Good morning everyone, I went to bed last night after nearly falling asleep at my desk. I woke today refreshed, and ready to do this. Do what? Do the book. This is my antelope for the day. I shall stalk it, run it down, kill it, and drag it home – mine! When you write a book it is more yours than almost any other creative effort except painting and sculptor, because in the end you do it all yourself. You have editors, and a publisher, but they come on after the lion’s share is done. It is a peculiarly lonely work, writing, and yet at this point in the book I feel like I’m moving in a circle of people surrounded by my imaginary friends. I was so eager to write this morning that I borrowed Jon’s iPad and BlueTooth keyboard and wrote in bed before my feet had ever touched the ground. I have the final list of events that still need to happen before the end of Affliction. There are one, or two, major events that may not happen as I’d planned, I’ve done this too long not to know that scenes in a book are like battle plans they never survive the battlefield unchanged. I’ll start by adding three sentences to the scene I finished last night, and then to questioning witnesses, and searching for the big bad vampire’s lair, and then zombies, zombies, zombies! We’re actually tired of zombies, Anita and I, at this point in the book. I started out by jokingly saying that this book would be my zombie apocalypse book, I should know better than to make wise cracks about the undead. It’s like that moment in a horror movie when someone says, “I’ll be right back, I’ll be fine,” and you know that they are dead meat.
We have a record number of zombies in Affliction, and one of the most interesting and game changing vampire villains. I’m excited to see what happens next, even though I think I know. Sometimes I get surprised, and sometimes it’s just fun to take the trip even when you know the destination.
It’s now after nine o’clock here. I’ve sent over 600 pages to my editor, while I am now over 700 pages and still going strong. My editor and I have worked together for over ten years, so I trust her to work from one end, while I continue to write. She knows that I seldom send anything to New York that isn’t pretty well set, so she can edit without worrying I will do major changes and negate her hard work. As I said, above writing is very solitary, but after enough time you do have your team members like my editor, and my husband, Jon, who helps keep me sane and fed while I throw everything thing into the book. I’ve just finished a late dinner with Jon, to go with the late lunch I had with him and our daughter, Trinity. She had a snow day today. She’s now off with her father for the weekend, and it’s just as well because I’m at my desk for the duration until I type, The End, or I fall asleep at my desk. Trinity has seen me through a lot of books, so she knows the drill. If I nod off at the desk like I did last night I’ll sleep for a bit and hit it again. I’m really hoping that I finish, before I have to sleep, but I just passed 700 pages and am still going strong, so maybe there will be a nap in there somewhere.
