Laurell K. Hamilton's Blog, page 7

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! To those outside the United States of America its just another Thursday, but for us it’s Turkey Day! A day for family, food, and gratitude. What are you thankful for, is the question asked around our table each year. I try to pause frequently and make lists of what I’m grateful for, so I thought I’d share some of that list with you today.Sitting down for Thanksgiving Dinner
I’m thankful for:
My sister, Pilar, who is with us this year, but will be moving out of th...

Happy Veterans Day and thank you all for your service! A special thank you to all the veterans who have helped me with research over the years. You men and women have helped make my fiction stronger, more believable, and made sure I got things right. Without your willingness to share your experiences and stories Anita Blake wouldn’t be the character she is today, and neither would Edward aka U. S. Marshal Ted Forrester. Thanks for the gun information, the weapons training, the helicopter simu...

It’s November and most of us in America are getting ready for Thanksgiving at the end of the month, but about 300,000 people aren’t worried about cooking the perfect turkey, or the on-going family debate of raisins versus no raisins in the stuffing. They have a very different goal this month – to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It’s National Novel Writing Month, affectingly known as NaNoWriMo. These literary adventurers will either have a rough draft of their first novel by November 30, or at...

I’m a horror writer, and back when there was a horror section in the bookstores, that’s where I was shelved. I’ve been called mixed genre, dark fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal, paranormal thriller. I’m still shelved in science fiction and fantasy, because thats where horror goes now. We horror writers hang out on the street corners with the science geeks, and the Tolkien fans, teaching them about the darker side of their fantasies. Muhahaha! Because I usually write a darker version of wh...

Choose joy

Yesterday was a hard day. I had a serious fight with someone I love. No fight gets as vicious as one between loved ones because we know each other’s weakness, and the painful spots, so we can drive the knife in deep where it counts. Fights with people we care about are the worst for that reason and because if it’s bad enough you can irreparably damage the relationship – forever. There came a moment of decision.

I could hold a grudge and make things worse, or I could choose joy and...

My best advice about writing is – write. Writers write. The more you write the better you’ll get at it. Writing is a skill and like any other skill from basketball to knitting, the more you practice the actual skill the better you get at the game, at making sweaters, or at writing stories. People treat writing as if it doesn’t require as much practice and dedication to craft as other things; why? I believe it’s because anyone can write. Anyone can sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and...

The picture with this blog is of my original copy of Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White. As you can see it is a much loved book. I’ve had the book for about forty years, but that’s not why the book looks so beaten up. I bought this book through the Scholastic Book Club in junior high. I think I was twelve. I got off the school bus with my new book in my armload of school things. I ran towards the house eager to start reading this new adventure, but when I got inside the house I couldn’t find it....

This week we had one of the hottest days of the summer so far, which means over 90F, very humid, and miserable for running outside, but I came downstairs with a jacket over my arm. I was convinced I’d need it. Why? Because the book I’m currently writing is partially set in Ireland and I’d have needed the jacket. In fact one of the working titles for the book is simply, The Irish Book. We actually flew to Ireland to research it. We were there for almost two weeks and then we flew to England to...

Fourteen years ago today America was attacked, but whatever their goals were, they failed. We’re still here, enjoying our freedom, our modern life, and just being us. Having recently traveled to Europe, I am more aware than ever that our country has a personality, an energy, that is unique to us. I’ll be blogging about that in more depth later, but today is about Patriot’s Day.

In honor of the fallen we have lowered our flag to half mast.
In honor of the constitutional freedoms we have in A...

Dawn came in with pink, cotton candy clouds here in Atlanta today. The book I’m currently writing was too loud in my head for me to sleep in, so I took everything out to a less crowded part of the rooms, opened the drapes for the view and wrote. We’re here for DragonCon again, and for those who don’t know what it is, well . . . DragonCon is Geek Carnival, Stan Lee called it Geek Mardi Gras, but my husband, Jonathon, said later, “Any town can have Mardi Gras, but there’s only one Carnival.” He...