In which the last glimmering hope is extinguished.

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

Journal entry dated 8/2/05, "Lost and Found". LKH is in italics, I'm regular text. Spelling, grammar etc. the author's own.

Danse Macabre officially no longer has Edward in it.

The last entry was actually written long hand last Friday the 29th of July. What follows are entries that were sort of written long hand over a series of days starting I believe last Sunday, or even Monday. I thought about breaking this very long blog up into smaller ones. But one, I don't know how to do that without getting Jon's computer expertise, and two, well, it sort of all goes together.

Reread the last entry. Not a very cheerful day. But then, I've never gotten 567 pages into a book and lost the thread of it. DANSE MACABRE is my twentieth book. I guess I thought that I could try something different and it would be okay, but you change your work habits at your peril. That whole, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Or maybe this book was one I've needed to do with Anita for awhile and I just didn't know it. Certainly we're tackling some hard issues. Whatever the reason . . . I've lost the thread and I do stand in the maze and not know how to get out. I'm about to do something that I tell new writers never to do. I'm going to print it out and reread, and do some editing as I go, before I've actually finished the book. I tell other writers never do major rewriting until the book is finished. But I don't know how else to find where I need to go. For some reason I've had more trouble than usual holding the plot in my head. I know part of the problem, the new edition on the house.

[Cut for rambling about the reconstruction on her house--which as you know we've all paid for!, and about which NO ONE CARES--and about her friend Richard, who Is In No Way Related To The Character, her repeated emphasis.]

I have now read about four hundred pages of the book. I'm happy with it. Nothing wrong with it. In fact I've written 'nice' by several passages of my own writing. Always nice when I reread and think that I've captured exactly what I wanted to capture on paper. It doesn't happen often. I'm going to paraphrase Mark Twain, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." I, like most writers, feel that most of the time we try to catch lightning and end up with a jar full of bugs. They're really pretty bugs, very shiny and they do light up the dark, but it's not quite what we were trying for. But there are a lot of moments in DANSE MACABRE where the lightning crackles on the page. I've got the metaphorical burn marks to show for it.

I'm not good at giving up on things. In fact, it's one of my worst things. Somewhere around four hundred pages of reading today, I realized the problem with the book. I was trying to put too much into the book. Too much plot, too many characters. Just too much. I've said in several public talks that Edward and probably even Olaf were going to be in this book. I even have some chapters with Edward and Anita. The trouble is that these chapters came over five hundred pages in. You don't bring Edward on five hundred pages in unless the book is going to be at least a thousand pages long. It's not going to be that long. About seven hundred pages is about it. I finally embraced what my subconscious has known for a day or two, that Edward isn't in this book.

[Insert wordless shriek of despair.] Sorry to all those Edward fans out there, I'm disappointed to. But I think it's better to keep the Edward part of the plot and spin it into it's own book, then try and tack it on to the end of a different plot. Any time you raise a major plot point five hundred pages in, you're book either needs a major rewrite, or your plot isn't working. I was ready to trash the book, but I've read most of it, and it works. The book works as is, but it is not a mystery, not in the traditional sense. It is not an Edward plot. Book fifteen will be nothing but the Edward plot [Book FIFTEEN? Uh, isn't the book after DM number FOURTEEN? So we have to wait for TWO MORE BOOKS?], well, okay, that and some very scary vampires that, well . . . Anyway, on the positive I have the second and third chapter of the next book already written. They're a little too abrupt to be the first chapter, but they can be damned close. Set up in chapter one, on the telephone to Edward asking for some help in chapter two, then away we go.

What is Danse Macabre about then, if Edward's not in it? Almost everything is a spoiler. Let's just say that Anita and Richard some to some revelations about themselves as a couple.

[Another wordless shriek.] We learn more of Jean-Claude and Asher's back story. We see the Mother of All Darkness again. Belle Morte plays a metaphysical visit. We meet some of the other masters of the city here in America. We get to go to a ballet about vampires where real vampires play the vampire parts. I actually don't know what will happen at the climax of the book at the club Danse Macabre. [*HEADDESK*] I have thrown out the plots and plans I made. [Well, there it is, up front, straight from the author herself. NO PLOT.] I'm letting the characters take the reins and run with it. I always seem to work better that way, when I'm chasing after my imaginary friends, or they surprise me completely. I'll finish the read through, then we'll get back to where we were, a scene with Requiem, and several of the new vamps from Britain.

So...basically Danse Macabre is yet one more "transitional book" with no sign of a plot and likely little more than smut and angst. It sounds worse than Incubus Dreams, if that's even possible.

.........I'll just go cry into my pillow now.

Comments

[harpergrey.livejournal.com]

Ye gods. I think I'm turning into a broken record with this, but just when I'm sure she can't do anything worse to her own writing, she cheerfully proves me wrong. At this point, I'm going to say that in order to be a decent writer, one should probably do the exact opposite of everything she does/recommends doing.

And she's still being published. *shakes head* If it wasn't so funny, it'd just be sad. ;)

[saadiira.livejournal.com]

She's got a NAME. Had any of the last several been her first book, she'd never have gotten to the shelves.