We finally got our bill, paid, tipped, and left. The waiter was sooooo giving Daven the invitation to leave a number, to call back, to please, don’t go. Daven did one more grin and off we went. I believe it was as we were leaving the restaurant that I turned to them all and said the fateful words, “If Jennie were here she’d turn this into a funny, charming comic strip, but if I ever used it as an idea, it would all go horribly wrong. There would be violence, or violent sex, or both, and a high body count.”

We all laughed, they drove us to the airport, we went home.

But that was the idea, right there.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks and I was deep into the writing of the latest book of my other series, Meredith Gentry, fairie princess and private detective. The book was Divine Misdemeanors, and it was kicking my ass. Something was really blocking the inspiration pipeline. Usually that means there’s another idea trying to get out. If I can just figure out the idea and write it down then I can go back to the book that’s due, and let the idea simmer on the back burner, as it were.

But when I sat down to write this idea out, it didn’t stop. I wrote the first few pages and made myself go back to Divine Misdemeanors, but that book slowed to a crawl. I remembered the last time this happened was in the middle of Danse Macabre, and the book that came out of that interruption was Micah. So I let myself divide my day, working on the book that was due and allowing myself a second writing session on the idea that would not die, and that would eventually become Flirt.

How do I divide my attention and my muse between two projects at the same time? Music. I use different music for the different projects so that when I sit down I know by the soundtrack what project I’m into. I find that music can be so intensely paired with a character or a book that I will sometimes have to put that song, or album, or even band, away for a while before I can listen to it again without being thrown back into the book it’s so closely associated with. The music for Flirt was The Fray, Flaw, and Tori Amos’s album Abnormally Attracted to Sin. That was the music to sink me into Anita’s world and this idea. Over and over for hours, for days, for weeks, this was the music that let my imagination know what we were doing. I find that the right music is like a magic switch in my head and even months later a certain song will make me think of a character, or a scene in my books. I tend to associate real people with songs, too, so I guess the fact that my imaginary friends have their music isn’t that surprising, but I find that once I land on the right music, the book, whatever book, writes much better and much smoother. There would come a point where I simply had to give myself over to Flirt and let it eat my world for a little bit. Just checked the calendar on my office wall and I actually only let the book have its way with me exclusively for two weeks; the other three months that it lived in my head it had to share its time with Merry and Divine Misdemeanors. I averaged eight pages a day, the highest being twenty-five on the last day. It wrote as fast as Micah except it took longer for me to be willing to give the book its own time in my schedule. Sometimes working with two different publishers on two different bestselling series is like trying to date two men at the same time. You can do it, but there are moments when each man wants all the attention and there doesn’t seem to be enough of this writer to go around. Once Flirt was done, I was able to write Divine Misdemeanors with a fresh eye, a fresh attitude, and renewed enthusiasm. The same had happened with Danse Macabre after Micah.

There is a scene in Flirt that is based on what happened in the restaurant with Daven and Wendi. I’ve given most of Daven’s part of the event to one of the other men in Anita’s life. I gave Micah and Anita Wendi’s part. I let Anita do some of my part. I did with that real-life event what Jennie does, except the charming incident would inevitably lead to something going horribly wrong, and there would be sex and violence, and a high body count, just as I’d predicted.

I let Daven and Wendi read the novel early so they could see that I’d done exactly what I said I would do. It amused us all, and I suddenly had a surprise Anita Blake novel for the year. Nifty!

So that was the idea, and that was what it became, and how I wrote it. But to prove to you that it doesn’t matter what the idea is, that it matters who the artist is and what they do with the idea, I asked Jennie to create comic strips of the idea. I told her the story of what happened in the restaurant and she did it as a comic. They’re funny and charming and no one dies. I managed for the same scene to be funnyish and charming and tender and a little sad, but it would set in motion a series of horrible events, because that’s just the way my mind works. And to see how Jennie Breeden’s mind works, turn to the comics that follow, and then you will have it all.

Now, how I took the charming restaurant scene and got to a man who wanted his wife raised from the dead at any cost-even the death’s of those Anita held most dear-well, I don’t know. Years ago when I had one or two books out, people would guess that I wrote romance or children’s books. As a petite woman, I guess they went for the packaging, but as my good friend who is a policeman says, “Packaging is not indicative of content.” Boy, that’s the truth.

I’d tell the people who thought I wrote children’s stories, as in picture books, “No, I write science fiction, fantasy, and horror.”

It was always that last part that got them. I had several people say, “But you look so nice,” as if you can’t be nice and write horror. If asked now, I say, “I write paranormal thrillers.” That seems to make people happier, and it’s more accurate for what I do, since I was mixing vampires and zombies with mystery and romance long before it was a genre of its own. But I still get asked, “Why do you write about sex and monsters?”

The only honest reply is, “You say that like I have a choice. These are the ideas that come to me. These are the ideas that have always come to me. If it can bleed me, eat me, or fuck me, I want to write about it.” Every girl needs a hobby.