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Blogflog - A few of my favorite things . . . from Ireland and England
Link: A few of my favorite things . . . from Ireland and England
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
A month long trip to Ireland and England and the most asked question since we returned to family and friends in the states is this: What was your favorite part? I’ve answered it differently, by simply throwing out whatever first comes to mind like a word association.
What was your favorite part of the trip?
The Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.

One of the many waterfalls we saw in Glendalough, in the Wicklow Mountains.
What was your favorite part?
Writing in Dublin. (I wrote better there than anywhere else.)
What was your favorite?
Introducing Spike and Genevieve to pate in Dublin. They have dubbed it smooth, creamy, spreadable meat butter.
Your favorite?
Eating at Gordon Ramsey’s flagship restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsey, in London. It has three Michelin stars and now I know why. An amazing experience and will likely get a blog of its own later.
Favorite?
British Museum. Jonathon summed it up, “Every little emperor’s dream of avarice.” It was beyond amazing. It will also be getting it’s own blog later.
Fav?
Glastonbury Abbey, where the calling of crows led me to my first ever badger sett hidden under a huge oak tree. It turns out I followed the birds in the wrong end of the path. If I’d come in the proper way there was a sign to tell me the badgers were there, but honestly I prefer having found it the way I did. I followed the birds trying to see what they were fussing about, and then suddenly, badgers! I often find the most magical moments are the unplanned ones.
?
That moment when I stood in a town I’d never known about, at a ruin I’d never heard about, and knew that my muse had been right. This was the place to put the monster. My imagination had whispered the name of this place to me when, to my knowledge, I had never known it even existed. I haven’t had that happen since the ninth Anita Blake novel, Obsidian Butterfly, when Edward insisted he lived in New Mexico, even though I’d never visited the state. I remember arguing with him, “I created you, how can you live somewhere I know nothing about?” I lost that argument, because he was absolutely right and I knew it the moment I stepped off the plane in Albuquerque. He still lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ireland took me longer to get my research feet under me, and I’ll be blogging in more detail about that process later, but once I got into the swing of things it was like that moment in New Mexico – this was it. I know where the monster is, where the bodies are buried, where the crime will happen, and who Anita follows to Ireland.
Are the above really my favorite moments of the trip? Yes and no. They are some of my favorite moments, but not all of them. I’ll be blogging about more highlights and moments of inspiration, craziness, research, and sheer happy accidents over the next few weeks, but this gives you a taste of the trip. Yes, I have been deliberately vague about where the Irish book, as I called it for a long time, is set, because I’m not ready to share exact locations yet. I have a book to finish writing and it feels like if I give too much detail now on the blog that it will derail some of the energy that is driving the book forward. I need to be immersed in the fictional version of the town, countryside, ruins, etc . . . before I discuss the reality too much. In fact, I have pages yet to write today, a scene to complete, a fight to finish, but first, the reality of dogs and breakfast for them and myself and then back to my fictional world where dogs never interrupt and breakfast rarely seems to happen.
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
A month long trip to Ireland and England and the most asked question since we returned to family and friends in the states is this: What was your favorite part? I’ve answered it differently, by simply throwing out whatever first comes to mind like a word association.
What was your favorite part of the trip?
The Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.

One of the many waterfalls we saw in Glendalough, in the Wicklow Mountains.
What was your favorite part?
Writing in Dublin. (I wrote better there than anywhere else.)
What was your favorite?
Introducing Spike and Genevieve to pate in Dublin. They have dubbed it smooth, creamy, spreadable meat butter.
Your favorite?
Eating at Gordon Ramsey’s flagship restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsey, in London. It has three Michelin stars and now I know why. An amazing experience and will likely get a blog of its own later.
Favorite?
British Museum. Jonathon summed it up, “Every little emperor’s dream of avarice.” It was beyond amazing. It will also be getting it’s own blog later.
Fav?
Glastonbury Abbey, where the calling of crows led me to my first ever badger sett hidden under a huge oak tree. It turns out I followed the birds in the wrong end of the path. If I’d come in the proper way there was a sign to tell me the badgers were there, but honestly I prefer having found it the way I did. I followed the birds trying to see what they were fussing about, and then suddenly, badgers! I often find the most magical moments are the unplanned ones.
?
That moment when I stood in a town I’d never known about, at a ruin I’d never heard about, and knew that my muse had been right. This was the place to put the monster. My imagination had whispered the name of this place to me when, to my knowledge, I had never known it even existed. I haven’t had that happen since the ninth Anita Blake novel, Obsidian Butterfly, when Edward insisted he lived in New Mexico, even though I’d never visited the state. I remember arguing with him, “I created you, how can you live somewhere I know nothing about?” I lost that argument, because he was absolutely right and I knew it the moment I stepped off the plane in Albuquerque. He still lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ireland took me longer to get my research feet under me, and I’ll be blogging in more detail about that process later, but once I got into the swing of things it was like that moment in New Mexico – this was it. I know where the monster is, where the bodies are buried, where the crime will happen, and who Anita follows to Ireland.
Are the above really my favorite moments of the trip? Yes and no. They are some of my favorite moments, but not all of them. I’ll be blogging about more highlights and moments of inspiration, craziness, research, and sheer happy accidents over the next few weeks, but this gives you a taste of the trip. Yes, I have been deliberately vague about where the Irish book, as I called it for a long time, is set, because I’m not ready to share exact locations yet. I have a book to finish writing and it feels like if I give too much detail now on the blog that it will derail some of the energy that is driving the book forward. I need to be immersed in the fictional version of the town, countryside, ruins, etc . . . before I discuss the reality too much. In fact, I have pages yet to write today, a scene to complete, a fight to finish, but first, the reality of dogs and breakfast for them and myself and then back to my fictional world where dogs never interrupt and breakfast rarely seems to happen.
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I think this encapsulates one of the major problems with her books. They don't feel real. People don't have breakfast. There isn't anyone grabbing toast on the way out the door, or bitching because Nathaniel insists on buying muesli instead of chocolate cereal. No one ever uses the last of the toothpaste, or takes the last hair elastic or forgets to put milk on the shopping list when they use the last of it. There are no pets that interrupt romantic or dramatic moments, no fish that need feeding. No bills to pay, no shoes to buy because all that running has just about worn through the soles of your favourites. None of the little details that make a story feel real. By making the story her escapist fantasy, she's made it feel like some creepy plastic twilight zone.
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Which, if it was anything like your examples, would actually have been a fun short story that I'd actually read.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to continue to die at the thought of everyone fighting over the last hair elastic.
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There's actually a lot of stuff about food in the books, though. And about how other people have to force Anita to eat it, or that she avoids eating until she's so ravenous that only fast food will do. Then she tells us all about that food. In Dead Ice LKH felt it necessary to inform us that Anita's stable of strippers didn't eat carbs at night. There are details that make the world more real, and then there are details that make the world more annoying, and LKH gravitates toward the latter.
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Anita once felt the need to inform us that the Coke didn't drip on her when she got fast food.
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This is exactly one of her problems!
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I don't want to know what happened to those poor fish. I'm just going to imagine someone with compassion and a love for animals adopted them and is taking proper care of them and they are the happiest little fish ever.
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Unless this is what Damian does in the basement? Adjusting the PH in the aquarium may be the highlight of his weekend.
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I honestly don't recall which one Damian is, but I'm certain I can say with reasonable confidence that those poor fish deserve better.
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But that would mean LKH would be showing things rather than dumping huge slabs of text to tell us exactly how happy and well-rounded Anita is even though nothing else in the text supports this.
Damian's the redhaired Viking guy in Anita's neglected second triumvirate. He's got a girlfriend now and last I heard, Anita was considering using the ardeur to force him to be more "heteroflexible" with the other dudes because he doesn't seem to be into the whole group sex thing. The rest of the time he kinda gets ignored and was previously living in the basement of Anita's house.
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Well, I'm sure he's better off being ignored, the way things are going. He can chill with his gf instead of putting up with the rest of the nonsense. If you would, remind me, was he the Viking that got turned unsettlingly young, or am I thinking of someone else?
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Yeah no Damian's an adult, I think you might mean Byron? Who was turned as a teenager and is flamingly gay except for that one time he had sex with Anita due to the ardeur. She keeps mentioning that even though he's a vampire, he can still work out to give himself some muscle and not look like jailbait.
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Oh, yeah, thank you! It does absolutely say something that I literally can't remember which harem member is which anymore. Also, am I the only one who is disturbed by this weird fetishization of youth thing LKH has going? In another author, one who could be trusted to separate their kinks from their characters', or one who could write a thing while still making it clear that the thing is wrong or immoral, I'd be a tiny bit more inclined to be lenient, but between Byron and Cynric, this is really starting to look unsettling and gross.
Didn't she also write something to the effect that vampires' hair can grow? This whole damn universe can't even keep it's own internal laws straight.
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Think of all the people who are interested in history when they watch a period piece. Speaking from experience, my brain explodes when the film makers get something wrong. With vampires, you always have an expert. How about vampires using their abilities for special effects. Or lycanthropic animal trainers to make sure that the animals do what the director needs the first time without, I don't know, killing the lead.
I haven't read the newer Anita and I think I might be glad for that...
heteroflexible indeed.
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I also have to wonder how much fairytales and folklore may be true in this universe. Like, were Hansel and Gretel really imprisoned by a witch? Dragons appear to be more like cryptids than magical creatures, maybe Bigfoot and chupacabra are too. Mermaids are canon and can walk on land, so the Little Mermaid may well have actually happened.
(Also in this universe, there's proof that a higher power exists in that holy items will glow and burn vampires in accordance to faith - and it's not limited to Christianity, Graham the werewolf is a Buddhist, one of the HAV people had a Torah charm because he was Jewish. Demons are real! Possessions do happen! An angel had some kind of presence in Skin Trade. Surely religion in the Anitaverse would be incredibly different in light of there being evidence of God(s) being real.)
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