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

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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

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

I think "society" because they don't answer to broader society's laws or mores on any point ever. Or "massive cult."

I just can't get over the fact that in Kiss the Dead, the "villains" were basically normal people who happened to have been vamped and didn't want to be enslaved by someone who stole their energy in order to grow his hair. And Anita saw not wanting to be enslaved as utterly evil and worthy of torture and murder (including of a sleeping child.)

Vampire society works on the principle of might makes right, period. It's constant rape and abuse and more rape, and Anita likes to go off on how "prejudiced" anyone who doesn't embrace this is. Not only is this disgusting, but it's utterly unworkable. A society in which the so-called leaders were THIS self-absorbed and controlled by their crotches would self-destruct in no time.

[point-earedpain.livejournal.com]

I definitely missed Kiss of the Dead, because I think I would have remembered that (if only out of absolute horror). The more we talk about this, and the more I remember the tone of the initial couple of books, the more I feel like this is some kind of parallel universe. Now I look back, there are a few hints of what it'd turn into, but they are now flanderized beyond belief, it's like bad fanfic. LKH is writing her own bad fanfic.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

She is, and what's so sad to me about that is she seems to be writing hatefic about her former universe. Many of the problems were always there to some degree, but originally Anita did not think enslaving people was good. She wanted to try to be a basically good person and help people and have a semi-normal life. And now everything's gone topsy-turvy as LKH tries to make her main character embrace everything she used to be against. Yet Anita's obviously miserable now, no matter how often LKH tries to convince us otherwise.

I wouldn't truly mind if the books had just become ott wish fulfillment with Anita having a million powers and a zillion lovers, so long as they weren't morally repugnant. But it's pretty clear nowadays that LKH is far more moved to write by spite than anything else.

[point-earedpain.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right, I think. Lately, between the blogs and all the racist/sexist/homophobic etc etc ad nauseum everything else in the books, she really does come off as an incredibly hateful person, with an equally damning coating of self-righteousness.