This week, I want to tell you about the other amazing author who blurbed me for this series, as well as my first — and who was the first to reach out to me with total generosity and kindness when I entered this career as a professional. She also has a release today: A PERFECT BLOOD, the tenth book in her fantastic, popular Hollows series, so it’s a “perfect” time to speak about her, too.

Of course, I’m talking about Kim Harrison. I’m a bit shy to do so too because I do admire and like her so much that it feels a bit like telling people to go buy a book because “my sister wrote it.” She’s clearly not my blood sister (note: I could have said ‘perfect blood’ sister there, but refrained from such extreme cheesiness) but she has been a constant, quiet support for me over the past few years – kinda like a guiding hand at a child’s back. The kid still has to take the steps, make mistakes, and learn on their own, but if they wobble, there’s a steadying force there. That’s the Kim I know.

She also has these strangely dynamic personal characteristics that I find interesting:

She’s kind, yet fiercely driven.

She’s fiercely driven, yet uncompetitive.

She’s uncompetitive, and pays it forward.

She pays it forward, therefore so do you.

I can’t tell you how many authors she’s quietly mentored and helped, how many readers she’s touched and responds to – daily – and how amazing I find it that she does all these things while balancing a happy, healthy emotional life and family. (BTW, I was one of those readers way back when – before I was published and when DEAD WITCH WALKING first came out. I’ll never forget, she visited The CompuServe Writer’s Forum, of which I was a member – that was where I honed my chops – and she answered this newbie writer’s questions about her, writing, and her new Hollows series in depth. I’ve never forgotten that.)

The point is, I have taken the majority of my cues from her on how to navigate this biz, from never calling my readers “fans” (They’re readers, it’s an equal partnership. I’m not Madonna) to taking weekends off, guilt-free (best thing I ever did – now I write better and smarter, instead of just faster) to working far, far ahead of deadline so as to maximize time and talent and potential ideas.

Pause.

Okay, so that last one is a total lie. She works in advance. I claw at my downhill slide toward every deadline. I’d hate her a little for that if I didn’t like her so damned much.

Anyway, I always like to know that the books I’m buying, and the authors I’m supporting, are Good Peeps. Kim is one of the best. I thought you should know, too.

Here’s the link to A PERFECT BLOOD, and if you haven’t yet started the Rachel Morgan/Hollows series – and I think you can tell that I also love her work – you really need to do so. Start with DEAD WITCH WALKING.

Have a great week!

But first the blurb:

“A delectably dark paranormal thriller. I’ve always been a fan of Pettersson’s work, but she knocks it out of the park with this one.”
– Kelley Armstrong

To understand how much this means to me, you need to know how anxious I was to get THE TAKEN into Kelley Armstrong’s hands. Not only have I been a long time reader of her work, but she kinda, sorta, inadvertently started the whole thing. And by that I mean THE TAKEN.

During the time that my then-agent was shopping Zodiac, and I was waiting to see if it would sell or if I should write something else entirely, Kelley had a contest on her site to win an ARC of her latest in the Women of the Otherworld series (I’m a diehard Elena/Clay fan, btw). She had a great writer’s forum going, and I lurked there for years. (Along with the CompuServe Writer’s Forum, where Diana Gabaldon held court. That was my writing boot camp. But I digress.) In order to win the ARC, you had to enter a writing contest: a 1,500 word short story that had only to be supernatural in nature.

I was determined to win this ARC.

So I slaved over a story about an angel, formerly mortal, who was charged with ferrying the newly murdered into the afterlife. It took me a whole week to craft those 1,500 words, both imagining the world and condensing it, but I submitted the story, it got an amazing critique, and a much-trusted friend also told me that he liked it even more than Zodiac. There were over eighty entrants in the contest, but I was sure I was going to win.

I made the top thirteen.
The short story was not published on her site.
No ARC.

G*ddammit, Kelley!

So I bought Kelley’s book when it went on sale, my story remained a bunch of unshared potential, and…

It was the best failure I ever had.

Because the idea never let me go, and this is how I learned that stories with legs haunt you. It’s become my personal tenet: I won’t write anything that doesn’t haunt me.

So as I sold Zodiac, and wrote six contracted books in nearly as many years, this humble little loser short story sat in the back of my mind like a weight, taking up space, and beckoning me over now and again. I’d revisit it, laugh over my fabulous wit, and reread the sole critic’s accolades, and hear the voice of my friend say, “This is the best story you’ve ever written.”

That 1,500 word scene morphed into the first chapter of THE TAKEN. The main character, a smart-mouthed kid who’d been offed in the 80’s, wasn’t strong enough to carry an entire book, but I liked him, so he became a secondary character.
Heaven morphed into the Everlast.
A chance encounter, and utter fascination, with a rockabilly hairdresser melded with a recent obsession with the onscreen romance of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and that brought me Katherine (yep, for her namesake) “Kit” Craig .
And just like that, click, not only did I now know who my new male lead needed to be – her particular form of kryptonite, a hard-nosed P.I. from the 50’s – but I finally had a real fucking story.

I’m of the mind, you see, that the best ideas need to germinate for a bit – as I said before, to see if they have legs, and so that you can poke at them and find the best fusion of characters and ideas. I also don’t believe one good idea is enough.  A mash-up of two or three is best. So a retro P.I./crime/mystery with an angel/supernatural elements and a modern-day reporter involved with the rockabilly subculture? Yeah. Fuck, yeah.

So, anyway, that’s my long-winded explanation of why this Kelley Armstrong blurb means so very much to me. I owe her a debt of gratitude not only for her generosity with her readers, of which I am still one, but because she didn’t choose me. (Top thirteen isn’t bad, though!) The story didn’t go out into the world, thus it retained its energy until the time that it was ready.

And in four months, on June 12th, seven years after the story germ was initially conceived, it will be in my readers hands.

I think that’s a pretty good story, too.

These hiccups, though, are a product of the way I work, which is in layers. First comes a bones draft, where I lay the story out in words and see what form it’s going to take. (Actually, that’s not entirely true. I impose form on the story – that bastard is going to bend where I damned well say bend. We have elbows because we need those hinges. We have the black moment in a story because they feel good (in an oh-so-bad way) rubbing up against the reader’s gray matter. Anyway, I digress.)

Second draft, what I’m doing now, is filling in all the holes I left behind by not abandoning the text and scurrying down rabbit trails, chasing facts from either the previous text (for continuity) or research materials (for verisimilitude*). And sometimes I simply can’t think of a word, so I say fuck it, and leave a hole. Inevitably, one glance at it upon return in the second draft, and I have it – easy peasy lemon squeezy, so why stress about it? Keep writing. Everything is a slave to the forward motion of the story at this point.

This second go-round is also the draft where I work to condense the text. Replace five words with two. Make sure the voice is active. Backload the sentences – and this is the stuff that gets easier with practice. I still need to push and prompt myself mentally (ie. don’t be lazy) but once I do that, I can easily see what needs to be done.

Am I rambling?

Anyway, another draft will come after this one, a spit-and-shine before I give it to my editor for what she’ll consider – get this – a first draft.

I know! That ain’t right!

So that’s my blather about craft for the week. Take from it what you will, or nothing at all. I don’t care. I still have to do the work.

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I have a new tour date to announce. Check my sidebar to see the cities I’m visiting in June, but for those of you in Texas I’m also adding a June 19th stop at A Real Bookstore in Dallas. So this is a good choice for those of you in that great big swath of America, especially if you can’t make the Barnes&Noble signing a week before, or the awesome Boas&Tiaras event on the 9th (Note: Harper is working hard to have THE TAKEN available for Boas, so if you’re going to that – and you should – then you can get your copy a full three days before the actual drop date. Yee-haw … as they say in upstate New York.)

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Finally, I’d be utterly remiss if I didn’t reiterate how happy I am with my website, and with my awesome webmistress** at AustinDesignWorks. Click on the link to see some of their other work, but I’ve been with this company for years, and they are incredibly fast (they switched this over in 2 days; ditto my previous conversion from Blogger to WordPress) extremely professional (and they can spell; kinda important for an author’s site) with the best prices I’ve ever seen (worth every penny). Seriously, don’t be afraid to contact them. You’ll see.

So if you’re an author, another professional, or you just want a custom design for your personal blog, I can’t recommend AustinDesignWorks enough. They’re good, honest, and kind to boot — and I don’t know about you, but when I meet people like that, I wanna keep them in my life.

I’m off. I’ll blog again next week, but follow me on twitter or facebook if you want to hear how the drafting is going. I tend to drop crumbs in those places throughout the week.

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*Yes! Anytime you can use verisimilitude in a sentence, you know it’s going to be a good day!
** But I just like saying “webmistress.” Makes me giggle.

One thing I have learned, however, is self-forgiveness. I won’t expound on that any further because Elizabeth Gilbert does so here, and all I need add is ‘ditto.’
But I’ve also learned — and this is a dirty little secret – that every writer fails every day. The word count isn’t where you wanted it to be. You didn’t read what you intended to in order to ‘fill the well.’ You’re behind on admin stuff. That chapter or page or sentence didn’t come out just right.

But you keep going and all those failed days add up, and suddenly you have a book. I’ve failed forward in this way seven times now, and I’m about to fail for an eighth time. (Um. Go, me?)

Anyway, the point is, you set your metrics (because it’s proven that those who set goals/resolutions still get farther than those who set none), you do your level best every day, and the passion and personal reasons behind your chosen goals gets you through it day after day. I thought I’d start sharing my metrics with you so you could see how badly I continually fail, and yet how I seem to get there anyway. Here’s what I tracked in January:

Goal: get from 64K to 90K on project
Achieved: 81K before beginning rewrite (failed by 9K)

Goal: 40K words rewritten
Achieved: 25K rewritten (failed by 15K)

Goal: write 22 of 31 days (I take weekends off)
Achieved: 21 of 22 (failed by 1 day)

Goal: workout 5-6 days a week
Achieved: 21 of 31 days (failed by 2 days)

I failed in everything.
Mind if I recast this in the positive, instead of looking at failures, I wrote 17K new words, rewrote 25K, I’m still on schedule to meet my deadline, and I worked out more days than not. What you can’t see in black-and-white are all the real life intangibles, and that’s what really makes life a juggling act, no? For me, that was:

Start packing for a move at the end of this month, visits to my grandmother in rehab (she just had a stroke), a memorial for a dear friend, birthday party for my child, unexpected but necessary business meetings, and travel.

None of those things translate very well to a spreadsheet, nonetheless they’re all deeply emotional, and this is where the self-forgiveness comes back in. My child may never know how desperately I tried to dye a tablecloth in order to make a gorgeous ombre hue on which to place an amazing birthday setting. And that’s mostly because it didn’t turn out ombre. It was one dark, flat color and it looked like a fucking bedsheet. (The carpet now has some nice polka dots on it, though, so I guess that’s something.). But I know. And my life was enriched by the trying.

It was enriched by visiting a woman I love who is doing her best to face her end years gracefully.
It was enriched by crying uncontrollably over the loss of a friend who died too damned soon.
It was enriched by taking positive, if uncomfortable, career steps.
It was enriched by working hard to travel to those I love.

So those are my metrics, and failures, for January. But you know what? They all mean something to me, and living a life of meaning? Well … at least I’m succeeding there.

I’ll see ya next week. Meanwhile, don’t forget to celebrate your failures.

First, you can see that The Taken really exists. (Toldja.) The biggest proof is the Kim Harrison quote, which blew me away. She’s so generous, and she genuinely loved it — and as she was the first of my peers to see it, that really gave me hope that it would find a place in your hearts as well.

Other proof that The Taken is real: Well, you all saw the stunning cover art, right? It additionally has its own dedicated page, along with proper cover copy and series description. So now you can see what’s been occupying my brain for the last year+. I have to say I’m extremely happy to introduce you to my new obsessions: Griffin Shaw and Katherine ‘Kit’ Craig. Go make their acquaintance. I’ll wait here.

You can preorder now, but if you click-through you’ll see the price has gone up a bit. I mentioned this before, but for those who missed it, The Taken is being released in a beautiful trade paperback format. I have ARCs (advanced copies meant to go out for publicity purposes) but the real deal is going to have a proper spit-and-shine to it, and I couldn’t be more excited. My first time in trade, and Harper’s going all out. But don’t worry, it’s not that great a price difference — especially for those of you who enjoy e-reading. For those of you who prefer audio, it will be coming out in that format as well.

I also have tour dates for you. Minor details still need to be finalized, but you can see if and when I’m going to be in your city. It’s mostly west coast appearances, and I’ll remind you as the dates get closer, but I’d love to see you if I’m visiting your fair city. (Ready for summer yet, peeps? Can I get a ‘Hell, yeah’?)

Moving forward, I’ll be updating the blog on a weekly rather than daily basis – what I’m doing, reading, writing, some metrics – at least until things start heating up for The Taken’s release. I’ll release news as it happens then, and I’m aiming to do a tour blog as that unfolds, with pics and all, but that all depends on me learning to work my camera. (Surely I can tap a random grade schooler in each city to help me.)

A final reminder: the first book in my Signs of the Zodiac series, The Scent of Shadows, is being offered as an e-book for only $.99 for about another week. So if you love the series and want to pass it on, this is a great way to do so. Tell your cheap-o friends that the price goes back up to $6.99 on February 6th, k?

Later, gators.

Meanwhile, I have a Feb deadline I’m working hard to meet, along with children, friends, and family to care for. Gotta put energy into the ones you love, right? It ain’t the words that are gonna keep you warm at night.

Just a reminder, THE SCENT OF SHADOWS is still being offered as a .99 e-book special via Amazon and B&N through the end of the month, so load it up or tell a friend before the price reverts back to $6.99. I just received a fantastic message on my Facebook page from a young reader who just discovered it, and it still amazes and humbles me that the series, and Joanna Archer, are still touching people. That connection is why I write, and it makes the long hours alone at my desk worth it. Thank you all for reading and recommending the series.

Talk soon!

1) My first book, THE SCENT OF SHADOWS is temporarily reduced to .99 as an e-book read. I believe both Amazon and B&N have ways you can gift others with e-reads, so if you know someone who hasn’t started this series yet, this is a great time to get them SCENT. It won’t stay this low, so maybe load your reader with it too: http://bit.ly/uieXhn & http://amzn.to/usSdRG

2) My holiday anthology, HOLIDAYS ARE HELL, featuring Joanna Archer’s mother, Zoe, is still being offered as an e-book for $1.99. Other included stories are by Kim Harrison, Lynsay Sands and Marjorie M. Liu. This, too, is a temporary low, and the antho is hard to find on shelves, so I’d load ‘er up! http://amzn.to/vdVsgq & http://bit.ly/rPuZkv

So that’s all the news concerning my backlist, and the best part is that you don’t have to brave the lines at the post office to score (or give) these goodies. I hope you enjoy them.

As for my new Celestial Blues series…

1) A tentative tour has taken shape and it looks like I’ll be visiting Dallas, LA, Redondo Beach, San Diego, Houston and Vegas. I’ll update you when those dates are firmed up a bit, but if you’re in those cities the week of June 12, do look for me. I’ll be poking my head into the doors of some of the finest indie bookstores around.

2) And a picture is worth a thousand words…

What this picture says is that I’m utterly lacking in the ability and patience to flip this damned photo around so you can see it properly. Sorry.

It also says that we finally have galleys for THE TAKEN! My editor told me late last week that they’d been sighted, and immediately shipped my a couple as proof. Galleys are early copies sent to reviewers and bookstores, and in my very humble opinion … these are gorgeous. Some details like cover copy will as yet be tweaked, and cover quotes will be added as they roll in. Also pretty foil. New bio on back. But you can see from the photo that I’m already chuffed. THE TAKEN is, in my opinion, the biggest story I’ve written yet, and it’s being given bigger treatment as a result.

I can’t wait to share it with all of you!

For those who haven’t read this yet, my story is ‘The Harvest’ and it takes place in my Zodiac world. It’s also a prequel featuring Zoe Archer, Joanna’s mother, and shows how she worked for years in the background to help Joanna, why she disappeared, how she felt about it and why the Tulpa hates her so very much?

You can’t stuff your stocking with an e-book, but you can escape the holiday craze with a fantastic paranormal read. Click through for the link to your preferred bookseller. And enjoy!

I can think of no better way to sign off in 2011 than the above photo. That was how I spent the bulk of November – a wedding, honeymoon, the assorted fabulous events and hoopla and well wishes surrounding that, along with a milestone birthday – and, well, just enjoying the joy that went with all of it. In any case, the photo is pretty representative of my life just now – looking forward, feeling the love – that I’ve simply got nothing to top it. Certainly not this year.

So 2012 is looking to be a year of too many new beginnings to count, and of course, professionally, this means my new Celestial Blues series. You’ve already seen the cover art for THE TAKEN (below), and the reaction has been fantastic. I’ll be rolling out the cover copy, excerpts, blurbs, and a west coast touring schedule early next year. Also coming, a new website, and some behind-the-scenes looks at what inspired the series, like:

What does Kelley Armstrong have to do with it?

What iconic on-screen couple reminds me of Kit and Grif (hint: the female half and Kit – Katherine – share the same first name)?

And how did I research the fascinating, fun world of rockabilly culture (victory rolls and rum played a big role – I know, what a hardship.)?

So I’m going to disappear into the holiday season with my family and new husband, but wanted to wish all my readers – wherever you are and whatever you celebrate – the happiest of holidays and a wonderful new year.

See you in 2012!

Please forgive me for not replying to you individually as I usually do. I was kept from doing so for two reasons. First, I cut down my internet time, especially in regards to social networking, to one day a week. The goal is to free up some more mental space for writing more deeply, reading more often, and not getting distracted by cyber rabbit trails. I still thought I’d get a chance to respond, but I’ve also been preparing for a vacation which is going to leave me computer-less for the rest of the month. That means I’ve been trying to get as far as I can in my work-in-progress before leaving. I’ll return with roughly half of the book left to write, and am relatively satisfied with that.

I’ve been trying to recall the last time I traveled without a computer, and without the intention to do a bit of work at least everyday, and I’m coming up blank. It certainly hasn’t been in the time that I’ve been published, so that alone makes it long overdue. Additionally, I’m celebrating three events next week – the least of which is Thanksgiving … and yet I’m extremely thankful for them all.

I’m also thankful that I’m going to be here:

And not here:

I’m sorry. Did that come off as a taunt? I didn’t mean it that way.

Well, maybe a little.

So I’m over and out for the rest of the month. I meant to do a post about the fabulous Readers&Ritas event last week in Dallas, but that will have to wait. And if any of my readers from Readers&Ritas is reading this: I haven’t forgotten you or your gifts and I’ll get to them to you asap (Xmas presents!).

I just have to run away from home first.