So... Vampires.

Blood Sight came out today.

Well, technically, it came out late last night, but by the time I got the email, I was already in bed and I didn't feel like limping back up two flights of stairs. (This crazy weather is killing me!)

Why vampires?

You know, the first rated R movie I ever saw was Lost Boys. One of the first horror novels I read was Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. (not the very first, that would be Amityville Horror, which started me on a long path of scary novels....)

My senior year of high school, I wrote a 10-page thesis paper on Vampires.

It's a bit of an obsession. And I've always thought vampires were way sexy... I remember harboring a huge crush on Chris Sarandon in Fright Night.

I might have based the sex scene at the end of Blood Sight off this imagery 

But, of course, we all know that Twilight's done a lot (both good and bad) for vampires in fiction. And I wanted to do something different. Thus was born Rachael, a sarcastic and hard-headed heroine who's not at all susceptible to the Vampire's unique powers of glamour and seduction...

I was over it. I would be over it. Sleeping with vampires was so last decade. It was a phase, and it was as gone and as dead as Marcus should have been back when Rome was the most fearsome civilization on the planet.

Anyway, this is the last of my publishing blitz for a while (altho I did get another acceptance in my inbox today! Yay!) The rest of my stories are shorts and none are due out for a while. Thanks for bearing with me while I dumped a ton of stuff on y'all all at once...

So excited!

Let's just start today out with some blood-pumping music

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of the way...

My novel is available on Torquere's site... Amazon links will come up later today, and the paperback will (probably) be available for purchase "real soon." 

(Complete aside: I am soooo glad that I've always been pretty lazy with my hair, because I never, ever did the big hair look. Not even for "special occasions" like prom. Admittedly, my hair's rarely looked fabulous, but it's always been in a fairly classic style. French twist, braids, loose curls. I had a spiral perm back in the early 90s that was pretty awful, but only because it was so hard to keep it de-tangled.)

I'm going out to dinner with a dozen of my closest friends at one of my favorite restaurants. (Naysayers and last minute cancellations aside, I think I'll have fun)

I've got a few games planned out for my online release party. I'll post live from my phone for about half of it... (I'll also be taking my first ever trip through the downtown tunnel now that the Elizabeth River Crossing tolls are in place and that's not something to celebrate... grrrr! But at least I got my EZ Pass, so it's not like a major inconvenience or anything. Just stupidly expensive.)

I spent most of yesterday in talks and getting arranged new and exciting things! I'm going to be heading up a science fiction erotica collection for Coming Together. More details as I get them. Because you know, I can't have anything resembling an uncrazy schedule. But if you're an erotica writer, you like sci-fi, and you want to help a good cause, keep your eye on this space.

This is happening!

  

Right time to Roll to me...

I have this calendar, you all know that, where I keep my writing / editing / blogging / real life / count down til submissions stuff...

Anyway, my timing's been all thrown off recently because of a number of different things, most of which involve my having to talk on the phone!

Let me tell you, I'm great with emails and facebook, semi-okay at Twitter, but usually not because Twitter seriously limits my word count, and I'm pretty fantastic in person, if you can get me to shut up once in a while because I sort of talk the way I write, on and on and on and on... you get the idea...

But I HATE being on the phone.

Like, I'd rather have my eyes poked with sporks.

So, in the last two weeks, of course, we have had - home issues that involved my having to talk to a plumber. Problems with the MMO I play that involved my having to talk to tech support not once, but twice, and I might further add that my problem was eventually solved by... someone on the forums giving me the solution. (Way to live up to your "worst company ever!" title, EA Games...)

I've also had to go to the bank and talk to a real person to make some changes to my bank account (no, thank you, I don't want to open a line of credit based on my home equity, isn't that how the housing bubble collapsed in the first place? I mean, it's all great and stuff that we HAVE all this money we could borrow... but no, thank you. Can we just make the changes I asked for??)

I've had to buy a television, buy another television (one of these days I'm seriously just going to tell my husband to FUCK OFF, NO! when he asks me stupid questions like "is it too late to cancel that order?") take back the first television when it arrived, deal with some extremely incompetent and even more extremely hostile returns-staff. (after dealing with the logistics of actually MOVING a 55" television around... because I drive a Toyota...) We eventually had to take said TV to a different location of the same store to get customer support / returns to work with us. Thank you Charlotte and Travis for being wonderful and helpful and NICE.....

My mother may or may not be coming to visit us, and we're not really sure when, but when is a bad time for you, honey, and I will probably fly in and need a ride and... look, really, just tell me when you're going to be here. But I won't believe you until you actually give me a flight number.

And in the middle of all this, I have been invited to participate in an exclusive anthology (meaning that I have been specifically invited to write a story, and the call won't be open to the "general public." More on that when I have contract in hand and official details and whatnot.) I have done edits for a short story. I have written and submitted another short story, and I have half-written a steampunk story that's due in 2 weeks. I still need to finish it if I'm going to submit in time, but at present, I may not be able to do so because I am getting buried under work.

I got finalFINAL edits back for Roll yesterday, noticed 5 typos in my final read through, and felt sort of bad about poking my editor for it, but.... ug. She assures me that I will find at least 2 more on release day.

Which brings me 'round to the topic at hand...

RELEASE DAY!

OMG OMG OMG!

I'm having one of those where the FUCK did February go? Snow days and kids and husbands home and doing taxes and getting the tax return back amazingly quickly, and plumbers and televisions and...

HOLY SHIT! It's the 17th???

So, yeah.

Nine days left.

Wow!

So if you haven't signed up for my Facebook Release Party! please feel free to do so; there will be a prize package given randomly for everyone who signs up to go.

I'll also be having a real life dinner celebration with local friends and family...

look! swag!

And, of course, there's a blog tour and there will be more swag for people who go and comment on their blog posts...

February 24th V.L. Locey
February 25th Malin James
February 26th Lisabet Sarai
February 27th Elizabeth L. Brooks
February 28th Sommer Marsden
March 1st Iyana Jenna
March 3rd Mychael Black
March 4th Torquere Live Journal

So, that's fun, right? (yes, that means I have to start writing guest bloggie post thingies. Immediately!)

Blood Cries Up

My ghost story, Blood Cries Up, releases today at Torquere Press...


Blurb: Since the death of his sister, Dariel's been haunting her grave. Then he meets Zach. It's love at first sight -- unfortunately Zach is a ghost. An accidental possession results in Zach moving into Dariel's body, but before they can fully figure that out, they learn that there's more to Zach's death that the suicide it had seemed -- much more. With the help of the cemetery cat, Dariel and Zach will have to confront the diabolic Isaac Caine and return Zach's soul to its proper resting place.


Excerpt:

"In the olden days," he said, "the church wouldn't let suicides or unbaptized people be buried on consecrated ground. Suicide's a sin. So, sometimes people would drag their relatives over and bury them just outside the wall. About forty years ago, this particular church yard cut a doorway--" Zach led me beneath the arch. Drooping flowers adorned the curved exit between the main cemetery and the suicide garden. "-- between the two sections and held a little ceremony to forgive us our sins."

Garden was exactly the right word. There were no gravestones like in the neat rows behind us. Plants and flowers and small statues dotted the landscape and a tiny, low wall, no higher than my knee, circled the entire. I'd never even seen this part of the graveyard before. A placard in the center -- I snapped on my flashlight to read it -- gave the details of the history, much as Zach had just given them to me.

"I don't remember much from before. I was just here. So, the logic is, suicide." He turned his face aside for a long moment, and I barely heard his next words. "I mean, I was gay, after all. That's a sin, right? Certainly something I should kill myself over."

I blinked back sudden tears. "Don't ever say that," I snapped. I don't know what I meant to do, hug him or something, but that was stupid. He was long since dead, and there was no comfort I could give. I went to put my arms around him and... fell into him. Or he fell into me. I don't know. But suddenly we were all mixed up together. I could feel him thinking, inside my head. I could feel him marveling at the feel of a body, feel his mind directing my eyes where to look, down my long brown arms to strong fingers. He used my hands to touch my face.

Author Extra

A Janus Story-teller

One of the great aspects of life is duality. Fear of death, dying, and dead creatures; fascination with ghosts, spirits, and the places of the dead. By nature, human beings are illogical, inconsistent, whimsical creatures. We are a conglomerate of greed and wisdom, generosity and foolhardiness, capable of great sacrifice and great stupidity. Human beings are fascinating; and on the plus side, it gives us writers a TON of stuff to
write about.

I have a mild necrophobia; I get remarkably uncomfortable around dead things. Yet I grew up on a farm and have participated – actively – in the turning of chickens into dinner. I won't go to funerals (long story that has
to do with how I remember things and has nothing to do with respect or lack thereof.) but I find graveyards to be peaceful and wonderful places. I like to explore cemeteries and make grave rubbings. I have a framed rubbing from a gravestone framed and hanging up in my living room. I am fascinated by death, but I have come to grips with my own. I have not personally had a paranormal experience, but I don't in the slightest bit doubt friends who have. I have had two near-death experiences; neither of them involved white lights or feelings of comfort, but having skated so close to the edge, I'm not afraid to die. (I'd rather Not Die Right Now, mind you, but when it happens, it does.)

So, the idea of love and death combined is interesting to me. What happens when someone you love dies? Well, we all know a bit about that. But what happens when someone dies, and then they fall in love? Now there's an interesting dichotomy.

My story started from a simple image; a ghost in the graveyard, falling in love with a living person...

Other Stuff

I'm blog touring around for the next two weeks... if you missed it yesterday, I had a spot at Torquere's Live Journal Giving Me The Creeps and I should be on Kinzie Rose's blog tomorrow..

Also, don't forget to enter the raffle... I'm adding prizes and whatnot, so click, enter, win!


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