pith: (Default)
pith ([personal profile] pith) wrote in [community profile] lkh_lashouts2006-02-25 06:02 pm

blog flog: "Screw your courage to the sticking point, or something like that"

Date: 2/25/06
Title:"Screw your courage to the sticking point, or something like that"
Link: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/index.php/site/screw_your_courage_to_the_sticking_point_or_something_like_that/

LKH in italics. Yours truly in plain.



Part of me is wondering if just refusing to let anyone die is a betrayal of the plot and characters, or if the betrayal would be to let them die. Books ago I grew tired of death.

Y'know, I had a glimmer of hope there. It died a swift, ugly death as soon as "to let them die" came around, of course. Because, LKH, death is just, like, sooooooo unnatural that it would be a "betrayal". Oy.

And then the kicker: "Books ago I grew tired of death." Er... how? Yeah, okay, Anita and Edward kill a lot of useless people, but no major players have died since... well, since ever. Phillip [pp] and Robert [?] don't really qualify, IMO.

Merry and I both feel like we've had enough character growth for awhile. We'd like some simpler choices please.

It says enough on its own. I won't give it the dignity of a flogging.

Trinity has no idea that her mother is such a chicken shit about flying. I pretend good.

Grammar aside, this brings up a point I've been pondering for a while: Does she think her precious daughter doesn't know where her blog is?

It's not exactly hard to find. Her website is basically her name. Oooh, I'd never think to look for my famous author parent at a website where the domain is HER OWN FREAKIN' NAME! (Provided that I had a famous author parent.) C'mon, man. This is the age where people Google potential dates, employees/employers, even their friends.. Unless she's has inherited LKH's fear of technology, I'm sure Trinity has popped on the Internet at some point, and thought, "Hmmm. Let's Google mommy dearest!"—and then found the blog entries not only detailing Laurell's fear of flying ad nauseam, but all those gems where the gist was "Gee, it sure sucks that I have my daughter this weekend. I was really hoping to get laid."

[identity profile] holyschist.livejournal.com 2006-02-26 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
Books ago I grew tired of death.

Dear LKH: Then stop writing "horror" and just WRITE BAD PORN ALREADY, since you obviously prefer that!

[identity profile] tsula.livejournal.com 2006-02-26 04:55 am (UTC)(link)
I just how perceptive she thinks her daughter isn't. Cuz yeah, kids so can't read body language, especially that of their mother, whom they are perhaps the closest bonded too.

[identity profile] tsula.livejournal.com 2006-02-26 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
there should have been a verb in there at the beginning... I think "love"

[identity profile] freyalorelei.livejournal.com 2006-02-26 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
Is it really morally better to kill people to further a plot than to have sex with them?

*counts to ten*

*draws a breath*

*counts to ten again*

In this case it doesn't matter what's "morally better"; what's more important is whether it's more interesting to the story. In fiction there is no "morally better." You are not killing off real people; you are killing off CHARACTERS. If you are concerned about the moral state of your characters or yourself, perhaps you should not write books about necromancers and serial killers; perhaps you should write books about children skipping through fields of daisies with fluffy bunnies and cotton-candy rainbows.

As a writer, your first duty is to the STORY, not to make the characters' lives as comfortable and pain-free as possible. And by STORY I do not mean "300 pages of angsting over relationships." That is not a story; that is a static situation. At least death signifies change and an ending of some kind.

This is not a "Sex? Or death?" either-or situation. THEY ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE. THEY ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE. THEY ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE. Repeat that to yourself until you believe it, however long it takes.

Besides which, if it actually does "further the plot", as you claim it would? KILL THEM. KILL THEM ALL.

[identity profile] firesongvx.livejournal.com 2006-02-27 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
A-fuckin-men. How many books is it going to take for her to finally *get* that?

::sighs:: Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going to be any time soon.

...if ever.

[identity profile] dwg.livejournal.com 2006-02-26 02:35 pm (UTC)(link)
OH SNAP! (http://dwg.livejournal.com/497701.html)

*head is desky*

[identity profile] wonderfulchild.livejournal.com 2006-02-26 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Part of me is wondering if just refusing to let anyone die is a betrayal of the plot and characters, or if the betrayal would be to let them die. Books ago I grew tired of death.

Hmmm... maybe she can just have them move away? Or have them do something interesting or productive with their lives. Say, for example, Jason could go to college instead of wasting his life dancing. Ooo, or maybe getting Nathaniel and the twins (er, Stephen and Gregory) some therapy for the abuse they suffered as children/on the streets/etc. Just a few ideas.

Psst, Laurel! Sex and death aren't the only ways to develop plot or character!

[identity profile] freyalorelei.livejournal.com 2006-02-26 08:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Nathaniel has been getting therapy; in fact, in the preview chapters (http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/Anita/DanseMacabreChapterOne.html) for Danse Macabre, he gets all high-horse on Ronnie and gives her the card for his therapist, because she's apparently more screwed up than Anita and needs to work out her "issues" with sex and men.

Eeeeyeah.

I agree; Jason needs to get out of Anita's clutches and move on to college. God knows Jean-Claude could afford to pay his tuition.

[identity profile] wonderfulchild.livejournal.com 2006-02-28 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
Good... I'm glad someone is getting therapy.

I can't bring myself to ready anything beyond Cerulean Sins, so I asn't aware that maybe someone was having a normal life.

Everytime I open Incubus Dreams, thinking I might actually read it, I seem to open to the same page every time. Jean-Claude says something along the lines of "Nathaniel has been a bad kitty" and I have to put the book down and go wash my hands compulsively.

As for Jason, I don't think it would be so out of character for Jean-Claude to say to him "Jason, go apply to college. I'm paying." Of course, I never expected JC to say anything along the lines of "Nathaniel has been a bad kitty," so I could be wrong here.

[identity profile] ayako.livejournal.com 2006-02-27 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
"LKH in italics. Yours truly in plain"

I read "pain" instead of "plain". Selective reading, huh? :D

[identity profile] firesongvx.livejournal.com 2006-02-27 03:05 am (UTC)(link)
Randomness...much, much love for your icon. Anne Bishop kicks ass! ^_^

[identity profile] kidkai.livejournal.com 2006-02-27 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Ha, I did too. It says something for word association, no? LKH, a reader in pain... Just seems to fit.

Link fix

[identity profile] naeko.livejournal.com 2009-08-27 09:14 am (UTC)(link)
For anyone coming by later, the link to the blog has been changed and is now http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/index.php/site/screw_your_courage_to_the_sticking_point_or_something_like_that/