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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Ann Rice

[Vampire Month] The sun rises

31 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

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Ann Rice, Gods of the Deep, Photography, Rachel Caine, Transitions, Vampire


Gods of the DeepWell, it has been a more erratic Vampire month than usual this year, scheduling hiccups and my time being eaten up by that vampire that is work. However, despite all that we managed to pull it off and release a limited Vampire month line up on time. I hope you enjoyed this year’s offerings and come back next year to see what we have in store for you then.

As a photographer I have obviously been exploring vampires quite a bit recently and I intend to keep up that interest. There is also the possibility that I might be thinking about looking at Vampires in fiction. If I get a good idea for a story involving vampires I may delve into it and see what comes out. I do feel that Helen, my hero from Transitions and Transformations, is overdue an encounter with a blood sucking fiend of the night. After all, she has bested the ghost of a Roman soldier and been almost seduced by a shapeshifting Fey so how will she cope with a charming older being? Or maybe Everyn from Gods of the Deep might meet one… I will be sure to keep you all informed of any developments.

In the meantime, if you know someone who should be featured in Vampire month, feel free to let me know. We welcome any and all applicants. Just be aware, Ann Rice and Rachel Caine get first dibs…

See you all next year!

 

 

 

[Vampire Month] Lucy Felthouse interview

24 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

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Ann Rice, Interview, Lestat, Lucy Felthouse, Vampire Month


Today the Vampire Interrogator entertains Lucy Felthouse with fiendish conundra about her writing, her life and whether her character could defeat Lestat.

What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?Lucy Felthouse Vampire writer

 

As a child I was an avid reader, and was often described as always having my nose in a book. This translated through to a love of writing. When I learned to write, I then started making up stories and putting them down in notebooks. It was so long ago that I literally can’t remember what I wrote about, but given one of my most read authors was Enid Blyton, it was probably along the lines of fairies, imps and magic. I really wish I had those notebooks now—I think it’d be both fascinating and cringe-worthy to see what I wrote about.

When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

 

I didn’t really decide. It just kind of happened. I first wrote an erotic story on a dare, and discovered I enjoyed it. A couple more naughty stories down the line and I plucked up the courage to submit one to a magazine. It was accepted—and they paid me! From then, I was hooked.

What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

My greatest strength is probably producing nice, clean manuscripts for my various editors. My greatest weakness is getting distracted. I find it incredibly difficult to work if there’s noise around me. So when I seriously need to knuckle down, I close the curtains, put in earplugs and shut out the world.

Cosplay romance by Lucy FelthouseTell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

 

Not specifically where I live. Nothing exciting ever happens around here. Or certainly nothing worth writing about. As for places I visit, a huge yes! Places I’ve visited are probably some of my biggest influences. I’ve written about places I visit on day trips, or weekends or longer holidays. The Peak District, London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, New York City… the list goes on, and on…

Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

 

I wouldn’t say a specific book has ever influenced me. I just write whatever comes into my head. In terms of inspiration, again, I haven’t been inspired by particular books—more inspired when reading awesome books to create my own and hope that people read them and enjoy them.

What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I’ve long been a fan of paranormal books and films, so it was a natural topic for me to tackle.

What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

 

I suspect escapism is a big part of it. Stories might be set in a recognisable world, but at the same time, when you’re talking about supernatural creatures, it’s completely different to real life, so there’s a level of disconnect from reality.

In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

 

Hmm… I think it’s a toss-up between Dracula and Lestat.

What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

 

For both sexiness and dress sense, it’d be Lestat.

How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

 

Terribly. He’s Lestat, after all!

Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 

My latest release is novella length, and isn’t a paranormal story. I write a huge variety of stuff. Paranormal is just part of it 😉

So my latest book, A Different Kind of Cosplay is an erotic romance novella based on a guy trying to do something special for his girlfriend’s birthday. She’s incredibly difficult to buy for, so he ends up coming up with something pretty wacky. I don’t want to say too much more and give the game away, but let’s just say the title is a pretty big hint.

Bio:

Lucy Felthouse is the award-winning author of erotic romance novels Stately Pleasures (named in the top 5 of Cliterati.co.uk’s 100 Modern Erotic Classics That You’ve Never Heard Of, and an Amazon bestseller), Eyes Wide Open (winner of the Love Romances Café’s Best Ménage Book 2015 award, and an Amazon bestseller) and The Persecution of the Wolves. Including novels, short stories and novellas, she has over 150 publications to her name. She owns Erotica For All, and is one eighth of The Brit Babes. Find out more about her writing at http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk, or on Twitter or Facebook. Sign up for automatic updates on Amazon or BookBub. You can also subscribe to her monthly newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

 

 

http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/a-different-kind-of-cosplay/

[Vampire Month] Rose Jones interview

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

A word in your ear, Ann Rice, Bath, Dracula, Greek Myth, guest posts, HG Wells, House of Lillith, Moonlight, Paul Gallico, Prague, Randall and Hopkirk (deceased), Rose Jones, Rose Senior, Shades, Snow Goose, White Thorn


Our next victim is Rose Jones, author of the Shades series among other things. Rose is currently the fourth and therefore last victim our vampiric interviewer has lined up this year, though there were rumblings of a fifth person who had caught our attention… whether our interviewer manages to catch that person before the end of the month remains to be seen… if not we can leave them hanging in the pantry for next year.

41toqhyyppl-_ux250_

 

  • What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

 

I still have notebooks from my Primary School days where I wrote stories about time travel at about age seven. My first published piece was a poem in a school magazine when I was eleven, about rainbows and thunderstorms.

  • When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

 

I’ve spent too much time keeping my writing to myself. I think at some point to have to publish somewhere, just to stop tweaking and re-tweaking a project. Like a painter, if you spend too much time messing with the composition you can ruin it. Besides, I like to share. Story telling is all about sharing isn’t it? Making some money out of it would be nice too, but that’s not why I write.

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

As a teenager around 13, I wrote two scripts for my then favourite TV show (Randall & Hopkirk Deceased) – I thought I could do as well, if not better than one particular scriptwriter on the show. I think that ever since then my main strength has been in dialogue. I hate writing long exposition and tedious descriptions and I prefer not to dump long words that make you reach for the dictionary! I like to keep things simple and put in just enough to let the reader form their own world from my words.

I think my greatest weakness is dwelling on criticisms and procrastinating too much. Writing is a very personal thing; well it is for me; but I have learned to harden myself to at least constructive criticism. We need to understand how others see our work and it’s an important part of the writer’s journey. We can’t grow unless we learn and we can’t learn unless we can accept criticism. Procrastination is something I’m still working on!

  • Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

 

I live in a small town between Bristol and Bath in the UK. I haven’t really used my home environment as inspiration, but I have used past experiences and places where I have been on holiday. Sometimes I pick a location just because I want to get some spatial awareness of it for a project – such as Prague for my current project, White Thorn. I’m looking forward to seeing if it got it right in Savannah, for my Shades plotline. As a geographer and a historian I think it’s important to maintain spatial continuity and research your material well enough to avoid the major faux pas. Quite often I find that researching a place or a time gives me ideas to advance the story I’m working on. It’s one of the good reasons to side track and procrastinate!

  • Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

 

51cc7ly30ol-_sx331_bo1204203200_Difficult question as there isn’t just one. As a child I absorbed the Greek myths and Arabian Nights and the various fairy stories. I also loved the Trigan Empire strips, which probably spurred on my interest in Science Fiction – along with Thunderbirds and Star Trek. My favourite book is probably Paul Gallico’s The Snow Goose and my favourite Science Fiction book is HG Wells’ The Invisible Man. When I write SF, it tends not to be hard science, but soft, psychological issues. I like using mythology and SF to play with ideas that plague us in the modern world. It gives you a different perspective.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I’ve always been interested in mythology and the supernatural and I went through a phase in my youth where I read everything I could about ghosts and spirits. Liminal spaces and metaphysics fascinate me. Playing with ideas in fiction is a way to try and get a handle on these slippery issues.

As for vampires, I woke up one morning with a cracker of an idea involving a character who might be seen as one. I wrote it down real quick as the detail of dreams tend to vanish like a will o’the wisp and it’s still in my box of futures. It’ll be a cracker when I finally get round to it, but it still needs a lot more work.

I was never really interested in vampires in fiction though until the short-lived TV series Moonlight. I enjoyed the different take on the genre as I was never into horror and gratuitous bloodletting. This is still the case. In my opinion, there always has to be a reason for someone to behave the way they do. When the show was cancelled, I decided to try my hand at writing in the genre with a similar sympathetic vein (!) and in the process of research, got stuck in to all the vampire fiction out there to see where mine might fit and to try and provide something different. I read the good, the bad and the atrocious, the classical and the modern, but in the absence of much ‘factual’ evidence, I found out how writers had manipulated the mythology for their own purposes. I have now followed suit and done the same myself.

  • What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

 

It’s the lure of immortality and how we might cope with it. It’s how we deal with otherness and the scope of time. In some areas, like the JR Ward Black Dagger Brotherhood, and its knock offs, it’s definitely the sex. For me it’s how you cope with desire and how you learn to fit in with a world that is different from you. The genre appeals to young adults because for teenagers, it’s a time of change in their lives, of feeling alienated, of having feelings and emotions they might have difficulty controlling or expressing. They also feel as if they’re immortal.

I personally like the vampire novels that have a historical flashback element. You can see the past through their eyes, as well as their present. A previous favourite show/film was Highlander, which did this really well. The immortals in that are similar to vampires, but they’re not bloodsuckers. Another current favourite is the Outlander series (books and TV – no vampires, but the person out of time trope and the history hopping is similar)

  • In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

 

In the literary realm, I still don’t think you can beat Dracula, but Marcus in Ann Rice’s books, rates up there, as does Yarbro’s Count St Germain. I also like Matthew in Deborah Harkness’s All Souls trilogy, Henry in Blood Ties and the Charlaine Harris books (but not the TV series). TV it has to be Mick St John and Eric Northman (So sue me, I made an exception to the True Blood, but then he was my favourite in the books too).

  • What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

 

Are we talking vampires or me here? As Mick St John said in Moonlight ‘perpetual coolness is the vampires’ curse’. I just dress for comfort, but try to be quirky where I can. Sexiness – that’s none of your business! As for sexy vampires, it’s Mick and Eric for me.

  • How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

 

They’d definitely kick ass whoever they were up against. After all, some of them have managed to survive for thousands of years. My male protagonist is a newbie, but he’s learning and being taught by the best. He has a conscience, but that’s not going to stop him surviving and protecting the people he loves.

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel. 51linlhvlal-_sx258_bo1204203200_

 

White Thorn is the third novel in the Shades series, the first two being Shades and House of Lilith. The first two books interweave the story of the main protagonist and his associates with the story of the characters they play on the TV show they are making. This means that you get two completely different novels between one set of covers, linked by the actors. This gave me an opportunity to write two different versions of the vampire genre. Flashbacks with a difference! In the third book, my protagonist is still acting, but the Shades TV series is over, so the storyline is concentrated just on the problems he has to face in real life. I am hoping to eventually write the story of the film he is making, but it will be a standalone Noir novella.

At the beginning of this third novel, my protagonist, Alex Keating, is still coming to terms with the fallout from events in House of Lilith, as well as with his new life as a vampire. The story picks up from the end of the last book which ended with him and his ancient vampire wife, Lilith going to visit the others of her kind. He then comes back to a new filming project and has to get back to pretending he’s a normal human. He and his assistant, Annabel, go off to Prague to film a cold war drama.

Alex hopes that his life will settle down after the excitement of his first year as a vampire, but it seems trouble can be found in Eastern Europe, not least from his mortal co star, who seems determined to get him in her bed. The filming does not run smoothly and he is running out of blood supplies, due to delays on the production and a rogue vampire who seems to have an agenda of his own. This results in Alex being staked by a vampire-killing priest and rescued by another of his kind who is known for writing historical fiction. Together they hunt for a vampire serial killer who is murdering women in the city. Alex finds that real life seems determined to overshadow his acting yet again. The denouement of the story happens with a fight to the death on a rain soaked night on the roof of St Vitus Cathedral. There are flashbacks in this novel, but this time they give the reader the back story of the serial killer.

 

Bio:

Rose has been putting pen to paper and fingers to keyboard all her adult life. She lives near Bath, UK with her ‘rocket scientist’ husband and a house full of books and quirky stuff. She considers herself to be a recorder of moments in time and is a keen photographer as well as a writer. The picture for the covers of her books were taken by her. She has a Masters in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and a love of all things mythological, paranormal, really ancient and really futuristic. She loves to travel, both in body and mind. She doesn’t really mind where, so long as it’s interesting and there’s something to learn.

Listen to two of Rose’s short stories as performed by actors from Word in Your Ear  in Bath at these links:

http://www.awordinyourear.org.uk/storyfridayarchive/story-fridays-harvest/

http://www.awordinyourear.org.uk/storyfridayarchive/black-sheep-2/

 

[Vampire Month] Martin Tracey interview

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

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Ann Rice, Beneath the Floodlights, Birmingham, Brad Pitt, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Lestat, Martin Tracey, Sutton Park, Tom Cruise


The third victim for Vampire month this year is Martin Tracey, author of Beneath the Floodlights, a book combining Vampires with Football (that’s Soccer for our American readers). Here he answers the questions and Wednesday he entertains us with a blog post.

1) What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

As a young schoolboy I won 2 back to back national story writing competitions, one was about the dangers of playing on building sites and the other was keeping safe when crossing the road. The latter saw me creating a magic ice cream van which appeared like a superhero offering safety advice, so from an early age I was destined to write about supernatural elements.103_0397
2) When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

My debut novel Beneath the Floodlights was released in 2011 and it was vampire themed. Building on my answer to question 1, my writing creativity evolved into song writing and becoming a pop star was more on my agenda than becoming an author. I had some musical success via supporting the Fine Young Cannibals & securing my song Raging Bull on the album Old Gold Anthems – The Songs of Wolves, but then as ‘stardom’ seemed to be passing me by as I reached the ripe old age of 30 plus, I remembered the story writing success of my younger years and that famous cliché ‘everyone has a book inside them’. However, I haven’t stopped at one book because I simply love the novel writing process.

3) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

My greatest strengths are: working within a framework rather than a rigid plan which enables me to explore many twists and turns and subplots in order to keep the reader engaged; writing in a style that comes over as honest and therefore believable even when writing about the paranormal – I have a knack of telling great stories as opposed to being a literary genius like the ‘classic’ writers of yesteryear. My weakness is definitely trying to devote enough time to my craft. Other writers are far more prolific with their output than I am, and I find juggling life with writing extremely challenging. I am trying to discipline myself to find more time.

41grui6y21l-_sx311_bo1204203200_4) Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I live in Birmingham and Birmingham and the surrounding areas feature heavily in my books. In Beneath the Floodlights I use Sutton Park as the training base for the footballers and I have the world’s first vampire buried there. Sutton Park is centuries old and soaked in history. It is amazing to think that this piece of unspoilt land is in Birmingham, but such historical points to note are King Henry VIII using the land to hunt deer and a Roman road still exists within the park. Both references are utilised in Beneath the Floodlights.

5) Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

That’s a tough one. Not the book itself but more the concept around the book and its character has inspired me which is Dracula by Bram Stoker. Sorry to be a bit obvious there but if writing about vampires its influence can’t be ignored, much like the influence of The Beatles can’t be ignored in the music world. A vampire book that I also found inspiring is The Travelling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon. In terms of inspiring authors, I like Peter James as he manages to weave supernatural elements into very believable and entertaining stories, Martina Cole for her straight-talking style and Dan Brown for leading the way for mixing fact with fiction. All of these authors can be seen as inspiring my work.
6) What drove you to write about Vampires?

Since an early age I’ve always been fascinated by werewolves, ghosts and of course vampires. My original idea for Beneath the Floodlights was to use werewolves but then I felt that vampires had more scope with the plot and the two films of The Lost Boys and From Dusk till Dawn were a huge inspiration

7) What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

That’s a great question and perhaps a very subjective debate could be had. However, for 000_0003 (2)me I think it opens up temptation in the mind. ‘Lust’ and even ‘Love’ seem to always be connected to the ‘sexy’ vampires and the reader falls into that world of, ‘well I shouldn’t but I probably would!’ There is a magnetic quality about vampires -they have the X Factor.

8) In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

Count Dracula. Bram Stoker’s creation set it all in motion so respect is due.

9) What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

I think Anne Rice created something a bit different with her vampires so her vampires win in that department for me. After all Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt played her vampires in Interview with The Vampire. Le Stat is a cool creation. Enough said!

10) How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

Professor Cezar Prodanescu would give the Count a run for his money. Cezar is from the bloodline of original master vampires. He is wise, cruel, manipulative, magnetic and good at what he does – killing for blood and recruiting for his vampire nest.

11) Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

I’m giving vampires a rest for now. The project I’m currently working on is a haunted house novel. A failing rock star buys a haunted house in the Peak District. Mind you I may yet weave a vampire into the mix!

Biography:

Martin Tracey is an author who likes to push the boundaries of reality. Weaving fact with fiction he likes to explore elements of the supernatural but aims to keep his novels relatable, ensuring that he is able to connect with the reader in a gripping fashion. Martin has had several interviews to showcase his work on BBC radio and attended several book signing events. A short story, Divine Inspiration was published in Words magazine. Martin’s first novel Beneath The Floodlights remarkably brought together the worlds of vampires and soccer. Martin Tracey lives in Birmingham and is married with 2 daughters.

Website:

www.martintracey.co.uk

Blog:

https://martintracey.wordpress.com/

twitter:

https://twitter.com/martintracey1

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Martin-Tracey-Author-162311767171904/

Amazon page:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Martin-Tracey/e/B009ANTBWG/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1456595773&sr=1-1

Beneath the Floodlights on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BENEATH-THE-FLOODLIGHTS-MARTIN-TRACEY-ebook/dp/B005FQK84M/ref=pd_sim_sbs_351_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=413Swz0eCuL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR100%2C160_&refRID=03AJDW4AZYEPXYMXEEHR

 

 

[Vampire Month] Ambrose Hall Interview

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Albert Camus, Ambrose Hall, Ann Rice, Dracula, Joseph Conrad, Lestat, Love is the Cure, Narnia, Raymond Chandler, Robin Hood, Vampires, Wuthering Heights


Our second victim in the Vampire Month interrogation chair is Ambrose Hall… find out more about their life in the questions that follow…

  • What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

 

I did a lot of writing and drawing as a kid. I think most of my writing was fantastical orBFD Wool Exchange magical in some way. I remember being obsessed with witches, as well as Narnia and Robin Hood. I think I was a bit of a goth, even then. I had a secret magic club in my mum’s garden shed, which I shared with my friend. I wrote a lot of poems as a kid, and in my teens, but I’ve lost my bottle for it as an adult.

  • When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

 

I studied English and media with the intention of writing professionally, in journalism or political communication, but graduated during a recession, so I ended up teaching instead. By my mid-thirties, I’d done a lot of jobs that I hadn’t really found very rewarding. I wanted to do something that was creatively and intellectually stimulating. Then I had a family crisis, which caused me to take stock of a lot of things. As I needed to take a break from working anyway, I had a chance to reassess what I wanted to do with my life, and I started putting a lot of time into my writing. It’s still early days. Hopefully this will work out, as I feel like I’ve finally found something I love.

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

I’m good at coming up with ideas, and I can be very focused when I want to be. In the past, I was a terrible perfectionist, and found it very difficult to get useful critical distance from my work. I joined an online writing community, which has helped me a lot with learning to revise and edit my work, and getting that critical perspective I need.

  • Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

 

I live in Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire at the moment. I’ve not really lived here very long, so I don’t think it’s had a chance to get under my skin yet. I originally come from Bradford, in West Yorkshire. Being surrounded by post-industrial decay, and the remains of a Victorian boom, has definitely influenced my gothic tendencies. I’m fairly obsessed with the idea of decay, and write dystopian fiction, as well as gothic. I worked on a dystopian noir novel last year, set in Bradford. I’m just trying to shop it round agents at the moment. I’d say the Yorkshire countryside has influenced me as well: the ruggedness of it, and of course, people going mad on moors, Wuthering Heights style.

Love is the Cure is set in London. I’ve got a bit of a love/hate relationship with the city, as a northerner, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time there over the years. It’s a place of extremes, which suited this story.

  • Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

 

loveiscrowtreeI’ve taken influences from a lot of places. I’m a pretty avid reader. My biggest influences are probably Chandler, Camus and Conrad. Heart of Darkness is definitely an important one for me. I love empty spaces, howling holes and rotten hearts in stories, and characters that are strangers to their emotions.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I played a lot of vampire roleplay games in my late teens and early twenties, so the genre is one I’ve always been interested in, but I avoided writing vampires for a long time, for fear of churning out something derivative. Then a friend in my writing group suggested a Halloween vampire challenge, so I thought I’d give it a go. It was great fun seeing all the very different takes on vampires. I started out with a short story, but it kept growing. Soon enough I had a six part novella, told from different points of view. I got really into the challenge of portraying the very different voices, with their different historical influences and personalities.

  • What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

 

I suppose, as gothic monsters, they represent our fears and desires, and those can come out in different ways, depending on the writer. The idea of human monsters is a fascinating one—vampires allow us to explore a lot of different facets of humanity and morality. They tend to be larger than life characters, so you can amp everything up to an almost mythic level of intensity. Immortality is both attractive and tragic, and something that people have written stories about as long as people have written stories. One huge advantage of these potentially very old characters is it gives writers an excuse to plunder history for goodies.

  • In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

 

I have a feeling it would be Dracula. He’s the original badass, and he’s so steeped in violence. He’s also completely ruthless.

  • What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

 

Anne Rice’s Lestat. He’s a pretty irresistible bad boy.

LestatandLouis-1

Ann Rice’s Bad Boy, Lestat De Lioncourt

 

  • How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

 

I have two very ancient vampires in Love is the Cure, and they’re both powerful. Bren, who is first introduced as the Crow King, reads others’ minds like they’re open books. He’s amoral, and takes whatever he wants from people without much thought. He embodies death and decay, and patriarchal arrogance. His one time lover, Ena, is very different. She’s the spirit of fire and anarchy. She’s more moral than Bren, but she’s trapped in a cycle of vengeance. I think either of them would give Dracula a run for his money, if they stopped fighting each other.

Only one of my vampires, Sebastian, is concerned with appearance, but he’s also a little stuck in the 1920s. His mortal days represent a golden time for him. Based on reader feedback so far, he seems to be most popular character. I had a lot of fun writing him. He’s a bit of a fop, extremely arrogant, and with a taste for re-enacting Hellenic myths.

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 

Love is the Cure is a six part novella, told from different points of view. Although the different fragments fit together to tell a story, it’s unified more by common themes. I explore how the very different vampires cope, or don’t cope, with immortality, as well as ideas about power and consent. At the heart of the story is Kerrick, a vampire created in the late Victorian period. He had a particularly violent creation, and still bears the emotional scars from that. He’s desperately lonely, but his own violent nature always acts as a barrier to finding companionship. In trying to keep his newly created child alive, he stumbles into an ancient feud between Bren and Ena.

There were a few things I wanted to do with the story. I wanted to explore the idea of these creatures all being monsters of one kind or another, however human they were, or appeared to be. I was interested in the idea of them being locked in cycles of behaviour, determined by their creation. I wanted to be conscious of the way their power is exorcised, as a few people had said to me that one of the things which made them uncomfortable about some vampire fiction is that vampiric powers are used as a way to override or dismiss the need for consent. So I decided to try and confront that idea head-on. One of the main bones of contention between Bren and Ena is that he takes without asking.

It’s not all serious. I’ve played around with ancient mythology, and history, in some pretty cheeky ways. Although it’s not paranormal romance, it’s very homoerotic. Most of the characters are unambiguously gay or bisexual, which I guess is my antidote to the lack of pay-off during my teenage years reading Anne Rice. It’s definitely larger than life. I wanted to show extremes, from petty criminals and rent boys, to baroque splendour and depraved aristocracy. One of my early readers said the story made them think of Caravaggio. I guess that’s a win.

Biography

Ambrose Hall is a speculative and literary fiction writer who currently lives in the South East of England. He originally comes from Bradford, in West Yorkshire, where he fell in love with gothic decay and wild moors. Ambrose has had flash fiction published in Crannog and A cappella Zoo magazines, and recently published a gothic vampire novella, Love is the Cure, available on Amazon. You can find out more about his work, and read some free short stories here: https://mrvolpone.wordpress.com/

This is the link to my book on Amazon UK: Buy Love is the Cure on Amazon

[Vampire Month] Here we go again…

01 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ann Rice, Dracula, R.A Smith, Rachel Caine, Vampire, Vampire Month, Vampires, writing


Another year, another Vampire month. This feature is like the mythical creature it is named after, difficult to keep down. It certainly seems one of my more popular features with several articles from past years cropping up in my views stats on a regular basis. So, until such time as I run out of author/artist/academic victims to mercilessly interrogate in my spikey Vampire Month Questioning Chair, we won’t be putting a stake into this feature or serving the garlic sauce. Especially not after the wonderful R.A Smith (who I finally allowed to feature in last year’s event) said he was jealous of it…Vampire

Also, I am still waiting patiently for Ann Rice or Rachel Caine to get in touch…

For those new to this feature, Vampire month is where we dedicate the whole of March to all things Vampire. The usual format is to give over a week each to four people with an interest in Vampires and in that week two posts are produced. One is an interview so you can learn all about them, the second is a guest post on the topic of their choice. You can browse the previous years to see what has been posted before (just type Vampire Month in the little search box above) and prepare yourself for a month of interesting posts and interviews.

As ever it is never really possible to predict the response to the call for posts I put out. Sometimes I despair of filling all the slots (though managed it somehow every year so far) whereas others I end up with more than I need. This year seems to be the latter as there are (at the last count) five authors on our line up… so there may have to be some wrangling of the normal schedule to fit them all in… Stay tuned to find out who they are and what they have to offer us.

[Vampire Month] A stake in the heart

30 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A.J Campbell, Alex Campbell, Ann Rice, Bram Stoker, Jennifer Ponce, R.A Smith, Terry Pratchett, Vampire apocalypse, Vampire Month


Waiting for Dawn

Well, that is Vampire Month over with for another year. I’d like to extend my thanks to all the talented writers who have contributed to the fun this month and made this the very special event that it always is.

I’d also like to thank Ste and Izzy of Quattrofoto for supplying some of the photos we have showcased this year including the lovely one above of me as a Buffy style Watcher. They do weddings and other special occasions too and promise to only add lightening bolt special effects and demon horns to your wedding memories if you ask them to.

We’ve learned a lot this year. How to date a vampire, why they are so appealing, a little of the history of Vampire literature and why Alex Campbell rarely gets any sleep (because of all the famous vampires knocking on her window). I was going to contribute a post of my own to add to this collection but frankly I’m in awe and would feel out of place amongst such great articles. Also, the evil time goblins stole all my free hours. Oh and I did my Pratchett obituary and revealed how this blog helped stop the vampire apocalypse, so that was sort of my slot anyway.

Vampire month will be back next year. Same Vamp month, same Vamp url. If you want to get involved, feel free to contact me. We accept contributions from any writers, artists or academics with an interest in the topic of vampires. The format rarely changes – an interview and a guest post, spread over the course of a week. Four victims a year, repeat offenders welcome. First four to contact me get the four slots.

Also get in touch if you want to make suggestions about how to make Vampire month even more awesome than it already is. Suggestions for article topics feedback on posts… anything you want to talk about. You can email me on: dalascelles-writing@yahoo.co.uk, leave a comment below or find me on Facebook or twitter

I’m still waiting for Ann Rice, Rachel Caine or Bram Stoker to get in touch… Though Stoker is proving very difficult to contact for some reason. He doesn’t even seem to have a Twitter account…

[Vampire Month] R.A Smith Interview

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Ann Rice, Dracula, Grenshall Manor chronicles, Lestat, London, Manchester, Oblivion Storm, R.A Smith, True Blood, Vampire, Vampire Month


This week we have R.A Smith in the chair, being expertly probed with Vampire mesmerism and ‘love bites’. He is the author of the Grenshall Manor series of books. Oblivion Storm and Primal Storm are out now and he is currently working on book 3 which also has Storm in the title but I am not going to reveal it in full yet…

R.A Smith at the 2014 World Book Night at FAB cafe

R.A Smith at the 2014 World Book Night at FAB cafe

What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

A solid memory comes from an English class, in which I got the best news ever in that our assignment was simply, “Write a story.” Not being a hugely keen on homework pupil, but brimming with ideas, I went away and worked on one for just about the entirety of the weekend. There were aliens involved, is about all I can remember, and it was in secondary school. We got back in on the Monday and our teacher happened to be in a bad mood, and decided, at length, to give the entire class a dressing-down. He spent longer with some of us than others, however, and I was called out in front of the entire class for having written “seven sides of rubbish.” To this day, I haven’t forgotten. I tend to remember harder when I need motivation the most.

When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

A combination of unemployment and some unfinished business from my M.A. course got me started with what eventually became Oblivion Storm. It was a strange thing to be busier in out-of-work patches than I have been in 9-5 days, but set me on a path from which I’ve never truly stopped.

What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

I think I have two big strengths: a love for writing a good action scene and a willingness to continue to learn new things about my craft. I love working out action scenes work and putting them into action. On the second point, I like the ‘research’ elements of reading in multiple genres, watching films and listening to songs and finding inspiration in these things. Sometimes it is a simple, “how would/should I approach this?” and other times just an appreciation of how wonderful a scene/character is to me.

Weakness? As usual, these things tie into strengths nicely. I can struggle for focus in slower scenes which are nonetheless essential either for exposition or another story purpose. You know the bits where things aren’t really happening but a conversation, flashback or even a painting which happens to be important to the tale can just feel like a grind at times. I handle it the same way as I do any other scene though, try and bring myself into the atmosphere a little with music or other ambience (within reason). Or, you know, I just double up on writing session snacks.

Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I currently reside in Manchester, but was born in Croydon, much further south in England. My home town has definitely had a part in my work before—specifically, a pub I grew up passing just about every day called The Half Moon. It closed down years ago but that actually kind of made it all the more useful for a fictional urban fantasy section. It was as it was rather than as I remembered it, having been way too young to go into it when it actually existed! There’s another venue before my time, a much more famous one, that I will be incorporating into my WIP, but its exact geography is almost a point in itself…

As for Manchester, well, it’s where Kara, an ever-present in the Grenshall Manor Chronicles so far, hails from. It’s another I’m hoping to delve into a little further in the next work.

Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

This is what I like to call an evolving question. It’s amazing how I’ll change my answer to this from one week to the next, or depending upon where I am, who I’m talking to and/or what about. Because this is Vampire week, and because it comes up a lot, I’m going to choose Bram Stoker’s Dracula here. Just how much has been spawned from this one book? I find it incredible, and very inspiring.

What drove you to write about Vampires?

I’m kind of cheating here, in that I haven’t officially released a vampire novel as such. I have a scruffy manuscript at home on an idea I really want to come back to and develop one day, but I’m not ready to make it what I want to yet. It has very much been a spin-off tale from the Dracula universe though, I can tell you that much.

That said, certain aspects of the vampire novel live in certain Grenshall Manor Chronicles characters, in particular Lady Mary Grenshall and Aurelia Raine. They are very opposite sides of the coin in their inspiration though, with Raine’s main traits very firmly entrenched in the predatory aspects that only an adversary with her resources can. Wealth, status and access to raw supernatural power make her a foe to be reckoned with in Oblivion Storm.

The new cover of Oblivion Storm

Mary’s own power is as much a curse as a blessing, which I very much equate to the vampire’s necessity for blood to survive. It doesn’t work quite like that, and she won’t be biting necks any time soon, but in Oblivion Storm and Primal Storm, the reader will see her struggling with the significant price her powers come with. You’ll notice that if she cuts loose with everything she has, she is utterly formidable, but every power has a consequence. She can gain inhuman strength, but has to drain another mortal’s life energies by touch to do it [editor note: This is actually a good definition of a vampire – gaining power from the lifeforce of others]. She can extract memories from others by the same means, but she can’t just ditch them once she has them. If she really wants to, she is capable of raising the dead. BUT.

What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

I find vampire fiction tends to gain popularity in cycles. It is often easy to equate to current social trends, to which I must point you at one of the greatest Cracked.com articles ever written in my opinion [link here: http://www.cracked.com/article_19402_6-mind-blowing-ways-zombies-vampires-explain-america.html ]

Also, since we decided there is a genre for just about everything going from A-Z, it’s a measure of the strength of bloodsuckers in our culture (allegorical or no) that they can be found under several headings. Gothic? We were there from day one, man. Urban Fantasy? Pretty much a staple along with their hairier counterparts (and often foes). Horror? You betcha! Comedy? Sometimes. Children’s stories? Plenty. The rules may change, but the game remains the same.

In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

Despite Anne Rice’s Lestat being an epic-level vampire, I’m going to continue being a terrible Stoker fanboy and going for Dracula again. However I have the firmest possible reasoning. Count (pun intended) the number of times that Drac has been destroyed that you can recall. Now see how often he stays dead. Even BUFFY couldn’t keep him slayed! Should tell you everything!

What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Pam from True Blood. One of my favourite characters anywhere, let alone one of my favourite vampires. Her wit is sharper than any vampire’s dress sense, and those bloodsuckers are dapper as hell.

How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

I doubt most vampires would want to go anywhere near any of the self-labelled New Musketeers. However, if I had to pick a champion, Lady Mary Grenshall is any vampire’s worst nightmare. She’s poor nourishment for them for a start, and can guarantee any one of them a bad night just by turning up.

The old (first edition) cover of Oblivion Storm

The old (first edition) cover of Oblivion Storm

Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

My latest released novel is Primal Storm. It follows a year on from Oblivion Storm and shifts the focus from high-octane adventures with the undead to an action adventure in the living world—and beyond. Jennifer Winter, one of Mary’s new friends from book one, steps up to her own tale and we start with her attempting to get herself fighting fit almost a year after sustaining grievous injuries at the hands of one of the main villains there (note I am working hard to avoid spoilers to those who haven’t read Oblivion Storm). Though Jennifer, being way beyond normal human physical capability, needs to push herself a little harder. She takes up parkour and runs around London, straight into a daring robbery attempt upon the British Museum! What initially appears high-tech turns out to be something else entirely, and her interference sets her on a path which delves into her own origins, some of which she doesn’t know herself! Jennifer must endure a harsh voyage of self-discovery in an entirely new world before she and her friends can face their new enemy. Discover the prophecy of the Face of War and who or what is truly behind the robberies right here!

 

Bio

R.A. Smith

Russell is a displaced Londoner, now living in Manchester, and is writing in the hope of funding his car addiction. He lives with his girlfriend, two kittens, a small army of bears and two larger armies of miniatures.

An avid gamer, he is happy mashing buttons on a Playstation pad but happier mashing his mates in a field at weekends or slaying demons with dice, a pencil and paper.

He has held an eclectic collection of jobs, including editing a student magazine, several stints as a Tudor soldier and a mission in Moscow. He still does hold a Masters in Creative Writing, which he took to force himself to finish at least one novel. The plan worked better than expected.

Feel free to stop by on Twitter: @RASmithPSL or the blog site projectshadowlondon.wordpress.com. There’s also the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Mister.R.A.Smith.

[Vampire Month] Jen Ponce interview

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Akasha, Amazon #1, Ann Rice, Blood Curse, Blood Drunk, Deviant Miller series, Eric Northman, Faith Hunter, Hammer Horror, Jen Ponce, Jennifer Ponce, Leo Pellissier, Lesbian horror, Lestat, Nebraska, Rachel Morgan, Sookie Stackhouse, Stephen King, The Bazaar, Vampire, Yellowrock


Today we meet the first of this year’s Vampire Month authors – Jen Ponce. I first met Jen through the Dragon’s Rocketship Facebook group and am welcoming the chance to learn more about her here. You can find out more about her on http://jenniferponce.com/about-jen-ponce/

1. What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?
I wrote a lot, but the first thing I remember writing and getting an audience response from (which was epic, by the way) was a play I wrote and then performed with my Animal puppet. I was ten. I remember futzing over that little script for days, wanting it to be perfect. My older sisters (both in college), my brother-in-law, my nephew, and my mom were in the audience. I squatted behind the couch and let Animal do the talking. I remember it was a play about the Fourth of July, but I can’t remember much else about it except that my audience all laughed when they were supposed to laugh. That moment made me a writer.

JensHead
2. When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?
The moment I decided to become a professional writer was the moment I decided I was going to sit down and finish a novel. I’d written several with friends, but I’d never finished an entire book myself and I burned to do that. I set myself a goal and dangled tantalizing bait at the end: the DVD set of A & E’s Pride and Prejudice. I knew I’d never be happy with myself if I didn’t hold a book in my hands with my name on it. I knew that I wanted to be a professional writer ever since that moment I made my family laugh with something I wrote.
3. What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?
I think my greatest strength would be the ability to build suspense and my characters. I write by feel: does this chapter feel like it ends on a high note? Does this sentence feel scary? It’s kind of a weird thing but I think I’ve read so many books that the pace and rhythm of novel structure has settled into my muscle memory.

My greatest weakness would be settling into the story long enough to show what’s going on. I sometimes have a tendency to set the pace, to drive toward the end, that I forget some people like to know what the setting looks like, what the characters look like, etc. … I’ve been working on slowing down my prose long enough to settle readers firmly into the place of the book, into the physical body of the character. It helps to have writer friends with those strengths, who can point out places where my setting is thin so I can fix it. I’ve found that being more detailed is fun, though I’m still a “go go go” kind of writer.

4. Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?
I live in the Panhandle of Nebraska, which is a very homogeneous culture. Whenever I go places, I’m so grateful for diversity it’s silly. Nebraska is a beautiful place and it’s home to people with a great capacity for independence and self-sufficiency.
One place that I visited that inspired the creepy setting of one of my books, Bug Queen, was a coffer dam in Cisco, TX. It used to be the hub of all things social and fun: a gigantic pool, a small zoo, a skating rink. It was an extremely busy place … until there was no more money to keep it running. When my friend and fellow writer Kathy took me there long ago, it was a silent and eerie place. The pool water was covered with green and the remnants of one of the ladders for the diving board still jutted from the murky depths. It was the perfect spot for my alien fungus to drive its victims, to store them, and to let the fungus wriggling inside them grow.

5. Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?
That would be hard to say. I read and write in several genres. Stephen King’s It is probably one of my favorite books of all time, if I had to pick one. I am still awed by its complexity and the way he wove in the past and the present, all those characters, all those stories, into a novel that still sucks me in when I start reading it, even after many read throughs, even after all this time.

BazaarFrontCoverSkull6. What drove you to write about Vampires?
The Hammer Brothers films started me loving vampires. Those films gave me delicious nightmares when I was a kid, (and if you know me at all, you know I love nightmares—that’s where a lot of my stories come from.) The thing I always wished for was the vampire to live and was disappointed time and again that the vampire would get staked and the world would turn back to normal. Who wants normal? Love At First Bite gave me a good ending—the vampire gets the girl and they fly off into the sunset. Yay! And then the Vampire Lestat came along. If I wasn’t hooked already, I would have been. Anne Rice opened up a wider world view for me and made me hunt for more books about vampires. Some were hits and some were misses, but it was all story fodder.

7. What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?
For me, vampires are the promise of something magical. This world is so mundane that we humans are always inventing things to make it more fantastical. (Think Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy.) Why do we have these things? Why did our ancestors believe in jorogumo, fairies, daemons? Partially because there were gaps in our scientific knowledge, sure, but also because it makes life easier to think that just around the corner there could be a leprechaun we could catch to win some gold, or a genie to grant us wishes. I’ve always wanted to become a vampire and gain immortality—think of all the books I’d have time to read! Vampires give us magic and they give us sex and they give us darkness. There are things we don’t want to experience in real life that we enjoy reading about. We don’t want to murder (most of us, I hope) but we settle ourselves into the skin of a vampire main character and murder people. We relish the blood, the violence, the power, and then we go back to our fairly safe, mundane lives. Vampire fiction gives us an outlet, it’s a waking dream. Then we close the book and become human once more.

8. In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?
I’m liking Leo Pellissier, from Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series. I considered Lestat, but he does a lot of navel gazing and pondering the numinous, and I considered Akasha, but of course, Lestat does defeat her, so probably Leo. “Go Leo!”

9. What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Eric Northman from the Sookie Stackhouse series would win sexy male. (Sorry Leo and Lestat, you’re cute too.) Ivy from the Rachel Morgan series would win sexy female. I crushed on her hard the whole time I read those books. Kisten too, but my heart is still sad over him.

10. How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?
Lady Catherine would win against Leo. She is evil and sadistic and worse, it takes a specific person’s blood to even kill her. She’d have Leo’s head off and he’d be deader than a doornail in minutes. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think she was sexy though. Evil has a way of shining through and hers is a very base kind of evil.Blood Curse 2.0 Front Only

11. Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.
Blood Drunk is the sequel to Blood Curse (featuring the evil Lady Catherine.) It’s the story of Claudia, a vampire focused on revenge against Patrick Montgomery, one of three brothers who figured out how to use vampire blood to lengthen their lives without turning. She thinks him responsible for the horrors she experienced at the hands of the Marquis de Chaval. (I based him on the notorious Marquis de Sade. I figured I should get something out of the horrors I experienced reading his books. Eep.)
Before Patrick became a vampire hunter, he was a pirate, and he was the one responsible for Claudia’s husband’s death. But of course, all is not as it seems, and as the story unfolds, the truth comes to light.
The main characters of Blood Curse, Lorelei and Issala, return in this book, as do Patrick’s brothers and Lorelei’s insane twin, Morganna, who seems to be following in Lady Catherine’s dainty footsteps. I’m planning two more books, each one focusing on a different set of characters and their individual stories against the backdrop of a larger, more complicated story line. Blood Curse sat for a short while at #1 on Amazon in the lesbian horror category and it consistently sits in the top 100. Since the next book’s focus is not on Lorelei and Issala, it’ll be interesting to see how it fares.

Bio for author Jen Ponce

I’m a voracious reader and growing up, I constantly looked for heroic female characters. To my disappointment, so many of the women in the genre fiction I was reading were doormats, weak-willed, boring, incapable, or even downright dumb. That’s why my fiction features strong women. Women who are heroic, women who don’t fall in love and forget who they are, women who fight for what they believe in. If you are looking for character-rich stories that drive you relentlessly toward the big finish, then you just might like my books. Keep in mind I’m a big fan of blood and horror too. Do you like to be scared while you watch a kick ass woman save the day? My books might be just the thing to keep you up all night long.

 I’m a writer, a mother of three boys, a cat herder and zombie apocalypse aficionado. I also love vampires, so if you meet one, send ’em my way, okay? I would appreciate it.

If you’re interested in my Kick Ass Woman’s Manifesto, please visit my website here: http://jenniferponce.com/kick-ass-womans-manifesto/ and follow my blog if you like what you see.

Happy reading!

Find Jen on Facebook and Twitter

 

  

 

[Vampire Month] Megan Cashman interview

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alexander Skarsgaard, Ann Rice, Dracula, Eric Northman, Gary Oldman, Interview with the Vampire, Interviews, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Megan Cashman, The Dark Proposal, Vampire, Vampire Month


Our second Vampire month contributor is Megan Cashman, a New Yorker and former journalist turned author. She is the author of The Dark Proposal.

1)      What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

As a kid, I used to write about kids at school, and their everyday experiences. I was in first grade when I started doing all this, and I think I did it because even then I had fun creating characters. Image

2)      When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

I wanted to write a book even as a young kid. It took a long time to take that step because I had other aspirations. But when I was one of many unemployed people in the world, I decided it was a good time to finally write that book.

3)      What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

My strength is that I have good insight as to what makes people tick. I also think I write scenes that provide good visuals for my readers. My weakness is when I think I may be boring my readers, so I end up cutting parts out that may be necessary for them to understand something. I also tend to be very wordy, so I have to do a lot of editing. I try to overcome my weakness by crafting a paragraph or sentence in a way that doesn’t sound very wordy or boring to a reader. I have to keep my readers in mind when I consider cutting out words.

4)      Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I was born and raised on Staten Island, NY. It hasn’t inspired my work yet, but The Dark Proposal takes place a great deal on Staten Island. I have some future ideas that are inspired by other places I’ve lived or visited.

5)      Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

That’s hard to tell because there have been so many. I do wish to write as well as Khaled Hosseini, because his two books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are written so beautifully. They also draw you in from the very first sentence, so I hope to do the same with my books

TheDarkProposal_Final_small6)      What drove you to write about Vampires?

They are so appealing! Their immortality, their seduction, their longevity, their power, their arrogance and their fears. There’s something about a creature that lurks in the shadows that makes it more appealing than other paranormal creatures, even though they have their merit too.

 

7)      What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

It depends because there are so many different kinds of vampire stories out there. For some, vampires are the most seductive creatures. For others, they are the most frightening. But others see vampire stories as an opportunity to tell other stories as well. The film, Byzantium, comes to mind.

8)      In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

Oh boy, that’s tough. Dracula is what really brought the creature into the mainstream. Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire humanized it, and influenced vampire stories today. It’s so tough to decide.

9)      What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

I actually found Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula to be both sexy and well dressed. I think the accent helped. But hey, even Alexander Skarsgaard as Eric Northman is good competition for Oldman. Oh jeez, how can I forget Jonathan Rhys Myers as Dracula?jonathan-Rhys-Meyers-in-Dracula-nbc-ftr

10)   How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

I think Daniel Bertrand, the boyfriend to my main character, will be tough competition for all three. However, once his true nature is revealed, his sexiness plummets quickly.

11)   Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

The Dark Proposal is about a college graduate named Claire McCormick who thought she had the perfect boyfriend in Daniel Bertrand, until he reveals that he is a bloodthirsty vampire with the intent on making her one too. Frightened, she desperately tries to rid herself of him, only to painfully learn that he is too malicious to defeat. She struggles to come to terms with reality as she discovers how unstable the vampire world is in the modern age, and how some of them don’t realize how cruel Daniel is even to them. It is the first book in a trilogy, called The End of Eternity. I am working on the sequel right now, and plan to have it out later this year.

Megan Cashman is a former freelance journalist living in New York City. Always asking, “what if?” she turning toward fiction writing in order to explore our world, and many other worlds. Always analyzing and daydreaming, Megan looks forward to sharing her worlds with many others.

Blog: megancashmanbooks.wordpress.com
Twitter: @MeganCashman
Facebook: Facebook.com/megancashmanbooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6519000.Megan_Cashman
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009AL4RKE
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/276775

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  • Just entered the Ghostly competition on @PurplePort #photo #competition #PurplePort purpleport.com/competition/vi… 4 weeks ago
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