Blog Flog, Painting the Chapel

[othellia.livejournal.com]

After the recent Darla wank, Jason's Stripper Name contest, and the "Swallowing Darkness" title reveal, I'm going to take us back a bit to a semi-recent blog. So far, LKH has compared herself to Anne Rice, Mercedes Lackey, Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle... apparently her greatness is beyond all of them.



Original Blog: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/01/painting-chapel-but-watch-out-for-trim.html
LKH in Bold and Me in Normal

---

I did all eleven things on my to-do list, plus two scheduled appointments, plus a whole bunch of comic stuff that was due, plus sorted stuff on the kitchen island, and had a staff meeting. It's beginning to feel like a job around here.

Being a writer is a job?! You're expected to do work for money? I had no idea! Isn't it great that we have LKH to enlighten us all?

I'm a writer, we're supposed to spend all our time alone, being creative and morose. We're not supposed to have a staff, or have meetings, or phone conferences, or . . .

We get it. The darkity-dark gawthity-gawth of living doesn't fit in with today's society. And what does she mean that writer's aren't supposed to have a staff. It seems pretty normal to me; there's editors and PR people and the people who do the cover design and the guy who fetches donuts at 2:30 in the morning and the calendar makers...

The real world of a successful writer is just not exactly what you think it will be. It's a lot busier.

So... If I think that it's extremely busy to begin with, does that mean by LKH logic that it won't be very busy at all or even busier? On the whole... I wish LKH would just stop writing "you" and finally put in "I." I'd have a lot less to gripe about. But I also wonder, what about the imaginary world of a successful writer? Or the real world of an unsuccessful writer?

It's full of a lot more people, and more interruptions. It's a lot more like, well, work-work.

Once again, being a professional writer is a job?!? So nice to enlighten us. Then again, I highly doubt writing PWP all day is as stressful as a real job. I'd like to see how LKH would react if she had to stop writing and entered the actual workforce.

I actually have a daily planing calender this year. I've never had one before,

Oh yay! That means 366 days of research this year instead of 12! Oh wait, daily planing calendars don't have little tidbits of information on them. That means zero days of research versus 12. Aww, shucks. (And somehow it doesn't surprise me that LKH doesn't know how to spell "calendar."

Hmm... She goes on about her calendar's layout... and then talks about Blood Noir.

...but at the top of the to-do list, and so far all by itself is BLOOD NOIR. I gotta get that out of the house.

Huh? I'm not really sure what this phrase means. Is it like "I've got to get this over with" or something. Does she mean that she wants to send it out to be published already? D:

I've reached that point with the edits that I just need it out of the house.

I don't care what you think. When it comes to Anita Blake and editing, it's never going to reach that point. It should stay in the house and far away from any relatively sane person. Besides, if the book's already at that stage, why is she taking the time to hold a "Name that Stripper!" contest? I know that I should know better by now to expect logic from her but...

I always get sort of blue when I'm editing, because to me I realize the book is crap the book is done. I know everything that happens, and we're just sorting commas, and putting in research.

Hmm... Sorting commas...

LKH: Okay, now I want all you commas to look pretty, so I'm going to sort you. First, let's just sprinkle some more on for effect. Now, I want everyone to position themselves so there's equal spacing between you all.
Commas: Laurell? That's not exactly how we work...
LKH: DO NOT, CONTRADICT ME, FOR I, AM LAURELL, THE GREAT, AND POWERFUL!

And... putting in research at the editing stage...

DOES NOT COMPUTE. A problem of type 2094 has occurred. *brain breaks*

I'm like most creative types if I'm bored it's trouble. Interest me, and it's great, bore me, and I so don't care.

Oh my God. Laurell is so totally liek totally awesome. She so totally speaks to my soul. There are all these so totally boring things around her, and she so doesn't care.

I do my work, but it's grunt work, and I'd much rather be painting the Sistine Chapel, then painting the trim on a house.

Laurell, if you showed up to the Sistine Chapel with a paintbrush, the Vatican City police would have you out of there and back on the streets of Rome before you could say "arduer."

A new book is like painting the Chapel.

Because Anita Blake/Merry Gentry is right up there with one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of all time. :D

Editing is making sure you don't get the trim color on the wall color; tedious.

I like making sure the trim color doesn't get on the rest of the wall. It's like coloring on the very edge of the line and making it all... perfect. But that's just me. Though, sometimes I really want to know what her books look like before editing, just since she makes such a big deal about it.

The holidays slowed me down, and now I've fallen into the Sloth of Despond.

Despond (v) - To become disheartened or discouraged. So sloth of despond would be the laziness that comes about from being disheartened or discouraged. There were only 97 hits for the phrase on google, so I had to look up the meaning. I suppose it makes more sense than the "out of the house" thing.

Most writers know what I mean, when you just feel like you're slogging along and the book will never be done enough to be, well, done. It's the time when you either start editing when you don't need to, or when you throw your hands up and get it out of the house before it's ready.

Because LKH knows that her books are being edited when they don't need to. Either that or she knows she's publishing crap and doesn't care. Take your pick.

Either holding on too long, or sending it out like a premature baby to shiver in the cold. Either way, not good.

You know. I think limyaael had a rant about how your book is not your baby. (At least I think it was limyaael...) Either way, LKH needs to read it. And, as always, there is no on time delivery for LKH. EVER.

I'll try for some perspective tomorrow.

Aah.. I love the smell of perspective in the morning. So, how’re you doing?

For tonight, Say good night, Gracie. Good night, Gracie. (If you didn't get that joke, then you don't know your television history.)

Apparently I don't know my television history. And I don't really mind.

Comments

[kessie.livejournal.com]

*grinds teeth*

That woman.

I write, but clearly I am not one of those "creative types". And I like editing: it generally (unless you're LKH, clearly) makes the book better.

Also, I wail at the thought of research being put in at the editing stage. It should be in at one of the draft stages, but then that means LKH would have to write actual drafts of her book. :|

[easol.livejournal.com]

Drafts? What are these drafts that you speak of?

They are presumably for the dribbling mortals who cannot get their reliable and coherent information from CALENDARS!

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

"Say good night, Gracie" is a George Burns joke, back from from he and his wife were alive and young. Also, in print, not funny. Smarmy sideways name-dropping, in other words.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

Ah. I did a quick check on wikipedia and apparently LKH doesn't know her television history either. "Burns would always end the show with "Say goodnight, Gracie" to which Allen simply replied "Goodnight." She never said "Goodnight, Gracie," as legend has it." Of course, wikipedia isn't always reliable, but in this case, I hope it is. :D

[drho.livejournal.com]

Michelangelo spent years painting the Sistine chapel, but, if he were alive today, he would no doubt bow to the genius behind "Swallowing Darkness."

[easol.livejournal.com]

After all, are those artfully shaded naked covers and "Fuck me while I'm tight!" shrieks not the very essence of art?

Nah, he'd dump a bucket of paint on her head, God bless the old grump.

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

Wow, when did she compare herself to Mercedes Lackey?

I've been doing the same thing for years... basically to prove what happens when your partner becomes a "yes man" and your books go to hell :)

[othellia.livejournal.com]

She didn't compare herself writing wise to Mercedes Lackey, but Darla made the connection in the recent response to "Dear Negative Readers" with the whole being threatened thing. Perhaps I should tweak it so it's clearer...

[last-servant.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think the Slough of Dispond is from Pilgram's Progress. I wonder how she'd feel in the City of Vanity...

And the web essay you're thinking of is by Holly Lisle, althougth Hamilton needs to read most of her rants, too.

The thing that struck me was the "morose". How can she be an unhappy writer writing a Mary Sue?

[othellia.livejournal.com]

I know the Slough of Despond is from the Pilgrim's Progress, but LKH clearly wrote the "Sloth of Despond." And based on the way she uses it, they have different meanings. And Holly Lisle? Thanks. I'll check that out.

[notadoor.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure "Sloth of Despond" is actually supposed to be "Slough of Despond", which is a rather famous literary reference.

Dear LKH:

You are not Humpty-Dumpty. For you, words do not "mean exactly what I want them to mean -- no more, no less." You can't just interchangeably use words that have most of the same letters.

Disappointed,
Notadoor

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

I'm currently reading Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland/rereading Alice in Wonderland, and you have just made my day. I send you heartfelt good cheer via the internet.

[easol.livejournal.com]

I don't know my television history either. And somehow, that does not bother me.

Being a writer is a job?! You're expected to do work for money?

But isn't that so cold and mercenary, to WORK FOR MONEY and not for Teh Joy of writing for your fictional friends?!

We get it. The darkity-dark gawthity-gawth of living doesn't fit in with today's society.

Well, how can one be so dark and angsty and GAWTH if they have to, you know, deal with PEOPLE? Oh, the loneliness of being so very dark and misunderstood....

(Now that I have THAT out of my craw, I'd like to mention that I consider LKH to be the Avril Lavigne of the fantasy genre)

The real world of a successful writer is just not exactly what you think it will be. It's a lot busier... It's a lot more like, well, work-work.

Oh, woe and sympathy for LKH -- she is a successful writer! And she actually has to DO STUFF other than write about screaming orgasms!

Ohhhhh, it's so busy, it's almost like actual WORK! Sooooooooo hard! You actually might have to talk about something other than yourself for a whole five minutes!

I've reached that point with the edits that I just need it out of the house.

The fact that she is at "that point" and is still not finished is damn frightening. Remeber how she forgot to include a French phrase in one book?

LKH: DO NOT, CONTRADICT ME, FOR I, AM LAURELL, THE GREAT, AND POWERFUL!

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE WOMAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Oh my God. Laurell is so totally liek totally awesome. She so totally speaks to my soul. There are all these so totally boring things around her, and she so doesn't care.

And she like, writes these guys who are SAD and stuff, cuz she's deep! Like, she gets BORED by boring stuff so she writes these hawt sex scenes which are so edgy and real and stuff...

Laurell, if you showed up to the Sistine Chapel with a paintbrush, the Vatican City police would have you out of there and back on the streets of Rome before you could say "arduer."

Followed by a rant about how mean and oppressive the Vatican is, because not only do they not approve of vampiric orgies, but they TRY TO REPRESS THE GREAT ARTISTE!

All hail Laurell, for she is the equal of Michaelangelo, one of the greatest painters in history! And he had it EASY, because she'd rather be painting the Chapel. HE didn't need to write Teh Dark And Angsty Classic Comfort-Zone-Pushing Sex Books! I hope he haunts her for that remark.

I like making sure the trim color doesn't get on the rest of the wall. It's like coloring on the very edge of the line and making it all... perfect. But that's just me.

But then, you aren't a wonderful glorious author of edgy Great Litrachoor, who likes things "messy."

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

*cries* George Burns and Gracie Allen have been tainted. They were so cute and funny and Laurell's abused that joke. They should not be associated with this crazy blog anyway. Sorry, had to let that out.

Nothing is more annoying than any successful person/celebrity in a creative field boo-hooing about how hard their life. There are so many good writers out there who deserve the chances she's gotten. Better writers that are published but still don't have Laurell's financial success. Laurell is so self-indulgent in her whining and wank.

Esp since she goes on to explain why her books are so poorly edited. She gets bored and just decides to let them get published before they are ready. Which I think we all knew, but for her to admit it is just ... wow. Maybe I'm reading between the lines but I still can't believe she said that.

I think this is particularly obnoxious...

I'm like most creative types if I'm bored it's trouble. Interest me, and it's great, bore me, and I so don't care.

Right, because people who don't have her brains and talent are too uncreative to get bored. WTF. Last time I checked being bored was a total feeling of 'I don't care about this right now and it doesn't interest me' and everyone, creative or not, was able to play.

[gothgoddessrhia.livejournal.com]

In my rich fantasy life, Neil Gaimen walks up to LKH and decks her and says, "Do not want!" The Clive Barker shows her what is REALLY dark as Stephen King laughs manically.

Then Cthulu eats her.

Oh...wait..she'd try and boink Cthulu.

But he'd still eat her.

Works for me!

[easol.livejournal.com]

Great, now I'm imagining Whorenita in Cthulhu tentacle-porn, whining about how she's a good girl who doesn't boink the Great Old Ones, right before the ardeur takes over and she starts shrieking about wet tightness.

Brain bleach please!

[unrund.livejournal.com]

I'm a writer, we're supposed to spend all our time alone, being creative and morose.

Also, drunk. Writers are supposed to be drunks and junkies. My mind is screaming at me to just forget my non-existent funds and send her a big bottle of the green fairy [absinth for those who don´t know that little nickname :p] with a note attached that reads 'Dear Laurell, if you drink this all at once the voices will speak louder and make more sense than now. An adoring fan'.
Gods, that woman makes me want to scream.

[cassildra.livejournal.com]

Make sure it's the cheap kind made with wormwood, k? :D

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

I forgot what I was actually going to say!! lol

Her blog comparison to Michelangelo fails because he didn't want to paint the Sistine Chapel at all. He was strongarmed into it by the Pope.

Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor and painting was not his cuppa. He did paintings to make money so he could sculpt what he wanted.

Sorry Laurell, even that great artist had to WORK for a living.

[easol.livejournal.com]

And he still had people who had to approve his design, and he had to make concessions. The Pope wouldn't have let him just wander in and start painting cows on the windows.

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

How pray tell does one fall into a sloth? I don't think it would be very easy to fall into any mammal sloth or not.

television history No that's not history that's trivia.

[brightlyiburn.livejournal.com]

All right everybody...say it with me now...BITCH, STFU!

I'm getting pretty damn sick and tired of her speaking for all writers like she actually knows what it means to be one.

I don't know about you guys, but I for one am not "supposed to spend all [my] time alone being creative and morose". I'm supposed to spend my time writing and reading and playing games and learning Kenpo or whatever the fuck else I want to do. Gosh, I must not be a writer! Shame about all those thousands of pages...

[gothgoddessrhia.livejournal.com]

Writing is one of the hardest and yet easiest things I've ever done in my life. I love the research. I love the process. I love the edits. I love the discovery. I love the moment when you share it with someone and they tell you that they love it (or hate it or whatever). And you learn, constantly learn, to be better.

Seriously, I think she hates to write. I think she does it because she can make a living off it and she can be dramatic about her profession.

I love my life and the world around it me. I love how that affects my writing.

And for the record, I am Goth, and we're not an unhappy angsty lot. Sheesh.

*stomps her high heeled boot*

BITCH, PLEASE!!!

[othellia.livejournal.com]

And for the record, I am Goth, and we're not an unhappy angsty lot. Sheesh.

Note that I always use "gawth" when referring to her. A couple years ago, one of my goth friends explained the differences between punk, emo, and goth. To this day it saddens me to see so many emos parading around as goth. Therefore, I have given them their own subclass under "gawth," which unsurprisingly is only below "incomprehensible fanthings" on my list of Scum of the Literary Universe. :D

That said, I am actually very positive when it comes to actual goths. I'm not goth myself, but I have a few very close friends. I suppose if I was anything it would be an extreme Victorian-era lover with a morbid sense of taste and humor. I look and act just like every stereotypical book-nerd in the classroom though.

And... I should stop rambling.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

See, this is where TAKING A STEP BACK and not looking at the story for a while does some good. I get that she's on a deadline, but if she can wait to hold a STRIPPER NAME CONTEST, then she can wait long enough to get BN out of her system (see, this is probably why she's Swallowing Darkness, it leaves that nice minty aftertaste!) and then go back to edit when she's not thinking about the book.

Course, being the contrary workaholic that she is, this will not happen. But still. R&R, it's good for the soul.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Laurell, none of the great writers in history were solid upper-class types with more servants that published works . . . Alexander Pope TOTALLY DID HIS OWN DISHES, Y'ALL.

[twistedimp.livejournal.com]

The holidays slowed me down, and now I've fallen into the Sloth of Despond.

I almost want to think that she means the 'slough of despond,' since that's a phrase that actually... exists. Then again, the Sloth of Despond is probably the least of her crimes against language.

Slough was probably too challenging to spell. That 'gh' at the end of a word can be tricky.

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Gaaahhh, the ingratitude of this woman... I would love to spend my whole day doing something that was related to my writing, even if it wasn't writing per se. Besides, as much as she whines about not getting to write, she whines just as much about how hard it is to write.

It must be so damn depressing to be LKH. Whatever she's doing and whatever she's thinking of, she always sees the negative side.

[amamelina.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the paint that dripped in his poor eyes. Michaelangelo really suffered for his art. And I love him for it. One day, I'll actually go see the Sistine Chapel.

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

Good night, Gracie is a line from the old Gracie Allen show where husband George Burns (the original God) tells her to say good night, Gracie, and she being blonde or so the assumption goes says good night, Gracie.

Oh, and I do understand doing research during editing. Sometimes you'll have passages that you need to write in a second or third draft because you don't have the research, and you have to go back and do the research to make the writing sound authentic. As an example, I have book that has sailing ships on it, so I've glossed a bit on that section and when I do the next draft, I'm going to read that section and see what research I need to do to make it more authentic. It's that or say they take a sailing ship from x place to y place, and I'd like to make it a little more exciting than that.

Her comments certainly don't make the next book sound like something to wait for. I think the contest is a good idea for the Jason stripper name, but I hope the name chosen is better than the name chosen in the Jacen Solo (aka Star Wars) Sith lord name contest.

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

The Sloth of Despond so needs to be iconed!
I've got some great sloth photos if someone else can do the words....

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Throw them my way! :D

What If.... (1)

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

I find my way out of the semi-retirement of my lj to reply to this.

WHAT. IF...

What if the real, true, gritty difference of LKH WG (with Gary) and LKH PG (post-Gary) is the fact he was bringing in a steady paycheck.

Has anyone brought this up before?

What if a huge part of LKH's situation is that she's very, very, aware of the fickle nature of publishing? What if she has to be coaxed into spending money on herself with something like her Foose (car) because she's still got a rather grabby, tight fisted, frugal nature and she wants to have something sturdy to fall back on and cushion her when the ride is over?

There are mentions and mentions about the rejection back when was was trying to submit stories. And how excited she is about being able to print a lot of them in 'Strange Candy'. And now here's this mention of it being 'a job'. But that matches with her constant, constant, goings on about how busy she is all the time and how things are complex.

Blogflogs often mock her coming across as 'I must be the Darkity Dark of all things, feel my Darkness and Despair'.

But what if, once upon a time, writing for LKH involved sitting in front of a typewriter, surrounded by books about serial killers, with the incongruous note of cheerful Christmas music and becoming so immersed in her world that people had to physically drag her away for dinner?

What if that initial mode of doing things is now how she views the craft? As mysterious, totally enveloping and something non-writers won't understand, but the end result is a book, that feels a labour of creative love?

Suddenly all those 'I got so many pages done today' and 'Sigh - it's time to go do something with the kidlet' and 'The interruption of dinner and a life, and the dogs and the wren in the backyard' are all because she remembers one particular groove and hasn't adapted to find another.

Or maybe she's tried but she can't adapt with the pressure (self inflicted) of getting a book out in one or another universe every nine months.

What if, it's a furious race to be fiscally worth the advance, (how much will it sell, though not perhaps being of quality for a high price) and it's all affected her writing tremendously since NiC?

Quite a few writers are supported by their Significant Others, or have SO (or other family member) income helping to balance out the home.

What if LKJ is not a linear writer? What if she's someone who writes furiously in one universe / one book as the ideas and flow hits her and then needs to switch over to a different work?

Re: What If.... (2)

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

That possibility seems more than likely to me given how we read over and over again how she's had ideas for this character or that universe nibbling at her, even while she's writing something different, but it'd be counterintuitive (unfair, wrong, whatever her worlds usually are) to flesh them out, and get out of the head of the character voice she's supposed to be in, because then the book in progress wouldn't get out.

How long did it used to take her to get a book out before? 18 months? Versus 6? A long time frame makes it seem more than likely that she could flit from here to there and back again, and that by fleshing things out in one universe she could forget details of another and so come to it fresh. (Perhaps even fleshing out a scene that seems cool in one book, and then coming to the rest of the book fresh)

I am by no means saying her craft was spectacular to begin with, especially not knowing how much work was done on Guilty Pleasures. But the ideas of Guilty Pleasures were tingly and whee! And lately the ideas of most of her books are like thrice reused tea-bags in very tepid water.

What if half of her sending things out into the wild, or sometimes seeming to fling them out of the house, is that she's just plain fed up with having to deal with it constantly for several days to meet her deadlines? Hasn't she mentioned already hating to be working on one book when her mind's on another?

It could be seen that the mention in this flog of holding them on too long, is self delusional / self denying of there being a reason, perhaps, the books used to take longer and involve her writing group, etc... Easier to think she was nesting them, than she was honing them. Easier to think it's boredom than her set deadlines to keep her name out there forcing her to fling the books out without her taking the time to stop wanting to see their backs and letting them marinate (or fester) so she can edit them properly.

Suddenly to me at least the mentions of 'Battling The Dragon' and 'Why is it such a chore JOB!' make a kind of sense. As well as the very fact that her professional blog is so filled with complaints about how hard it is to writer intertwined with 'Oh, but the gentle, magical, miracle'.

[mitrian.livejournal.com]

"I actually have a daily planing calender this year. I've never had one before,"

A planing calendar? I didn't think LKH was into woodworking.

Each day on the planing calendar would feature a different kind of plane or a different surface or kind of wood to plane. A chisel plane on pine one day, a router plane on walnut the next....

[shadowbloodwing.livejournal.com]

This....woman...had the balls to compare herself to the all mighty awesomeness that is Air Arthur Conan Doyle?! Just when the hell did THAT happen? >:|

[shadowbloodwing.livejournal.com]

...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Damn typo's.

[digitalusrex.livejournal.com]

Laurell, if you showed up to the Sistine Chapel with a paintbrush, the Vatican City police would have you out of there and back on the streets of Rome before you could say "arduer."

that one made me break out laughing. OMGZ.