Vampire Article Published

My husband and I needed a little "get away" day, and since we don't work on Mondays, we drove about an hour west, to the town of Oregon,IL, where the scenery becomes a bit more interesting with oak tree forested hills, the limestone cliffs peek from the sides of the narrow roads, and you sort of forget you're in Illinois.

We stopped and ate a crisp apple, which I cut up, and some cheese, by the side of the rushing Rock River, enjoying the sound as we sat there, and the cool autumn morning, while the small locust leaves rained golden, almond-shaped, sized leaves on us.

We ventured to Eagles Nest, a western and Native American shop, to browse, and I simply had to buy something unique for myself.

We went to lunch at the White Pines Restaurant, and looked into reservations for two in December in the individual cabins there for our 22nd anniversary. These are real log cabins, built by the CCC workers after the war. They are nice, cozy cabins with a gas fireplace.

After much going around trying to decide what cabin we could get, and trying to get the Scrooge play and dinner package, while their Internet was down, we got things all settled and eventually came home.

After confirmation over the phone and my e-mail, I went to check other things. Well, well, my article at Frogen Yozert, was accepted and posted. It can be seen @ http://www.fogenyozurt.com/2010/09/the-vampyre-novel-a-historical-account/

The owner of this site is Wilfried Voss, who also owns/runs Copperhill Media, where my vampire novel will be published through. Eventually this will be started up, but I guess I need to wait a little longer for things to go through on this.

Anyway, the title of the article is Vampyre Novels; A History

So, this is my up-date. Visit me over at Lorelei's Muse (link on side bar), and check things out on a weekly, or daily basis, as this is my main post.

Lurking Vampires, Werewolves, etc.

On Friday, I sent out my novel, Vampire Ascendingg on a disk to the publisher. They will get it, no doubt, this coming week sometime.

After the death in my husband's family, of his mother's passing, two weekends ago, we all needed to get into our normal routines, and my writing now means even more to me and my husband than before. His mother, Barb, was also a writer--unpublished--but she was more interested in seeing me get published. And she did, with my first self-published book, Spell of the Black Unicorn, and was so happy about it. I just wish she could have seen this next one published, as well. I miss her soft voice in my ear over the phone, and sometimes I actually still hear it, and this brings tears, as I know I will never have the privilege of speaking to her again while on this plain. I think it's a shame she never could pursue her writing like she'd wanted to. But, we can't change history, no matter how much we want to.

I've been reading Anita Viljoen's book Feeders, which came in mail only yesterday--all the way from Canada, and I've begun reading it. I'm finding it quite interesting, so stay tuned. I'll be reporting on it at my main blog (Lorelei's Muse), when finished. I interviewed her last month, and that can be viewed from Lorelei's Muse, as well. Plus you can go visit Anita's blog, and check it out for yourself--it should be on my blog roll here, below.

Also would like to pick up a new book by Janet Evanovich coming out this month, and it's a fantasy. One of the characters, Diesel, is from her "Between the Numbers" books, and this sounds very good. It's called Wicked Appetite

Speaking of vampires and the like, my favorite time of the year is coming near.

Yep. Halloween. I hope to have my novel ready to go, by then, it would be a treat to have a chance to sell something around Halloween. But, if not, that's fine. There's always next Halloween. I'd be more set up, plus--if all works out--I'll have the sequel out by then.

Very busy with my writer pal, J.L. Jackson, who we swap chapters with, and that's been working out well too. And I'm glad I've the chance to work with her.

Well, gotta get back to the work. More as it happens.

Decisions, Decisions

I must give a huge sigh of relief that things are working out. Sure, I was really P.O.ed that that editor at Crescent Moon just pussy-footed around my asking her if she was going to take a look at the whole manuscript. Obviously, she saw it as too much work--editing wise. Which is fine. She never "got back to me", as she kept on saying she would, and I was not going to keep on knocking at a door that seemed to be closed to me.

After 5 weeks, I nearly caved. But that was when I lost my Internet. The interruption was probably my only salvation from actually crawling to this editor. That and a 10-day vacation out west. I had been contacted by a POD, telling me that they were interested in my book, Vampire Ascending. I had hoped to get on at the eBook publisher, Crescent Moon, but I had fears, from the e-mails I was getting, that they would turn my book into a paranormal romance. Probably change the theme, and the title, and I'd be stuck with it. My book is NOT a paranormal romance. It is an urban fantasy. I think there's way too many paranormal romances out there, and a slue of romance writers jumped on the vampire band waggon and saw that they could make a fortune writing for the paranormal scene.

If that's what you're into, fine. That's nice for you. I am not a romance fan. Never was. I had tried to write a fiction about Native Americans, once back in the '90's, when "Indian Romances" were in vogue. I couldn't publish it, I'm sure it was because I was unable to write it in the lock 'n load style of romance.

It was during this time--the late 90's, early 2000's--when I wanted to go back to writing my vampire fiction. I tried to get an agent to take my "Vampire Legacy" novel. At the time there were very few people doing vampire books. It was not a genre unto it's own. Anne Rice was doing her thing, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was going strong, too. But I got rejections, one after the other.

Then along came J.K. Rowling, and the fantasy was renewed for me. I wrote my self-published book Spell of the Black Unicorn, and did alright with it. I wrote the sequel, but the money that I wound up earning with it didn't give me incentive enough to spend another $350-$400 on self-publishing.

Then I heard about one place which did not charge an up-front fee. So far I have not seen anything wrong with the publisher, or the contract. The publisher is called Copper Hill Media.

After struggling with the idea of trying to find an eBook publisher, or an agent, I decided that at 56, I'm tired of playing games. Agents don't like my writing, and apparently I've struck out with the only eBook publisher I contacted, and don't wish to spend months on going through that whole thing again.

So, my book Vampire Ascending, has been accepted by Copper Hill, all I have to do is deliver the book via a disk, they will send me the signed contact, and I will read that over very carefully, make sure that they didn't change it too much and I'm not in danger of having them charge me something I didn't catch--other than when I make an order for the books.

I'd like to say I'm excited, but I'm not there yet. My first book was exciting, but I felt that I couldn't have done things differently, and I don't want to make the same mistake and send this one out too soon. I didn't see anywhere that I could make corrections for free in their contract. I have been offering a free editing (which is a far cry from the weasels I contacted at the beginning of the year. They were going to charge me 2 cents per word to edit. I told them forget it! I may as well self publish!

And so, this is where I am now. I'm happy about this decision. At least my book should be out some time this fall. I just need to get through the edits and I should be ready to send it out in a week or so.