Cerulean Sins--chapter 14-15

Doing final edits for Overseer's Own. 

This should read as:

HOLY FUCK I HAVE HOW MANY DAYS UNTIL IT DROPS AND I AM NOT SATISFIED I WILL BE REWRITING THINGS UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE DROP DAY WHEN I FINALLY HAVE TO DO THE FORMATTING OR ELSE I WILL SAY FUCK IT AND DO THE FORMATTING THE IN THE TWO HOURS BEFORE RELEASE AND I AM HYPERVENTALIATING SOMEBODY BRING ME A PAPER BAG. 

In other words...yup, business as usual in the week before a book release. At least I got the art done with time to spare. For This Found Thing it was literally doing the art the day before drop day, on top of the Diwali party (don't ask.) and I am 90% certain the stress of Diwali party on top of publishing insanity triggered my first episode of severe vertigo. Which is better now, BTW.

I am SO happy with this cover, kids. So happy, in fact, that I've ordered prints off DA. I haven't gotten prints of a lot of things and I want a print of this one because DAYUM. (also because I have Leythorne prints every fucking where and Starbleached needs equal obsession represenation).

Oh, and fun fact: The starfield that is our current background? I did that. I only wound up using about 45% of it in the cover OF AWESOME, so I dropped it in as part of this month's blog redo. LET ME KNOW IF THERE ARE ANY COLOR ISSUES SO I CAN FIX THEM THANK YOU.

Also...uh, in case you're not from LKH lashouts and you are reading the reviews for whatever reason, it's worth it to drop by because of train wreck. Specifically, LKH missed a massive deadline for her own book, and she literally turned the first draft over to the publisher.

I am dead serious. 

One thing I fix in copyedits is blank spaces, where I write in cap letters things like, "NOTE; NICKNAME OR TERM OF ENDEARMENT FOR NATHANIEL TO USE FOR ANITA." That blank remains and I still don't know what to put there, so here's your chance. I've got Anita's nickname for Nathaniel, & his for Micah, but still can't come up with one that works for Nathaniel to use for Anita. Suggestions? 

That's from a facebook post about a week ago. And I get the whole (NOTE TO SELF) thing LKH has going there. Sometimes I do it too. My last three novelettes had big-ass (parentheticals) at the end describing plot bits that I wasn't sure I needed. But you know what? First thing I did when I started the rewrites? I deleted their ass so nobody else would see it. Because that's what you do. You can be as lazy as you want with the first draft but when you're showing it to somebody else, ANYBODY else, you make it look fucking pretty. I don't even let my mother read my stuff until I've got the edits down to one or two red lines per page. The goddamned thing is named "Affliction" and that's probably the best title in the universe, because they went straight to copyediting the goddamn thing, and that's not a good sign. That's like a fashion designer going "OH FUCK WE HAVE NO TIME TO SEW THE DRESS TOGETHER LETS JUST GO STRAIGHT ON TO HAIR AND MAKEUP."

Folks, I am not perfect, and I know I am not that great a writer (...I heard you roll your eyes from here. You might want to get that checked, you know) but tonight, I feel like a writing Goddess from planet Pluton. Yep, it might be a flimsy plot with shitty characters, problematic tropes and general ignorance all around, but you know what? At least I take time to sweep up my shit before I let things loose on the wild.

I have to blog about the book now, don't I? Fuck.

Chapter 14 opens with Anita trapped between two dead guys, dizzy from blood loss.

You know, I have a lot of sympathy for those vague health issues that aren't debilitating, but that are fucking annoying enough for you to curl up in bed 50% of the day. Mostly because I have them. But please. For the love of fuck. Don't give them to your characters. 

 Jason hauls Asher off Anita and she's sicker than a dog thanks to blood loss, so he tries to haul her off to the nearest medic/medical facility. Anita, however, wants to look at how pretty Jean Claude and Asher are together. Jason finally manages to get her to the hot tub, because she's awful cold and needs warming up.

She's also lost a lot of blood and should probably have a glass of OJ and a hamburger. This, of course, won't happen. Because if Anita got proper medical attention, the rest of this story wouldn't happen.

Anita then realizes that she feels too damn good given what just happens, and eventually she and Jason figure out that Asher rolled her while he was feeding and he now has some kind of hold on her or something. The hold thing is never openly mentioned in the text, but given that Jean Claude's lackies rolling one of Anita's friends is how she got into this mess to begin with, it's something we have to assume.

Meanwhile, Anita continues to have nausea and...oh fuck, is this the pregnancy scare book? Wikipedia does nothing to assuage my fears, but random inexplicable nausea in a female character usually means the author wants to play with babies for a while. Fuck. Please, please, please tell me the pregnancy scare is in a different book.

Jason gets Anita into the tub, gets in with her, and holds her while she falls asleep. End of chapter.

Chapter 15 opens with Anita being called by the cops because somebody is killing people.


LKH doesn't write cops well. Specifically, she writes them as going off on witnessess and potential informants and suspects carte blanche like every single one of them needs to be on Prozac and in Anger Management.

My favorite interview between police officer and subject is the Dave Richart/Gary Ridgeway interview because of the dynamic between Sherrif and fucked up serial murderer. But the thing that applies here is how the interview starts out with Dave all buddy-buddy with Gary. Like it's some kind of parking ticket or something. Does Dave think it was a parking ticket level offense? FUCK no. By the end of the interview he's got Gary folded over the armrest of his chair. But Dave wants Gary to talk, and Dave will be Gary's very best buddy if that's what it takes to get Gary to tell him where missing girls are. If a cop wants information from you they're not going to scream at you. They're going to buy you coffee and offer you a cigarette.

Anyway, Dolph is screaming that Anita has to come down to a crime scene, no matter how sick she happens to be today.

Meanwhile, Anita is having orgasmic flashbacks re: Asher's bite. And Jason is in shock because Anita is a screamer. And then Anita remembers some other woman Asher did this to, and subtly trashes the woman for being a quiet sex partner. Because, you know, if you're not screaming you don't actually like it.

Anita and Jason talk about the orgasm.

THERE IS A MURDER SCENE IN THE CITY AND YOU ARE SITTING ON A BED TALKING ABOUT AN ORGASM. EROTICA OR THRILLER. PICK. YOUR. FUCKING. GENRE. AND WRITE IT ALREADY.

 Finally they start trying to figure out how to get Anita to the murder scene. She can't drive because she's dizzy and she might have another flashback and wreck the car. Nathanial can't take her because he passed out at the club.

Due to sex.

Apparently having to screw Anita and the ardeur every night is Death by Snu Snu. And oh, hey, long time Anita Blake readers, you want to have nightmares tonight?

“Yeah, but Jean-Claude only needs to feed once a day, you need to feed twice a day. Let’s face it, Anita, you need a larger stable of pomme de sangs.”

There it is, folks. There's the first time the concept of a stable is brought up for serious. Can we even count the number of people Anita has anymore? Yes? No?

Finally Anita gets on the phone with Dolph and they discuss her going to the crime scene.

Because, you know, orgasms and sex partners are far more interesting subjects.

End of chapter.