Archangel Is Here!

The Archangel Project arrives in bookstores this week. Given this book's long gestation--Archangel was half written when Katrina hit three years ago--I'm finding it a bit hard to believe this is finally happening. But il est arrivé!

I understand some bookstores even have a stunning dump (one of those cardboard display boxes you see at the front of the store) with a great "tag" line: Think you know what's real? Think again. I myself haven't seen one yet, but if anyone spots one, I'd love a picture.

It's been a busy week. My sister arrived for an eight-day visit last Friday. I had a birthday--on what will now go down as the greatest stockmarket crash in history . Archangel was released. I got Deadlight in to my editor ON TIME. I'm getting ready to be on a panel at the Louisiana Book Festival on Saturday, and then next Wednesday I fly to Baltimore for Bouchercon. Phew!

As soon as I get back, I need to buckle down and finish book five in the Sebastian St. Cyr series. My editor shot down my working title--What Hell Marks. So we have a new title: What Remains of Heaven.

A Learning Process

Well, the last scene of The Deadlight Connection is written, which would be cause for celebration if I weren't so frantically combing through the manuscript, looking for errors and little turns of phrases that just don't quite sound right while keeping a nervous eye on the calendar. It doesn't help that I compressed the action into seven days, rather than eight, which means I'm also doing some date juggling. But the important point in all this is that the #@$% thing will be finished by its official deadline, even if it is six months late by my own deadline.

I've realized I write books in one of three ways: 1) I make reasonable revisions as I write, then finish the first draft and go back for a more substantive overhaul and cosmetic corrections;. 2) I write the first draft in a white heat, barely looking at what I've written until I reach the end; and 3) I make a series of massive, bloody overhauls long before I finish the manuscript, as well as less drastic but still substantive revisions, so that by the time I write the last chapter, all I need is to go back and do the final cleanup.

After having written upwards of fifteen books, you'd think I'd have an established work pattern, but I don't. Of the three approaches, I personally prefer #2, but that only seems to work when the book is working. I simply can't keep going when I realize there's a hideous problem (or two or three) in what I've already written.

Now that I'm (almost) finished with it, I find I'm surprisingly happy with this book. I think it's a fun read. The only thing that startles me is that it's LONG--which is one of the reasons (but only one of them) it took so long to write. You'd think after having written all these books I'd be better at judging a story's length.

All of which reminds me that while I know a great deal about this book-writing business, there is still much that I am learning.

Hog Hunting in Louisiana

Yes, I'm hyperventilating about getting this book finished on time, and I'm scheduled to give a keynote address at a luncheon on Saturday up in Baton Rouge, and my sister's coming for a ten day visit in a week, and I still haven't put away any of the stuff I packed up when we evacuated for Hurricane Gustav, and I'm supposed to fly up to Maryland in three weeks, but... I wanted to share this photo of an alligator catching his dinner on Highway 51, which is a road that runs near my, ahem, lake house. Hopefully I'm not violating anyone's copyright here since it came to me by email, but here it is...

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Lost Days

I might have been able to handle waking up Friday morning to that maddeningly familiar sound of wind and rain if I hadn’t looked over to see what time it was and realized our power was out. Again. Our recent experiences with Gustav have made me realize how very, very fond I am of electricity (not to mention the fact that I just spent $$$$$$$ at Whole Foods to restock my fridge and freezer).

It’s hard to concentrate under those conditions, but I was determined to do it, writing in longhand. Then our power came back on. Why is this a bad thing? Because my daughter’s power was still out. She came over dragging the contents of HER Whole Food-stocked fridge and a heavy dose of high anxiety. The truth is, it is hard to write when communities around you are going under water. It’s as if their cries of anguish are carried in the wind. And when you’ve seen your own house go under water, the resonance is painful.



Yes, Texas got the brunt of the storm, and what happened to Galveston was tragic. But coastal Louisiana is suffering a heart-breaking tragedy of their own, largely away from the media’s eye. Who out there has even heard of the Isle de Jean Charles?



Last night, we wandered down to the lake, a couple of blocks from our house, expecting to see some white caps and waves. We saw more than we expected. And looking back at the levees, and realizing how high they AREN’T, was a sobering experience.



Yet somehow, today, I MUST write.

In Deadline Hell

The Deadlight Connection is due on my editor’s desk the first of October, and I’m in a bit of a scramble to finish it, having just lost two weeks to the rigmarole of Hurricane Gustov. (As I write this, the outer bands of Ike are pounding New Orleans with howling winds and driving rain; they say we should only get tropical storm force winds, although the storm surge will be a bit of a worry.) When I remember that I originally planned to have Deadlight finished by the first of April, I have to laugh. The best laid plans of mice and writers…

On another front: while we were evacuated, we discovered that The Archangel Project is an October Indie Next Pick (and thanks so much for your congrats, S). If you’re going, “Eh?” let me explain: the Indie Next List is drawn up by the independent booksellers association and is sent to its members as well as being available on line. Each month they announce the new releases and make their recommendations. They hardly ever recommend mass-market originals (which is what this book ended up being) so being an Indie Next Pick is a Big Thing. Archangel will be officially released September 30, which is the day after my birthday and the day before Deadlight is due…

So, back to writing--although it's hard to write with one wary eye kept on the weather.