Mel's Shopping Diary
One Question. Many Answers.
June 24, 2009Jenna asks, “Out of the three Blue Bloods books, which was your favorite to write and why?”
Thanks for asking! I have to say, the current book is always my favorite one to write, just because it’s so fresh in my memory. But I will say that Van Alen Legacy, while exhausting, taking a LOT out of me and my family and my sanity, was mostly pretty fun and I felt I had a good rhythm to my days when I was writing it. Work proceeded well, from outline to first draft to final draft.
The hardest book of the series to write was Revelations, mostly because so many more people had read the series by then, and I felt the WEIGHT of anticipation and the PRESSURE of having to deliver a book that pleased my editor, my readers, and myself, very very keenly. I was a bit paralyzed by all the attention. I would stare at my computer screen and do… nothing.
But this time: I felt a lot freer, just to enjoy the story and to enjoy the work, and to be able to shrug off the pressure a little bit. I don’t know if I got used to the pressure and adapted to it, or I just did what my family always does in times of stress: HIDE IN DENIAL. But somehow, I just didn’t worry so much anymore about what people would think of the book, I just worried about the book itself. And I’m quite pleased with it. It has everything I enjoy in books, in that it is very book-y in its pleasures. You will see.
I don’t remember writing Masquerade as being particularly easy, although I tell everyone it was the easiest book of the series to write. I was very pregnant when I wrote it and I remember HOISTING myself off the couch and LUMBERING over the computer and GRUMBLING while I wrote. I was pregnant! I wanted to nap! I was tired of my book! But it worked out okay in the end.
For Blue Bloods--at this point I don’t even remember what writing it was like as it was so long ago. Once a book is done it kind of fades from my memory. But I do remember writing it when I was a member at The Office, this swanky little writer’s office in Brentwood, and going shopping during breaks at the Country Mart, to Calypso and James Perse and coming back with shopping bags. The Office was filled with Hollywood screenwriters and it was kind of fun to see the sign-in sheet and see writers’ names I recognized, (and some faces too). Chris Henchy, EP of Entourage and hubby of Brooke Shields was always there. As was Sarah Dunn, whose books I love but I was too shy to say hi to.
Right now I am enjoying revising Angels Lie, the sequel to Angels on Sunset Boulevard.
xoxo
Mel