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Tag Archives: Victoria L. Szulc

What Do You Do With Forever On Your Hands? by Victoria L. Szulc

24 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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Tags

Being Human, Blade, Eternal life, Twilight, Vampire, Victoria L. Szulc, What we do in the Shadows


For her guest post, Victoria is looking at eternal life – the problems that come with it. She comes up with some interesting thoughts, though in all her discussion of stories where ‘vampires living normal lives’, she seems to have forgotten Being Human 🙂

A Wry Look a Living an Undead Life

In my own vamp series, one of my characters asks his hundreds year old friend a similar question. What do you do with too much time on your hands? Vampires, if managing to avoid the standard stake in the heart, incredible sunburn, or beheading, can live incredibly long lives. These situations make good storylines for writers of the undead.Victoria L. Szulc

Holding on to History

Can you imagine how much history a vampire has witnessed, let’s say, since the Dark Ages? Perhaps since 1200? The rise and fall of kingdoms, eras, and nations could be daunting. Is there temptation to get to involved in changing the natural course of evolution? To start or stop wars?

Witnessing the advances in energy, from horse power to steam, electricity, gas, and solar power, which they probably wouldn’t want to use, has to be challenging. Accidentally leaving a window open and having sunlight reflect off a mirror could be a last day on earth for an undead.

What about technology? Transportation for one, having to adapt from riding horses to driving cars, or heaven forbid having to use public transit? How do you not want to eat your fellow passengers? Booking only night flights could be a real challenge.

And communications? Maybe you’d pine for the days of the telegram, where if someone wanted to reach you, they’d have to go a few miles into the largest town to send you a message. Now you dread your phone blowing up from telemarketers. Would smart phones be able to read your fingerprints?

How would one handle the basic needs? How do you feed? How do you eat? In the old days, if you were wealthy, you could sleep in your castle all day, have one of your servants pick out a lovely farm girl or fat peasant for dinner. I suppose in today’s world, you could do it gangsta style and just pick off random people at night. Or be the ultimate undead superhero like Blade, and only take out the bad guys.

Just running a flat with undead roommates could be too much to bear. In the comedy “What We Do in the Shadows”, the vampires have a bit of a scuffle which causes the police to arrive. You can see them sweating it out, quite humorously, as the officers check the apartment for a “funny smell” and noise disturbances.

And just how do the kids of Twilight just keep changing schools? Eternal education has to suck.

thumbnail3Making a Living at Being Undead

Let’s say you’re a phenomenally good looking vampire. Changed at a young age and hotter than hell. It’s certain to bring you lots of opportunities, but also recognition. Perhaps a little too much attention?

In the indie film “Only Lovers Left Alive”, Adam is a hip vampire musician hiding out in the worst neighborhood in Detroit. When his music is released in an underground club without permission, word leaks out where he leaves, and fans start showing up and ringing his bell. You can see his panic as he realizes he might have to move.

So what kind of profession would best suit a vampire? Anything in a medicinal environment with easy access to blood would be ideal. If you worked in a hospice facility, you could be an angel of death and not feel so guilty about sending someone home a little early, especially if they were suffering. You’d probably want to steer clear of saw mills and any woodworking facilities.

Then again, you could be a nightclub owner, just making sure to keep the patrons from becoming too rowdy and getting everyone out before dawn so you could make it home before sunrise.

Which brings us to…

Eternally Yours

Or not? The amount of exes for a vampire could be massive. The world is a smaller place now and the chances of running into an undead former flame are pretty good unless you agreed to divide up the world into territories.

What about permanently partnered? How do you keep those home fires burning without killing each other?

And what about new love? Heaven forbid, you’re a really lovely lady that has been fancied for centuries. There’s a steady stream of blood daddies perhaps, put under fantastic spells while you feed. But won’t they eventually go to their physician and get diagnosed with a mysterious anemia?

Maybe you’d mastered the art of getting a lady out of a corset long ago, using your fangs no less. And you are absolutely thrilled that they are back in style. You are way better in the sack than Lestat and Louie combined. But now you have no clue how to remove one of those new criss-cross halter leather brassieres. Or being asked to wear a condom? You hadn’t gotten anyone in the “family way” since 1220, when you were still human. Is vampire sperm still viable?

Perhaps love isn’t for the undead. Or maybe, like Dracula, you’re able to find that one human that “you’ve crossed oceans of time to find”. Now that’s someone you could really sink your teeth into.

Victoria L. Szulc is a multi-media sci-fi/steampunk artist/writer who regularly displays her work at 1900 Park Creative Space in the historic Victorian neighborhood of Lafayette Square in St. Louis, MO. Her first Steampunk art installation was there in June 2014. She spearheaded and curated the first Steampunk Broken Hearts Ball Masquerade and Art Show in St. Louis and directed the first Steampunk Fashion Show at the Big River Steampunk Festival Masquerade in Hannibal, MO in 2017. Victoria’s third steampunk novel, “A Long Reign” was in competition for the 2017 Amazon UK Storytellers contest and was an Amazon/kindle bestseller, reaching number 7 in Time Travel and number 9 in Steampunk on the Amazon bestsellers lists. Volume 11 of the Vampire’s Little Black Book Series is set for release March 31, 2018. Victoria is currently working on the third part of the Society Trilogy, “Lafayette to London”. This new book and related visual works are scheduled for release in June 2018.

[Vampire Month] Victoria L. Szulc interview

18 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Blade, C.S Lewis, Dracula, Lestat, Selene, St Louis, Steampunk, Underworld, Vampire, Victoria L. Szulc


Victoria L. SzulcSo, as we move into the third week of March, we get to our third Vampire month victim. This week we have Victoria L. Szulc, author of The First Ten Bites. After her interview today, she will tell us all about her hints and tips for how to live forever…

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

 

I remember telling a lot of stories, when I was about five or six years old, about a girl (who later became a princess) and her animals to my best neighborhood friends. I had a pretty wild imagination. I starting cartooning them, all over my school folders, scraps of paper, and whatever else I could find.

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

 

In my twenties, I started writing professionally as part of advertising, marketing, and creative jobs. I was already an artist and writing became another tool in my arsenal of creativity. By the time I reached forty, I realized I had a lot of stories to share that weren’t covered in my visual art.

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

 

The greatest strength, without a doubt is imagination. I have some crazy storylines and plot twists that I just rejoice over. I love hearing readers’ reactions to them. Weakness? I swear I have ADD creativity. Sometimes I’m working on a project and the wrong muse comes calling, like the need to draw, or other stories in the planning stages. I almost hate when I’ve got a storyline ready for a character and realize that it belongs in a totally different story.

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

 

I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, USA which is almost dead center of the U.S. I write a lot of Steampunk as well, and during the Victorian/American Guilded Age, St. Louis was the third largest city in the country. Fortunately, unlike a lot of American cities, many of those historic homes, parks, and areas remain here. I’m definitely inspired by the architecture and my hometown history.

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

 

I’d have to say, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. I started reading the series when I about ten years old. I was captivated by these children and their adventures. Oh and Turkish Delight. I always wondered what the heck it was and wanted to try it.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I was working for a Halloween/costume shop part-time to make extra money. Steampunk was just beginning to take hold as a genre and I used to chat with one of my coworkers about characters I was developing. I thought about bringing in a vampire. An undead who, despite living a long time, was struggling with human realities. “What do you do when you have forever on your hands?” William, the vampire, eventually became his own series of short stories.

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

 

I think the idea of living forever, having great strength, and power is very appealing. Sometimes in a negative light. So much so that people that “suck away” anything from you, emotionally, physically, are called “vampires” in modern slang.

On a positive side, it’s very erotic. The idea of being with a lover for eternity. There’s a ton of psychological sexual nuances. Being “punctured”, feeding off someone, the ability to change forms to please and attract someone else. That’s a lot of fodder for fantasy and stories!

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

 

Good question and hard to answer. I know that Blade is more of a comic than literary character, but he is bad ass. Then again, you have Dracula, the oldest and the one who started it all.

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

 

I’m going to separate male and female if that’s okay? Lestat (Ann Rice) has just been incredible. Fragile but classically handsome. I think it’s his human qualities that make him sexy. And again, not from literature, but Selene from the Underworld series is incredibly beautiful and deadly. Strong and smart is very sexy to me.

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

 

I have vampire who is a trained assassin in the undead world, Anna. She knows vampire history and is fully educated on living in the modern world. She has a reputation, but is brilliant at disguising herself. She could be a housewife, a CEO, or a club kid. I think she could be the last man (woman) standing.

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 

“I Died Here”, v.11 from my “Vampire’s Little Black Book” short series is about William, my main character, and how he finally handles an old enemy, Stephen. But in this conflict, he is both in love with a human woman, Caroline, and Anna, a vampire assassin he’d sired long ago. Everyone is caught in the crossfire, as Stephen is bent on revenge in any form he can get against Will. Will is torn between his new love and Anna, who has since moved on to a human lover of her own. There’s underlying themes of death, resurrection, and how we handle or don’t come to terms with life events. The first ten shorts of this series were about Will’s naughty and turbulent past and how he’s tried to change. These were compiled into “The First Ten Bites”. Without giving too much away, the next ten stories continue to explore that past but focus on Will’s rediscovered anger after losing so much. I haven’t set the release date, but it should be before the end of March. It’s been fun to write about Will again. It’s been almost three years since I’ve had a chance to put out new vampire material.

Social Media Links:

Blog: https://mysteampunkproject.wordpress.com

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