Random Thoughts with Robin T. Popp

Give me a “P”. Give me an “R”. Give me an “O-C-R-A-S-T-I-N-A-T-I-O-N.” What’s that spell? PROCRASTINATION!!!

Have you ever felt like that should be your anthem cry? Boy, there are times when I really feel like it’s mine. In fact, there are days when the only thing I excel at is procrastination. I do it best when I’m under deadline to finish a novel that’s not coming easily. At first, I simply think I’m multi-tasking. You know, thinking about the plot of a book while taking care of something else that “needs” to be done.

What I need to be asking myself is - does the kitchen floor have to be mopped now? Can’t the laundry wait? Do I really have to read the fourteen new emails that came in from my friends and respond to each and every one this instant? Is it critical that I practice the song Possum Kingdom on Guitar Hero II during this quiet time while the rest of the family has left me alone to write? (Probably, because we’re a competitive family and right now, I really suck at the game.) Can’t all these chores be put off until later? (Don’t you love procrastination? It has so many layers.)

It’s all about priorities. My normal schedule is already tight. I work a fulltime day job with almost an hour commute between my office and home. Add in the time that it takes me to shower and dress in the morning, and that’s 12 of my 24 hours just for that. Subtract 2 hours to fix and eat dinner with the family and then another 2 hours to help with homework and/or exercise and I’m left with 7 hours to get in 2 hours of writing and 8 hours of sleep. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day - so clearly, there’s no time in my schedule for procrastination – and yet…it’s a skill, I argue, and must be honed daily to keep it sharp.

Because I’ve spent so much time “honing” that skill, I doubt I can just give it up. I mean, it’s practically an art form now. Therefore, I simply need to make it work to my advantage. Thinking about it today as I was checking the mail (because, you know, the mail had to be retrieved NOW!), I wondered if I could make procrastination a source of writing motivation. For instance, if I could find something I wanted to do less than work on a difficult story, then I should assign myself that task and procrastinate doing it by writing! Ah – the beauty of a carefully developed scheme.

Yeah, I know. I’ll let you know how it works for me. Mind if I get back to you later? Like after I practice Free Bird on Guitar Hero II a few thousand times. We’ve got a family competition coming up and I’d like to not go down in a burning flame of humiliation.

So what story am I working on that has spurred this waxing poetic on the subject of procrastination? It’s my second Immortals book (seventh book in the series I did with Jennifer Ashley and Joy Nash.) The first four books (The Calling by Jenn, The Darkening by me, The Awakening by Joy and The Gathering by Jenn) were apparently so well received that Dorchester commissioned us to do four more. My second one is called The Haunting and I really love the story but I’m trying to take my writing to a new level and it’s not a level that comes easily, so hence the procrastination.

This is the story of Mai Groves, the wood nymph investigative reporter friend of Lexi Corvin who was the heroine in The Darkening. She’s suffering from post traumatic shock syndrome following the big show down with an ancient demon in The Gathering. It’s left her suffering hallucinations. On top of that, she’s being threatened by a dream demon and has just unknowingly moved into a haunted apartment building. Mai doesn’t know what’s real and what’s her imagination and that’s a problem, because what’s real might just get her dead. When one of the other residents in her building mysteriously disappears, Mai turns to chameleon Nick Blackhawk, personal bodyguard and survival guide, for help. He’s the only one she knows who can enter the spiritual realm and follow the energy trail of the missing girl. Working together, what Mai and Nick discover is more then either bargained for. Immortals: The Haunting is out in Nov. 2008.

Just out – and also a survivor of my procrastination attempts – is my December 2007 release, Lord of the Night. This is the fourth in my Night Slayer series.

This is Erik’s book. He is one of the original four Winslow brothers who started the Winslow family tradition of vampire slaying.

Angus, Sean, Ewan and Erik Winslow were born and raised in Hocksley, England back in the 1600’s. They were raised to be warriors; defenders of family, home and country. One night, when the four brothers were in their early twenties, they went out hunting and came across an unfamiliar creature in the woods. Sensing danger, the eldest brother, Angus, advised them to leave the creature alone and return home. Ewan and Sean, the middle twins, agreed, but the youngest and most foolhardy, Erik, thought it would be great sport to hunt the creature. Pulling his sword, he attacked it – and died. Before the remaining three could react, the creature had run off.

Of course, the creature was a chupacabra and Erik rose two nights later as a vampire. Over time and with great effort, he learned to control his bloodlust and spent the next four hundred years living in the dungeons of his familial castle, training each successive generation of Winslows to be vampire slayers.

Since the moment of his inception, Erik intrigued me as a character. How had he survived four hundred years? What kind of life had he lived? How had it changed him? He lived with his brothers’ descendents, but it had to be lonely. Did he have any vampire friends?
If so, I didn’t see Erik as the type of man to let his family hunt his friends or vice versa. That meant he’d probably spent what felt like an eternity secretly manipulating both family and friends to keep them from killing one another. Such manipulations would, by its very nature, get complicated. As Sir Walter Scott wrote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

It was just a matter of time before something happened to upset the tenuous balance Erik worked so hard to keep. I decided that something should be Kacie Renault, the adopted daughter of Erik’s current living relative.

Because her natural parents had been slain by vampires, Kacie aspired to become one of the deadliest vampire slayers in Hocksley - and she succeeded. No vampire was safe from her and only out of respect for her adoptive father – and the fact that Erik was a better swordsman – kept Kacie from killing her vampire instructor.

When she went off to college, Erik thought his life would become less complicated.
Now three years later, Kaci is back, one of his closest friends is dead and the leader of the local vampire gang – the dead vampire’s brother and Erik’s best friend – wants Kacie dead. Though a part of him longs to avenge the death of his friend, Erik vows to protect Kacie. But it’s hard to protect someone who hates your guts and doesn’t want your help. And it certainly doesn’t help that the rebellious teenager who left home has returned as a contentious but incredibly attractive woman that is proving much too hard to resist.

Okay – time for me to get back to writing. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to blog with you. I will try to jump online throughout the day to respond to postings. I’m going to give away a signed copy of Lord of the Night as well as a signed copy of a debut book by a good friend of mine, Sharie Kohler (aka Sophie Jordan). She writes historicals, but I’ll be giving away a copy of her debut paranormal Marked by Midnight. Tell me your favorite ways to procrastinate and I’ll pick a winner (randomly selected) on Monday from all the postings.

Happy reading (also a good way to procrastinate – I call it doing research)!

- Robin T. Popp

http://www.robintpopp.com/