As many of you know, in my day job I work as a web developer. Most of my skills I’ve picked up in the past 25 years of web design, from Internet marketing to social media, have proven useful once I started writing. One of them was logo design: I’ve helped a number of clients with their logos; something that is often a slow, arduous process.
Well, no more! I was recently approached by a company called DesignEvo to test-drive their online logo designer and I was amazed. Within seconds, I designed my first logo. Thay have a gazillion templates and graphics to choose from, making the process as painless as you can possibly imagine. Best of all, they store your logos for you so you can edit them in the future, should you (or a client) decide on, say, a new color.
This topic always come down to the system and if it’s even possible. Most times, the vampire infection is human-only, so it makes no sense for animals to get turned. Those that appear to be are really ghouled or under magical control. So, is there any history of true vampire animals?
Well . . . I can’t find anything. I went searching and I found a bunch of paranormal sites that said it was possible. Yet, I couldn’t find any of the stories moving beyond their original sites, which means they’re probably fiction. Forums state that vampirizing animals is impossible for a variety of reasons. The most common reasoning I found is that turning requires that the victim has a soul, which animals don’t have. I don’t really agree with this because I think all living things have some kind of spirit. Another argument is that vampirism requires drinking vampire blood by choice, which is something that an animal can’t do. This is system dependent. The list goes on, but there are ups and downs to this in the first place.
A Few Benefits to Vampirizing an Animal
These creatures will tend to be overlooked by people. Even with red eyes, they might not draw much more attention than they normally would. This means they can work very well as spies that the vampire can look through or talk to. Unlike human vampires, animals don’t have any ambition to move up the ranks of society. That means no backstabbing unless you forget to feed them or abuse them. They can also act like an surprise force against your enemies.
A Few Downsides to Vampirizing an Animal
The biggest one involves vampires with a weakness to the sun. Animals won’t always know to stay out of it, especially at the beginning. They’ll only know that something is different once they turn and their instinct might be to hunt. So, they could rush into the sun and then panic while in pain, which results in a quick death. That hunting instinct is an issue too since animals would lack the ability to control their urges like humans. A vampire will be found out pretty quickly if they turn a bunch of squirrels that end up eating half the town. This is probably why it’s better to mind control or ghoul them because you can dictate their actions.
In War of Nytefall, I wasn’t really sure where to go with this. I hint that vampires look down on turning animals, but that’s coming off as a proper society type of thing. Many vampires still turn animals for various reasons, which can range from loneliness to wanting an expendable agent. Then there’s Bob who makes horse and camel vampires because he wants to have a collection of mounts. In his defense, he treats these animals like they’re his babies and will fight anyone that threatens them. Honestly, this is probably the only area that the question comes up for me so far. I do have an idea for one of the future volumes that requires strange vampire hybrids and toying with different vampirized monster species would fall under this category.
What do people think about vampire animals? I know we’ve seen some games and shows that do this with zombies, but vampires aren’t very common. Is this something you would like to see more often in the genre?
Well, I know most people are out and about for this weekend, but I’m back to scratching my head on this one. I have a project(s) that I call my ‘White Whale’ series. These are my superhero stories that are always giving me a headache. They began in a place I called Super Earth, moved to another planet, back to Super Earth, then to Windemere, and then I put them back on Super Earth. Things were starting to come together, but I recently ran into a few small issues:
I’m worried that the superhero trend will be so far beyond beating a dead horse that you’re basically punching bone dust. Having mine take place on Earth makes it feel very generic.
I would have to do a lot of location research. This could result in me picking NYC as a hub for these characters since that’s what I live near. How many superheroes are already running around the Big Apple?
Tackling this one would put Windemere on pause in general. I could feasibly try to juggle a Super Earth and Windemere series at the same time, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Bad enough that the Sin series (really need a main title for that one) will have to pause at certain points to allow for other series to avoid spoilers.
Did I mention that this is feeling a little generic?
I keep wandering back to the Windemere plan, which I want to pose and see if it’s better than I realized. Long ago, Myrlix the plane/dimension of magic crashed into the physical plane and made everything a little magical. Auras became more potent and the entire system of magic changed. It also led to the rise of beings with magical powers called Mylrixians. These were powerful mortals who could do amazing things without using spells and relics. The gods were leery of them, but many were helping to stabilize the world in the aftermath of the crash. Thing went south when one of the heroic Mylrixians lost his son, went berserk, and declared war on all of Windemere, which he nearly succeeded in winning. The gods ended up ‘destroying’ all of the Mylrixians out of fear of another rebellion, but the best they could do at this time was make it that all of them were repeatedly reborn without their powers or memories.
This is all backstory because the series is about when an incident causes them to regain their memories and powers. It has them returning to their old lives while some are in different bodies. For example, one of the male heroes used to be a woman and another hero used to be a villain. So there’s a lot of conflicting mentalities that these characters are dealing with as they try to handle the return of everyone. This includes the one who caused the rebellion too and he’s trying his best to not make the same mistakes.
It sounds like a fun series/group of series, but it does feel weird doing superheroes in a setting that lacks high tech. I can’t really fit the aliens in without a problem and one of the main heroes was a tech-based character. She even had a giant robot, which I would have to figure out here since that’s something that could really change Windemere. This isn’t even considering how I could do this. Short stories might work best with some collections being a group one and others focusing on a solo hero. Some are going to unite to be a team while others will be localized or loners, which makes this more of a headache.
I guess the big question here is this: Would superheroes in a fantasy setting have any appeal? That’s the head scratcher.
I don’t often have the pleasure of hosting guest posts by editors, so I am particularly pleased with this one. Liam Carnahan looks at editing from the editor’s point of view, explaining what you need to do before you submit your manuscript to an editor. Liam is the founder and chief editor at Invisible Ink Editing. The team at Invisible Ink work with independent authors to help them prepare their manuscripts for submissions or publication. You can follow them on Facebook or Twitter.
7 Steps To Take Before Submitting Your Manuscript To An Editor
Image: Pexels
The self-editing process can be long and painful, and it’s often hard to know when you’re actually done fiddling with a draft. At some point, you have to stop yourself from making changes and submit to an editor.
Before you do that, there are some quick and easy steps you can take…
The Spring Surprise Bundle is due to end on 31st May. It’s the last chance to get this great mix of stories and to celebrate it will be only 2.99 for all 13 books from 27th May-31st May.
The season of spring ushers in a time of rebirth; new life comes forth, trees emerge from their winter slumber and the cycle of nature begins again. Plans unfold, new adventures commence, and the past is washed clean. At least . . . that’s the theory.
In this mixed-genre bundle, tales of hope, fresh beginnings and emerging dreams, dangerous new lives and daring schemes awaken the springtime in us all.
Curated by A. L. Butcher and published by Kydala Publishing
One more project to go before I hit the summer with a lighter load on both my body and mind. I’ve decided to call the 3rd book of my news series, War of Nytefall: Rivalry since it revolves around an old rivalry that’s gone out of control. I won’t tell you who the characters involved are. Though, I don’t know if that’s important since it’ll be the December release.
Surprisingly, this book has been flying quicker and bigger than the others. I think part of it is because the cast has been locked in and I feel more comfortable doing a first draft with them. I was ‘meeting’ them for the first time in Loyaltyand getting a since of their growth in Lost. I pinpointed that parts of characters that I had a habit of forgetting such as identifying marks and personality quirks. The list is kept near me for when I started, which is a new tactic and it’s worked. Now, I’m just throwing them into the fray and letting them pull the action. Clyde is a lot more comfortable with his role too, which takes pressure off me. Enough to pull off a week of 3-section days, which means 5 of 17 chapters are written.
The weather has been getting warmer here too, which is good and bad. It means I can wear shorts without shivering and be a little more comfortable. That’s good. It also means the upstairs heats up a lot and I’m driven downstairs to work. That’s not so good. My new headphones help out there, but people don’t always take it as a sign that I’m working. They can’t hear the music while I can hear them. Still, it beats sitting in a sweltering room and trying not to sweat on the keyboard. This weather has me really working hard to get this first draft done before school ends next month. If it’s already getting into the low 80’s now then it’s going to be rough during the summer. Writing a novel in the heat was always a slow process.
I’ve decided that my only summer projects will be the finale for ‘The Raven Series’, which is always haphazard. Fourth time around and I’m still not sure what I’m doing when it comes to horror. That’s why I share it on the blog. Beyond that, I’m going to work on characters and ‘outlines’ for the Sin series. This isn’t what comes after Clyde, but I want to get Sin through the initial planning stages before I do the full outlines for ‘Tales of the Slumberlord’. I was thinking about doing the next Ichabod Brooks collection, but I might save that for later in the year. Depending on how the next school year starts, it could be smarter to do short stories instead of the next War of Nytefall book. Probably need to fit more editing into it too.
I’m noticing that with all of this, I have no idea what to do about Bedlam. I really do miss writing Lloyd and Cassidy. Their 3rd (4th if you count the blog one) book has already been written, but the series doesn’t sell. All of the cover art and promotional money I spend is practically throwing it into a hole. So, I’m left wondering what to do with them. I’ve considered having them be blog only with a weekly chapter section, but that feels like giving up. It’s baffling too because these stories get such great responses on the blog, but it never translates to sales.
This coming week is going to be a little shaky as far as writing. With it being Memorial Day, everyone has Monday off. I’m hoping to get a chapter written this weekend to counteract the loss of that day. Yet, I also have a few appointments that might make this rather choppy. This leads into next weekend, which is the 13th anniversary of that whole wedding thing. Seeing ‘Deadpool 2’ and eating somewhere that serves food. Yeah, that’s as far as we’ve gotten, so you can see how great we are at planning these outings. Either way, I doubt I’ll be writing that weekend. Maybe Saturday night, but that’s all I’ll get if I’m lucky.
So, what are the goals of the week?
Continue writing War of Nytefall: Rivalry
Appointments!
Sleeping, eating, and biking.
Keep reading this thriller book where people REALLY have to stop standing next to the main character. Either the bad guys hire some terrible snipers or they want him to hide in his house. I mean, 3 times a person standing near him has been killed or injured. Are they even aiming for him?
Possibly gather images for September posts.
Tinker with the Super Earth/Mylrixian concept. Might make that a post for tomorrow.
Get tickets for Deadpool 2 to make sure we have seats.
Watch the last two episodes of ‘Lucifer’ and hope it gets picked up by someone.
Plot escape from the Matrix and give up at thought of the real world having horrible pizza.
When I start developing a character sometimes, I construct the person in my head; then I start writing down how she/he is going to be. First the ‘shell,’ then the inside. I very rarely ‘use’ someone I already know… someone I have met or is familiar to me.
It’s more that sometimes I recognize later, after the first draft, when I’m typing the book into the computer, that I find similarities with people I know.
This one time it’s a bit different.
A couple of months back I met a new co-worker of mine. She’s simply beautiful with her shiny black hair, blue ocean deep eyes, and her open, symmetrical heart-shaped face.
We talked about her descants and found out; she’s Irish. After talking to her and listening to her wonderful Irish accent, I decided I would love to use her as one of my main characters in one of…
War of Nytefall is very much an action adventure, so the sex side of vampires doesn’t really come out too often. The Dawn Fangs will demonstrate having urges from time to time, but much of it really centers around Chastity. I might have it come out more in future volumes, but it isn’t a priority now.
To be honest, I never fully understood why vampires get associated with sex so often. I mean, they’re dead and that’s kind of gross. Not to mention, it’s strange that the equipment can work unless the vampire is able to use blood to get the job done. Then again, they do feel pain, so pleasure could be in there too. Either way, I don’t see why anybody would want to or why these creatures would care. It isn’t like they can reproduce and it always seems they enjoy feeding more than sex. At the very least, they’d enjoy it more with each other. There’s just so many questions that never seem to get answered because vampires are so intertwined with carnal desires.
The truth is that vampires began with a connection to sexuality, but Bram Stoker’s Dracula reduced this because of the times. Sexuality wasn’t discussed in public and the non-sexual vampire remained for a while. They still seduced, but the actual act didn’t return to their mythos for a while. Apparently, it isn’t too surprising since the whole fangs penetrating flesh is seen as an analogy for intercourse. Yet, people still argue over vampires and sex all the time. Some think that’s where they should be, others think it’s unseemly for fiction, and others fall in the middle. Personally, this makes me wonder if vampires originally stemmed from the succubus and incubus myths. Those are the demons who seduce men and women respectively.
So, what do you think about vampires and sex? Is this a part that’s essential or do you think it’s unnecessary in their stories?
It’s time for the next subject for my 2018 author interview series. Author interviews are posted every Friday throughout the year.
I am honored to continue this series with California author and blogger Tina Frisco.
You can catch up with all of my past author interviews (nearly 200) on my Author Directory page.
If you’re an author interested in being interviewed in this series, I still have limited spots available for 2018. You can email me at don@donmassenzio.com
Now, please enjoy this interview with Tina Frisco:
Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
I aim to do both, because both are needed for books to sell. But I won’t compromise originality, so at times it becomes a bit of a juggling act. I write because I enjoy it and am compelled to so. Writing is my life’s blood. And like most writers…
When I start developing a character sometimes, I construct the person in my head; then I start writing down how she/he is going to be. First the ‘shell,’ then the inside. I very rarely ‘use’ someone I already know… someone I have met or is familiar to me.
Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
Legends of Windemere 