Legend In The Making



Lorelei Bell is author of
new vampire novel,
Vampire Ascending

Maybe it began with Buffy--which I absolutely love. I don't know, but all of a sudden there is a glut on the market of vampire novels that have a heroine in it, who is almost always a kick-ass lady, equipped with a black belt, knowledgeable in all other sorts of nasty fighting tricks, maybe they have some sort of unusual talents, thus can kick the shit out of all vampires and demons and whatnot, and be fearless in their endeavors.

Ho-hum. I'm neither afraid for her, nor can I actually relate to her.

What I have never liked about this sort of book is when I open up and read about a woman who is stalking vampires, or demons, she has either a special gun, or uses her fists to do the job. I once read that the character broke off the heal of her boot in order to drive it through a vampire's heart. Well, nice to have the money to go out and buy another pair of shoes! But also, she winds up walking lop-sided because the 3 or 4" heal is missing on one boot. That's neither realistic, nor does it make me say, "You Go Girl!" The rough and tumble girl gets very old, very quickly for me. Okay, she kicks ass. I get it. What makes her vulnerable? What makes her likable? Why do I care about her???

I can never relate to that sort of woman and this is why. Once upon a time I tried taking a Marshal arts class, and I hated it and after the second class I quit. I was afraid I'd get hurt. It just didn't work for me. So, I have no experience whatsoever in such things, and am not about to start, since I'm closing in on retirement age, and I'm not going to fake it either, just to get readers.


So, if you have been hanging out at my other blog, or my facebook page, and twitter (where I'll post this most assuredly), I'm just saying that if you have not read Vampire Ascending, and wonder about it, you will find out quickly that Sabrina has issues like all the rest of us. She has money, and boy friend issues, she isn't exactly afraid of her own shadow, but she isn't about to let the vampire have the upper hand, and smarts, in my estimation, win out. 

For instance, Sabrina isn't ready to accept that--in my later books, beginning with the second one especially--that she is a sibyl and part of her job is to kill vampires, demons, and even nephilim. I didn't want her to come out swinging. She actually likes a few of the vampires, werewolves, and even a demon or two. I wanted this to be a Legend In The Making.



the original kick-ass vampire slayer



What I've done is brought every reader in at ground level. Get to know who Sabrina is--a touch clairvoyant--and she has to solve several mysteries and crimes by using her talent as a clairvoyant. There's plenty of action, don't get me wrong. The scene where she goes into a nest of rogue vampires to find her friend--who she loves--and has nothing more than a water pistol filled with holy water is, to me, being overly brave, but I've built up her reasons as to why. Plus, she is hopeful that the vampire magnate, Tremayne, who has hired her likes her enough to come and save her cute little tush. Which he does--and on a Harley (any red-blooded ex-Viking would do this, wouldn't he?). What happens after that . . . well, you'll just have to read it to find out. 

I'm currently working on book 4. Book 3 is in first draft. I'm merely working on #4 because it playing out in my head. But I've signed contract for the second book, Vampire's Trill, and it has a September release. Thus The Legend In The Making continues.

My Characters Suck

Well, the vampires do, at least.

I've just renamed a few of my characters in the third book. I had to give them some name to work with, and now that I've found some better names to give some of them I have done so. I used my Find and Replace in Edits to change the names of two characters. I had one named Verdilak. It was a cool name, but I had too many characters' names that began with a V. Vasyl is one, and even though Drakulya is called Drakulya, his other name is Vlad. Too many V's, see? So I re-named him Skrlock. A strange, but memorable name. I tried different spellings:

Scurlock

Scirlock

Scerlock

Then I thought, why put a vowel in there at all? and why not a k instead of a c ?

So I got Skrlock.

And I still couldn't keep from holding on to the name Jett for the main male character. It just fits him. However I had to rename the blood broker of Arabella's from Raven to Alucard. I also changed his looks, and personality, and whole character, really.

The other day I saw this dude walking down the street. Just the back of him, his long hair flopping over his back, it came to about his shoulder blades. The color is hard to explain, but it was like he had equal amounts of gray running throughout his darker hair creating a new, unusual color. I never saw his face, which was fine, but his hair, unfettered, and tall and trim caught my writer's interest, and thought he'd make a perfect vampire. I guessed he was in his 40's. I was hoping to see him again while driving the bus, but didn't. Maybe I will another time, this summer while I'm driving across town.

So, seeing this dude I was able to go back and decide on honing the description of one character that looked just too much like Jett. I felt I had to because I decided to do a scene with Alucard today. Struggling to get Sabrina into a place where she would be poised for the final segment: The Climax of the book.

I like what I came up with for Alucard, and where he fits in this. And this climax scene is burned in my head, and although I want to get to it, I'm working toward it instead. I could just write it, and get it over with, get it done and out of my system. But I've got a week off coming up and want to give myself that time to work on it then. I hope by July something I'll have the first draft of this third book done.

Plus I came across the description of an Astral Vampire, and found that it fit perfectly for a character that has to change drastically, in this book. I'm sort of excited about having found it, because it was on a sheet I'd printed out months ago, and I just came across it. Having worried about what this character would become, after all the things that go on, which I can't even discuss because I'm not ready to write anything about it, what with the second book, Vampire's Trill about to come out this summer.

Well that's all for this update.

Notice something Different?

I went from this as my header to . . .

This:

Like???

I went snooping around in photobucket this afternoon. They sure have some great stuff there. Some of it moves and some of it doesn't.

I found a great haunted, spooky castle there:

And I really liked this graveyard. . .

Sort of peaceful. I want to lie down and take a nap there. Not permanately, though.

And this last picture makes me think of the female vampire character in my next Sabrina Strong Series.




This is Ilona Tremayne, a psychic vampire. But she does have fangs, sort of looks nasty like this one does:

Ilona Tremayne singlehandedly--with help of her underlings--kills several vampires in my first book Vampire Ascending.

You'll want to know how, before you read the second book, Vampire's Trill, because Sabrina gets to meet this bitch from hell. She really, really doesn't want to either.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't either. Would you?