A Writer's Life

Character Profile Natasha Cross

Natasha Cross is in her late twenties, petite in frame and her height is only 5' 4". Her hair is mid length falling in deep auburn curls framing a light complexion with scant freckling. The shade of auburn is so dark that it appears black. Only in sunlight, the red tones become visible. Her eye color is a striking cat-like green. She has natural good looks and doesn't have to spend much time on her appearance. She is shy, lacking somewhat in self-confidence and is not aware that she is attractive. Tasha has to work hard to notice the present world around her. She is immersed in the history and legends of New Haven. She prefers to live privately keeping a wall between herself and others never letting them really know her or get too close.

Her one passion is often the only circumstance to pull her from shyness. It is not only her favorite subject but also her chosen profession in Antique aquisitions at an auction house. She is an avid collector of antiques and along wiith this interest comes an appreciation of history. Tasha is a homebody. She has restored her Victorian home so that it provides such comfort to her she rarely wants to leave it. She doesn't spend much time trying to develop her social life, yet she dreams of having a companion in life who shares her interests.

She is beginning to learn there is much more to the world than meets the eye. Tasha is increasingly bombarded with images in her mind she doesn't understand.This happens when she is asleep and is happening more when she is awake. She is afraid it is some sort of premonition related to a personal physical attack. She is fearful a lot of the time because she feels she is so small and helpless. She has taken self-defense classes to combat this fear. Tasha secretly wishes she had some sort of power over others so she would not have to be so fearful of being a victim.

Read more about Tasha:
Requiem Eternal

Character Profile Sorin Ladislov

 Sorin Ladislov is taller than average height for a man at 6' 2”. His facial appearance teeters just over the line to masculine. His eyes are deep brown and turn black when the pupils dilate. His hair falls to the middle of his back, straight, shiny and silky black. He has no extra facial hair. Men and women are equally attracted to him. His manner and personality are the epitome of cool. He has to work hard to stay in the shadows. When he does allow himself to be seen, he is not alone for long.

 He still has a strong affinity for women but is extremely distrustful of them. He struggles with wanting to exact revenge on them and being intrigued by them at the same time. He wonders if there are any that have redeeming qualities and is pretty much still alive to find out. He feels justified in harming them if he senses a character flaw. Sorin believes there should be predators in the society of man just like there are in the animal kingdom for a reason. To cull out the ones not fit to survive and procreate. He is drunk with the power of the Psyon and rationalizes it's use. He is continually frustrated that even though he is a powerful being, it hasn't helped him to find a soul that is of the same quality of character as his beloved Genevieve.

 Romance is often the means Sorin uses to feed or find a host. He wants something from them, they just want Sorin. Seduction and sex are rarely a challenge. He already knows too much about the person he intends to seduce. He can become exactly what they need. In the matter of performance, he has had many centuries of companions and knows more about pleasuring women than a human man will ever know. He rarely enjoys sex when he is feeding because the ultimate goal takes all of his concentration. The host however will enjoy him to no limit and will become addicted to him. This allows him to stay with a host indefinitely. This is usually seen as the older woman younger man relationship. She is at her peak and enjoying the extreme sexual prowess of the Psyon. She will not try to leave the relationship because of this. She is addicted. He can enjoy sex when he finds a quality person to feed from. The effects on him and the person are like an addictive drug. They both feel a rush type event during sex that only happens with each other. This creates a strong mental and physical bond that keeps them wanting each other again just like an addict seeks out his drug of choice.

 He loves to hunt among goths and fake vampires. He sometimes dresses and emulates their scene because he loves to hunt among them. They make perfect hunting grounds because their minds are so open and good sense and defenses are down. He thinks it is comical and especially enjoys poser vampires who adopt the persona for sexual conquest. He feels they are mimicking the abilities of the sanguine because they can't attract someone purely on their merit. He is aware of a few genuine sanguine, he can sense them and stays away from them. The remaining sang are purist holdouts. They have refused to evolve. He does not want to be a sanguine. He views them as primitive. He feels he is better than them. They are particularly fond of turning Psyon because they gain knowledge of their psychic constructs and acquire superior mind control.

 He can be in daylight but doesn't prefer it. His senses are heightened to the point of annoyance because there are more people around during the day. They are all thinking about their “stupid daytime nonsense”, counting through to do lists in their minds. It's boring and annoying to him. He finds it easier to blend in and hide in the evening and at night.

 Sorin doesn't sleep. He will often mimic it to exist successfully with a companion. During his “sleep” he multitasks. He is entertaining himself by lucid dreaming, astral travel, remote viewing or keeping track of where other Psyon are. Sorin in particular has developed an enhanced ability of feeding on people when they sleep through their dreams. This is usually granted in elder status. It is meant as a last resort to continue the life of elders if they are without a companion.

 Sorin is not aware of why he can do this. But he takes advantage of it as much as possible because he enjoys it. It is like his version of cable television. He especially enjoys sensual dreams because he enjoys feeding from the heightened tantric energy. It is almost the only human connection he still can participate in and feel pleasure while feeding.

 His abilities are seeing the energy fields around people, reading minds and past lives, astral travel, remote viewing, lucid dreaming, telepathy, empathic abilities & heightened intuition. He can also levitate himself and his partner during intense sensual feedings.

 Read more about Sorin:

Requiem Eternal

Character Profile Lorelle the Messenger 

Lorelle has strawberry blonde hair. It falls to her waist in small, tight natural ringlets. Her eyes are hazel with green accents scattered throughout. She is average height for a woman of her time about 5' 5". Her skin is ivory with a natural deep rose blush. She is naturally beautiful from the time she wakes up in the morning. Unfortunately, because of her status in life and the time she lives in this is not an asset but rather a liability.

She is painfully aware that she is different from the other women in her village from a very early age. She endures disapproving stares from them no matter how she tries to downplay her figure and pleasing looks. She never wears her hair loose in public for any reason. Always in one tight plait to the back of her head. She binds her chest and argues with her mother about the unflattering dresses Lorelle chooses to have her make.

Men of every background are interested in her at first sight though not in the way she would wish. Partly because of her station in life and partly because of the wild and untamed aspects of her appearance. She doesn't like the way men look at her and is very suspicious of all of them. She longs to marry and settle down with a husband being a dutiful wife and someday a mother. Her capacity for nuturing is strong. She is loyal to a fault.

Her family are peasants working land they do not own. Her father married her mother only after she became pregnant with Lorelle. There is no love between them. She is an only child for this reason. Her mother loves her and dotes on her but mostly thinks of her as an asset. She expects Lorelle will someday marry well and get them all out of their hardship.

Her father works hard in the fields when the season calls for it. He hunts his land and any other he is given permission to in the winter to feed his family. When he is not working or hunting, he is a regular fixture in the tavern whenever his meager earnings allow.

Read more about Lorelle:
Requiem Eternal

Character Profile  Lord William of Wyckham

Lord William of Wyckham is average height for a man. He isn't strikingly handsome. He has a round face and downturned mouth from frowning too much in his former days as a knight in battle. His status in life has also afforded him the means to become overweight. His only outstanding facial feature is his eyes. They are an intense to the point of unsettling to look at ice blue. His hair is black, wavy and shoulder length. Though lazy, he is still vain enough to have a servant curl the ends under every day.

He is chosen by the Psion because of his increasing proximity to royalty. He achieved his status as favored by royalty on his own by being a ruthless warrior as a knight. He accepted the bargain on the battlefield, because he was close to death for the first time.

His lust for women begins to rule him. He doesn't like passive women. He would say their taste is not compelling enough for his interest. Only those with some fight. He thinks they taste much better when they ultimately have to surrender to him because of the power of the Psion he possesses.

Lord Wyckham has too much power. Not only is he weathly, he is an appointed Lord by the King over a township. The added power of the Psion makes him devolve into an insulent child. He enjoys having everything he wants. He knowingly begins to defy the Psion because so much power has caused him to become insane. He uses it only to indulge his perverse impulses. He especially enjoys the power he has over women, since he did not have as much of it before becoming Psion. Even with his wealth and position.

He enjoys first torturing those he feeds from by extracting the one secret shame in their memory and making them relive it.

Read more about Lord William of Wyckham:
Requiem Eternal

I celebrated recently on August 14th when I finished my novel. The celebration was short-lived (ie: a glass of wine and a yay me!) because some more really hard work begins. Yeah it's hard, but at the same time it is also much more exciting. The work of querying agents and publishers to find just one set of eyes to read and also like my MS.

I also consider waiting for a response to be a fair amount of work. It could be weeks or months before I hear anything back. Of course, this is understandable. Mine is just one of the hundreds or thousands of Queries they get possibly daily or weekly. Then they or their interns separate what is publishable and what is not. And If or when I do hear anything, will I be able to decode if I'm doing something wrong in with my Query or is it the MS? From my last sentence can you tell I'm the glass half empty type? LOL.

I am SO grateful though that the process has changed to include email queries for some agencies and publishers. I can't imagine how hard it is to print out a query, synopsis and MS, get an envelope, stamps and get it sent out via snailmail. Then sit back and wonder if they ever received it and wait even longer for a snailmail response.

For me sending anything in snailmail from my computer requires a commitment of a few hours plus running all over hell. I write on a netbook and discovered recently that my printer didn't  make it into a box on the last move. I'd have to go to Wallyworld and pick up some big envelopes. I do have a few stamps, but I'd probably have to get more. I'd have to email the required materials to myself and head out to the library. I'd have to get my materials to come up on the buggy, ancient library computer in word format. Not exactly something I want joe blow next user of the library computer to see, so I'd have to find a way to delete it completely after my use. Once it's all printed, I'll pay 10 cents per page for killing all those trees. Then I will have to drive up to a mailbox because for some reason the postperson who services my building can deliver mail but can't take it out for delivery. Whew...just writing the process makes me not want to ever have to do it that way.

With an email Query, at least there is a return confirmation immediately which lets me know they have received it. And now I can feel confident in my waiting. And have a vague idea of how long the wait will be. Awesome. I'm actually good with that. Much more than the former method.

I've only sent out two Queries as a test for now. I will wait for a response before I try again. Hopefully from these two tests I will get some inkling of if or how I need to revise my Query or MS. Until then I wait and learn more about the virtue of patience as a writer.

Welcome to the editing and revising process. For me, it has proven to be the toughest undertaking in writing. My rough draft turned out to be really more rough than I thought in that it wasn't close enough to word count. I figured well, okay I'll correct it in the final edit draft. As a result, the final edit draft is proving to be a real challenge. Keeping focused and motivated to finish is a constant battle for me. I am a very logical, to the point person. I'm finding this doesn't translate so well in writing. Yeah I know, duh, right? But this concept really wasn't driven home to me until I buckled down and actually started the work of writing. To me it feels finished, but the word count continues to tell me more descriptions of settings, more descriptions of characters, more dialog...many more words.

One thing I have going for me (sometimes) is a manuscript display site which provides some constructive advice and avenues to proceed with. It is based on reviews from other writers and sometimes published authors. But along with the constructive, I have to weed out the completely nonconstructive. I'm starting to get really good at it.

Another aspect of the site is a rating system. The minute I get a review that gives no insight or advice at all, I check this list. Usually it is from a reviewer who is ahead of me or behind me in the standings. One review was so bad I opted to have it removed by the admin of the site. They will only do this if they agree it has absolutely no value. I was happy to find that they agreed with me and removed the review.

To be fair it could be that my categories were off at the time. There are very few categories I can use on the site to describe my WIP. I had it under Womens Fiction, Fantasy, Romance. I have since fine tuned this to Novel, Women's Fiction, Romance. Now hopefully prospective reviewers will know more clearly what to expect before deciding to take on a review.

The reading assignments aren't doled out by genre. They go to just anyone. They do have the option to remove an assignment. I've noticed a lot of reviewers who don't take this option will just scan my WIP lightly to get a quick reciprocal review of their WIP. So still much more weeding is likely.

Along with the bad comes the good. I get some wonderful gems of insight when a fan of the genre rolls around to me. I am getting a very clear picture of what genre's my WIP really fits in. I was hoping it would be more universal. Still a possibility that could come later. But I won't count on it.

The crits roll in slowly, giving me a renewed kick in the pants when I need it to keep going. I've learned a lot about pace and what keeps the reader glued to the page. Thanks to a compilation of constructive reviews, my first five chapters are now really strong in this area.

So now it's time to move on and tighten up the rest. This part of the process has tested my patience more than any other so far. But I'm sure it won't be the only one. I've still got the Synopsis and Query to do. For joy.

Writing to the end of a first rough draft just feels great. I was so glad to have the bones of the story out of my head and onto pseudo computer paper. Every night before this, I would try to settle down to sleep. A new scene, dialog or sometimes a full chapter would present itself. I'd have to get up and write it down or I would forget. This resulted in lots of lost sleep. I'm sleeping better now, but it's still just the first rough draft and it's well below the word count I want to be at. Because it is a first rough draft. I have to keep reminding myself of that. I'm not really finished.

My rough draft might be more complete than most. There are no notes to self in the margins. It has set chapters, scenes and story line from beginning to end. But that's about it. My goal with it was to get the main point of the story written and fill in the details later. I had been in my writers cave alone for so long it had probably driven me a bit batty. Finally I had something I could share. I thought maybe some input would be in order before continuing. I decided to enlist some beta readers and ask them a question. After reading, what details were interesting to them and what I should expand on when I continue filling out aspects of the story.

I took several avenues to get this question answered. I enlisted a couple good friends who are avid readers. I put my first 5 chapters up on a manuscript display web site. I also have a few more writers that will get back to me soon. Overall it's a good mix of writers and readers.

I guess I should have stressed more to my avid reader friends that it is a first rough draft. But in all fairness they have returned some good input, once you remove the spirit of their reading as though it were a finished piece. They were able to answer the question of what needs more detail. I just had to fish through their critiques and cut and paste these instances.

The manuscript display site is frequented by writers. I can only upload 7000 words or whatever comes first. At this point that is 5 chapters. I can't ask my question about what needs detail at this site. The writers there review your posted work. In return you review theirs. To be honest, I didn't hold much faith in the input I would get there because of the rating system. The rating system allows people to rise in ratings with the hope of hitting the top five. At which time they get a professional critique from supposedly someone at an established big boy publisher. I thought there would be some element of writers who would trash you just to remain in or get to the top five. I was right. There is some of this posturing. But there are also writers that give solid, honest and constructive reviews. You just have to recognize the good from the bad and take what you need from it.

One thing I get about every other read (though it was not my question) is that the point of view should be changed. It is confusing and downright frustrating for some. Others have no problem with it at all. I'm not sure why this is except that maybe it is a genre thing.

Overall having some beta's take a look has been a good experience. It has provided me with some of the answers I asked about detail. Some of it I can and will put into action. The rest, well where I should keep that was confirmed to me by taking a look at a book from one of my favorite authors. I picked up this book of hers recently but never opened it to read. I didn't want to be influenced by anyone. I wanted to write with my own voice and however it came to me. But in a moment of self doubt I decided to open her book for some sort of guidance. I was surprised to find that her approach was similar to mine. The only difference was the variation in point of view I am writing in. So my take away from the whole of this experience is take some of the advice and continue to expand the details. But ultimately I need to continue to write in the format that my gut is telling me to write in. If the point of view just isn't working, I'm sure I'll be told in no uncertain terms through the query process.

I have completed one important milestone. But it is only the first of many in the writing process. Now it is time to stop celebrating and go back to the writers cave. Time to add details, increase word count and edit then more edit, until I get a manuscript that is ready to submit. It is time to really Just Finish It!

I have written to the end of the first rough draft and manuscript stands at Chapter 15. Hopefully beta readers can read and ask enough questions to inspire some detail. Please get to me to Chapter 20 at least. Still, it feels great to have it written to conclusion.

*Thanks very much to the Bookends LLC blog for the "Author Questionnaire". Although I am not a published author...yet, sometimes it helps me keep going to speculate.

What are the main points about you and/or the book that should be emphasized to the media?

I am a writer who is creating a new mythology for a little explored type of paranormal being. I think the subject of the Psi vampire has not had enough treatment in fiction and is interesting enough to be explored. Yeah, I know you see the new dirty word in paranormal fiction "vampire" and want to run. But hear me out. I believe they would evolve. If vampires are to be written about in a present or future setting, they will have to change because of the nature of our society. Information passes to any location in seconds. There is a value to human life in our time. People are no longer disposable. If someone is missing or is found dead, they are accounted for. There simply can't be missing people or dead bodies lying around everywhere. And going the donor route doesn't work either because people kiss and tell eventually. It's human nature, they just can't help it. The mythology I have created is logical and plausable. I wanted to create a believable community of evolved psi vampires that could theoretically exist in our time.

Is there any competition for your book? How are the other books alike? How are they dissimilar?

I know there are an infinite number of paranormal books already out on the market. I really didn't set out to write a paranormal book. It just seems like it is where my interests lie.  I don't know what's out there because I don't read much. I get frustrated with the plots and endings of other writers. I think about how I would rewrite their works. I always get to a point in the book where I think “damn, you lost me. That would have been so much better if...” I tend to isolate myself when I am writing to keep my ideas original and not derivative of any other writer. It was especially important with this book to rely only on my imagination.

What was your inspiration for the book?

I remember hearing somewhere "write what you know". Some of the characters are loosely based on real people that I have met throughout my life. The main character is based on two people from the most unique relationships I have ever experienced. I started the book with a sanguine vampire as the protagonist. Then I began to realize how much easier a psi vampire could blend into society. The prospect of writing about a secret community of psi vampires really appealed to me. I have enjoyed weaving in urban legend concepts that might actually exist in the real world.

Who do you think will buy your book (i.e. your market)

Adults, probably a high percentage of women. Those who like to read books with a paranormal theme. It may also have enough romantic appeal to cross over to the romance and paranormal romance crowd. It has been very hard for me to nail down the correct genre since there are so many elements involved. There are historical fiction, conspiracy, romance and paranormal elements in the manuscript.

If you could construct an interview for yourself what questions would you want to be asked?

What inspires you to write?

The spark of an interesting, unique and complex world constructing itself in my head.

Would you like for your book to become a screenplay? (Hey, I can dream.)

Yes, provided someone in touch with their emotions is chosen to adapt the manuscript for screen use.

If yes, and you could have a say in it, who would play the principal parts?

Some really compelling unknowns. It would have to be people that just have that elusive “it” factor. If possible, I would like to be on tap for viewing the audition readings.

What do you intend to do if you become a successful published author?

I would really enjoy the option of living and working anywhere I choose. If it happens that I will have the choice, I would like to move back to where I feel the most comfortable, Texas.

Are there any anniversaries, occasions or events upcoming to which we might tie the publicity for your book?

I would like for my book to debut in the fall around Halloween or in November around my birthday.

Who are your favorite authors?

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker,  Anne Rice and Stephen King's non-horror titles.

Tell us anything about you as a working writer that you think might be interesting or unusual.

I find that music and atmosphere are very important to my ability to write. Ideas flow better when I'm listening to goth, industrial or metal. Candlelight and wine are helpful too. Living in a neighborhood with an old cemetery and big old Victorian houses provided endless inspiration for writing this novel. I thought I created a pretty unique name for my main character. Then walking through the cemetery one day, I saw his first name on a head stone. Exact spelling and everything. It was a weird happy coincidence.

What do you hope readers will learn/discover from reading your book?

I hope readers will be more open to the idea that they create their own reality. Think about the karma that they are creating for themselves. Everything you do positive or negative, comes back around to you sooner or later.