Afterword
WHERE DO I get my ideas? How do I know if an idea is strong enough to support a whole book? How do I write a whole book? How do I write day to day? What helps me get into the mind-set to pull words out of thin air and write books?
These are some of the questions I get most often from would-be writers or just people who think being a writer must be interesting, or hard, or easy, or just weird. All of that is true, often at the same moment. I love my job. It"s all I"ve ever wanted to do since I was fourteen-well, except for being a wildlife biologist, but that was a fling; my heart has and always will belong to the muse. She hooked me at about age twelve, but she set the hook in hard at fourteen when I read Robert E. Howard"s short story collection Pigeons from h.e.l.l Pigeons from h.e.l.l. That was my moment of decision that I not only wanted to be a writer but I also wanted to write horror, dark fantasy, heroic fantasy, to make up worlds that never existed, and write about our world with just a few scary changes. That was my epiphany and I never really looked back.
Flirt is my twenty-ninth novel in about fifteen years of time and s.p.a.ce. I know something about writing and about how to treat it like a career. It takes a lot of hard work and a very thick skin so all those early rejections don"t crush you. But first you need an idea. is my twenty-ninth novel in about fifteen years of time and s.p.a.ce. I know something about writing and about how to treat it like a career. It takes a lot of hard work and a very thick skin so all those early rejections don"t crush you. But first you need an idea.
I"ll state up front that I don"t understand the question, "Where do you get your ideas?" I had a woman who was raised just across the alley from me ask me after I had several books out, "How do you come up with ideas like that, when you were raised here?" The implication was that small-town middle of farm country wasn"t the most likely place to find a writer of paranormal thrillers. I asked her the question I really wanted to ask, "How do you not not come up with ideas like that, when you were raised here?" come up with ideas like that, when you were raised here?"
I can"t remember a time when I wasn"t telling myself stories, at least in my own head. I would often tell a true story with just a little embellishment, which is one reason I did not pursue journalism. But most often my ideas were about fairies, monsters, vampires, werewolves-scary but beautiful, or scary but emotionally poignant were always the things that attracted me as a child. I guess I"ve never really outgrown the idea that if it can drink my blood, eat my flesh, and be attractive at the same time, then I am all over it. By fourteen, I wrote my first complete short story. It was a real bloodbath where only the baby survived to crawl away into the woods. The implication was that she would starve to death or be eaten by wild animals. I was always such a cheerful child.
I have no idea where that first story came from and it wasn"t a great idea, but it was the first complete idea and that makes it valuable. But how do I come up with ideas that are book length and good enough to be book length? Funny you should ask that. Because that is exactly what I"m about to try to explain.
I am going to tell you where the idea for Flirt Flirt first came from. I"m going to tell you the first scene that came into my head, because most books start with a scene for me. I have a little mini-movie in my head or freeze-frame of a visual and that is the peg on which the entire book begins to revolve. That first moment is when I see something or experience something, and I feel that little catch in my stomach, or p.r.i.c.kling along my skin. Book ideas are a little bit like falling in love. You"re on a date with someone and they do something, or say something, and you get that little uplift where you think, first came from. I"m going to tell you the first scene that came into my head, because most books start with a scene for me. I have a little mini-movie in my head or freeze-frame of a visual and that is the peg on which the entire book begins to revolve. That first moment is when I see something or experience something, and I feel that little catch in my stomach, or p.r.i.c.kling along my skin. Book ideas are a little bit like falling in love. You"re on a date with someone and they do something, or say something, and you get that little uplift where you think, Yeah, I like this one Yeah, I like this one. Ideas are like that. I"ll tell you the first idea, and I"ll even tell you the fertile ground that that idea found to land on, which happened nearly a year before. Because an idea is like a seed; it needs good soil to grow into a nice big book.
I"m going to tell you the schedule I kept, the pages I wrote per day, the music I listened to, and the books that I read for extra research while writing the book. I am going to lay my process bare before you. I"ll let you see it from inception to completion. Will this help you do the same? I"m not sure. Will it answer the question of where I got this idea and how I knew it was a book? Oh, yes.
First, what do I mean by fertile ground? I mean a set of circ.u.mstances or a mind-set that puts me in a heads.p.a.ce to appreciate the idea and to see almost instantly the possibilities of it. This mind-set has allowed me to write short stories in one glorious muse-driven rush, and this once allowed me to get an idea for a book and weeks later have that book be complete.
It all began with a party at my friends Wendi and Daven"s house, which is states away, and that is important to this tale, because it meant Jonathon, my husband, and I had to fly in and stay at a hotel and were there visiting for several days. Among their other lovely and charming guests was Jennie Breeden, who does the web comic "The Devil"s Panties," which has nothing to do with satanic underwear, but more to do with the semiautobiographical life of Jennie, but funnier. Jonathon and I were fans of her web comic, and we"d met her for the first time at Comic-Con 2007. She turned out to be a fan of my books, so it was a mutual squee-fest. Which was very cool. We met and visited with all of them more at DragonCon the following year, but coming to visit Wendi and Daven was the first chance for me to spend some quality time with Jennie.
I have a lot of friends who are writers. I have friends who are artists from sculpture to woodworking to graphic art and comic books. It"s always fun to be with other artsy types. It can help spark ideas and just give you a new perspective, but Jennie"s comic is funny. She records, or writes down, funny things that people say around her for later comics. She"s doing a daily strip and that takes a lot of funny. I could not possibly do a daily strip. I certainly couldn"t be funny every day.
Jennie and I would hear the same thing, or see the same event, but she would then speak into her phone/recorder and it would be funny, even funnier than what happened. I began to help her collect funny bits, but all my ideas sparked by similar things were dark. It was as if we walked through a slightly altered version of the same world. Her"s was brighter, happier, even funnier, and there was a lot of genuine funny that trip. My version was darker, more overtly s.e.xual, even aberrant, violent, sometimes violently s.e.xy, and an innocent moment turned into a potential for murder and horror in my head. In Jennie"s head, there was a laugh track, and even when the jokes had a s.e.xual flavor to them, they were still charming, and never crossing that line of deviancy that my ideas always seemed to be on the other side of, waving happily at the less debauched across the line. If she had not been speaking out loud into the recorder, or asking us to repeat phrases, I wouldn"t have realized how much funnier her version of events were than mine. She also would tweak the reality and it would begin to build into something much funnier.
Later, she contacted me and Jonathon and ran some of the cartoons by us because she didn"t want to make us uncomfortable. She takes reality and pushes it to that next absurd level, so that it"s not exactly what actually-actually happened, but it"s almost what happened. But it was always fun, and funnier for having gone through Jennie"s mind and onto the paper.
I realized that here were two artists experiencing the same weekend, but taking entirely different things away from it. It was eye-opening, refreshing, and made me look at things anew. The experience, like much of this last year, helped me lighten up somewhat, but it also confirmed that I would never be truly light and fluffy. It"s just not my speed, and at the end of the year I was content with that, happy even with my lighter shade of dark.
Skip ahead a few months, from winter to summer, and Jonathon and I were back visiting Wendi and Daven. It was at the end of the visit and we were catching a late lunch or an early supper (aka "lup per"), before they drove us to the airport. We were all sitting in a U-shaped booth at a restaurant where we"d gone before with them. It was nice, comfy.
The waiter came to take our orders. He had his little notepad out, pen poised. He asked what we wanted for drinks. I think Jonathon and I ordered first, and then it was Daven"s turn; Wendi was on the other side of him. Daven had been studying his menu and only then looked up. I swear, he only looked up and gave the waiter his full face, nothing more. The waiter went from reasonably intelligent, competent, human being to stuttering idiot.
Have I mentioned yet that Daven is six foot three with long, thick hair down to his waist? It"s brown, but it"s that kind of brown that has natural gold highlights all through it. He has these great big hazel eyes that are truly brown and gray and a little green all at the same time, depending on his mood. He has a Vand.y.k.e beard and mustache that he grew so he"d look old enough to date his age group and stop getting hit on by so many men, when all he wanted was to date women. All this is to say that Daven is pretty, very pretty. Oh, and just to add to the treat of it all, his wife, Wendi, is six foot one, blond with huge, soft, blue eyes, and enough curves to make straight men weep and gay women beg. If you are at all insecure about yourself these are not the two people you want to be standing next to.
I knew intellectually that they were pretty, and I knew that Daven flirted at a black-belt level, but I hadn"t until that moment understood the impact he could have simply by looking up. But once Daven realized the reaction, he smiled at the waiter. And the waiter just fell to pieces. I almost felt sorry for him-almost.
The waiter said, "Um, ah, wh . . . what, I . . ." Out of desperation he sputtered, "Drinks, I can bring you drinks."
All four of us nodded in unison, and said, "Yes, bring us drinks."
The waiter fled.
Daven turned to Wendi and practically bounced in his seat, almost clapping his hands together in excitement. "Can I play with him, please?"
"No," said Wendi.
Pouting, Daven said, "Why not?" I"m not sure I can explain to you how a man that tall, that broad-shouldered, can bounce in his seat and pout and have it work for him, but he does, and it does.
"Because we"ll either get great service, or we"ll never get our food," Wendi said.
The waiter returned with water for all of us, which was great since we all wanted water. He then asked for our food orders. But he took our orders while staring at Daven, as if the rest of us didn"t exist. Daven just looked up at him with that beatific smile on his face.
I don"t remember why the waiter kept coming back to the table. All I know is we never had to ask for our drinks to be refilled, they just were, and bread never ran out, and, well, the waiter kept coming back and he never looked at anyone except Daven.
Now, I have no problem with both my friends being gorgeous. I usually just enjoy the world"s reaction to them, especially to Daven, who just has an aura of charisma that"s hard to explain. But I was sitting within inches of Daven. Jonathon and Wendi were at the edges of the U, but I was right there, and the waiter stared at Daven"s smiling face. Did I mention yet that I"d asked Daven how he did his charming thing earlier on this trip? I had, and he had explained it to me. It was a technique I would later use to good effect on camera for the commercial and interview for my book Skin Trade Skin Trade, but this day, at that moment, I trotted it out for something nearer and more immediate.
I lifted my face up, and because I"m a pet.i.te woman, I did the slight head tilt and smiled. The waiter just kept staring at Daven, and I admit that I moved a touch closer to Daven and made certain that the waiter couldn"t ignore the fact that I have curves of my own. The only question was, did he only like boys, or did b.r.e.a.s.t.s hold some appeal? I waited to see. He did that little eye flick, and then he was dividing his attention between the two of us. I honestly don"t think it was that I was flirting that well, but that the waiter had actually realized he hadn"t made eye contact with anyone else at the table. He could look at me and still see Daven, because we were beside each other. He couldn"t look at either Wendi or Jonathon and still see Daven. My husband is his own share of pretty (shoulder-length waves of strawberry-blond hair), and he grew his own Vand.y.k.e beard and mustache that is true orange-red for much the same reason Daven grew his, because he looked twelve and wanted to date his own age group and was tired of fending off more offers from men than women. Cap it with almond-shaped blue eyes like an exotic Viking, and his much cozier size for me (five-eight), and, well, any more description would be oversharing . . . The most important thing I learned about flirting is that it"s not just the equipment you have, but how you use it. Daven and I were willing to use what we had on the waiter; our spouses were not willing to stoop to those levels. One must simply tip a hat to the strength of their character, and go back to tormenting the waiter.
We finally got our bill, paid, tipped, and left. The waiter was sooooo sooooo giving Daven the invitation to leave a number, to call back, to please, don"t go. Daven did one more grin and off we went. I believe it was as we were leaving the restaurant that I turned to them all and said the fateful words, "If Jennie were here she"d turn this into a funny, charming comic strip, but if I ever used it as an idea, it would all go horribly wrong. There would be violence, or violent s.e.x, or both, and a high body count." giving Daven the invitation to leave a number, to call back, to please, don"t go. Daven did one more grin and off we went. I believe it was as we were leaving the restaurant that I turned to them all and said the fateful words, "If Jennie were here she"d turn this into a funny, charming comic strip, but if I ever used it as an idea, it would all go horribly wrong. There would be violence, or violent s.e.x, or both, and a high body count."
We all laughed, they drove us to the airport, we went home.
But that was the idea, right there.
Fast-forward a couple of weeks and I was deep into the writing of the latest book of my other series, Meredith Gentry, fairie princess and private detective. The book was Divine Misdemeanors Divine Misdemeanors, and it was kicking my a.s.s. Something was really blocking the inspiration pipeline. Usually that means there"s another idea trying to get out. If I can just figure out the idea and write it down then I can go back to the book that"s due, and let the idea simmer on the back burner, as it were.
But when I sat down to write this idea out, it didn"t stop. I wrote the first few pages and made myself go back to Divine Misdemeanors Divine Misdemeanors, but that book slowed to a crawl. I remembered the last time this happened was in the middle of Danse Macabre Danse Macabre, and the book that came out of that interruption was Micah Micah. So I let myself divide my day, working on the book that was due and allowing myself a second writing session on the idea that would not die, and that would eventually become Flirt Flirt.
How do I divide my attention and my muse between two projects at the same time? Music. I use different music for the different projects so that when I sit down I know by the soundtrack what project I"m into. I find that music can be so intensely paired with a character or a book that I will sometimes have to put that song, or alb.u.m, or even band, away for a while before I can listen to it again without being thrown back into the book it"s so closely a.s.sociated with. The music for Flirt Flirt was The Fray, Flaw, and Tori Amos"s alb.u.m was The Fray, Flaw, and Tori Amos"s alb.u.m Abnormally Attracted to Sin Abnormally Attracted to Sin. That was the music to sink me into Anita"s world and this idea. Over and over for hours, for days, for weeks, this was the music that let my imagination know what we were doing. I find that the right music is like a magic switch in my head and even months later a certain song will make me think of a character, or a scene in my books. I tend to a.s.sociate real people with songs, too, so I guess the fact that my imaginary friends have their music isn"t that surprising, but I find that once I land on the right music, the book, whatever book, writes much better and much smoother. There would come a point where I simply had to give myself over to Flirt Flirt and let it eat my world for a little bit. Just checked the calendar on my office wall and I actually only let the book have its way with me exclusively for two weeks; the other three months that it lived in my head it had to share its time with Merry and and let it eat my world for a little bit. Just checked the calendar on my office wall and I actually only let the book have its way with me exclusively for two weeks; the other three months that it lived in my head it had to share its time with Merry and Divine Misdemeanors Divine Misdemeanors. I averaged eight pages a day, the highest being twenty-five on the last day. It wrote as fast as Micah Micah except it took longer for me to be willing to give the book its own time in my schedule. Sometimes working with two different publishers on two different bestselling series is like trying to date two men at the same time. You can do it, but there are moments when each man wants all the attention and there doesn"t seem to be enough of this writer to go around. Once except it took longer for me to be willing to give the book its own time in my schedule. Sometimes working with two different publishers on two different bestselling series is like trying to date two men at the same time. You can do it, but there are moments when each man wants all the attention and there doesn"t seem to be enough of this writer to go around. Once Flirt Flirt was done, I was able to write was done, I was able to write Divine Misdemeanors Divine Misdemeanors with a fresh eye, a fresh att.i.tude, and renewed enthusiasm. The same had happened with with a fresh eye, a fresh att.i.tude, and renewed enthusiasm. The same had happened with Danse Macabre Danse Macabre after after Micah Micah.
There is a scene in Flirt Flirt that is based on what happened in the restaurant with Daven and Wendi. I"ve given most of Daven"s part of the event to one of the other men in Anita"s life. I gave Micah and Anita Wendi"s part. I let Anita do some of my part. I did with that real-life event what Jennie does, except the charming incident would inevitably lead to something going horribly wrong, and there would be s.e.x and violence, and a high body count, just as I"d predicted. that is based on what happened in the restaurant with Daven and Wendi. I"ve given most of Daven"s part of the event to one of the other men in Anita"s life. I gave Micah and Anita Wendi"s part. I let Anita do some of my part. I did with that real-life event what Jennie does, except the charming incident would inevitably lead to something going horribly wrong, and there would be s.e.x and violence, and a high body count, just as I"d predicted.
I let Daven and Wendi read the novel early so they could see that I"d done exactly what I said I would do. It amused us all, and I suddenly had a surprise Anita Blake novel for the year. Nifty!
So that was the idea, and that was what it became, and how I wrote it. But to prove to you that it doesn"t matter what the idea is, that it matters who the artist is and what they do with the idea, I asked Jennie to create comic strips of the idea. I told her the story of what happened in the restaurant and she did it as a comic. They"re funny and charming and no one dies. I managed for the same scene to be funnyish and charming and tender and a little sad, but it would set in motion a series of horrible events, because that"s just the way my mind works. And to see how Jennie Breeden"s mind works, turn to the comics that follow, and then you will have it all.
Now, how I took the charming restaurant scene and got to a man who wanted his wife raised from the dead at any cost-even the death"s of those Anita held most dear-well, I don"t know. Years ago when I had one or two books out, people would guess that I wrote romance or children"s books. As a pet.i.te woman, I guess they went for the packaging, but as my good friend who is a policeman says, "Packaging is not indicative of content." Boy, that"s the truth.
I"d tell the people who thought I wrote children"s stories, as in picture books, "No, I write science fiction, fantasy, and horror."
It was always that last part that got them. I had several people say, "But you look so nice," as if you can"t be nice and write horror. If asked now, I say, "I write paranormal thrillers." That seems to make people happier, and it"s more accurate for what I do, since I was mixing vampires and zombies with mystery and romance long before it was a genre of its own. But I still get asked, "Why do you write about s.e.x and monsters?"
The only honest reply is, "You say that like I have a choice. These are the ideas that come to me. These are the ideas that have always come to me. If it can bleed me, eat me, or f.u.c.k me, I want to write about it." Every girl needs a hobby.