Blog Flog!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Link: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2005/10/yesterday.html
Date: Friday 28 October 2005
Title: "Yesterday"

LKH in italics, as standard.

I'm gonna skip over all the stuff about getting pissed off that Darla intruded on her writerly hot-streak and just focus on this bit:

No, it was do the scene, throw it out. Redo the scene, read it to Jon, have him confirm what I feared, throw it out. I must have redone that next to last scene three, four times, back and forth, back and forth. this choice will change things later in the series. That choice will mean the police will never trust her again. This choice will get Asher executed. That choice will doom us all. This choice is less bad. I wrestled with that scene all day. I did not exercise. I did not eat lunch. I wrestled with the book, and had no idea who was winning.

*headdesk*

I think I just spent ten minutes, sputtering and typing crap just to try and come up with some sort of response that wasn't just mindless, frustrated screaming.

Lady, divorce yourself from your characters. It's okay to love them, but this is totally a hallmark of someone who wuvs them just wayyy too much and doesn't want anything OMG BAD! to happen to them. EVER. And that's right up in the top five things of What Not To Do As A Writer.

What the hell is wrong with having the police never trust her again? It makes for good plot, as she may have to, holy crap - here's the crazy part - deal with it and have to work around/with it in order to be victorious. Or, just get out alive, as there's no rule set in stone that says the good guys always have to win. Granted, right now, it's pretty easy as the bad guys don't even BOTHER to show up in St Louis any more, but hey, as a Team Evil supporter, I live in hope.

What's wrong with Asher being executed? I mean, other than the devestated fangirls everywhere. He's one of the cast I pick to die to bitchslap some reality back into Anita (the other would be Nathaniel) and hell, I even champion the idea that Anita would have to do it herself. It's probably asking for a ton of wangst, but it would do the entire 'verse a whole lot of good.


Skip a bit more going on about how she nearly tore the head off her latest helper - get this, his name is Richard - and you get to this bit:

I could not decide how this scene would play out. If I wrote stand alone books, it would be easy. But with a series this long, with so many books yet to come, decisions in one book can derail plots later on, or make entire story lines mute. So I fought with the scene, and myself.

I fought my desire to get the book done, at almost any cost, against the cost to Anita and her sweeties later on. This cost was too high. This too complicated. This not true to the characters. I fought. I finally beat it into a shape that was close to being done.

First off, I'm amused that apparently there's enough plot in this book that it may well be derailed by this one scene and thus ruin the later books. The many, many, many volumes of later books.

She's already admitted that she's had to use reference books for different sexual positions for this one - the scenes already read as though they're pastede on yea! but sooner or later, she's going to run out of different styles to try. And then what'll happen? She'll have done everything humanly, and inhumanly, possible...will the Ficus be next?!?!

Secondly, not true to the characters? wtf?

I already believe that the original cast has been taken away by the Witness Relocation Program and given alternative identities and these are just decoys. It's that, or the pod-people have really landed and it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers but without the insightful social commentary.

And third, I'm still beating my head against the desk about how much this woman loves her characters and how she doesn't want anything bad to ever happen to them. ARGHGAHHHIG!

The whole Goddess pledge at the end at least reminds me that she hasn't gone as crazy as Anne Rice.

o.0

Comments

[naeko.livejournal.com]

I celebrate you for referencing the ficus :D *tosses confetti, waves tiny flag*

I saw the Incubus paperback yesterday and actually had to stop myself 4 steps toward it, and go, "what the hell are you doing? Don't do that to yourself!" Even after all this time, it's apparently still habit. >/

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I've seen the Incubus paperbacks! Borders have like...an end of row display of them as if to say, "Well, we didn't stock the hardcover, because we're slack bastards - but ta-da! Lookit, we got paperbacks. Now, Brite goes in the Z section, because it's Z Brite, right?"

Sadly, I picked up the paperback, and flicked to the back where the sample chapter of Micah was. And then I put it back on the shelf, because I needed to sneeze. Saved by hayfever.

[dragonfanguk.livejournal.com]

Might have done the entire story plot a favour by actually sneezing on it...
That way, when you put the book back, the next poor sod is saved because it's glued together. You would have secured your place on the other side of the Pearly Gates!

[windiain.livejournal.com]

I still haven't got past chapter 4 of that. I've had it out of the library for nearly 2 months now, too. ¬_¬

[dwg.livejournal.com]

It takes a while. It took me a couple of months and three attempts to get past chapter 4.

From what I remember (and without cheating and going back through my own summary) whatever plot is loosely established in like, chapters four and five-ish, you don't get to revisit them until chapter 64, when Zerbrowski calls to say that he's found the tattered, bloody remains of plot. In those sixty chapters, Anita wants, has sex, wangsts some more, has sex to save the universe and her men from bad guys that just wait for the satellite to come into range so they can beam into her house (I think they're too scared of her sex life to actually turn up in St Louis) and...something...something...and Zerbrowski calls. Then, it's plot for a good fifteen chapters (albeit short ones), a return to Anita!sex, further emasculation of male characters, some undermining of the female ones, plot, and lastly, Anita!sex. Epilogue, fin.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

It's just so difficult. It's like you run ito a glass wall, and you can clearly see the epic amounts of sex and the lack of plot to come. *cries*

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but once you've gotten through the first couple, they actually have some comic value. JC!sex has become incredibly funny to read about. Specially when you do a breast count, to see how many times LKH can mention the word in a single sentence.

Oh yes, and you get to deal with Anita's newfound obsession with Nathaniel's buttocks and their Divine Dimples.

[demoncougar.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I find it creepy that he has ass-dimples. I find it even creepier that Anita apparently finds them fascinating.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

That whole part was just creepy and incredibly comical at the same time. Mostly because I think a blind man in New Jersey saw it coming.

[magdollna.livejournal.com]

What is even sadder, Then even this. I read on the LJ anita fan site is she is working to see the books become a movie..

So line up at the cini minni xxx theres a movie a coming too.

Mags

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I saw all that. I...don't hold out the same enthusiasm as the other fans. The fact that Jason Alexander is attached to the project doens't help inspire confidence, either.

I lean toward the telemovie at best scenario, not Hollywood or even Indie scene, blockbuster.

[magdollna.livejournal.com]

Well I can see LKH like a sports mom next to him screaming," WRONG, WRONG , Anita would never be in that polo top and we need everyones sweat to gel on there skin like I have said in the froist 8 books every 4 pages."

This I hope will get shelfed till the right director comes along.

mags

[dwg.livejournal.com]

*fingers crossed*

Maybe it'll go the way of Interview and kick around for some twenty years before someone gets their hands on it.

Oddly, one of my friends left a comment saying that the first three books or so could work in a Sin City kind of fashion. I could kinda see how that'd work, if you focused more on the crime-solving thing rather than zombies and vampires and werewolves, oh my! which would be nice, instead of being hit over the head with the preternatural aspect of things.

[magdollna.livejournal.com]

well, if you look at LOTR that had been optioned several times, and in the 1970's talked of hiring little people (midget's) to play the hobbits and using the same things done to make godzilla movies. We can all breath a sigh of relife it was dropped, till now.

I look at Interview with a vampire that while I was never crazy about mister scientolgy Tom cruise being Lestat it was a good movie. Then they made Queen of the Darned ( caulse it never measure up enough to damned) and they had that looser who made Lestat seemed like a drag queen boredly going through a movie.

If I had a vote on this, I say let HBO make a book adaption of the frist couple of books and do it over 3 nights. I think that with some decent actors who are not that well knowen. ( Lets face it no one with big star power. Will sign on too making a vampire porn book come to life movie.) God, help us if Sci Fi network had picked it up.

mags

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I could live with HBO, or even Hallmark (y'know, the guys that got the Jim Henson company to do the practical FX for things like Merlin and Jack and the Beanstalk and that version of The Odyssey with Armand Assante in it) doing a mini-series or something. IT could actually work out to be quite watchable that way.

...I'm going to still cross my fingers that the SF channel can get something right because they're going to make a telemovie out of the first Dresden book by Jim Butcher. Complete with Nicholas Cage doing...soemthing...with the project.

[harpergrey.livejournal.com]

What really got me was this wankery from the previous blog entry (Tuesday, October 25) (which I was too damn lazy to post in a new thread *g*):

I did a scene with Asher that was amazing, wonderful, and so dark that Anita would never have touched him again. So dark that I didn't know who he was anymore. I finally realized that it was my subconscious trying to get rid of one of the men. Not death, but more like a divorce.

Okay... So how is that a bad thing? In the real world, sometimes people do die and sometimes they do leave. And in a fantasy world as dark as this one started out, the phrase "sleeping with the monsters" ought to mean exactly that. Vampires are not happy fuzzy guys with superpowers. They're monsters gods damn it. Have them act like it once in a while. You don't survive for centuries by being nice and spreading good karma (or your legs -- oh, my bad, that's Anita) for everyone to enjoy. *snarl*

And here's a tip -- if even your own subconscious wants some of the stable gone, maybe it's time to start killing them off. (Past past time as far as I can tell.) Or does this count as being "contrary"?

And just in case we needed more evidence of what kind of an influence J is on her writing:

I read some of the scene to Darla, she pronounced it good. I finished most of the scene and read it to Jon. His face showed me what I already knew. It was a rabbit hole. A big, dark, bloody, dangerous, rabbit hole. Taking me in a direction that would destroy Asher.

I think that says rather a lot, really. ;)

[sweetpirate.livejournal.com]

You don't survive for centuries by being nice and spreading good karma (or your legs -- oh, my bad, that's Anita)


*snicker*

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I've been championing the whole vampires shouldn' tall be nice thing since JC had that moment of pansied pansy-dom when he admitted to Anita that the whole reason why he and Asher "ran away" from Belle Morte was because he realised it was OMG SO WRONG to kill people for the pleasure of fucking.

I'm sorry, what?

If you're going to be around through some of the worst of what history has had to offer and what the monsters throw at you, in order to simply SURVIVE, you're bound to have something of a mean streak, and a good brain inside your skull. Simply feeling sorry for the poor, measly humans doesn't cut it. Add to that, I've had it up to my eyeballs with angsty, humanitarian vampires. JC started out as a good, undead bastard that would do your grandmother if he thought it'd get him somewhere. Where the hell did that go???

The whole thing ruined a perfectly good, Jean-Claude moment where he finally admitted that he kept Anita around so that she'd kill him if he ever went mad with power. QED. Don't need all the other pansy frou-frou stuff.

As for Asher, well...he is a dark and moody character. He's got Issues, and it's been nice to see him trying to work through some of them, but if he's gonna go off the deep end, at least LKH managed to remember that part of his character and went with the dark and moody. As much as I like the guy, I'd be happy to see him die just for the possible plotlines. I'll miss the man-pr0n implications with him and JC (le sigh, le pant, le swoon) but I can live with that for the precious, precious plot.

But no, no, no...LKH just has to admit that she loves her characters wayyyy too much and is fighting what could be a sock-knocking storyline that will leave fans remembering why they're fans in the first place, for the outcome of least angst and unhappy and with everyone getting along.

Stab me in the eye with a rusty spoon.

[dragonfanguk.livejournal.com]

Thing is, I like my characters a lot too... just the fact that as I've developed them, they've become more believeable.

However... I find that the happier I am, or the more I like said character... the more shit I put them through: suicide, unrequited love, miscarriage etc...

The one's I truly hate get off scot-free...

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Well, Asher was one of the handful of characters remaining who didn't make me want to throttle him. Then again, I haven't read the last book or two, so maybe that's changed.

[gweneth-syeira.livejournal.com]

::gakks at anne rice linkage::

whoa....

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Yeeaaah. I think it's kinda the benchmark for craaazy authors. Still, I like the idea of a crime-fighting Jesus. He gets twelve sidekicks later on in life, and clearly what he needs is a shiny penis-enhancing carriage to romp around the back roads of Jerusalem, and a big ol' torch for the Romans to light when they think they're in trouble and need Jesus to go kick some saviour butt.

But the sad thing? I'd read the Kid!Jesus book if it promised porn.

[tsula.livejournal.com]

all you need is to make him a space cowboy and you'd have one HELL of an anime.

oh, snap!

*hums* I'm going to hell!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

At least with the anime, you'd get a gust of wind, this robes would shift and you'd get a panty-shot of Jesus.

It'd rank right up there with Passion of the Christ being a gay BDSM movie.

[tsula.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

WHAT??? Clearly the remnants (and I do mean remnants) of her muse or her common sense is yelling at her to KILL SOMEONE GODDAMNIT and she's "wrestling" it? Jesus lady, just give into that part of yourself that I assume wrote the first few decent books.

[tsula.livejournal.com]

*nods* and Asher has been TRYING to crawl away with some shred of dignity since, uh, the beginning. How is rewriting his natural impulses in his hypothetical best interests? Assuming you take into the consideration the vividity in which she alots her characters in her head. Asher is a tragic character, let him be tragic.