lkh_lashouts | Blogflog: Thar be dragons! (Reply)

Title: The Dragon's dead, Long live the Dragon
URL: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2006/11/dragons-dead-long-live-dragon.html

LKH in bold, me not.

For anyone unwilling to slog through the giant slab of the first paragraph, it's basically LKH spouting at us her fantabulous page-counts and the couple of times she's gotten up to write things at strange hours of the night. And then there's this anecdote about how she was seeing ~~Dead People~~ armies of imaginary mice:

The night of the 5 in the morning, well, let's just say that I knew we had a mouse, but the herd of mice I was seeing from the corners of my eyes just couldn't be real. When I typed the last word of the book, I made myself get up and go towards one of the mice. They'd stopped disappearing when I looked directly at them, which was kind of unnerving. I got closer, the mouse didn't move. Unusual for a mouse. I made myself reach out and touch it, because I knew it wasn't real. It couldn't be. It wasn't real. It was a curl of electric cord.

Well, congratulations, Laurell! You've discovered that sleep deprivation is the poor man's LSD! *golf clap*

Anyone that's ever had insomnia, university exams, children, or copious amounts of caffiene ~~injected into their eyeballs~~ could have probably told her this.

Srsly, why pay for illicit substances when staying awake will do the same thing?

Ironically, I've had much the same problem, however, my mouse turned out to be real. Ditto with the cockroach that scampered across the study floor. Right now, my sleep dep hallucinations take the form of OMG SHIFTY DOORS where it looks like the study door is going to swing shut/open even if it's already closed. When the door turns ninja, I know it's a sign that I should go to bed.

There's some wank on Gary-the-Ex and how he didn't seem to know well enough to leave her alone after getting only two hours sleep, but, like, YIKES, her then-baby daughter needed taking care of and he had a job to get to at some stage. Holy crap, she's making parenting sound like it's such an inconvenience on her life.

Anyone who has cared for a small baby knows how the lack of sleep can get to you, but I still remember those cavorting hallucinogenic mice. I never wanted to do that again, but oddly, it felt good to be up and exhausted enough from writing to begin to see that edge of delusion. It meant I really had given my all to the process.

Uh. No. Just, no.

As someone who's done writing on the "edge of delusion" after some 22-29 hours of awake - trust me, it's not something worth repeating. While at the time you might think you're the Golden God of Prose - rereading it the next day, after some sleep, says otherwise. Mostly, my reaction is, "WTF? What the hell was I writing?"

Getting into that kind of state to "give your all to the process" is not healthy, either physically or psychologically - though, when you stop and think about it, maybe this explains so much of the crazy we've been seeing. She's purposely giving herself sleep dep to get into "the zone" and expend all her braincells on what she thinks is clearly the best shit ever.

Wow, a few weeks R&R to get her back into reality would be the bitchslapping from hell if she ever got it.

There was something about fighting the good fight in the new office, turning on louder and louder music to keep alert. Nine Inch Nails was what I blasted through the night.

*fangirl weep* I hope Trent Reznor smites you with his awesome Rock Godliness. Or at the very least, Maynard James Keenen comes prowling around and turns Jon into a pair of pants. (biglots thanks to

rantingmule for the image link!)

Seriously, LKH, you're not worthy of NIN. NOT. WORTHY.

But something about the whole process helped the office be mine. It's been christened now. Or bloodied, or it's just become my space now. Again, very nice.

See, most people probably smash a bottle of champaign over their word processor to declare a new office open, but not our girl Laurell - oh no.

She's going to have a sacrifice because that's OMG SO PAGAN and she's down with the Wicca-ness. She'll lay out Virgin English, defile and debauch it before finally slaughtering it in a PLAGUE OF COMMAS!!! And so, her words are now stained purple with the ink of a dying language!

For this late night, early morning, session, Jon not only knew I was up doing it, but checked on me about every hour. I can thank him for introducing me to Nine Inch Nails.

J'ACCUSE! *points*

Jon must die. We need to drag him by his ponytail to the Hague and make him stand trial for Crimes Against Music, and then he can be sentenced to execution: death by CD. Angry fangirls can hurl NIN CDs at him like ninja-stars and chop him into bits.

Though, it's not like we realy need another reason. This just helps.

It is very nice to be married to someone that is intimate with my work, and my schedule. Someone who knows what I'm doing, and helps me with it.

See, today, she's got him back on the leash and has applied the Vulcan Mind-Meld or something. Thus yesterday's whine about how she didn't understaaaand how he could blissfully shoot people, helicopters and friends with his gaming buddies! is now totally forgiven.

Maybe she brainwashed him the same way Sutter Kane was turning people evil in In The Mouth of Madness, and anyone who reads the manuscript for The Harlequin will suddenly become her flunky.

LKH: *sticks Jon's head in the copier while manuscript is being scanned*
JON: OMG! NUUUU!!! *gets ~~evilified~~ zombie-fanboied* Mistress?
LKH: That's better. No more x-box for you, ever.
JON: Yes, Mistress.

The last part of this blog entry brings back that goddamned dragon metaphor. Painfully.

I'm a writer, and that is a solitary beast. You can ask people to look stuff over once you're finished, or bounce ideas off them, but in the end the writing is done alone.

Y'know, unless you actually collaborate with someone to write.

You fight the dragon by yourself. But it's nice to know I've got a base camp where people are waiting at the bottom of the hill with tea and sandwiches.

Which, when you've sent off someone to go fight a dragon, is actually kinda useless. *golf claps* Gosh, Laurell, if you're going to have a base camp, you'd think you'd want usefull things there, like, I don't know, a convenient army to back you up? How about a dragon diplomat that might be able to resolve things with said dragon peacefully? You never know, you could be going off to hack to bits a creature that probably just wants to look at its ~~preciousss~~ shiny things and contemplate the meaning of the universe - I know if that's all I wanted to do and someone came along to try to kill me, I'd get cranky and want to smush them.

It's even nicer to know that if I've been too long in the cave that someone will grab a torch and brave the hill, and see who's winning.

And then the villagers point and laugh as Laurell gets her ass kicked and bets change from backing our valiant heroine to the dragon.

The dragon is dead, the book is done. But I guess writing a book is like a CSI episode where the dragon slayer has to dissect the body, and clean up the cave, get it ready for it's next occupant.

TO RENT: One cave, barely used - sporatic murder-spree by author may occur. However, excellent village views.

Meanwhile, in Vegas, Grissom is probably using LKH's books as bedding for his bug collection.

Hmm. Writing for me is part muse driven rush, almost sexual,

O RLY??? YOU DON'T SAY??? OMG. *shock*

/sarcasm.

then sheer battle with blood and sword, then forensics where you dissect the battle and decide how best to cut the body up, then finally land lord, time to clean up the cage and put out a sign saying, "Dragon wanted."

. . .

So, she'll do a dissection with a sword, then kill the landlord, clean up the mess and hang a sign up to lure in new potential victims?

LKH, serial killer. The pun works on so many levels.

I wrote last night in the blog that I think I've got the beginning of the next Anita book in hand, maybe. If so, I've got a glimpse of the next dragon. It looks deceptively mild mannered, but then don't they all at the start? But the next dragon will be Merry # 6. I can hear the belly scales scratching across the rocks in the distance. It's on it's way, and it's big one, but then, aren't they all.

Oh Laurell, they're all so very big! Bigger, thicker, wider than you could ever imagine - but it's okay! Because you know your heroine will be ~~so wet and tight and oh god, wet and tight~~ ready for them!

I'd ask how much more she can wank up the dragon analogy, but like the better mousetrap, LKH will probably write a better wank.

EDIT: pith, are we allowed to have a "wank: the dragon" tag? It's even puntastic. omg, yaye! We have a "wank: the dragon" tag! *boogies*