling shortsightedness. I went home from school one day, perilously close to suspension from accumulated demerit points, and cut off all my hair to about an inch long. Back in those days I had no money unless it was corn detassling season, and hair dye wasn't easy to come by. I still had red hair. All I'd achieved was it now looked stupid. If memory serves, class photos were a few days later. I burned that yearbook. . I acquired a collection of hats. It didn't help. I became recognized because I was the only person in our small town that wore hats.

By sixteen, I'd been permanently expelled from private school. My graduating class (at the public high school) had something like 75 people in it. I was ecstatic to leave my small hometown behind and vanish into Purdue University with 45,000 students! I was finally, blessedly invisible. Anonymous. Nobody noticed me. I no longer stood out. I was in heaven.

Fast-forward seven years. I'd graduated from Purdue, and was working in insurance arbitration and litigation, sitting in a gray office with gray carpet, feeling myself getting grayer everyday. Still had vibrantly red hair. If I was late for work—and I frequently was—everyone noticed.


I decided to become a writer for three reasons.

1. I figured I wouldn't have to work as hard at being a writer as I would at a real job. I deserve any hate mail I get from other writers for that comment.

2. I couldn't stand driving in rush hour traffic anymore. I could hear the clock ticking the minutes of my life away. I teetered on the razor edge of road rage whenever I got behind someone doing the speed limit in the fast lane because everyone knows you can go a minimum of 7 miles over the speed limit most of the time and not get pulled over, and added up by miles, that was at least 9 minutes of my life they were wasting by driving too slow in the fast lane. It's called the fast lane because people are supposed to speed in it, right?

3. I thought I would be invisible. A name on a book. No one would ever see or want to know me. They'd only want my books. I could be a complete isolationist, a lone wolf, give into my nature at heart. I'd learned young and well that visibility was directly proportionate to culpability.

By the time I was seventeen, two phrases had become inextricably linked in my mind:

Being noticed—Bad. For. Me.

The gratitude and relief with which I embraced life as a writer was immense. I would be anonymous, solitary, words on the spine of a book, a placeholder on a library shelf, unnoticed, uncared about unless the story wasn't up to snuff.

By now you must be wondering what brought on this spiel.

I got a unexpected box in the mail today, filled with letters, cards, and gifts from all those people who weren't going to notice me or look beyond the spine, who would read my books and never even think about me. Cards from people who've been concerned, with what I've gone through recently, people who wanted me to know I wasn't alone, to offer words of strength and encouragement, to say "hi, I hope you're feeling okay," and to share their own struggles and triumphs. I've been sitting here for hours, stilled by the moment, searching for words to express how it makes me feel. Not only am I not invisible, I've got a connection with my readers that astonishes and humbles me. How many writers have so many fans that are also friends? I'm blessed.

For those of you who are still worrying about the cigarettes, don't. I quit smoking many years ago. I was pissed off for an entire year but I survived it.

Today, as I absorb the outpouring of love from you, I realize I am completely over that other small childhood problem I had, as well.

These two phrases have become inextricably linked in my mind:

Being noticed—Lovely!

Much love,
Karen

(Yes, yes, I'm going back to my office now. I know it's the only way I can really thank you. The Barrons scene is coming along nicely. Well, as nicely as anything Barrons ever does.)

(For those of you who are now going to postulate that Dani is my Mary-Sue (which no longer means quite what it used to years ago) give it up. She's no more my Mary Sue than every other character I've written.)

First 100 donations for Japan Aid received in record time!

Thanks to all of you who've donated so far. I'm currently working on getting a very special gift for future contributors and will know more shortly and post soon. You guys are amazing! We've raised almost $5,000 at this point, in less than 24 hours. I'm stunned and awed by your generosity. Thank you!

Linkin Park, Japan Aid & Awesome Prizes!

As some of you know, Linkin Park is one of my favorite bands. I listened to their music extensively while writing Shadowfever. The song "What I've Done" played in my head constantly while I was writing Dani's character. "In the End" was one of Mac's broody songs for a time. "In Pieces" is one of my personal favorites. Not only are the members of Linkin Park fantastic musicians, they're active humanitarians as well. In 2005 they founded Music for Relief, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing aid to victims of natural disasters and the prevention of such disasters. Since its inception, Music for Relief has raised over $4 million for victims of multiple disasters across four continents! Linkin Park is currently championing a campaign to aid the children impacted by the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan.

I think it's wonderful when celebrities donate their time and money to help those in need and, in support of Linkin Park efforts, I've talked with my publishers and friends and rounded up some great things to give away to the first 100 people that donate via my page at Music for Relief. Those of you who know me know that I will never ask for something for nothing, so I've put together a thank-you for your support.

The first 100 people who donate $25.00 or more will receive an appreciation gift from me valued at $75.00 containing:

~An autographed copy of the new mass market Shadowfever, with the gorgeous new cover and stepback. You will receive it approximately 3 weeks in advance of the publication date! (Courtesy of Random House Publishing Group)

~A CD or MP3 audio recording of Shadowfever by Audie-award winning Phil Gigante and Natalie Ross (Courtesy of Brilliance Audio)

~JZB and Mac Tattoos

~BloodRush CD, Official Soundtrack to the Fever Series

~Shadowsong CD, Official Soundtrack for Shadowfever

In addition, there are other special prizes that can be won by anyone who donates via my page, and are not limited to the first 100 contributors:

~The top donator will receive two tickets to FeverCon 2012*(A $700.00 value!)

~One lucky person selected randomly will receive a phone call from Phil Gigante, who will read a scene from Shadowfever just for you!

~As a special thank you to fans who are aspiring writers, I'm doing something I've never done before:anyone who donates $50.00 or more will be entered into a drawing for a critique of the first 50 pages of your current work in progress by me. Important: After you make your donation, email manager@karenmoning.com to tell us that you have a current work in progress, and wish to be entered into this drawing. The name of the donator must match the name on the manuscript I critique.

We are working on securing additional special prizes that will be given away to anyone who donates, winners selected randomly.

If you'd like to donate, we've made it simple. Just visit my page http://www.give2gether.com/projects/m...

(Be certain it's my page you're donating on to be counted in the first 100. Look for the KMM at the end of the address.)

Click the "donate" button and follow the instructions.

After you've made your donation, please email your mailing address to manager@karenmoning.com so we can prepare your package. Your name must match the name of the donator at my Music For Relief page. Your gift will go out the first week of August.

When you visit my page at Music for Relief you'll see that if I reach the donation goal of $500.00, I get 2 tickets to see Linkin Park in concert. I made the first $500.00 donation myself. This is about the children of Japan, not me.

Special thanks to my wonderful publishers Random House and Brilliance Audio for their generous support and donations, and to fellow Linkin Park fan and friend Paris Cohen for drawing my attention to this worthy cause.

*Tickets to FeverCon 2012 do not include transportation or hotel accommodations.

Getting out of the closet...and many thanks

For the first time since April, I have an office again! It feels like such a luxury after these past few months. I missed my books, my computer, the many treasures you guys have given me at our various get togethers that decorate my walls and bookcases and inspire me. The MacHalo just got unpacked and is hanging on the wall. I get to go to work tomorrow morning somewhere besides a closet. For whatever reason the muse decrees, I do my best work in the dark, and the only dark place that's been available has been a very small closet. Could barely fit my chair in there. (Florida houses, huge windows, no shades, what's with that?) Between the blow up bed and the closet, all I was getting from Barrons was a cool stare and a 'you've got to be kidding me, Ms. Moning.' So Monday--dark office--back in the saddle--can't wait!

Thanks for being patient, and a huge thanks for all the support and love you've been sending via FB, MB, blog and emails. I hope you know how much it means to me! You'd think I'd eventually get past being astounded by the quality of people you Maniacs are, but I never do. I loved the quotes so many of you sent me, bits of wisdom acquired through your own trials and tribulations. At a time when I felt so alone, you reminded me that I wasn't. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

SEX FROM BARRONS POV

I tried to ignore her. I've spent all day refusing to listen to Mac.

But we all know how well me not listening to Mac works. NOT AT ALL. She's stubborn, determined and relentless. She says if she's in a good mood she'll share a little something, and all it would take to put her in a good mood is letting the world know Barrons is hands-down THE ALPHA—no contest.

(Barrons has no idea about any of this and I'm desperate to keep him from finding out. I love Ilona Andrews' books and would hate it if Barrons killed off Curran to eradicate all doubt about who was the Alpha (and the Omega). Then I wouldn't get any more books about Curran. Wait—not that I read about Curran, there's only JZB, I'm faithful, I swear!)

But back to Mac—she says if she's in a really good mood, she'll let me talk dirty with Barrons, as in get the low down between the sheets, the one place they never let me go, while inside BARRONS head (s?).

So here's the deal: Barrons wins, you get a sex scene told intimately from JZB's POV. It won't be pretty but it will be…well, let me just say if I'm getting in there for a good look around when the action is happening, I'm taking notes on EVERYTHING.

However… Mac's not talking about just this round. She's in it for the long haul. When Barons is THE ultimate Alpha, I get the sex.

(Vote now, please. I want to know what that man thinks when he f$cks)

And so do you ☺

What a cat knows

It's not about the house.
It's all about the view.
Moonshadow's happiness is directly proportionate to the world she gets to watch.

There's a pink bird living in our yard. I haven't managed to get a picture of it yet but I will.







This is the world I'm watching this morning. I don't think it gets better than this. I love Florida!