Highlighted Author

Today I'm featured as is the book on the Highlighted Author blog where I talk about why I wrote a book about vampires of all things.  It's not like I know any personally--a fact that I'm happy to tell, actually.

So writing about what I know as far as vampires are concerned isn't what I was really doing in the novel.  Instead, I'm writing about religion and God/god which I've spent a lot of my life contemplating which I realize makes me sound like someone raised in a monastery.

Actually I was raised Roman Catholic and remember many of the times spent on my knees thinking about what kind of God/god wanted me as a child kneeling for long periods of time instead of outside playing or inside reading.  What kind of God/god wants children or adults kneeling until their joints ache?  And that was the first of so many questions I asked myself and thought about during those long, silent minutes.

Sometime when I was a teenager, I started wondering about Heaven.  Heaven, we were told, was a place where the good went as spirits and spent their time adoring the Lord.  Forever.

Wait!  Wasn't there something else that lived forever besides those souls in Heaven.  Vampires, perhaps?

Then things got confused in my mind and the longer I thought about Gods/gods and vampires, the more confused things got.  And suddenly out of the morass of my mind jumped a book, and now slowly on its heels is emerging another, Devil's Food.  More vampires, more Gods/gods, more questions.

Anthony, Vampire King

Trying to find the right face for Anthony is difficult since he's so old yet so young.  Photos of young actors and models don't have the world weariness that I see in Anthony's face.  Anthony's the type of guy who's been a leader so long and seen so many destructive and potentially destructive situations that jaded was centuries ago for him.  Whatever the word for more than jaded is describes where he is when he meets Shawn.

Shawn in a beacon to him, someone who promises that all of his peace-keeping, liaisoning, and negotiations haven't been wasted effort.  He needs her more than he needs the sun, and saying that for a vampire is saying everything.

So here are some of my nominations for what Anthony looks like in no particular order:

I don't know who this guy is, but I think it's this guy's eyes and eyebrows that do it for me.  Also, he seems so intently focused.  He's not quite pale enough, but makeup can always fix that.










Okay, so I have a soft spot in my heart for Matt Bomer.  So sue me.  He's handsome, pale, with wonderful eyes and a great looking body.  He can also act, so if we're casting, I wouldn't complain if he became Anthony.  Like the unnamed guy above, Matt can also be so focused that it's scary--just like Anthony.










Right!  This is the Arrow guy, Stephen Amell.  He, like the top two, has the face, eyes, and often world-weariness going for him.  He also has an incredible body, which is saying something considering Matt Bomer's build.  Stephen also has perfected serious and focused to an eerie level.













Another of my all-time favorite actors is Oded Fehr, who here doesn't look too fierce and focused, but is so much of both in the Mummy films.  He also projects such a world-weariness that he turns the mummy into a guy with ages old problems, a guy who's been unfairly tortured, and not a cartoon of a mummy.  But unless someone would make a movie of the book soon, he alas will be too old.












And then there's Johnny Lee Miller, who's got the world-weariness in spades.  I guess that's what being married to Angelina will do to a guy.  Again, like Oded, however, he's aging out of Anthony's age bracket as I write this, so he like Oded would have to be snapped up quickly or be too old for the part later.  Pity.

Phew! Done with the Second Round of Queries

So after spending my free time in July with a list of paranormal review sites and a query letter-ish document, I ended up sending 96 queries to working sites which accepted new writers' queries, self-published authors' queries, and were working sites (had published an article within the last few days of when I was querying).

Having been a book publicist before and being a self-published author of one (count it--ONE, ha-ha-ha!) book, I didn't expect much, but I must admit I did expect more.  How many responses did I get?  Uh, five.  (Well, at least The Count won't have trouble counting the responses either.)

All this means that

• on August 24th, I'll be a featured guest at Laurie's Paranormal Thoughts & Reviews
• on September 16, I'll be a highlighted author at Charlene A. Wilson's Highlighted Author
• on September 16, I'll be answering some interesting questions at Books and Tales
• the book might be reviewed by Sandra at Jeanz Book Read N Review
• the book might be reviewed by Sabina at Dangerous Romance

And there it is.  The big publicity push.  True, I could pay upwards of $100 for book tours and other publicity, but I really wonder if any of it works.  All I really want is for readers to read my book.  I know, an odd but honest request.

In the meantime, I'm writing book two (Devil's Food) and keeping up with my reviews for AAR (www.likesbooks.com) and Booklist (www.booklistonline.com), so I've got more than enough to do.

Oh, yes, and in the meantime, I'm also adding all the books I've reviewed and links to reviews to both Goodreads and Shelfari.

Derek, the Warlock

I see Derek, the warlock in my novel The Vampire's Food Chain, as an unassuming, likable guy who can control the elements and has a deep connection with the Earth.  As far as coloring, he's on the lighter side, either blond or ginger, and while he isn't brooding, he's not happy-go-lucky either.  He takes his job as Shawn's food source seriously, just as seriously as he sees himself as her protector.  He realizes that she's more powerful than he is, but that doesn't bother him.  As far as relationships go, he's not threatened by her power and actually wants to see her become more so.

What do I think Derek looks like?  Well, a Google images search has given me these four candidates, although Paul Bettany, Heath Ledger, and a number of other actors come immediately to mind.

 Derek Candidate #1:

 I love this guy's hair and great blue eyes, but I'm wondering if has the warlock attitude.  Can't tell without more picture.

 Derek Candidate #2:

Love this guy's hair and his torso.  I also like that he looks slightly serious, but not completely so.  He looks like he's got some great warlock moves in him.














Derek Candidate #3:

I'm not sure if this is Todd Lowe or not, but if it is, Lowe would be perfect.  He's got the face, the hair, the eyes, and the build, plus he can play the slightly unfocused, focused character that epitomizes Derek.













Derek Candidate #4:

Again, it's the hair, the eyes, and the general demeanor of this guy who screams Derek to me.  I love that his shirt doesn't quite fit his shoulders, too.  It's such a guy thing.  He'd look great in a wizard's robe.













So I'm wondering which of these guys readers would choose as Derek.  Or if the answer is "none of the above," who they would nominate in their place.

Fun Food Chains

When I Googled "food chain," I got all sorts of hits for children explaining what a food chain is and some offering games that show how food chains work.  Most were pretty bloody, but accurate.

My favorite graphic for food chains, however, is the one on the left from what looks like a school worksheet entitled "Food Chains and Food Webs."  I love the zebras running the opposite way the lions are facing.  Go, zebras!

And just like in my book, the race is on.  Neither will prevail, because to do so would mean the extinction of one of the groups--lions or zebras.  So even though there is a food chain, it's a balanced system, hence the pyramid and not a lopsided weight scale.

Oh, yes, and for those really excited about worksheets, there's even a Food Chain Quiz that one can take at the site.

Speaking of Food Chains

Probably the most knowledgeable person in the world about food chains is my son-in-law Richard Choularton, who is an absolutely amazing person.  He works for the World Food Programme, a part of the United Nations, and is instrumental in getting food distribution to poor areas of Africa.  Previously, he worked for CHF, another organization instrumental in getting food aid to people in need.

Richard isn't a vampire, nor does he want to be associated with them, I'm sure, but he knows much more about sustaining life than any bloodsucker could ever know.

You go, Richard!  The world is a better place because you are in it.

First Amazon Review

Whoa!  A review, and a good one at that, has appeared on Amazon.  I'm hoping that brings a click or two on the page.

I've realized since self-publishing with CreateSpace that even though I've had PR experience, it was back in the dark ages of PR.  Social media is way, way beyond me.  Right now I'm working on a short (and I mean short) video to offer websites and blogs.  I'm also working up a few dialogues between my major characters to offer as guest blogs.

All of this is taking away from the creating of the second book in the series which I titled Shawn Goes to Hell at first, but now is known as The Vampire's Food Chain: Devil's Food (with the third book entitled Angel's Food).

Added to the promotional and writing pressures are the visits from friends on the East Coast and Midwest (wonderful!) and the trips we have planned to California's answer to Sin City: L. A.  Since we're driving (or rather my husband is driving), I'm hoping to have a lot of Devil's Food written and a few dialogues finished by the time we get back.  Then I'll start shopping the dialogues around and hand the chapters to my beta reader, my daughter Beck.

We'll see.  We'll see.

Social Media and Me

Hmmm...I'm beginning to think that for all the time I spend on the computer writing word after word, I'm not very social--at least as new media is concerned.

I have a Facebook account and keep up with pictures of my grandchildren that way.  But am I a big poster?  No way!

I now have a Google + account and a long list of potential "friends" or "acquaintances" I've never heard of.  Should I befriend them?  Or should I just ignore them?

But don't I want to get the word out to everyone who reads vampire books that my book is available?  Obviously, hermits don't sell many books, but they do have time to write them.  What's more important now?  Writing the second book in the series (Shawn Goes to Hell, uh, actually titled The Vampire's Food Chain: Devil's Food) OR promote the book that's published?

Sigh.  Being a writer (and that's what I think of myself), I'd rather write.  But is that counterproductive?

What a dilemma writers put themselves in when they opt for the self-published route.  Maybe I should have tried harder to get an agent and go the "traditional" route of getting published.  Maybe.

But I really do like this brave new world of self-publishing and its promise to readers that more is available than the works selected by agents and marketing professionals who worry about bottom lines instead of written lines.

Living Dead Goes Live

Ta da!  The book went live on Amazon today.

Phew!  Now onward to write book 2 in the series.

Thanks again, Bugs, for all your help and reading and rereading!  Love you!

Proofreading

So all the code for the book was okayed by CreateSpace, and they sent me the option of buying a print-on-demand copy to proofread OR a PDF of the interior pages as they stand now for proofreading purposes.  I opted for the PDF and am now printing the pages.

I'm hoping to have the pages proofed by Friday and be able to get the book "out there" then.  We'll see.  I haven't read the book in a while, so I'm wondering how many editing changes I'll want to make.  Editing to me means making large changes as opposed to proofing which are small changes like spelling, punctuation, etc.

Still, it's an exciting process.

And So It Begins...

I wrote this manuscript a few years ago with the wonderful help of my daughter Becca (aka Bugs) who read and commented and read again.  Through my own inertia, I let the manuscript sit and fester until today when I finally got up off my duff and decided to turn it into a CreateSpace publication.

So I spent the morning formatting the manuscript and creating a cover from the CreateSpace template and free images.  Oddly enough, I love my book.  Why oddly?  Mostly because I've never seen myself as a book designer.

I've spent my life behind the scenes of book publishing, first as a reviewer and second as a publicist to a small independent publisher long before the advent of online marketing and publicity.  So I have no real idea of what I'm doing other than putting my book "out there" (Is there a there there?  Sorry to borrow so freely, Gertrude.)

At any event, my manuscript, cover art, and other choices are currently being vetted by CreateSpace.  Will Shawn, Derek, Anthony, and Jane ever see the light of day in a "real" virtual world setting?

Only time will tell now.