[identity profile] h0rsewithnoname.livejournal.com
Long time lurker, first time poster.

I had an amazing idea whilst showering yesterday, thinking about all of the questions that LKH has raised with her (*ahem*) glaringly inconsistent "art."

In this post, I propose that we collect previously asked questions and pile them into a compilation. The questions about her true motivations, her plot lines and of course the friends in her head. (I wonder if Anita or Merry will write us back instead?) Maybe we should also include the plot re-writes and twists that have been ingeniously proposed by our amazing members.

Also, please think of any other questions that you want to ask. Anything, as long as it's well written, i.e. not childish or overly sarcastic, etc; we need credibility to up our chances of getting an answer. If you have a burning question, now is the time.

This list will eventually, via whomever has the best ideas for contacting her, be sent to her. Will she read it? Maybe. Hopefully. I was hoping to compose a short letter begging her to explain herself clearly, and in detail. Maybe outline how we are a huge group of her fanbase? Whatever the case, I was thinking of sending it through multiple mediums, so the chances of her reading/responding is upped (as you know she loves procrastination letting her muse take a break, this should be the perfect excuse.)

If you don't think this is a good idea, sorry, just let me know and we'll change the topic to "how are you doing today?"
[identity profile] mrs-havok-.livejournal.com
Hi, I am new here. My name is Samantha. Over the last 2 months I'd say, I read books 2 through Danse Macabre. I didn't plan it like that; a friend lent me The Laughing Corpse and that is where I started. I must say, when the sex began...in book 5, I was happy and even more happy that is was with Jean-Claude. However, like you all, I noticed the downward spiral into sexville after Obsidian Butterfly. Now, I went back and am reading the very first book that I never read. I can't believe it is the same author! I see plot! I see character development! I care about Anita again. 

Is all lost? I guess you could call me optimistic but do any of you think there is any hope for our dear LKH to start writing how she used to write..? I hope so. 

-samantha

p.s. The things you ladies and gents do with her blogs are hilarious, especially the last one with the cave men having sex. haha
[identity profile] ladyravana.livejournal.com
Just a few things I had to get off my chest. I hope I make sense in all this. It's a rant/ramble type thing.


Here be a nice long rant. It's the agony and the ecstasy...but mostly it's agony. )
[identity profile] aerofish.livejournal.com
I read something earlier that made me think of LKH and how she's ended up where she has. It's an interesting quote all on it's own and, I think, a useful piece of advice to ponder for any writer - or artist in general - and makes me think this is *exactly* what has happened to LKH.

"In order to be creative, there has to be a distance from you and the thing itself. It is only when the distance gets confused that things go wrong. If you actually start to believe that you are what you write, then you have fucking had it. You have had it, and you ain't coming back. To assume that everything is about [one's own] life is to assume that that person is inherently stupid and isn't capable of absorbing anything else. The whole point of creativity is that you spend your whole life absorbing things almost to where it is unbearable. The way you deal with it is to get it out."

That's from Radiohead's Thom Yorke. I feel I have angered the Gods by including LKH and Yorke in the same post, because Lord knows that even at her very best LKH is/was no Thom Yorke(IMO); not even in neighboring universes actually.

It was from an interview where it was discussed how Thom's writings/lyrics were projected onto him so completely and as he states it, they "assume that everything is about [his] life". And about how, due to public opinions and success and media/journalists and sadly, sometimes people surrounding you, one can come to believe it themselves, become conditioned to be self-absorbed to a paralyzing point. After awhile, all you have to share with the world is this warped, regurgitated view of yourself. Which isn't creativity at all, it's masterbation.

Anyway... methinks this is what happened to LKH. Instead of growing and furthering her writing skills, she gave into the machinery surrounding her, and started to truly buy into the idea she is exactly what she writes.

That's all. Just a random (longish) ramble. :)
[identity profile] bluesimplicity.livejournal.com
Greetings Everyone,

I've been enjoying this community ever since the release of Micah, and I just want to say hi and thanks to everyone out there. You guys have managed to make me laugh through the tears after bashing my head repeatedly on my desk at the mess that LKH's writing has become.

On that note, I have a question about LKH's writing, and I'm wondering what everyone thinks:

Basically, I think LKH is good at coming up with ideas, but not being able to actually execute them. In the Merry series, she's been going on about going to the Seelie court for several books, and STILL we haven't gotten there. In the Anita world, she's always going on about "THE FIGHT" between Anita and Richard, and yet it never happens. (Poor poor Richard. I used to hate you so. D*mn LKH for making me actually feel SORRY for him.) Olaf is supposed to have come back ages ago, and we still haven't seen him. I think Laurell is very good at breeding the plot bunnies, but then doesn't know how to handle them, and the result is we get really boring, icky, repetitive, boring, homophobic, misogynistic, did I forget to mention BORING, sex scenes as an attempt to hide the lack of plot. Anyone agree, disgree? Other thoughts? Because I swear, I just want to see the Seelie Court and then I'm DONE!

Nice to meet you all,
Blue
[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_hallow_/
I found a blurb I wrote for someone a few years ago describing the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. Re-reading it just made me really effing mad, so here I am to rant about it.

Summary of AB:VH...rant in italics )

Anyway, I think the flogs are great and I am so glad I have this community, but I have an idea. We're always complaining so much that LKH keeps writing this crap when it's so bad, but we're the same people who buy her books (not me, not this time) just to see what a train wreck it is and add our money to her ever-growing empire.

She's always saying "if you don't like 'em, don't read 'em" so I say we give her exactly what she wants. Maybe I should have done this before the book came out, but I'm calling for a boycott on LKH books. If you're in, that means no more buying them (that gives her $$), no more getting them from the library (it encourages libraries to buy her next one, which means more $$ for her) and do not encourage a gullible friend to buy them and then borrow them because, again, that's more dinero for the woman who basically turned on her longtime, loyal fans for pointing out the obvious flaws in latest works of half-assed crap.

Apparently the rant kept spewing out of me, so I decided to cut it. Be prepared. )
[identity profile] faeriethistle.livejournal.com
When is it time for an author to end their series?
When the fans are tired of it? When the author has run out of ideas? When the publisher isnt making any money?

Ending a series doesnt mean the author has to quit writing. They can move on to something else, another genre, another series different from their first. They can take time off for family or vacations or just a mental rest.
The point is, they control the series and they control the ending. They can choose to just stop and leave the readers wondering. They can end it with a finality of no return for the characters. They can end the series but begin again with remnants from the first and move in another direction.

I feel that there is much still to mine from the Anita books but that isnt happening due to all the things mentioned here in former posts.
Should the series be ended? Should we hold out hope LKH will return to something resembling the first Anita books? Or should the series end? Maybe a ghost writer should write the books like the long ago Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys and others of the mill written books. Not that I think that will happen. But would you be upset to see the series ended? It isnt going anywhere and there is no longer any story.

With the many thousands of people writing, the many thousands of potential series, why is it so hard for good first time authors to be published and yet LKH's drivel continues to waste trees, try patience, and make potential good books stay undiscovered?
Any thoughts?
[identity profile] ladyravana.livejournal.com
You know, I've had a thought that has been rattling around in my brain for a little while. It was a bit of an epiphany.

And that epiphany was...LKH and Tom Cruise would be perfect together! :D

Just think of it, LKH could divorce Jon and Tom could divorce Katie and they could hook up and get married!

Just think of it, they'd be perfect together!

They're both batshit insane!

Laurell would totally convert to Scientology! And so could Anita! Oh, think of the wonderful possibilities! Or rather...not.

Perhaps this union would give Laurell too much power and then she would be unstopabble.

Still, it is an idea! As far as I'm concerned, these two wackjobs deserve one another. Tom Cruise is pretty much the only person I would wish the likes of Laurell on. I hate him. With a passion. -___-
[identity profile] kellygyrl.livejournal.com
wouldn't it be awesome if after the book lkh is writing right now, she wrote one where anita wakes up and it's all been a dream from the night she had sex with jean claude in the killing dance?

wouldn't that just be...fantastic?
[identity profile] cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com
http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2006/05/reminder-to-myself.html

I feel over due for a rotation to something a little kinder, a little gentler.

NO, Laurell darling, we've had ENOUGH of the "gentler" side of things. We are now flesh-eating zombies who crave GORE and BLOOD and, let's not forget, THICKER THINGS - by which NONE OF US mean Micah's giant beef sword.





(Edited to change link)

N00b

Apr. 19th, 2006 09:10 pm
pandorasblog: (Default)
[personal profile] pandorasblog
Hi! I'm really happy to have found this community. A couple of years ago I posted at the official LKH boards, but the design (or lack thereof) made them a nightmare to navigate. It's like whoever built that site had never visited anything but Yahoo! Geocities pages created in 1997.

Anyway, enough snark about the site; my snark about the books mirrors much of what I've read here so far: LKH has gone from tightly-written books with well-balanced plots and snappy humour, to Mills & Boone with fangs and everyone doing everyone else. The reasons this has happened seem similar to those plaguing Anne Rice's fandom - believing her own hype, losing sight of distinction between herself and her central character, and so on.

When I read Incubus Dreams last year I was so disappointed - the last couple of books had had their faults, but this one was almost entirely composed of sex, and scenes engineering Anita into sexual situations. And... 'diety'? 'Is diety?' What about, 'is a deity'? I glean from comments here that she has gone down another Ricean path and refused to have editors. It's one thing (though not a good thing) for a writer to eschew content-editing, but when they won't even let people check for typos then you know you've got trouble.

And now I see that another book is on the way - aptly enough, as someone said in an earlier thread - in sixty-nine days. Ulp. I'm reading the sample chapters now, with trepidation. I don't know how long they've been online, but if they haven't already been ripped to death here I may post my thoughts tomorrow...

To add a little positivity, I do adore Jean-Claude and Edward. And hell, even Anita is a character who I always loved and could relate to until she apparantly became allergic to her panties. ID wasn't without its enjoyable moments, but it was very clear that the balance had finally tipped toward preternatural fiction-as-sexual-therapy for the author. And even that would've been fine, if only she'd had the grace and wit to absorb it all into the character as fully as she did previous personal themes. If NiC and CS were symptomatic of a series in transition, then ID was the beginning of the end. To my irritation, I can't just decide not to be curious about what happens to the characters next, but I'll be waiting for the small-format paperback this time round. Durned oversized paperback ID doesn't even fit with the rest of my AB books anyway... it's like a Richard on a shelf full of Micahs. :p
[identity profile] bites-the-sun.livejournal.com
Random thoughts about LKH and AB:VH

- LKH is essentially a very mediocre writer who had the luck to find her niche in the marketplace in the mid-nineties when empowered, ass-kicking heroines and the hip, supernatural mystery genre were the new black in popular culture. I'm just sorry that a better writer didn't get there first with the same basic premise.

- Where the LKH books went wrong - and I mean so wrong you couldn't ignore the sheer wrongness anymore - was when the authorial presence went from a polite indoor voice to a hectoring, raging shriek. I just skimmed the sample chapters from Incubus Dreams and am quite sure now that not only do I know to the decimal point LKH's stance on abortion, I am also certain I can discern her, rather than Anita's, disdain for commitment-phobic women through the text. You could always smell the author in Anita through the details, but later on it got to the point where Anita had basically become nothing more than a shrill mouthpiece for LKH's opinions/issues/hang-ups/prejudices. It's the self-importance that seems to come with some authors when they achieve success and start believing that their message is more important than their craft.

- LKH's take on sexuality in AB:VH reeks of the Madonna/Whore complex. There's no middle ground regarding sex in the AB:VH series - one is either a frumpily-dressed, born-again virgin (early Anita) or a raging whore (late Anita) who'll do anyone at any time and dresses like the world is their gynocologist, or if male, out of the 'Do Me' section of the International Male catalogue. Of course, this being LKH, even the raging whores can't have good clean fun - we can neatly divide the shagsters into the ranks of Sexy, Irresistible, Empowered Whores (basically Anita and her lovemuffin du jour) with everyone else who so much as thinks about cock herded into the Pathetic, Needy, Out-of-Control Whores catagory, where they get sighed at and periodically worried about by the Sexy Irresistible Empowered Whores. It's such an immature version of sexuality it makes my teeth ache. Nobody in LK:VH has their sexuality integrated into their character to the point where it isn't a huge issue or a great, big, important lifestyle choice. It reads as the work of someone who discovered the pleasures of shagging late in life and has to squee publicly about it in the manner of all converts, whilst still retaining a core of Judeo-Christian-based sanctimony in regards to the subject.
[identity profile] sweetpirate.livejournal.com
Hi! Random entry time! I've been reading through a couple of the latest posts and wanted to share my top five thoughts (of the moment anyway).

5) Sex should never be so good that it saves the world. I mean, come on! You're in a dangerous situation, losing a fight (or loosing through it, as the case may be), you're injured...tired...so you give some stranger a blow job? Or you have sex with a complete stranger, and suddenly--BAM! SUPER ANITA TO THE RESCUE!
4) If you can't remember your own character names, chances are good your fans won't either. Did anyone else notice that in the MG series, one of the queen's men started out as 'Whisper' at the end of one book, and was named 'Minstral' at the begining of the next? (Alright, I'm not positive his name was Whisper, but I'm too lazy to go back and look--however I am positive that it wasn't Minstral).
3) STOP ADDING CHARACTERS! No, really! I can't keep track anymore! I don't remember the last time we got to see Rafael, or Manny or whatever her name that works at the front desk of Animators Inc. There are so many characters now that characters who were new last book don't get any playing time in the next! And then you expect us to remember them??
2) The ever popular: Kill a main character. My choices? Micah, Nate, Richard, Asher, JC......really anyone not Jason or Edward will do. *grins* I'd shit estatic kittens if she killed Anita herself. I was going to write that for my character death, but I couldn't get more detailed than i could feel the power rising, rising higher and higher, until i felt i would explode before it released...there was a loud pop, more felt than heard, and everything went black See? I can even use lots of commas like the author herself!
1) This is a Thesaurus. Find it. Buy it. Use it.
[identity profile] naeko.livejournal.com
I'm bored here at work, so I've snagged a list of arguments from both sides (meaning I scanned the ab_fan community and made notes on which side says what about the way the series is going) and I'm going to attempt to answer all of them. Well... being on the Anti-side, I'm having trouble refuting the anti- arguments, so I'm going to defend them, instead.

Frequently Used Arguments )

Disclaimer: I stopped reading after Cerulean Sins, because that, and Narcissus in Chains were two of the worst books I have ever read. I also haven't read a drop of LKH's work in over a year, so my knowledge is less than complete and not up to date. Feel free to correct, add to, or argue any of the points I've made.
[identity profile] raydyentskyez.livejournal.com
In the words of the great (according to some) writer Steven King in his amazing memoir 'On Writing', I have found a piece of advice for LKH:

"Subjective evaluations are, as I say, a little harder to deal with (my note: than factual evaluations), but listen: if everyone who reads your book says you have a problem....you've got a problem and you better do something about it.

Plenty of writers resist this idea. They feel that revising a story according to the likes and dislikes of an audience is somehow akin to prostitution. If you really feel that way, I won't try to change your mind. You'll save on charges at Copy Cop, too, because you won't have to show anyone your story in the first place. In fact...if you really feel that way, why bother publish at all? Just finish your books and then pop them into a safe deposit box, as J.D. Salinger is reputed to have been doing in his later years."

'On Writing' by Steven King, pages 217-218

So, is this a worthwhile piece of advice or what?
[identity profile] ayako.livejournal.com
So I did an LJ interests cut today. Most of which that disappeared were Anita Blake related keywords. It got me thinking...

Signs that your books suck:

1. Fan sites being abandoned everywhere (here, here, here, and the rest)

2. Livejournal fanatics started taking you off their interests lists *nods*

3. The only peope who would admit they love your books haven't read the rest yet. (I try not to smirk too much)

4. The name of your protagonist is often seen in the same sentence with "Mary sue" and "slut" (As defined by Google images)

5. Needing to take down your guestbook with the increasing amount of hate mail

6. People wanting to attend your books signings with the sole purpose of bludgeoning you to death with your crappy book. (There has been talk -_-)

7. An entire community about how much your books suck --> [livejournal.com profile] lkh_lashouts

8. And the embarassing spoofs

9. Oh yeah, your oldest fans now think you're a half wit and you are being replaced by fresher/less porny meat in the market.

I'd hate to be you.
[identity profile] raydyentskyez.livejournal.com
Hello everyone. I'm new here and everything, but I have a proposition to make.

My Idea )

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