Cloudy and cool today, and I am very glad. Somehow sunshine and heat doesn’t appeal to me right now–I want to do up a pot roast and some mashed taters, and that’s not a hot-day kind of dinner. Not to mention I want to curl up on the floor and stare out the window, and if it’s sunny I feel like I should be outside doing yard work. I don’t precisely mind yard work, but after yesterday’s huge effort to get Strigara in first-draft form ready for an editor to look at it I’m feeling pretty drained.

A lot of Readers have emailed and commented to ask if they can get Serafim at a regular comics distributor, and when exactly the print edition of Steelflower will be out.

* Right now we don’t have a distribution network or anything for Serafim, so the best way to get it is to order through Josh’s website (look for the little “Add to Cart” button on the top) and pay with PayPal. Sorry about that–but you can ask your local comic store about it. If they get enough requests they might stock it! And that would be awesome.

* The print edition of Steelflower will be out on September 1. Which means, in practice, that it will be shipping probably a week early.

Urk. My brain still feels like a sponge that’s been squoozled dry. So I’ll bid you all a civil adieu and go do the dishes, preparatory to lying on the floor in the living room and staring out the windows at the sky.

Is it wrong, that it sounds like such a good idea?

Good Monday, everyone. It’s chill and quiet here, with thin fog breathing between houses and streetlamps in the distance. That’s one thing about fog–how you know it is surrounding you too, but it seems you’re in a clear bubble walled by vapor. Another thing is how quiet even thin fog makes everything, a species of quiet different than the subaudible static of snowfall. I like fog.

For those of you needing an ebook version of To Hell And Back, this is the only one I’ve found. Several people have emailed me asking about an ebook edition of the fifth Valentine book, but I have no control over it and there doesn’t appear to even be a Kindle one yet. If you, dear Reader, find more ebook versions (not pirated versions, which are a whole different ball of wax) please let me know so I can link to them too, and my Readers who like ebooks can have a choice.

Choice is good.

Speaking of pirating…I suppose everyone has now heard about the Cassie Edwards flap, where passages from her books appear to have been lifted wholesale from reference material. Then, just lately, another bombshell dropped–whole passages apparently lifted from Laughing Boy, a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel written in 1929. (You can find Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story, here. If you’re, you know, interested in reading an original.)

The Smart Bitches are catching a lot of flak for breaking this story, but since our mainstream media seems to have deserted us for a sea of Rupert Murdoch’s money, bloggers and citizen journalists are stepping into the gap. If the SBs were men there probably wouldn’t be the huge blather about how they’re Being Mean, and if they were working for AP or something nobody would think twice about them doing research and breaking a story. But since they’re bloggers, female, and unapologetic about what they think, a lot of people are throwing them unnecessary flak. Don’t get me started on THAT dynamic, dear Reader. We’d be here all week.

If Edwards has some explanation for the passages lifted wholesale from research books, I’d love to hear it. I myself didn’t realize that the historical Republic of Gilead in the Valentine books was a nod to The Handmaid’s Tale–a book that changed my consciousness in high school–until I paged through an copy of the finished fifth book. In the heat of creation the name “Gilead” came out for a theocratic regime Dante Valentine mentions in passing when she talks about history–so I know how sometimes research can crawl and creep into your book. If you’re like me and have a steady pace of reading about a book a day, sometimes less depending on childcare and errands, there’s a lot of stuff knocking around in your head. It’s fuel and furniture for the creative drive.

But whole passages so distinct in tone and texture from the author’s own prose that it alerts a reader, who with five minutes of Googling finds evidence of egregious wholesale lifting? I might have been willing to listen to an explanation and a mea culpa, if Edwards honestly didn’t know that you’re supposed to attribute sources. I’ve done my best to be honest about where my source material came from, and when one writes fiction one reads nonfiction source work and uses it to inform one’s worldbuilding, but doesn’t dump whole frigging chunks of it into the book. Still…I’d be willing to listen to an explanation.

But lifting from a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, another artist’s work of fiction? Bad author. No cookie. Not another cent from me, if I ever bought your books in the first place.

Which brings up something else the Smart Bitches pointed out: if you’re thinking of boycotting Signet or Penguin because one of their authors boo-boo’d bigtime, it’s more harmful than helpful. They explain why here. Boycott Edwards all you want, but boycotting the publisher does nothing but hurt innocent authors who have no connection with the scandal. And that is part of why publishing is a pretty effed-up business to try to make a living in as an artist, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post. I just wanted to mention the SB’s post about boycotting and how it actually works in publishing as evidence that they’re not out there just to make a sensationalist buck. (Which is pretty hard to do in the blogosphere anyway, Drudge notwithstanding.)

Ah, enough blathering. You’re probably bored with the whole thing, and I don’t blame you. I’m keeping up with it because I’m in publishing, I write paranormal romance, and this scandal touches on issues that concern me deeply on a daily basis. But in case you’re not so deeply concerned, I present Corvus Corax, the phattest Germen dudelsackers around. These peeps are like Andre Rieu on acid or something, and I am bookmarking their YouTube stuff as Musecrack for when I write Jill Kismet’s circus book.

But I won’t plagiarize their entire act, I promise. Heh.*

There now. Wasn’t that worth getting up out of bed for?

* Yeah, I know. Mean cracks about the scandal reflect badly on me. But Jeez Louise, I am just looking at this stuff and shaking my head, going how stupid can you BE?

My weekly post is up at The Midnight Hour. It’s about those images and thematic elements that sneak into a writer’s work, and the importance of looking at them hard enough to use them consciously. Oh, and clowns.

Fantasy Book Critic has a Best of 2007/Looking Forward to 2008 post up, where authors talk about the best books they read in 2007 and the books they’re looking forward to in 2008. Authors as diverse as R.A. Salvatore and Karen Miller, not to mention Modesitt and Resnick, have participated. Not to mention Yours Truly.

My Orbit editor has recommended I read Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, and there is (drums please) a NEW PEREZ-REVERTE BOOK OUT! The Painter of Battles was just released, and I’ve snapped up my copy. We all know what a big, huge, tremenjous Perez-Reverte fan I am.

On a different note, I’m getting a lot of email from peeps who need the fifth Valentine book in ebook form. I haven’t been able to find it. If anyone has, can you drop a comment or drop me an email so I can link to it? It’s my understanding that ebooks take a month or so after the paper release, but I could be wrong.

Happy weekend, dear Reader. I suspect I’ll be deep in the wilds of Tristan’s book later today, and may even have something new to add to it…

Good morning. Or I should say, good afternoon, since during any break from schoolwork we tend to get up later and later in the day. I suppose my night owl tendencies are rubbing off on the kids, or maybe it’s genetic. The Princess is heading toward puberty and sleeping in, but the Little Prince is so much a morning person his clock resets much slower than the rest of ours. Eh, maybe I’ll have to wait until he hits his teenager years.

I got another piece of amusing hate mail today. Now really, I expected some trouble with the subject matter I write on, and titling the first book Working For The Devil was hardly guaranteed to be a peaceful choice. But could people at least do their research before frothing at me?

My portrait of Lucifer borrows from a few traditions, not the least of which is the Gnostic and Grail traditions that show Lucifer as a green-eyed, possibly liberating angel, with an emerald set in his forehead. That emerald is intimately connected with the Grail tradition (is it annoyingly hilarious that I’m only enjoying reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail these past few days? I think I was too young the first time I blazed through it.) It also borrows heavily from S. Jason Black and Christopher Hyatt’s work and to a lesser extent, from legends of the Nephilim–the original rebels, you might say. And Cathar theology, the idea that the world is flesh trapping a spark of spirit, held a significant place in early drafts, but didn’t survive the challenges to such duality inherent on a polytheistic worldview.

The thing that irritates me is people writing me to tell me I’m “wrong” about the Devil. *sigh* I did a lot of research and reimagining. If you don’t like my version of Lucifer, fine. I’m okay with that. But don’t presume to tell me I’m “wrong” based on current fact-and-research-free evangelical Protestant cant. I’m drawing on a rich array of sources to reimagine what demons might be in a non-Christian setting, what demons originally were conceived of as, etc. It might surprise people whose only research into the idea of Lucifer is televangelist horsepuckey to know that the “adversary” was originally a Judaic theme, the angel who functions as the Left Hand of God to test the faith of mortals. The term “demon” comes from the Greek “daemon”, a guiding spirit that accompanies a man through his days. (Philip Pullman, notably, references this in the “His Dark Materials” trilogy.)

Still, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. I was ready for this sort of reaction the instant I realized what sort of themes I was dealing with. It just irritates me when people tell me I’m “wrong” without bothering to do any research themselves. I suppose it’s a knee-jerk reaction springing from what they’re culturally comfortable with and unwilling to look beyond. I understand, and understanding breeds compassion–I just hate being told I’m “wrong” when the person mouthing off clearly hasn’t read any of the source material.

The core assumption I take issue with is that I haven’t researched Christianity. Which is obviously not true. I began a period of intensively researching all major world religions when I was about twelve, and I still follow that interest today, two decades later. I did my best to read the source materials and the holy books, as a part of my own spiritual process of figuring out what exactly I believed. (Note: still an ongoing process.) As a result, I found out pretty early that much of what I’d been raised to view as “Christianity” was really an accretion of political and economic compromises masquerading as dogma, springing from the Catholic Church’s (long-term and briefly, historically speaking, successful) attempt to grab temporal and financial as well as spiritual power. Reading about the Gnostic Gospels, Arianism and the Nicene Creed, the Cathar “heresy” and the history of Byzantium and the Fourth Crusade (just to name a few subjects) opened my eyes to a number of issues still reverberating in Christianity today.

One might guess, correctly, that I have little use for the blind faith in the sects of Christianity–Catholic, Orthodox, OR Protestant–enjoying a lot of popular support today. Nor do I have much use for the current popular form of Islam, mostly because of its attitude (mostly as an echo of social forces, since the Koran takes a different view) toward women’s rights and scholarship/science. Other “world religions” have their drawbacks as well. Most organized religions seem to exist for one reason: to financially fleece their faithful and provide a thought-free refuge from the scary unpredictability of the world. Providing pre-digested pap to one’s followers in order to blind their capacity for critical thought and empty their pockets has never struck me as a mark of “spirituality” or even of a developed ethical framework.

One can, in my treatment of fanaticism and the Republic of Gilead, discern a lot of my attitudes toward the current theocratic trend in America today. One can even discern my feelings toward “gnosis” or personal experience of the divine rather than church-mediated contact with the numinous. But don’t presume to tell me I haven’t done my research. I thought long and hard about each aspect of the “Devil” I utilized. I may be guilty of drawing the wrong conclusions, but it’s not for lack of thought OR research. And really, once one gets into issues like this, who can judge what the “wrong” conclusions are? Taking a page from the Montague Summers playbook won’t help your case if you honestly expect me to take you seriously.

And you needn’t worry about my soul. It’s just fine where it is. I welcome responses to the books as art, and I welcome thoughts on the reimaging I did and my utilization of these long deep strands in Western thought and history.

But don’t serve up some Revelations-laden tripe you got off TCN and expect me to be impressed or even to respond. You don’t like my version of Lucifer? Fine. Write your own, or read someone else’s version. There’s a lot of them out there. Almost as many as there are versions of God out there. Feel free to pick your own. I actively encourage such behavior.

Just, you know, do some research first. Please.

Over and out.

Hello, everyone! I’m still recovering from a deadly fever and hacking up bits of my lungs, so this will be short and informative and not much else. But it’s amazing how much better I feel. You know how you can tell you’re getting better after an illness when you start having the energy to notice how cruddy you’re feeling? Yeah. Like that.

Anyway, on to the events!

This Thursday, December 6, at 7pm, I’ll be signing at the Beaverton/Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s. I will be reading from the second Jill Kismet book (the first Kismet book, Night Shift, is due out in July 2008) and will be signing copies of the Valentine and Watcher books. I hope to see you there! I will probably be coughing a bit, which I hope will not interfere with the reading too much. But I’m not contagious and I feel loads better, so I should be Mostly In Fine Form.

Also, on January 18, 2008, I will be signing at the University Bookstore in Seattle with the fabulous Richelle Mead. We are Wonder Twins and troublemakers, and our powers will activate…I hope Mark Henry and Kat Richardson can make it too, which would make it a Mondo Event. The world might tip off its axis with so much coolness in one place.

Many of you have asked when Steelflower will be released in print. I am happy to report that the latest date I’ve been given is January 29, 2008. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Also in late December, My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon will be hitting the shelves! This is an anthology, edited by the fabulous P.N. Elrod, chock-full of hot urban fantasy and paranormal romance, including a story by yours truly titled Half of Being Married.

What happens when a vampire hunter marries a werewolf–and the honeymoon gets a little too exciting? Kat and Mitchell Black have both been keeping secrets, and when their wedded bliss turns out to be full of bloodsuckers and sorcerers, things can get very interesting indeed…

I was thrilled to be asked to participate in this anthology, and again, I can’t wait to hear what Readers think.

December’s going to be a big month. Let’s hope I can stay out of the ninth circle of Hellshopping malls until at least two weeks past New Year’s. I suspect that’s safest for everyone…

Hey gang. I’m going to do a List today, since the world will only become manageable that way. Or at least, manageable for me.

* Widget mania! Want to read a little of a Valentine book before you buy it? Orbit has you covered:

And of course, you can add a Valentine widget to your blog or webpage if you like. I’m just sayin’. (end shameless self-promotion)

* The event last night at Powell’s was awesome. I got to meet and Dal Perry, just to name a few. Saint Peter Honigstock is a wonderful facilitator, and the Martian MoonCrab Bookweasel (don’t you love my attempts to keep people’s privacy intact? I’m a one-woman civil liberties crusade.) was a joy and a treasure as usual.

* Oh, and Annanda? Yes, they’re still together. I promise.

* I’m going to be at Orycon for the next three days. Further bulletins as events warrant, but you can find my panel/reading/autograph schedule here.

* Mucho thanks to the Muffin for putting together the bunk beds yesterday. I don’t care how “easy” they say self-assembled furniture is. It’s one of the few things that make me wish I was both pyrokinetic and less in control of my temper.

* Last but not least, thank you for all the concern and support. Y’all know who you are–and you all rule.

Catch you on the flip side, Readers! I’ll be back soon with Tales of the Convention…

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (evil laugh)

All right, my ducks, here’s what’s happening in the month of November.

* I am leaving this Friday to put in an appearance at World Fantasy Convention, in Saratoga Springs, NY. I may be on a few panels, but I’m not sure yet. What I do know for sure is that I’m going to be reading a little bit from the first Jill Kismet book, Night Shift, on Sunday, November 4, at about 10AM. If you’re at the convention, come nurse your hangover with me. I promise to be gentle.

* I am confirmed at the Beaverton Powell’s Local Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authorfest, on Wednesday, November 14th, 7:00pm. That’s Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing. I look forward to seeing maybe one or two of you there?

* Last but not least, I’m going to Orycon this year! Again, I don’t know if I’ll be on any panels and I haven’t been told about any readings. Once I know something more definite I shall definitely let you know.

Between all this and Thanksgiving too, I shall probably be a nervous wreck come December 1. But it’s a good thing–I will (hopefully) meet a few Readers and (definitely) see a few old friends. Travel during the holiday season is going to be a total utter bloody disaster, but well, one bears with what one has to. At least I’m going to be safely home before the real scramble between Thanksgiving and Christmas begins. Though from the Christmas decorations I saw hanging up in a Major Big Chain Store yesterday, I’m beginning to think the marketing peeps want us stressed over Christmas all year long.

My blogging is going to be spotty or nonexistent for a while, since I’m packing and preparing to head out on Friday. I shall try, however, to stay in touch.

So…all the plans are jelling for WFC. I leave on Friday. I don’t like planes and I’m not ultra-fond of travel, so it’s going to be (wait for it) an ADVENTURE. And we have pumpkin-carving to do before I go. Quel marvelous!

I prefer no adventures, as I have many adventures going on inside my head. But I’ve already committed to this and bought the plane tickies, and I know I’ll enjoy it once I’m there. I’m just nervous about travel. I am really a homeloving little soul. It is no help at all that I have no sense of direction at all and can’t navigate my way out of a wet paper bag. (To make up for this, the Sullen One has a fine sense of direction and is unflappable while navigating.)

So I guess we’ll see how it turns out…

All right, so there are a couple of questions I’ve gotten in the mail lately.

There seems to be some confusion with the timeline in The Devil’s Right Hand. What is the exact timeline?

Well, it goes like this. The original timeline was supposed to be:

Working For The Devil
(5 years)
Dead Man Rising
(2 years)
Devil’s Right Hand
Saint City Sinners
To Hell and Back

However, in reworking the drafts, my editor pointed out that Jace carrying a torch for Danny and Danny carrying a torch for Japh for five years was Just Too Much, and after much thought I agreed. (Thankfully Danny didn’t care.) So, here’s the timeline we ended up with:

WFTD
(10 months-1 year)
DMR
(3-5 yrs)
DRH
SCS
THB

You’ll notice it’s unclear between Dead Man Rising and Devil’s Right Hand because Dante loses track of time in a big way–partly because she doesn’t have a real good grasp on it to begin with, being a psion (you’ll notice how Trina the scheduler runs her life in the first two books) and partly because Japh deliberately removed all traces of time passing. Whether he did it to help her recover or for another reason is still an open question.

Unfortunately, some traces of the old timeline must remain despite the best in copyedits and continuity checks. If that’s the case, my apologies, but publishing is an imperfect business indeed.

When is the next Steelflower book coming out?

It’s in my head, I just haven’t written it yet. Getting three books out under a very, very tight deadline this year was difficult and I didn’t have room for the Incidental Novel at all. Hopefully this upcoming year will change all that.

I can tell you that the next book is tentatively titled Steelflower’s Song and deals with the troupe landing in Antai and discovering people looking for the Skaialan, Redfist. He has revenge to deal on Clan Connaight, and Kaia can do no less than help him. Hee. Hope that helps.

That’s pretty much all I have time for today. I have Halloween candy to buy and some other few items to pick up for the trip. Oh, and I need to get newspapers, because we’re carving pumpkins tonight.

I’m buying the New York Times. Somehow, for a grand punkin-carvin’, the local rag just doesn’t seem right.

A lot of you have asked me two questions: 1) Is Working For The Devil the first book in the Valentine series? There seems to be an awful lot of backstory. And 2) You mention soundtracks to your books. Does The Devil’s Right Hand have one?

1. Yes, WFTD is the first book. There’s a lot of backstory because it was necessary to show how Dante’s world differs from ours. When I started it initially, I didn’t think she was so far in the future. Until the day she gave me a sidelong look and said, “Six hundred years, idiot.” *sigh* I suppose I deserved it. Here I was blithely writing about hasn’t-happened-as-history with nary a care in the world.

Plus, Dante and I are both fascinated with history, with thinking about the reasons WHY things are the way they are today. I also am not a fan of big chunks of exposition, it tends to drag a book down. So there is a lot I’ll hint at, and leave the reader to figure out or come up with their own reasons for. Hey, you guys are smarter than me.

2. Yes, and I’m listing it below. This soundtrack is one of my favorites, mostly because Lucas, Tiens, Vann, and McKinley get their own tracks. I couldn’t get into their histories, but I love the songs they picked for themselves. Tracks and comments as follows:

I Have Given You Time Lovers In A Dangerous Time, Barenaked Ladies– This is a remake of one of my favorite Bruce Cockburn songs. It so perfectly expresses Dante and Japh.
Dante And Death/ The Geas Solsbury Hill, Peter Gabriel– Dante’s relationship with her god is a pure source of strength for her, thank goodness.
The Devil Never Forgets This Is Hell, Elvis Costello
Venezia Flowers Become Screens, Delerium
Night Train/Freetown New Prague Go It Alone, Beck– A lot of times I forget Dante is a highly-trained bounty hunter with a gift for mayhem. She really doesn’t mind being alone or being in a bad part of town.
Lucas Villalobos Katana Groove, Tomoyasu Hotei– If you listen hard at the end of the track, you can hear him laughing.
The Team/Vann & McKinley Attitude, Hardknox– Heh. They do so love to rumble, these two.
Tiens To The Shock Of Miss Louise, Thomas Newman– A Nichtvren deserves carnival music. Plus, fans of vampire movies will recognize this track from The Lost Boys. It’s a little in-joke.
Sparring With Japh Echo Game, House of Flying Daggers
Hellhound living dead girl, Rob Zombie– This is Dante’s song in more ways than one. It works itself into the final battle in book 5 as well. You can hear Dante and Eve at the beginning, Eve speaks first.
Bothering With Trifles Silicone, Mono– I keep having trouble with Japh not being human. So does Dante.
I Will Have Your Cooperation Hand That Feeds, NIN– The trouble with that is, Dante isn’t good at cooperating…and part of why Japh loves her is because she just doesn’t know when to submit.
Sarajevo DMZ Cost of Freedom, Experiment
Eve Life In Mono, Mono– Little girl all grown up and causing trouble…
Lucifer I Alone, Live– Because the Devil doesn’t like anyone else playing his games.
Do Not Doubt Me/Japhrimel Silence, Delerium– This is such an awesome track, because it features Sarah McLachlan. And also because it perfectly expresses what Japh feels for Dante, almost despite himself.

So there it is, the soundtrack for Devil’s Right Hand. Enjoy. I certainly did.

In other news, the hardback of smoke and the paperback of mirror are up on Amazon. Whew. Eventually both hardback and trade paper versions of each book will be available through Amazon. I was just glancing through mirror the other day when I got to the crucifixion scene, and I actually thought it wasn’t half bad.

Yup. Lucifer’s carrying ice skates.

I had much more to talk about, including encouraging everyone to go see this movie RIGHT NOW TODAY! But that next Kismet book calls, and I’m listening to the Devil’s Right Hand soundtrack again, which just makes me think of fight scenes…

Man, I love this job.

In honor of The Devil’s Right Hand’s release, and also in honor of me not being out of town or sick as a dog this Monday, I think it’s time for some Reader Questions!

Today I’ll be answering a few questions I get over and over again.

Is there another Steelflower book?

There is. It’s tentatively titled Steelflower’s Song. Unfortunately, I only have two or three chapters of it finished, despite (mostly) knowing the story arc. The production schedule for the Dante books has really been hellish, ha ha, and finishing those beasties pretty much has me drained and vegetative.

IN short, I’ll get to it as soon as I can, because I love Kaia and I can’t wait to tell the next few installments of her story.

Will you sign my book?

Much as I would love to, I don’t do a lot of signings. Travel costs are responsible for most of that, as are the costs of raising children and the fact that I’m not making a living wage at all.

However, if you’d really like your book signed, or want a signed copy, you can contact Cover to Cover Books. I work there on a sporadic basis, so it’s very easy for me to sign books there and I am quite willing to do it. A slight fee for postage if you live far away might apply, and for that I’m sorry.

You can also contact Duane Wilkins (aka Mr. Wonderful)at the University Bookstore in Seattle or Peter the Magnificent Sci-Fi Man at Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing. I see both of them fairly regularly, between shuttle trips to Seattle and attending events at the Beaverton/Cedar Hills Powell’s, and either one generally has a few signed copies in stock. Again, if you’re not local, you may have to pay postage. I really am sorry about that.

On the other hand, if you see me at a signing or elsewhere, I always carry a pen. And I’m always happy to meet a dear Reader. If I turn pale or start stammering, it’s because I’m really quite shy, especially when it comes to my work. I am always thrilled to pieces to find out someone likes it, they really like it!

End Sally Fields impersonation. *grin*

Now for a question that requires a very different response.

Why do the Valentine books have so much repetition?

I see that a lot in forwarded reviews and in Reader emails. In Working For The Devil I was very much a junior writer. (I’m still junior in craft, but no more, alas, in age.) The same kind of applies for Dead Man Rising.

I tend to write very fast and lean, and I suspect part of the problem is the editors want to make sure Readers get the most bang for their buck, so they’re looking for a bit more muscle on the bone. Plus, I think a lot of publishing tends to de-value Reader intelligence–not because editors think Readers are stupid, but because they want to err on the side of clarity. So I’m asked in revisions to explain, explain, and explain more. The fact that some esoteric things are commonplace to me by virtue of my lifestyle and studies doesn’t help, I suspect. Add to that five rounds if not more of revision, between my own drafts, revision letters, copyedits, and proof pages, and if I have any bad habits when it comes to repeating myself they shall verily mushroom in such a warm, oozing culture.

Another part of the problem is that I’m very visual. I see a book happening in my head, with crazy camera angles, CGI, the works. So I tend to assume everyone has that window into my brain and can see as clearly as I do. Unfortunately, writing hasn’t yet achieved that level of telepathy, so I’m often asked for paragraphs of description in a scene that is otherwise very lean and mean just so Readers and editors can get a mental “handle” on what I see in my head.

Add to that the fact that my books might not be someone’s cuppa tea for other reasons, and disaster looms. I can only answer, in the end, that writing is like any other art. You keep practicing not to become perfect but to become better, because perfection doesn’t really happen with human beings. If the “repetition” bugs you, sorry. I’m working on honing my craft, and I thank you for the feedback.

Dammit! I can’t wait for another Watcher book! What’s going on?

The next Watcher book, Mindhealer, should be coming out soon. You can email the publisher for more news, because I’ve learned never to say anything definite when it comes to production schedules. To do so only invites chaos.

You seem very comfortable with paranormal stuff…

Most of the time, the question is phrased as above. Yes, I’m pretty comfortable with paranormal/spooky/parapsychic stuff. For a variety of reasons, mostly because I have a taste for the stuff ever since reading my first horror novel and discovering sci-fi and fantasy, also because I’ve had some Genuinely Weird Experiences. I think EVERYONE has at least one Genuinely Weird Experience in their lifetime. How you respond to it–either by closing the door or by accepting that the universe is far weirder than out human brains are entirely comfortable with–largely defines a person’s tolerance for the woo-woo. (Not “New Age white-light buy-this-crystal” woo-woo. I’m talking “inexplicable, synchronous, statistic-defying, terrifying, and awe-inspiring” woo-woo.)

My tolerance for woo-woo is pretty high. So it creeps into the books, by hook or by crook. Plus, it’s like playing with shiny toys. You can break all sorts of rules in all sorts of intriguing ways. Mayhap my anarchic tendencies have something to do with it as well.

Well, that’s about all the questions I have time for. I need to go see if I can sleep tonight. After a long stretch of fairly-good slumber, mostly helped along by heat exhaustion and stress dealing with family stuff, insomnia looms threatening this early, early morning. If I get to bed in the next twenty minutes I might have a chance. Wish me luck.

Oh, and I hear Barnes & Noble has displays of the first three Valentine books (with the new covers) up in a few stores. If anyone manages to see one and snap a pic, I’d dearly love a jpg or two of it. And much thanks to the nice folks at Barnes and Noble for the vote of confidence. You cannot know how thrilled I was to hear that piece of news.

Happy Monday, dear ones!