Where the hell did YOU come from?

A funny thing happened on the way to Dawn's novel. I got sidetracked by Emma Adler's nemesis, Doris de Vris. Out of nowhere, a new book emerged. I'm already a quarter of the way done with it and clearly see every chapter laid out before me. Did not see that coming at ALL.

Wanna know what else I didn't see coming? It falls under the genre of Christian Inspirational/Domestic Discipline. You know, the kind of books where the women are all spanked like children by all the men in their lives as a means of discipline only, no sex or BDSM or none of that sticky, icky business whatsoever.

Part of me is just peachy fucking keen about this development, because I hated Doris de Vris. I went to church as a kid with stuck up spoiled bitches like her, and the idea of her getting hooked to a paddlin' man suits me just fine. The story is good too, plenty of tension and drama and both Doris and her spankin Sparky grow a lot by the end of the love story, and it IS a love story, from me, who has spent the last few days fretting that I don't have any romance in me. It's just, well it's so .... unexpected.

The other bizzaro part is that I'm atheist. I grew up in a very religious home, but I haven't been a believer since I was oh, ten or twelve. If you'd told me two days ago I'd ever, in my lifetime, write a Christian Inspirational romance I'd have laughed until my Diet Dr Pepper snotted out my nose.

I kinda feel like a sell out for writing it, but it wasn't by conscious choice that it's happening. The story gurgled up from some back corner of my brain, all finished and ready to go and wrapped up in a pretty yellow bow... I can't resist yellow bows... and it demanded to be written.

So, I'm writing it, and screaming carpal tunnel be damned. I expect it to be all down by Friday evening. Maybe then I can get back to Dawn, the orgasmic vampire slayer.

Dawn's Dilemma

The question of the day is, can I write a romance? It's not my bag of tricks you see, not that it would be any leap of logic to come to that conclusion if you've ever read any of my scribblings. My girls are love 'em and kick 'em to the curb sorts. Chloe may have loved Chuck but when he failed to stand up for her, she was out the door and fucking up his car before you could say wet shifter. Emma Adler is about her evolution from downtrodden, cringing doormat to the sort of girl who will kick your ass and steal your boyfriend.

And Dawn? Dawn is the ultimate black widow, the one the wannabes bow before and offer up gifts in hopes of getting to hang with her on Friday night. She fucks vampires to death for pete's sake, and I know it sounds horribly comic bookish to write it like that but Dawn is a weapon designed to kill the undead and there's nothing comical about her deployment. If anything, it's a bit gross. She isn't Buffy who kicked their asses while delivering witty quips just before plunging a wooden stake into their hearts. Dawn's power is triggered by a lust for revenge, and rather than fight her enemies she draws them helplessly to her like moths to a trailer park bug zapper. 

Vampires are not sparkly, benevolent beings who help angst riddled teens cope with high school. Fucking hell. They are the evil undead, think David from Lost Boys and Angelus from Buffy, or Ann Rice's Lestat, or Camilla and Goth of the Nosferatu clan. Ugly, giddily vicious, and unrepentant, delighting in the torment and torture of their victims. Sorta like Dawn is, actually.

The story before me is that a horrified Dawn finds she has fallen for one, which is problematic in two ways. One, she despises vampires for the destruction of everything she has ever loved, and two because sex between them would be the end of the twisted romance. 

It's a GOOD story, and I love Dawn as a character. I just hope I can do it justice. Doing my research this week on medieval Bulgaria circa 1300 to better understand where Dawn was born, and reborn; the migration of the Romani out of India and into Europe during the High Middle Ages; and getting to know Dixon Kane, the young vampire who turns Dawn's world upside down.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Emma Adler just headed to the publisher. Now comes holding my breath for a couple of weeks while they look it over.

She came to me in a snippet of a dream. I saw a girl, sometimes standing before me and other times I looked through her eyes, peering through the window of a tar paper shack at an entire family dog piled atop a single, full sized bed. The parents had their heads at one end, along with a couple of the kids, and the others had theirs at the other, with feet and arms all tangled up in the middle.

Suddenly I was in the room, standing quietly next to them as they slept. Reaching out I gently woke up a boy, putting my fingers on his lips to keep him quiet and then taking his hand. We were young, sixteen maybe, and clad in threadbare clothes with dirty, unkempt hair. The home was a hovel, dirt floors and barren walls and a tin roof that let in more moonlight than it kept out.

Then we were outside. She/I touched his chest, and stroked his arm, and then he pulled her/me to him and we began to grope and kiss.

That's when the 44 ounce iced tea I drank before going to bed woke me up and sent me scurrying to the can.

The Evolution of Emma Adler is set in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and in the middle of the seven year drought known as the Dust Bowl years. I did a surprising amount of research on it; slang, prices, automobiles, typical meals, and thanks to Emma's obsession with the sirens of the silver screen, endless reading about and studying the photos of 1930s starlets. I have developed a new appreciation for Mae West back in her heyday, and a rabid dislike of the plucked and painted on half circle eyebrows that somehow managed to set the style back then. Anyhoo...

Sending Emma off to be weighed and measured is like sending a child off to college. You've done all you can, now all you can do is sit back and watch and hope it all turns out ok.

All Hail Twitter Babylon

"You don't understand Twitter"

Said a friend to me the other day after reviewing my tweets. According to her Twitter is for networking and promotion, not for boring people silly with accounts of my weekend or the fact that I consider my satin cheetah print with pink trim pajamas to be suitable every day wear around my house. a fact yet to be tweeted about, but still she worries

"Look here, see how this one does it? She constantly puts out snippets of her book, along with links to her blog."

"BORING" I protest, and she rolls her eyes at my mulish behavior.

"Seriously what do you hope to accomplish by telling people the dog is asleep on your chest? You write sex. You need to be sexy. Dog hair in your bra? Not sexy."

I know what she means, I do, but seriously, yawnfest. I freaking hate reading tweet after tweet of self promotion, thanks for shopping here, and endless snippets of titillating and sexy phrases that, without the accompaniment of photos or more details, are more awkward than panty wetting. I suppose this is why some hire a PR person to handle their tweets and blogs; otherwise the feed would disintegrate into endless Ashton Kutcheresque babble that reveal us all to be ignorant fucks when limited to 140 characters or less.

Except I *like* Babylon, the he said she said tit for tats and spats that make up the vast majority of tweets. I like knowing that Marci's dog came home from the vet without complications and Ray's ex girlfriend is a "stank ass skank ass ho" and that G Busta be pimpin@9th and wondering where his hos at, and I like knowing that the people I follow are real people, not some shill in an office somewhere pimping for a paying customer.

Small wonder I'm not in sales.