Hubby and I were eating the BBQ and polenta that I mentioned in the recipe when he asked me if I'd seen the movie Drag Me to Hell. I told him that I wanted to, but that I'm waiting to finish the book I'm working on first. "Have you seen it?"

I got that famous horrified hubby look. "Alone? By myself?"

"Well, yeah."

He snorted. "Are you out of your mind? You're the only one I know who watches horror movies alone."

Then I gave my Snidely Whiplash laugh, thinking of all the times I'd run poor hubby out of the room with my taste in movies. He's never really cared for them even though he did take me to see the movie House (funny horror movie) on our first date. I'm weird. I admit this and one whole weekend while Kim and I worked on fan club packets, I didn't realize I'd actually tortured her with zombie movies which I adore. She doesn't. Oops!

Which is why I watch movies alone. Most of the people around me (kids, hubby and friends) don't like them. My mother and my older brother addicted me to them when I was a kid and they, along with SF, are my movies of choice. I remember being 8 or 9 when the first Halloween came out on cable. My older brother was a huge, muscular man and loved horror movies. It was around midnight and I was sound asleep because it was a school night. Next thing I know this bear of a man was standing over my bed, shaking me awake. "Sherri. Get up and watch this movie with me. I'm scared."

I looked up at him in disbelief. "What are you going to do? Throw me at the monster?" Of course my brother's philosophy had always been - I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you. So I got up, went to the couch and fell asleep watching Halloween. That was nothing unusual. I think I pretty much always fell asleep as a kid watching late night horror movies.

I actually still do that most nights when my characters won't be quiet. If I don't have another noise in the background, all I hear is them and I can't sleep at all. With any luck hubby is already asleep and doesn't have to groan (or sleep upstairs) because I go to sleep watching... horror movie reruns (If it's something I haven't seen, I start watching it so it has to be something I've seen a lot).

They're my comfort food and I love nothing better than to go to sleep to Nightmare on Elm Street, Constantine, Demon Knight, Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil, 28 Days, etc. When Kim travels with me, I tone it down to either Constantine or the Mummy movies because she does get scared. Go figure. They honestly don't bother me at all and never have.

And I can always tell when hubby has really missed me on a trip. I come home and he has a horror movie waiting :) He's so cute that way, even if he watches half of it with his eyes closed.

Hugs!

I’ve been trying to write this down since last night when the list news came
out. Wednesdays are always a hard day when you have a new release and you’re
waiting to hear what your list placements are. You try to work, but everytime
the phone rings or a new email comes in, you’re holding your breath, hoping for
even a small inkling of where you’ve landed. I wonder if Patterson and Grisham
still worry? I wonder if I’ll ever stop being nervous on those days? I actually
hope not because I think that would be like not being happy on Christmas and I
enjoy the shriek of happiness and then running around, telling everyone the good
news. That rush of adrenaline, that gushing gratitude that I feel for my fans– I
don’t ever want to lose that. It’s the same endorphin rush I still get whenever
I see a new cover with my name on it or the finished book when it’s finally on
the shelves.



Anyway as Murphy would have it, anytime I have a book out, the lists are posted
late.



Really late.



I knew on Monday that we were the #1 mm at Borders, Barnes and Noble and the
extremely important Walmart. But the Times and USAT lists are tough. Real tough.
This time, as it always seems to be whenever I have a new release, was a really
tough week. By that I mean there was a lot of heavy competition. Grisham,
Patterson, Koontz, the new Splinter Cell and all the others who have much better
placement and displays in the stores than I have. If the competition isn’t as
fierce, then you can tell where you’re going to fall, but with so many big books
out...



There were no guarantees.



I got the USAT news first. We were 13 on the list that compiles all books
whether they’re nonfiction, hardcovers, YA, etc. 13 is darn good (especially
given all the new books out this week) and better yet, Born of Fire was the
first mass market on the list, but only two places ahead of Debbie Macomber, who
sells a whole LOT of books. No clear cut clue there about the Times. So I
nibbled my nails and fretted and paced.



Why was I so nervous, aside from my normal nervousness? Because Born of Fire is
the first printing of one of the first ebooks pubbed in the mid 1990's. I was
the first New York pubbed author to write and publish an ebook. And that was
back in the day where ebooks were thought to be vanity press and once you pubbed
one, no “legit” publisher would touch you. It was like you’d become some kind of
back alley sell out and no one wanted to have you around for fear you’d taint
them. Seriously. (Silke did you ever think we’d come so far? THANK YOU for
pubbing that book when no one else wanted it. You and Bonnee were the best). It
thrills me to this day to see how far ebooks have come and how well embraced and
thriving they are today.



More than that, this was the book I wrote after my career had tanked so badly.
It was a book I never thought anyone would read and it’s part of a series that I
took one of the bloodiest noses imaginable on (one day, I will tell that whole
story). This series put me through four of the worst years of my professional
career (I hope I can always say that, cause God knows I don’t ever want to go
through anything worse *knock wood*) and left a brutal scar on me. And working
on it does open old wounds.



But it’s a series I always believed in and one I had to abandon because there
was no market for futuristics. In the early 1990's when I sold Born of Night
(Jan 1992 - you know there’s a story here because it wasn’t published until
1996), there were plenty of publishers wanting them and there were a couple of
authors who were trying to build the genre, Anne Avery, Kathleen Morgan, Marilyn
Campbell, Patricia Roenbeck and of course Johanna Lindsey who was the only
author out of us to put one at #1 in 1993.



Born of Ice which was originally titled Paradise City (the third book I sold)
was pubbed alongside many other wonderful futuristic authors such as Sharice
Kendyl (not me), Nancy Cane, Christine Michaels, Jayne Castle, Flora Speer, etc.




And then after us came a few more: Kristen Kyle, Stobie Piel, Dara Joy who
carried the genre for a few years after the rest of us had lost our contracts,
Patti O’Shea, Robin Owens, et al. But by 1999 the genre had withered and died
and there was no real place for it. Like the early 1990 paranormal market I’d
also pubbed in, it was gone and no one was able to carry it to the bestseller
lists. Those lists are important because that is what enables a genre to grow.
It wasn’t until we early paranormal authors: Feehan, Hamilton and I started
putting vampire novels on the top of the lists again that publishers began
looking for others to grow and the market exploded, kicking open the doors for
Harris, Meyer and the rest who followed us in.



For years, I’ve wanted to return to these early books and to see what could have
been.



Yesterday, you guys gave me that dream and I can never, ever thank you enough.
Born of Fire is #1 on the New York Times. It’s the first time since 1993 that a
futuristic has occupied that place.



THANK YOU. From the deepest, most battered part of my heart, thank you. I really
feel like I’ve walked through the fires of hell with these books and I can’t
even think about it without tearing up.



For those asking, this is NOT the end of the Dark-Hunter books by a long shot. I
have many, many more ideas planned and have no intention of leaving that world
behind.



The League books are the third #1 series I have now, and Born of Fire is the
eighth book I’ve had to reach #1 in the last two years - a feat only two other
authors can claim.



THANK YOU. And yes, I hope to keep writing in this universe. After Born of Ice,
because I’m only one person LOL, I won’t be able to do more than one a year, but
I do intend to do one League book a year. The next one up will be Caillen and
then Hauk or Nero (you guys know how that goes).



The next Dark-Hunter book will be Infinity (Nick’s first Chronicles of Nick
story out in June) and Dev will follow in August with No Mercy and his heroine
will be Samia one of the DH Dogs of War. Then the next BAD Agency book: Silent
Truth will be out in April.



Today, I am happily working on the next Lords of Avalon book Darkness Within
which will be out in March.



Giant hugs to all of you!! THANK YOU SO MUCH again for your support of Born of
Fire and for embracing The League books the way you have (In Morte Veritas). You
guys totally rock! And here’s hoping that you’ll be looking for other
futuristics- there are other writers out there such as Patti, Dara, etc and you
can still find their books. Please support your local futuristic authors :)



Now back to work for me. I have a lot of books to write and I thank you for that
too :)



Oh and if you’re around Albuquerque, NM remember Dianna and I will be there this
weekend for a signing.



Nov 14 , 2009; 6 PM

Albuquerque, NM,

Venue: Booksigning/Q&A

Location: Borders

More info: --November 14 at 6 PM Borders 2240 Q St. NE Albuquerque, NM 87110
Phone: 505.884.7711 .



HUGS!!

What writers influence your writing? That is probably one of the most commonly asked questions that always baffles me because when I ask for clarification, the interviewer always wants to know what fiction authors made a difference in my work.

The answer is simple. None.

While I’ve read fiction all my life and have many, many fave authors, none of them have ever made a difference in my writing in any way. I’ve never tried to mimic anything about them and even though their characters and books have stayed with me and lived in my heart alongside my own, they’ve never held any kind of influence over me. Yes, I’ve admired the beauty of how Oscar Wilde and Chaucer, as well as countless others turn a phrase, but that’s their style and while I love and admire it, it’s not my style or my characters’. Writing for me wasn’t like art where I studied another artist and tried to duplicate their expertise. I give other authors their due while I continue on my own by doing things, right or wrong, my way.

But as I was doing an interview earlier today, I realized something. There are actually writers whose works have influenced my writing. But not the way most people think. Since the day I discovered Descartes’s Passions of the Soul in sixth grade (I really was a precocious little monkey who read above a college level by fifth grade), I became enamored of philosophy, and, more importantly, philosophers. No, I didn’t understand everything back then, but I kept returning to those books and mulling their words, gaining more insight and understanding with every reread.

Over the years, I didn’t absorb and believe all their theories. Some of them just don’t work for my own philosophy and ethics (Rand jumps immediately to mind), but others such as Hobbes, Plato, Kant, Kierkegaard, etc. appealed to me at my most fundamental level. More than that, they taught me to think and to evaluate human behavior for myself. I went from philosophy to psychology where I explored Jung, Pavlov, Skinner and countless others. That ability to understand the complexities, duality and most importantly the dichotomy of human behavior has influenced my writing heavily because it has influenced my cognition and forced me to evaluate every aspect of not just me, but every character I create.

Another great influence on my writing was a paper I wrote in college. My dissertation was simple and yet extremely complex. It was that human personality and individuality are defined not by our consistencies, but by our inconsistences. Those weird quirks we all have- some for a reason and some simply innate. That is the cornerstone of humanity. And that is what I use in my writing.

Each and every book, each and every character, for me, is an exploration of the various, and often opposing, philosophies and theories I was exposed to by those writers. Without their work, mine would not be the same and so I guess in the future, I need a new answer whenever an interviewer wants to know what writers have influenced me.

The only problem now is figuring out the ones who made the most impact. Hmm... maybe I should say Homer and Hesiod, and of course, Plato... definitely Plato :)

Currently listening: Dead Man's Party By Oingo Boingo Release date: 1990-10-25