Vampire Rain

The rain/snow/sleet/hail pings on the window pane behind me. The morning dawned grey and cold in the raw, rainforest winter way that makes your finger bones ache within minutes of stepping outside. It’s my day off, so no worry of having to venture into the unfriendly weather, but my plan to work with Caius and Aurelia is hijacked by my desire to write a vampire story.

I tend to write vampires in winter. Not so much in summer. No idea why.

*wink*

Anyway, last year, I began a vampire story that remains unfinished. It might get done this year. This winter, in fact, if I can keep my mojo going; it took a while, but I have reacquainted myself with the story so far and gained a little traction in getting it where it has to go.

I already know the ending. It’s the centrepiece in a trio of tales, the first of which, titled “Reunion”, was written in 2013. I’ve been sitting on the first line of the third part since then, with a relatively clear idea of how the trilogy will end—only in 2013 I had no idea that it was a trilogy. All I knew—all I still know—is that I am in no hurry to write what is now the third story.

Simply put, someone is going to die.

In avoiding what I thought was the sequel to “Reunion”, it came to me that a significant part of the greater story was missing, so a duo became a trio. I started writing the bridge last summer. It’s unusual for me to start a vampire story in August, but since this one takes place in Morocco, it was helpful to be sweltering while writing about the heat. Revisiting it now is part of my non-NY resolution to finish something in 2017, especially if it was started in a previous year.

Am I having fun with it? Actually, I am. I’m familiar with the characters and understand their MOs, and one of them wants the story finished almost as much as I do. He’s hardly impatient, but I sense that he’s getting tired. I also sense that my reluctance to complete the trilogy doesn’t make a darned bit of difference to him—and suddenly, I let go on a strangely comforting revelation.

He will tell me when it’s time to write that third story.

The Sunday Post

How’s 2017 treating you so far? I’m still dealing with a relapse of my arthritis, but every day and in every way, I’m getting better and better. My attention has been diverted from pretty much everything except surviving, though— and my writing has suffered as a result.

Imagine my dismay on reviewing last year’s creative files and noting that nothing in my “finished” folder was dated 2016! I wrote all right, but everything I worked on remains unfinished. My bones can only be responsible for the latter part of the year. What the heck happened in the first three quarters to prevent me from completing a single project?

There’s no point in rehashing time already lost. As Ragnar Lothbrok would say, “Don’t look behind you; that’s not where you are going.”

Going forward, however, I’ve given up the idea of writing on weekday evenings. It just doesn’t happen. That leaves a precious few hours over a “sometimes two, sometimes three” day weekend in which to slough off the workaday energy and get back in touch with my Muse. Sometimes she cooperates, sometimes not. Genius cannot be predicted.

All I can do is make a writing plan for the future. I can commit to this much:

First priority: whatever project I am working on (currently the tale of Caius and Aurelia, which continues to beguile).

Second priority: Comfortable Rebellion. Ter has suggested that I limit myself to one post per week. Keeping up with more than that has proven a challenge for both me, the writer, and her, the reader. (Okay, one of my readers, but she has a point when she says she gets boggled when she does check in and finds half a dozen pieces awaiting her equally precious downtime.) so we came up with the idea of “The Sunday Post”, a commitment I can keep—I think—by scheduling my writing hours accordingly.

Third priority: writing exercises. I’m not done with “Diva”, and I’ve collected a few photographs that inspired me to ask the question, “What, who, where, when and why?” (or is that five questions?) It’s encouraging to feel that spark of curiosity again, and my fourth priority falls in line with the third:

Make time for the Muse on a workday. I may not manage a full blown “artist date”, but surely I  can devote one lunchbreak per week to tea and a half-hour of scribbling. Whether a two-bite piece of fiction or next Sunday’s post emerges in that time makes no difference; I just want to reconnect with my imagination, to gain a little momentum for the weekend, and to remind myself of what’s really real ... ’cause a lot in my life of late isn’t.

With love,

Viking Visdom

I admit, it’s harder to keep the faith when I’m hurting. This darned human experience sure gets in the way of my being a divine spark.

Thank the gotts for diversions like season five of Vikings. The character of Ragnar Lothbrok, played so hideously/beautifully by Travis Fimmell, continues to beguile. In almost every episode, he drops a line worthy of remembering not just because of his delivery, but because the words apply—seriously—to my own life.

Take the argument he got into with his grown son Ivar, for instance. Ivar is historically known as “Ivar the Boneless”. None of the saganistas knows for sure why, so the series’ writer has depicted the character as a cripple. He hauls himself around on his hands, dragging his useless legs behind him and fighting like all get out to be considered as normal as his well-formed brothers. The kid isn’t particularly likeable. He certainly isn’t a sympathetic character, not with that attitude.

Anyway, Ivar goes on a raiding voyage to England with his father and nearly dies in a shipwreck. He and Ragnar, along with the other survivors, end up trekking inland from the beach, and because of Ivar’s disability, he falls behind. Ragnar stays with him, but finally loses his patience and demands that the boy quit trying to be normal. “Let yourself be a cripple!” he says. Naturally (to me, anyway), Ivar loses his temper. They get into a fight, shouting into each other’s faces, the boy screaming that he can be normal. Ragnar screams back that he can’t be normal because he isn’t normal, and “only when you accept that, can you become great.”

Blink.

That line hit me as hard as Ragnar telling his sons in an earlier episode, “Don’t look behind you. That’s not where you are going.”

I embarked on this series because Ter was curious about it so I thought I’d go along in support. The first season was so awful that I have no idea why we came back for season two, but that was when things got interesting. I still consider it one of the funniest shows on TV—the scenes between Ragnar and King Ecbert of Wessex are truly priceless—but pearls are present if I listen closely ... and I maintain that Fimmell’s portrayal of Ragnar makes it all worthwhile. He has the best lines and he delivers them brilliantly. I can’t say I’ve learned everything about life from Vikings, but I’ve sure picked up a few gems to get me through my recent struggles.

Uff da!

Two Prodigies

I wrote a story about a concert pianist named Julian, whose best friend was a concert violinist named David. They met when Julian, who was touring the Continent in the late 1880s, stopped in London to perform with the Symphony, where David was carving out a career as a virtuoso soloist. They met, they hit it off, and they became the darlings of drawing rooms throughout Victorian society.

The story was written in 1998.

Imagine the hilarity on discovering, in 2009, a violin virtuoso also named David (Garrett, to be precise) who had become a rock star in the music world, blending classical pieces with rock/pop tunes to create, as I once remarked to Ter, a modern day style that Julian’s David would have embraced wholeheartedly.

Funnier still, David Garrett has a pianist buddy with whom he performs those lovely classical works composed for piano and violin—and his name is Julien (Quentin)! But for a single vowel, my David/Julian were a prequel to the “real” David/Julien!

An irony? A coincidence? An annoyance? (After all, mine came first.) Or was I subconsciously tapped into the auras of two prodigies destined to become the Dynamic Duo of chamber music?

Whatever it is, it never fails to amuse when Ter announces that David and Julien are on tour in Europe because, goshdarnit, that’s exactly what my David and Julian were doing long before these two got started.

*sigh*

Garrett and Quentin:
the "other" David-and-Julian

Mr. Wrong

Sometimes, he’s blond. Most often, he’s dark-haired and his eyes are predominantly green. Occasionally, they’re some shade of blue, icy and intense, though they have also been a warm, honeyed brown.

He is beautiful, of course. Silken and selfish, he plays to win and believes he can’t lose. He’s the hero in his own story, avenging imagined slights and charming his way into bedrooms and boardrooms alike. He relishes his power over people. He loves not at all, though his victims will argue vehemently to the contrary (and feel the fool in retrospect).

He has expensive taste. He travels by limousine rather than driving himself. He lives the high life as his due, whether or not he comes from a moneyed clan.

He is arrogant, not confident.

He makes his own rules.

He is temperamental and prone to violence.

He is clever and cunning, street smart rather than book smart, and is most dangerous when threatened.

He usually meets a bad end, though he has prevailed in a world where his manipulative skills are considered strengths.

I have no illusions. I love him for all the wrong reasons. I try to stay detached because I know he’s doomed … and yet I miss him when he’s gone.

Mr. Right

Why wait when I can make my own?

Sometimes, he’s blond. Most often, he’s dark-haired and his eyes are predominantly green. Occasionally, they’re some shade of blue, deep and intense, and when I was younger, they were almost always brown; a rich, pure chocolate brown that weakened my knees and my resolve in equal measure.

He is as comfortable in denim as he is in Armani silk, and when he does wear jeans, they-fit-well.

He’s wealthy, of course. Mysteriously so. He drives no less than eight cylinders except when he’s on horseback, and then his steed is as sleek and powerful as his Jaguar/Lamborghini/classic Camaro.

He is confident, not arrogant.

He is compassionate, not gullible.

He is fierce, not violent. His anger is justified and he does not love easily. When he does offer his heart, he does it thoughtfully, with some conditions (he is human, after all), but nothing I can neither handle nor expect, myself.

We understand each other. We come together with affection and passion; we argue, inevitably, but agree to disagree by way of mutual respect. He’s a learned man, not an intellectual, being street-smart rather than book-smart.

He is a king. A warrior. A rock star. A secret agent. A bartender. A drifter. A vampire. He is not always as I imagine him to be at the beginning, but he is always my hero.

The End

Between “Diva” excerpts, I finally finished a story. The draft of a story, actually, and not my first crack at the concept. The little piece born of Midnight Waltz a few years back and rekindled last year by Dark Waltz found life in a third version, this one taken from the waiter’s point of view. It’s the longest of the three, being more detailed in structure and character development (strangely—for me—the second version is the shortest; only a single page long), and is likely my favourite for those reasons. I like detail and I like to develop characters. Both take time and, without whining, time has lately been in short supply.

The big deal here is that I finished something! Hats and horns! Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! A little polish, the addition of one tiny “scene between”, and I’ll type THE END for the first time since completing “The Devil She Knows” in November 2014.

This is also the first time I’ve taken the same story from different points of view. It started with the heroine—or female protagonist, because I’m unsure that anything about my absinthe-soaked siren is truly heroic—and her perception of the boy who rescues her. Eventually, it came clear that he wanted his say. Two and a bit years later, he has it. I’ll post it when it’s buffed, so please stay tuned.

Time for a hockey joke:

A Scandinavian player gets a breakaway. Clearing the defence, he prepares to shoot and loses the puck. Over on the bench, one player says to another, “All Swedish and no Finnish.”

Okay, so it’s funnier when it’s said aloud. It’s still relevant because, yup, that’s me. I’m great at starting stories, not so hot at finishing them. This isn’t a big deal, not being life or death, but it is frustrating. So finishing my little story about François and Odette feels like a huge obstacle has been cleared and I am free to tackle another stalled story until, one by one, every half-finished file in my “in progress” folder is transferred to “completed”.

“Diva II” (Preface)

Thank you, Nicole.

From a writing exercise sprang the suggestion that there may be more to a woman named Ellie. The exercise was focused on the house where she once lived, the grand old mansion with a history so checkered you could play chess on it, but Nic made a comment surmising that Ellie herself had a story to tell.

So she did.

Tomorrow’s post is a slice of that story; a small slice, and perhaps one of many to come. I felt a warm affinity to Ellie as I worked with her, a bit like the affection I feel for Ariel Black though that remains more of a mystery because he plainly has no interest in me. Ellie, on the other hand, feels like a friend.

And what an interesting friend to have. A movie star from Hollywood’s heyday, we meet her at a party where her former lover is also in attendance with his bitsy new wife, and the industry holds its collective breath awaiting the quake …

Enjoy.

Bibliography X

“Nevermore (a Cal Leandros novel)” – Rob Thurman

How the &$^%#* did I not know about this book? Imagine my surprise—and Ter’s unbridled glee—when I peeled the paper from a book-shaped Christmas prezzie and spied Cal Leandros on the cover!

I think I screamed.

One of the questions in a getting-to-know-you survey for a work conference last November was Which character from your favourite book would you like to meet? I chickened out and picked Louis de Pointe du Lac. Cal is so scary that I picked a vampire instead of him.

Yes, I love him. I think he’s f***ing awesome … but do I want to meet him?

Hell, no.

What really messed me up was how Ter knew that this, the tenth in the series, had been released and I didn’t. “Easy,” she replied. “I got an email from amazon.”

Oh, right. I haven’t purchased a Cal novel online for years. The last was Blackout, which put me on amazon’s reminder list, but when they advised me that Doubletake was due, I went to Munro’s Books and had them order my copy. I did the same with Slashback the following year. I got the nudge about Downfall , but because it came out close to September, I bugged Ter into getting it for my birthday in stead of buying it myself. Three strikes, I’m out, and now she gets the notifications.

Am I disappointed?

Hell, no! It was the best stunner ever! She’s still so proud of herself that she snickers when she sees me buried in it (I read the prologue before breakfast on Christmas Day); again, it’s a breakneck run-for-your-life shoot-’em-up roller coaster ride with my half-human, half-monster hero at the wheel. I read these novels so fast that I have to read them again when I’m done, to catch the details. They are primarily entertainment, but I’ve learned a lot about writing urban fantasy from them, too. I have to admit, despite my love and respect for The Vampire Chronicles and A Song of Ice and Fire, I have a soft spot in my heart for incorrigible Cal that puts the ongoing trauma of his fight to survive so high on my list of favourites that he may very well be the champion.

He’s a guilty pleasure, for sure.

Everything Old is New Again

Is it cheating if a new story idea features familiar characters? It’s been a long time since I’ve written anyone new (or old, for that matter), but a few weeks ago, I started looping a song from the 70s and with it came a scene so powerful that I had to stop what I was doing and let it play out in my mind.

With the playing came the questions. Who, what, and why? “Where” was obvious from the song. “Why” became clear once “who” was answered, and if I bucked the characters’ identities at first, it’s only because I already know them.

The story appears to be a bridge in one of my ongoing vampire sagas, which is fine. At least it’s not a fourth variation on the vampire theme. I’m rather pleased that each of my three vampire worlds stands alone from the other two, but really. How many vampire societies can one author write before she begins to repeat herself?

My dilemma—if it even exists—is a growing concern that perhaps I am unable to write new characters. I don’t want to be the artist who paints the same tree for the rest of her life. I want to explore new worlds (and seek out new civilizations, ha ha), yet the comfort of a familiar voice, even a villain’s voice, is almost irresistible.

Like most writers, I get attached to my characters. When I want to go home, I return to Castasia, where the cast is so huge that I actually could spend the rest of my life writing about them. I still have plans to revamp (no pun intended) the Cassandra story from 2000, and a fourth Black story is presently incubating. I am not adverse to new characters by any means. I have a bunch of half-finished projects to prove it … so why is it that this latest nugget is about existing characters?

It probably doesn’t matter. Three vampire worlds and a mountain fantasy likely contain more characters than a lot of short fiction writers will conjure in a lifetime. The last thing I want is to be one of those folks who leaves the names blank and fill them in by global replacement after the story is finished. If I know the players so well, they know me as well, and that’s why they return.

There you go, Ru. No dilemma. Write on.

The Singing Sword

Three novels ago, I wrote a scene wherein Lucius is test driving a new sword. I’m no expert, but you needn’t be one to know that a soldier will have specific preferences when it comes to weaponry, and that he’ll likely own more than one example of his favourite make/model. Being an outlaw, however, my hero left most of his gear behind when he escaped Imperial justice in Treason. One broadsword returned with him to Castasia, and though this part is not recorded anywhere in the story, he immediately proceeded to drive the local craftsmen crazy with his quest to replicate its equal. By the time the aforementioned scene was written, he had resorted to the black market to obtain the rare crucible steel, and recruited a foreign smith familiar with the material to forge him a new sword. His requirements were, in his mind, simple, but even as I wrote the scene, I questioned whether such an elite weapon was believable given the technology of his time.

A decade later, I have the answer: a resounding YES!

Lucius’s sword of choice is my fantasy equivalent of the Ulfberht—a high-end broadsword that was forged in northern Europe between the ninth and eleventh centuries. The Vikings didn’t make them, but more than a few Scandinavian warriors managed to get their hands on one during the lifetime of the Volga trade route. It was the Rolls Royce of weapons, and also appears to be a fine example of medieval branding: if it wasn’t marked “Ulfberht”, it wasn’t the real deal. Production spanned two centuries, so it a single smith wasn’t responsible for the line; it seems that a Frankish monastery owned the copyright. There were even knockoffs, easily identified nowadays by a misspelled name and a blade of inferior steel, though they must have sold for as much as the genuine article. The high carbon content made the blade both strong and flexible, and a groove known as the fuller enabled the larger weapon to retain the lighter weight of a smaller sword. It’s the perfect sword for Lucius, and now I know I wasn’t dreaming when I wrote it.

Phew. I write fantasy because I want to rule my world, but some details demand a basis in this reality, else the reader—and I have done it myself—will hitch up and go, Huh? It’s especially gratifying to know that something as vital as the brand of sword my hero wields in battle actually did exist … though I do wonder how I “knew” about it beforehand!

Gender Swapping

My tea fairy, Treena, recently sent me an anguished email featuring the link to an online article about the latest blight on the literary scene. The queen of vampire schmaltz has struck again, and with a new twist on the same blunt instrument. I thought we’d dodged a silver bullet when a draft manuscript of Twilight told from Edward’s POV was leaked and Stephenie Meyer sacked the idea of releasing it, but she has since re-written her horrifying-for-all-the-wrong-reasons series, this time with the protagonists swapping genders. Yup, mortal Bella is now Beau, vampire Edward is now Edyth, and werewolf Jacob is now Julie. 

It’s a new way of wringing a few more drachmas from the golden udder for sure—E.L. James has done precisely the same thing by rewriting her candy-coated S&M trilogy from the sadist’s point of view.

As my dear friend Nicole would say, BLERG.

Maybe it’s not new to take a familiar story and change the hero to a heroine or vice versa. I admit, the idea is intriguing. I’ve even spent an idle moment or two toying mentally with my own work and wondering how a female Julian or a male Cassandra might alter the plot of their respective stories. On a less daunting scale, I considered a revamp (no pun intended) of Between the Storms, but then I thought, wait a minute. I don’t have to regurgitate what I’ve already done. I can write new stuff!

Snide asides notwithstanding, change the sex of a character and you must change the story. I only got so far when contemplating the switch for my tale of a hit man on hiatus who discovers a girl washed up on the beach outside his house. Sure, female assassins exist, and the man washing up on her beach might be on the run from a control freak, but the rest of it would require more than a global replacement of character names. The villain, for one thing, would have to become female, and a man who runs from a domineering woman will be regarded with more ridicule than sympathy, possibly even by the heroine who saves his life. So the whole back end of the piece, including the resolution, would have to be redone, and if I’m going to write a story, I’d rather do it with all new characters and a new beginning.

On the other hand, I have considered taking a really badly written story and rewriting it to standard—but that would mean reading Fifty Shades of Grey first, and I just can’t bring myself to do it.

The Leppard Long Weekend

It started with Viva Hysteria! on Friday. Ter got the DVD for her birthday and waited a whole week for the viewing—the Leppards live in Las Vegas, playing their classic album in track order from Women to Love and Affection. Cool show. Had no idea it had been filmed.

One of the bonus features is the opening set they played as Ded Flatbirds—“the best Def Leppard cover band in the world”—and in that set was a song called Undefeated, one of three original tracks recorded for the live album, Mirrorball, in 2011.

I swear, if ever a song was written for Lucius, Undefeated is it.

So, next day, Mirrorball goes onto the car stereo for our sojourn to lunch with my folks. We switch to Yeah! for the drive home, and somewhere on the road, Ter observes that it’s been a Leppard long weekend.

It’s supposed to be a Thanksgiving long weekend.

But hey, I’m thankful for the Leps. Without them, and the King in particular, there would be no Lucius. My legendary hero would not exist, or if he did, it would be in someone else’s world.

I’m so glad that he chose to exist in mine. He takes up a lot of room and burns a lot of energy, but I’m glad of that too, because I’ve been reminded yet again that “it’s about Lucius”. Fixed Fire is the story of a family, and volume seven is Reijo’s romance, but no matter where in the series or who the protagonist, there he is, commandeering the spotlight, the great Golden Savage, Mr. Undefeated himself.

I have lots for which I am grateful. On a daily basis, I have a rotating Top Five, but if where you focus becomes your reality, then right now a rock singer from Sheffield figures high on the list.

Happy Thanksgiving.

With love,

The Musician Speaks

Today is my birthday. I have the luxury of two every year, though this has not always been the case. On September 3, 1666, a man in his thirtieth year died and was reborn. The account has already been recorded in hyperbolic detail, thanks to my scribe’s obsession with adjectives, and is of no significance here except to note that, while it defines me as an immortal in a mortal world, it does little to define me as a sentient being.

I assure you, I am a sentient being.

My name is Julian. If you know me, you know me as a vampire, since none are left who knew me as a man. I might have resented this in ordinary circumstances, but my life is nothing close to ordinary. Even among vampires, I am unusual.

You see, I like people. I live among you as a predator, but I regard you with neither the disdain nor the disrespect developed by those of my kind who would preserve their sanity. I genuinely enjoy your company. I admire your accomplishments. I also fear for your (indeed, our) future in light of climate change and global warming. That being said, I have no aspirations to reclaim my mortality. I like what I am. Ironically, had I not been what I am, I would not have discovered my true passion.

I am a vampire, yes. I am also—perhaps more so—a musician. A pianist, to be specific; deliriously, passionately devoted to an instrument that would not have existed in my lifetime had I been doomed to the requisite threescore and ten years. Almost two centuries after my conversion, I was on the cusp of becoming just another blood hunter when I heard a sublime melody twinkling over the street where I was stalking that night’s prey. The sound was so arresting that I promptly forgot my purpose.

I believe I experienced what is currently referred to as an “a-ha moment.” At the time, it was a spontaneous rekindling of something deeper and more pure than the primal instinct that had lately been my constant companion. I was literally stopped in my tracks. What was that sound? Music, yes; I remembered music, but the instrument; what was crafting that incredible aural jewel?

Something tugged at the fringe of my awareness. A pianoforte? Impossible. Precisely translated as “soft/loud”, it is a harp turned on its side, played as a harpsichord is played, by hands on a keyboard, but the strings are struck rather than plucked. More marvelous yet, the volume on a pianoforte can be controlled as a harpsichord’s cannot—though few composers at that time bothered to coax the keys into making music when pounding them more effectively produced the appropriate romantic angst. This elegant string of sonic pearls, this was something different; the tone, the resonance, the pitch of each luminous note was enough to drive me to the door of the building and demand an audience with the master.

A fellow named Frédéric was responsible. Reluctant at first, he was eventually persuaded to instruct me, and I proved an exceptional student. I was so eager for my lessons that I often went without hunting. I practiced incessantly on a Steinway purchased for the purpose, annoying my neighbours so much that I was forced to find a residence better suited to the grandeur of my obsession. My thirst for blood had been surpassed by a thirst for music, for his music. He considered me a prodigy, and when I told him that my skill was merely to replicate a piece after one hearing, he argued that skill is one thing. Soul is another entirely. If the player is the lover and the piano his beloved, he assured me with a smile, I was destined for fame and an ardent female following.

He presented me to his compatriots, a gang of half-mad geniuses who churned out masterpieces at a furious pace and gaped in dumbstruck disbelief as I lifted each work to unimagined heights on the first try. Was I proud of my ability? Indeed I was. Was I cheating? Indeed I was not. What talent is not honed with practice? I was in love with my art. I was a diligent pupil. What propensity I had could only be improved over time. My advantage was in having more time than most.

Frédéric’s prediction was prophetic. I did become famous. For a year or two, I was the celebrated darling of the Continent and toured extensively before I drew the attention of my own kind and it became too dangerous to continue. As for women …

There was one. That, too, is recounted in the hyperbolic record, but let me say here that my love for music went unmatched by anyone or anything until I met my Thérèse. The scope of that love kept me from sacrificing it to make her immortal; had I loved her less, I might have granted her request—a request made in equal measures of sincerity and ignorance, given the inevitable fate of immortal couples to uncouple. Good God, in this day and age, you mortals mate and separate more than once in a puny lifetime! Imagine the imbalance if a vampire was made from every failed relationship!

No, it is better—wiser—to love for the moment and let it pass in due course. If it lasts, by all means, cherish it, but do not think to make it last forever. In its perfect form, love is already eternal.

Music has been my saving grace. My piano is my mistress, my old friend Frédéric my muse. I play all sorts of things nowadays. Classical predominantly, and jazz when I feel particularly inventive. Idle tinkering when the mood strikes, glimmers of starlight that I hope my old mentor would have approved. Occasionally, I will play the soundtrack of a Broadway musical from start to finish. I do not sing. The Steinway sings for me and my heart sings along with it.

Content as I am, however, I have one secret longing.

It would be pleasant to fall in love again.

All My Children

Adults don’t count. Vampires are certainly excluded. Even the children in my stories must be considered characters rather than offspring, being born to the aforementioned fictitious adults. But I guess, in a funny way, every one I write is my child.

On second thought, maybe not. I did not birth Lucius or Julian or Black or Cassie or any of the other grown ups—mortal or otherwise—who populate my work. They came to me as individuals with stories to be told. I happen to be the scribe. The biographer. Some authors roll their eyes at others like me, who insist that their protagonists appear like ghosts, fully-formed and possessed of a unique personality, looking for a mouthpiece to speak for them. What, do those authors build their heroes from spare parts and assign traits from a personalities app?

Zzzzzzzz.

I have never constructed a character. Perhaps it’s a matter of deconstructing, of working backward from the final result to learn how he/she became who he/she was when I met him/her. Take Lucius, for example. When I met him, he was a battle-scarred warrior of legendary reputation. His “bad dude” potential was right up front and I know some folks who were either scared of him, disliked him, or both. Now, a dozen years and six volumes later, I understand how he became the scary bad hero of Treason. I’ve worked with him for long enough to have learned what makes him tick, and not because he’s confessed to any of it. I’ve learned about him through the eyes of those who knew him as a child, then as a boy, then as a young man. Did I invent those people, each with a story to complement his? I suppose, on some level, it’s possible.

But it’s much more fun to imagine that I simply make myself available and the voice finds me.

Kid Me Not

Do I regret not having children?

Nope.

Lately, however, I’ve discovered that other people’s children—namely newborns—possess a perilous charm all their own. Cuddling my  five-week-old great-niece caused a brief pang of something close to remorse that probably coincided with another ovum popping out of contention. Same thing with the downstairs neighbours’ newbie back in February; she was two weeks old and out like a light when I cradled her, and what a sweet warm weight she was, too.

She has since grown into a wriggler. I happened on her last week and was invited to get reacquainted while her mum and I chatted. She’s three months old and able to sit in the crook of my arm, but man, she was a pedaling fury the whole time. Still sweet and warm, but … back to Mum you go, kiddo!

Would I have been a good mother?

Dunno. I like to think so, but only an adult child can say whether their mother was a good one, and it’s a credit to mine that all five of her kids adore her. Since I have no children, adult or otherwise, I can’t answer that question.

Am I a good aunt?

I love my nieces and nephews, but that’s about it. I’m not a hands-on auntie, and in truth, I relate better to the next generation now that they’re having kids of their own.

I don’t relate well to children.

Which doesn’t explain why I write about them so much. one of my favourite characters is twelve years old—and a real handful, to boot. Her best friend is one of a litter, and they run riot across the pages of whatever Fixed Fire story is in progress. And more are coming, as heroes and heroines fall in love. It seems that a babe is always pending, so what gives?

Working Holiday

Spring in the pagan days was the beginning of a new year. Same applies to the workplace fiscal year, which starts on April Fool’s Day and don’t let the irony of that escape you. Perhaps because April begins the first annual quarter at work, it heralds a beginning for me. By the end of March, my creativity has been suppressed for almost three months and I’m dyin’. Fortunately (is it?), I have accumulated enough years of service to enable a full five day week of vacation without making a big dent in my annual allocation.

I’m taking such a break next week. I like to have a project in mind before I book vacation, usually something I can finish, like a short story that’s been in progress for months or something new, like The King’s Man, which was written on the fly over four days straight. This time out, I’m admitting defeat before I begin. I will not get this holiday’s project done before I have to go back to work … but I intend on getting my teeth into it nonetheless.

It’s the novel, also known as Reijo’s romance. Having committed to finishing the first draft before tackling something newer and shinier, I’ve been tapping away at it of late and have discovered some wondrous things about my mysterious heroine. I knew very little of her when I started. Four years later, she was still baffling. It’s true what they say – creativity feeds on itself. Only by focusing intently on Jannika’s part of the story have I discovered who she truly is. A general idea has evolved into a complex but very real young woman who is struggling to understand …

No spoilers allowed, especially as the series preceding this volume remains unpublished. Learning what I’ve learned about Nika, however, has given my writing holiday a greater purpose than simply not going to work. Now I have something to accomplish and I’m excited about it. Yup, rewriting a bunch of already written stuff has never looked so inviting. So, first thing on Monday morning, I’ll be camped at the Moka House with an Asian Mist and my scribbly journal, making helter-skelter notes to help with my mission of tightening up weaker scenes and revisiting the ones that work to ensure continuity. Once I’ve cleaned up the preliminaries, I should be able to write nonstop to a happy ending.

Me, write a happy ending? Hey, everything is possible.

Year of the Vampire

Back in 1976, my older sister brought home a paperback novel called Interview with the Vampire. A fifteen-year-old Ru read it and it changed her world. Anne Rice’s vampires did what Bram Stoker’s could not—they made the night sexy and romantic and tragic and gorgeous. The story was Louis’, but Lestat stole the show.

Walking through the mall in 1985, I spied a display of hardcovers in the bookshop, each titled The Vampire Lestat. Apparently, the villain in Interview had captured more souls than mine, and while it took Anne Rice a decade to publish the sequel, it was worth the wait. Her writing inspired me to pattern my own style after hers; oft accused of indulging in “purple prose”, she painted scenery and sensation like no one else I’d read. I wanted to paint the pictures in my head with the same robust strokes, employing the same air-brushed hyperbole to burnish the end result. I read each successive volume of The Vampire Chronicles (The Tale of the Body Thief remains my favourite), but hopped off the bandwagon when Ms. Rice veered off to tell stories of ghosts, witches and werewolves. I admit, fascinating as the other creatures of the night may be, vampires top my food chain.

This past year, Ms. Rice returned to the vampire world with Prince Lestat—I am nearly finished devouring my copy (thanks, Ter!), and once again, my imagination has been fired by the beauty in liberating darkness. The ultimate predator, armed with preternatural allure and indomitable will, the vampire does more than inhabit that darkness. He owns it.

Over the past twenty years, I’ve written a slew of my own vampires, each from a wholly different world and possessed of entirely unique and individual personality. Each of my top three exists in his own nocturnal sphere that, like parallel dimensions, operates side by side with, but doesn’t cross over into, the others. I recently had the brilliant idea of bringing them together for a writing exercise, but every one of them wanted to know why he should oblige me.

Except Black, of course. Black flatly refused … which opened the floor to his arch-nemesis, Raymond de Haven, but still, with Julian reluctant and Darius plainly unconvinced, my great idea seems doomed. Unless they have something to say, none of them will cooperate. I guess it’s a sign of pure character development that I can’t make my vamps do my bidding. Apparently I work for them …

… as it should be.

Not Your Average Joe

the coveted Christmas prezzie

He’s on my radar once more—Aerosmith’s inimitable lead guitarist, known predominantly throughout the rock world as “Mister Joe Perry.” After 15 years of radio silence, I saw his autobiography on a shelf at the bookstore and stopped so abruptly that, had I been on the highway, I’d have caused a multi-vehicle pileup.

My heart did that crazy swoopy thing that hearts do when something too deep to reach is touched.

I dropped a five-ton hint on Ter, and if the book wasn’t beneath the tree on Christmas morning, I’d have gone out on Boxing Day to get it myself. (Sneaky Ter—she fooled my nosy fingers with a copy of Prince Lestat and disguised Rocks as a big square something wrapped in Nutcracker-themed paper. She knows.)

There was a time when I owned an extensive collection of Aerosmith albums. I even persuaded Ter to accompany me to a live show during the Get a Grip tour—the scariest crowd I’ve ever been a part of, but seeing the man himself made the risk worthwhile. He was in his prime at the time, when I believed that a man is at his best in his mid-to-late-30s. Mr. Perry was actually in his early 40s, challenging my parameters with flowing black hair and those long, smooth muscles. And he has aged in typically uncompromising style: he turned 64 on September 10 and still commands a third look.

So, what gives? I no longer have my Aerosmith albums, nor did I hang onto the band bio I devoured in the 1990s. I thought that he and I were done, that the affair was over. Gods are irreplaceable, of course, but even the vampire he sired has lain silent for almost two decades.

At one time, I considered him a strictly hormonal crush. Now I am unsure. Now I suspect a connection on some other level, a memory from another life in another world. It’s possible. It’s actually probable, given what I’m learning about how souls are but satellites of the mothership. I suppose it could be as simple as biological hardwiring, but if the appeal was purely physical, I doubt I’d care to do anything more than mate with him. This is not so. Not purely, anyway.

Rocks has jumped the queue to next in line after I finish my annual holiday wallow in The Night Circus. I am certain that it will be a fascinating read and reveal no common ground between him and me (except that we’re both Virgos). I am unlikely to buy any more Aerosmith albums, and when he played Victoria with his spinoff band a couple of years ago, I wasn’t the least bit tempted to get tickets … though I did get some cool pics of the tour bus.

What mystifies me is the crazy swoopy heart thing caused by someone I have not and will not meet. I may not know him, but I recognize him. Was he a lord in a previous life? Definitely. Was he my lord? I doubt it. All I can say is that he was on my radar before radar existed and he’s come around again.

It’s a deliciously, creatively compelling mystery, one that has borne fruit in the past and may signal something that I, as a writer, have been avoiding for more than a year. If Joe Perry is back, then Marcel de Chauvigny is sure to follow … and his is a story I don’t want to write.

“Adversaries” (Preface)

Fast forward a year from Character Sketch and see where he-of-the-coke-and-classic-red-Camaro finds himself.

Rob Browning is a man on the edge, a pretty boy with deadly skill and a deadlier secret. In other words, he’s my kind of man. My first look at him was through Cassandra Stannard’s eyes. She’s the POV protagonist in my urban vampire series; the story is hers, but each segment began with a general narrative that hints at what is coming. Tomorrow’s post, as Character Sketch was for volume 3, was the prologue for volume 4, and by then the story was rolling headlong into disaster for my star-crossed lovers.

Volume 4 remains unfinished.

Since the FF novel has stalled until further notice, I’m committed to update Cassie’s story over the winter and see what comes of it. A lot will change, but the basic premise remains the same because it’s my crack at urban fantasy. It’s a rare case where I know the outcome before the beginning; for once I’ll be writing backward from the ending. It feels weird just saying that, so I can only imagine how it’ll feel in practice. I’m toying with the idea of writing scenes independently and stringing them together once I have enough to build a frame, but we’ll see. Time enough for planning anon. In the meantime, scenes like Adversaries may pop up on CR because I promised myself I’d post samples of my work and I’m really quite proud of my broken hero with the poet’s name.

Enjoy.