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[tyger-raven.livejournal.com]

Blog Flog:"Death"
http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2006/08/death.html

I hope turtlemonkey doesn't mind that I take a more detailed stab at flogging this LKH Blog entry. I just had way more to say than I could say in a comment to her flog. Apologies in advance if this isn't allowed.



I know why I only got six pages on Friday. Okay, this is not so much a spoiler, as a tease. I don't mean to tease, but it's either tease or give away an important part of THE HARLEQUIN. I always struggle here on giving you guys a view into how it is to write these books, and not giving away too much, or tormenting you with hints. I'm not sure I'll ever get the right balance between all that, but I felt that this issue was important enough to share with you.

This is way too much information on how she addresses her fans and her book. And let me just say, "The Harlequin?!?", that's the cheesiest title she's come up with so far. Plus, these sentences don't serve anything but to tee up what LKH really wants to say. I'm not a big fan of teeing up. You got something to say, then friggin say it, LKH!

A lot of fans have asked in the last year or so, why hasn't anyone died in the series in so long? I tell them I made a promise after GUILTY PLEASURES... when we killed off you know whoa promise to Anita. That if she truly cared for someone I wouldn't kill them. Is it the bargain we would all make with Diety if we could.

Okay, for christ's sake! Will someone PLEASE send LKH an email or a dictionary so she'd stop friggin butchering the spelling of Diety?!? Plus, I removed a whole buttload of text b/c she got rambly. And, am I the only one that finds it frightening that LKH makes promises to a fictional character?

Sometimes I wonder if that's why Anita has suddenly found a romantic, or at least sexual, interest with so many of the men. The promise covers them, then.

No, Laurell, Anita has just become a slut. Don't make excuses for it.

On Friday we killed someone. Not a main character, because that breaks the promise. But someone we've seen over the course of more than one book.

It's Burt. She's not going to kill off the cops because she needs them, but what does Anita's boss bring to the story, plus, now that Anita never works anymore, he's a "red shirt" for sure.

As neat and tidy as I could, but death is not tidy and neat. I know it is not. I know better. But it was easier this way, less painful to her, and to me.

Gee, Laurell, I thought death was all fun and games?

But the death and the violence that led to it has taken the heart out of me.

Aww, you're trying to make us feel sorry for you because you're human? Won't work. Death and violence are harsh subject matters, but come the freakin on, this is only a piece of writing we're talking about. It's not like you've orchestrated the death of a real person.

I know my reality is a hyper-reality, and though I've done my police research it's not that close to the real thing, not really, it is fiction.

You need to keep repeating that Mantra because you certainly don't act like you believe it.

I joked that I needed to write an Anita vacation book, where she and a few of the guys got out of Dodge and did something fun.

You mean like having wild orgies on the beach? No thanks. I don't need to hear about an Anita Blake vacation book.

I can take a vacation, but it's almost as if Anita is my alter-ego, and it's not just me that needs a break.

I can't be the only one who reads this and wonders why LKH hasn't been checked into the looney bin yet, right?

I'm actually beginning to wonder if I need to write Anita getting that vacation on paper. It's almost as if it's not just me that's tired. That my imaginary friends need a break, too. A real break, like on paper, not just telling them okay, guys, go off and have fun, see you in a few months. Because most of my imaginary friends just wait for me to come back to the computer, they don't have fun on their own. Oh, Edward does, and Jason does sometimes, but most of them wait for me to come back and tell their story. So unless I sit down and do the vacation, they don't seem to get one.

Again, LKH has just slipped off into crazy town and needs a healthy dose of reality, stat!

Trouble is I don't think I could behave myself for very long on paper. I don't think I'm capable of writing hundreds of pages of fun in the sun. No, eventually, I think of bodies on the ground, or in the ground. My mind just runs to that.

Yes, you evil depraved woman. But, your logic is flawed. You actually meant, "No, eventually, I think of bodies lying on Anita, or in Anita."

Maybe we could see if I could find a cozy mystery for Anita to play in, something kinder than this. An Anita cozy mystery? It seems impossible, but damn I may be ready to try.

Is this with or without sex, though, I wonder. If it is with sex, then I think you can find a cozy mystery that will fit into that 50 pages that you assign to plot in the AB books. Wimp.

This death is not a major character, but it's still hard. I've still got to write the scene where Anita watches this person die. I cannot flinch from it. If I'm going to do it, then I have to do it. Do it right, or don't do it at all, that is the rule.

Another Laurell in La-La land moment, right guys?

This death will not just be the loss of this character, but there will be emotional shit to clean up for books, not just in Anita's head, but in other character's minds, as well. This is why everyone lives, it is not a Star Trek episode where everything is neat and tidy at the end, and next week we have life as normal. No, the great bad thing happens and it impacts our world, changes our world, and the people in it.

I'll believe it when I see it, which will be next to impossible since I've stopped reading Anita's porno journals.

All you people who wanted someone to die, I hope you enjoy it, because I have not.

Nope, I'm not happy because you've said yourself that this person isn't important enough to matter since they haven't given in to the Anita Blake Vagina-hole.