Tag Archives: vampires

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Copy Editing Day

Today I am supposed to receive the copy-edited manuscript for my second book, Hexed. I’m incredibly excited about this—so much so that I might indulge in excessive superfluous exclamation points!!!!!!

You might wonder why.

Why would any sane person want to see their written work all marked up by a stranger 3,000 miles away?

Because there will be a title page with my name on it that the publisher made up all special just for me. There will also be an ISBN number assigned specifically to my book. It’s all proof that my dream of getting published will be real someday…in just a wee bit over a year from now. *tiny groan*

April 26, 2011…*another tiny groan.* It’s a long time to wait. Nineteen months and one day after the deal was struck, Hounded will finally hit the shelves. That is a bit longer than most deals, but since it’s going to be followed in quick succession by Hexed in May and Hammered in June, the extra time is built in there for me to actually write two books.

It will be bearable, of course, because the day will eventually come. I get to wake up every day and know I’m twenty-four hours closer to my goal. Eventually I’ll get to see my covers and do a little dance. I’ll get to hear the reader of the audio version attempt to do all the accents in the books (Irish, Polish, Tamil, Russian, Finnish, Mandarin, Icelandic, and German) and grin until my face hurts. And maybe, in the interim, I’ll get some good news from overseas, or some news about dramatic rights. It could happen anytime, and that makes waiting more fun.

As far as progress goes, I’ve taken a step backward, but I think it’s more of a course correction. I’ve been writing about these vampires recently and not digging it at all. I wrote about four thousand words, had this huge imbroglio set at University of Phoenix Stadium, and it didn’t feel right. So I highlighted the lot of it and pressed Delete. It wasn’t really a subplot; it was more of a derailment, a complete tangent, and it’s better that I wait on the vampires until I can develop them properly in their own story. Hammered isn’t about vampires. It’s about Ratatosk and Yggdrasil, Thor and Odin, and How to Tempt a Frost Giant.

O frabjous day! There shall be many words to cuddle, plus hot chocolate with marshmallows! I raise my mug to you, and hope you have some lovely words to cuddle up with too.

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Vamping

There are several schools of vampires out there, some more appealing than others, and I’ve been working on the kind o’ vamps I want in my novels. There’s currently only one vampire in my world, but many more are coming along and my lone vampire is supposed to be different from the others. So the question I’m asking myself is, what are the others like? This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but feel free to add to it in the comments.

1. Old School: They’re predators, we’re food. That’s it. Well, maybe not. Sometimes, there are bat wings.
2. Anne Ricers: Bored dandies who seem mysterious because they still dress like courtiers from the time of Louis the XIV instead of in jeans and t-shirts.
3. Bikers n’ Goths: Leather and chains and bad-boy image.
4. Tootsie Rolls: Hard outer shell but a soft, chewy emotional center ready for that special human girl to nourish and control. Lots of paranormal romances have these.
5. Shiny vegetarian vampires who think self-absorbed teenagers are incredibly attractive.
6. Cold businessmen with an eye for long-term investments.

I’ve eliminated #4 and #5 from consideration. Working on lengthening the list of options or hybridizing it…

32K on Hammered.

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Make monsters monstrous

Though it’s doubtlessly been pointed out elsewhere, vampires suck.

They don’t delicately consider the feelings of needy teens and Louisiana barmaids. They eat teens and barmaids and everything else. Sorry, kids.

Vampires are dead monsters who return to the grave every day, and by night they snack on the first juicy carotid artery they see. That’s the way they were originally drawn up, that’s the mythology, and I’m sticking to it. Sensitive vampires didn’t exist until the last couple of decades, and suddenly it seems that they’ve just been misunderstood for all these centuries and what they’ve really wanted all this time is a meaningful relationship with an extraordinary female. What is going on? Why are all the scary monsters getting turned into cuddly buddies? Can’t we stand to be scared by anything anymore?

It’s all the thrice-cursed romance writers’ fault. They’re cynically exploiting women who know, who just know, that they’re special and different somehow, and someday the knight/prince/vampire lord of darkness will recognize their inner worth and take them away for happily ever after and feed them boxes of chocolate while they get pedicures.

Zombies, fortunately, aren’t being treated (yet) as viable love interests. What we get instead are movies that make them seem funny and vastly entertaining to destroy. It’s a different way of attacking the same problem: monsters are monstrous.

Leave my monsters alone. People should be screaming when vampires show up, not sighing.