K is for KNIVES.

Don't leave home without them.

Guns can jam; ammunition runs out. Poison doesn't care who it kills. Bombs explode. Flash paper gets wet and

won't work. Flesh is weak. Bones break. Everything gives out. But knives...knives stick with you. Knives

stay true.

Stay alive. Stay alert. Stay armed.

I read a book recently* that I should have adored. It had a great cover, an interesting premise, and blurbs by several authors that I idolized and trusted. If they were endorsing it, it should have been amazing.

It is currently at the head of my short list for "worst book I read in 2012." I want those hours of my life back.

It wasn't offensive; it didn't call me names or slap my hands or steal my shit. It wasn't poorly written, although it had some pacing issues; the words were in the right order and generally spelled correctly. I can't in all good conscience call it a bad book. But I hated it. Absolutely, empirically, and with very few caveats. It was not my cup of tea. It wasn't even in my cup of tea's time zone. So why did I pick it up?

The blurbs. They made me think this book and I would get along, thus projecting one of the Geek Fallacies onto an innocent piece of prose. Friendship is not transitive, and neither is readability.

This is the dark side of blurbs: this is why authors sometimes have to say "no," even if they like another author's work. Because when I put my name on the cover of a book, I am saying "I like this, and if you like the things I like, you will like it, too." But what happens when you don't? Suddenly everything else I like is questionable. What if Diet Dr Pepper, Monster High dolls, and carnage are all waiting to betray you, too? Where is the line?

We have to be careful. We are trading on your faith, and our reputations.

Have you ever read a book based on the blurbs, only to find your faith in the authors who provided them somewhat shaken? Not your faith in the author who wrote the book—presumably, if you bought it based on blurbs, you didn't have any—but your faith in the blurbers?

(*No, I will not name the book. Why? Well, one, I am not in the business of bad book reviews, unless it's a non-fiction book riddled with factual errors. Other people obviously enjoyed this book, otherwise the blurbs wouldn't have been there in the first place. Your mileage may vary, and all. And two, as an author, I wouldn't want to find someone ranting about one of my books like this. So since the book didn't murder my puppies, I will not name it.)

Current stats:

Words: 8,464.
Total words: 101,114.
Reason for stopping: I sort of, well, ran out of book.
Music: lots of things, mostly Dave and Tracy.
Lilly, Alice, and Thomas: bed, orange cat tree, and beige cat tree, respectively.

First draft stats:

Pages: 347
Chapters: twenty-five, plus a prologue and an epilogue
Started: November 2, 2010
Finished: February 18, 2012

So it turns out that finishing a Toby book and a Mira Grant book and doing lots of conventions and writing another Toby book and a couple of Mira Grant novellas and not sleeping makes me slow. Which is why this book took fifteen months to write (the first one took fourteen months, and I swore that this one would go faster). And yet. I am done with the first draft of Midnight Blue-Light Special, and Discount Armageddon is not yet on shelves, and that means I win.

I am so tired. I am physically and emotionally exhausted, and my eyes hurt because I cried through the last two chapters. But I am done. I am finished.

I will deal with a few pending edits and send the first draft to the Machete Squad tomorrow. But for right now? I sleep.

For right now, I win.