Filling the Well

I’m so excited — I’m almost done with the first draft of Kitty #7. I’m closing in. I can see the end. Yaaaaaay! And I gotta tell you, this may be one of the scariest, creepiest things I’ve ever written. I don’t know how people are going to react to it.

I’m at the stage where the pieces are all coming together. A month ago, I wasn’t sure they would. The metaphor for novel-writing I’ve come up with this time is like putting together a giant puzzle. It starts out pretty easy and straightforward: I’ve got the picture of what it’s supposed to look like, I can put together the framework — all those edge pieces — without too much trouble. But then there’s that murky middle bit. I’ve got lots of pieces, and I need to figure out where they go, how they fit with each other. Sometimes a piece looks like it fits but it doesn’t quite. But then I get to that stage where I only have a few pieces left, and I know exactly where they go, and I work faster and faster because I can see the end. My daily word count has doubled over the last week or so.

I love this part.

I put Kitty and the Silver Bullet through “the page 99 test.” See the results here.

I just got a big box of books: the British editions of the first three Kitty novels! Yay!

So if you’re in Great Britain, here’s what the Kitty books look like:

Kitty and the Silver Bullet gets a mention on Publisher Weekly’s Beyond Her Book Blog. Woot! Check it out!

So. I was going through some old pictures when I found this one. It’s my vampire hunter Halloween costume from 1999 or 2000. I’d forgotten all about it. But now I look at it and think, “Wow, this could be the cover of a stereotypical urban fantasy novel!” Mind you, this was a few years before the current blazing popularity of novels with such covers. As I said, ahead of my time.

Believe it or not, I almost minored in geology in college. If one of the requirements hadn’t been physical geology — calculating the vectors of plate tectonics and stuff — I would have. I really liked scrambling around hillsides, looking at rocks, and figuring out how the world was put together. The geology where I live is fabulous.

This geological map gives you a great visual of the region. You have to use your imagination a bit. All that yellow and green to the right of the map is prairie. Flat, for the most part, with a few rolling hills, gullies cut by creeks, that sort of thing. Think classic waving grasses, ranchland, buffalo, and you’ve got it. The same sort of prairie stretches east a thousand miles to the Mississippi River. That dark blue and green line running down the middle? That’s a series of hills made up of sedimentary rock that’s been uplifted to almost vertical layers. This forms the Flatirons west of Boulder, among other things. (Red Rocks Amphitheater and Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs are part of the same formation.) That layer is like this big wall, almost literally, standing to the west of the great American Prairie, rising something like five thousand feet straight up. Elevation at the highest points here is about 10,000. All that gray in the middle is the Rocky Mountains. Big, ancient granite peaks. Toward the upper left corner you’ll see Longs Peak and Mt. Meeker. Longs Peak is a Fourteener. Where I live in Boulder is 5500 feet. There’s almost 10,000 feet of vertical rise in maybe 30 miles of straight travel. It’s so cool.

This is also the region where Kitty lives. So when Kitty (and any of us around here) talk about “going up to the mountains,” this is what we’re talking about.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned I’d be doing a guest post at Divas of the Dark, a blog of supernatural/romance authors. Well, today the post is up. It’s about how to write a kick ass series. Because believe me, I have spent A LOT of time over the last couple of years thinking about what makes a good series.  Enjoy!

One of the things I like about Boulder is living a mile away from the Celestial Seasonings factory. I can drop by the factory/gift store anytime and raid the rejects bin (crushed boxes, too near expiration date, etc.) for cheap boxes of nice tea. Yesterday I scored boxes of Sleepytime, Honey Lemon Ginseng, and Raspberry Green. (They also do factory tours. Don’t miss the hermetically sealed mint room!)

Many people sent me this Get Fuzzy cartoon. I keep picturing someone throwing a tennis ball, and Kitty wolf just staring at it. Then staring at the person who threw it, with a look on her face like, “Yes? And?”

I’m contemplating a political post. Here’s the thing: I’ve been suffering a severe case of political Outrage Fatigue for about five years now. I just couldn’t get worked up about anything anymore. But the last couple of months, watching such viable Democratic candidates and watching the Republican Party implode under its own insane rhetoric (I call it sleeping in the bed they’ve spent the last twenty years making for themselves), have done something odd to me. I’ve started to feel…hope. It’s like a tickling in the chest. And this has reduced my Outrage Fatigue. Which means I’m feeling outraged all over again. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow, I’ll have a guest blog post at Divas of the Dark. Roawr!

I got my author copies of Silver Bullet yesterday. Here’s what a big litter of Kitties looks like:

These are second printings. So if you’ve had a hard time finding Silver Bullet, it’s because they, well, ran out. Pretty cool, huh?

Last week, I bought some roses in memory of my horse Rosie, who I lost to colic four years ago.

They opened up really nicely, I think, and made my whole house smell lovely.

I might have mentioned that the playlist to Kitty 5 got a little goofy. I mean, it’s in Vegas — how could it not get goofy? I dug up some of the songs on YouTube, to entertain you on this leap year Friday.

Carmen Miranda sings Chattanooga Choo Choo. In Portuguese. This makes me want to go drink margaritas somewhere. And dance. I love Carmen Mirana and think everyone else should love her too.

“Sheep May Safely Graze,” the beautiful song by Bach, has become something of an anthem for Kitty. I’ve now included three different versions of it on playlists: one by Canadian Brass, an amazing vocal version, and now this one, by the Muppets. This version makes me so inexpressibly happy. It doesn’t matter how cranky I am, I see this bit and just start grinning. I’m the first generation to grow up on Sesame Street and the Muppet Show, and Jim Henson’s work holds a very special place in my heart, like a favorite fuzzy security blanket.

You all know who Mojo Nixon is, right? Right? Gah, kids today. Let’s just say a Kitty book that takes place in Vegas would not be complete without this playing in the background the entire time. Say it with me now: Elvis needs boats! Elvis needs boats!

You’re smiling now, right?  Good.