Blogflog - A few of my favorite things . . . from Ireland and England

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

[point-earedpain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would assume that, with their enhanced speed/stamina/power, etc, all-therian teams would almost be a necessity, since them playing against a human team would be a massacre. But it does bring up the question whether teams made up of different 'species' would play well together or if it'd be a mess.

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.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

between Byron and Cynric, this is really starting to look unsettling and gross.

Don't forget Matthew!

On second thought, forgetting Matthew is probably a good plan for one's digestion.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

You're not alone in getting members of the harem confused or being disturbed by LKH's youth fetish - I mean, really, it started with Nathaniel being 18-19ish when he first met Anita. Anita's now 30, Nathaniel was teaching Cynric how to lap dance for her, and while she's weirded out about going to Cynric's PTA meetings as one of his legal guardians while she still has a sexual relationship with him, she's not so skeeved as to cease sleeping with him. And then there's Hit List where Edward casually mentions his stepson is now sexually active and wayyyy too rough with his girlfriends but Edward thinks it'd be great to take the kid camping with Anita for his first lycanthrope hunt. I'm pretty sure one of the mermaid dudes was borderline statutory too.

That LKH put so much research into the age of consent across multiple states creeps me out to no end. There's no reason for the character to be this young. Hell, there's no reason for the character to exist at all because it's not like he adds anything to the story other than to be a sulky teenager who insists his name is Sin and he wants to show off Anita as his girlfriend.

The whole vampires growing their hair thing gets really goofy when it's later revealed that Jean-Claude is draining power from all those bound to him so he can grow his hair long the way that Anita likes.

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

The whole "Sin" thing bugs me so hard, because Cynric isn't pronounced with a soft c. If you're going to give characters unusual names, it behooves you to know how they're pronounced so you won't look like a dumbass.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

The whole "Sin" thing annoys me to no end - both for what you mentioned about how it's pronounced, but also the further justification is that oh he's got a brother who abbreviates his name to "Rick" so that's taken and can't be used. But we can have at least three different Nickys, that's fine.

Then again this is the same woman who pronounces "Doyle" as "Dole" and "noir" as "noor" so of course she's going to mangle Cynric.

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

If I was going to shorten Cynric and "Rick" was out of the question, I'd probably go with Ken, since some anglicisations of Cynric turn it to Kenrick. It's not quite the same sound, but it's close and it's better than fucking Sin.

She seriously pronounces them like that? My head hurts. I don't usually make fun of people for not being able to pronounce words properly, because god knows I remember what it was like being a teenager with a wide vocabulary that I'd gained from books and not actually knowing how some of those words were pronounced, but this is a professional writer and those words aren't exactly unusual.

[apep727.livejournal.com]

It doesn't help that calling a character "Sin" makes them sound like a character from the deepest depths of the Dark Age of comics.

And seriously? She doesn't know how to pronounce "noir"?

[point-earedpain.livejournal.com]

A teenager who calls himself 'Sin' and tries to show off his older, darkety-dark gf sounds basically like the type of teenager who shops exclusively at Hot Topic. "IT'S NOT A PHASE MOM, IT'S WHO I AM." And the fact that Anita is legitimately attracted to this child and has a (completely inappropriate/immoral) relationship with him says a whole hell of a lot about Anita. And LKH, by extension. Goddamn.

That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I am suddenly thankful I missed that book entirely. To be fair, I think the last one I actually read was either Burnt Offerings or Blue Moon, after that I've kept up entirely from book-flogs and this community, though that's been sporadically enough that I've missed a great many discussions, very sorry.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

You really haven't missed much book-wise? I skipped a few and caught up by flogs (a_sporking_rat does some great ones) and the books have gotten to a point where there are so many words dedicated to absolutely nothing happening. But every so often in all the pointless blather there are some real doozies that I'm 95% certain are LKH's attitude toward the world. For example, Dead Ice has a vampire's human servant, she's meant to be from ancient Mesopotamia and Anita reflects that "I guess you can’t go through centuries being mud-mud-dabble-wat-wat, so Irene it was." This is an actual quote, this made it to print.

[point-earedpain.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link! I might try to catch the ones I've missed, though preferably after a drink or seven.

You know what's the worst thing? That racist piece of shit probably has no fucking idea that a. the Mesopotamians had such a good writing system that we have more knowledge of their names than most people know what to do with and b. one of their women wrote what could be considered the world's first piece of literature. And we know her name too!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

No problem! iirc duamuteffe also does book flogs.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

The doozy I'm currently reeling over that somehow I missed when people were talking about it when it was first out is from Jason. Someone says that if a woman takes a shower, all men think that means she wants to have sex. Explains a lot about certain stuff in the books, but at the same time... wut.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

YES THAT. WTF.

But obviously men can shower without other men or women thinking they want to have sex? How does this even work. HOW.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

It makes the Micah shower scene make a weird amount of sense, if LKH believes that if a woman has a shower with a man present, she IS signaling that she wants sex. That or it says something about Jon irl that I do not want to think about.

Also, for all the showers and baths Anita takes, I can't recall soap ever being used as anything but lube (ow) in them.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

At the very least, it speaks volumes about not respecting other people's boundaries specially since I'm pretty sure Envy was the one painted for being horrible and wrong for wanting to have a shower without people trying to have sex with her.

Me either. I know she's mentioned shampoo because she found getting that weregack out of her hair difficult, but that's pretty much it. I'm pretty sure the only character that ever took a bath in order to bathe was Jean-Claude in Bloody Bones because that's where he and Anita had a long talk about his background. After that, LKH has been sure to mention that the bathroom in her new house has been modified to accommodate multiple people for sexytimes, ditto for the Circus.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

FFS. I don't understand how anyone can be an LKH fan any longer when at this point she has insulted everyone in the universe for the most mundane things, like wanting to take a shower without being used as a masturbatory tool.

I seem to remember Anita talking about how terrible it was to shower alone at one point too. Anita has to ALWAYS be surrounded by dudes, and literally everything is always about sex, to the extent of her not being able to take a damn shower like a normal person and insulting people who do. I can understand fun shower sexytimes, I used to be into them when I could do them too, but LKH doesn't write those. I can't comprehend never wanting to take a long shower or bath alone either, that's one time no one else will bug you. (Unless you have a cat who refuses to let anyone be alone.) I wonder if Anita can even go to the bathroom alone at this point. She had to be badgered into it in Danse Macabre and have an entourage waiting outside the door while she peed on a stick.