Vaughn R. Demont's Blog, page 10

Storytellers: Lightning Rod

And here’s the next addition to my Storytellers series, where I discuss various behind the scenes stuff about the next book in the Broken Mirrors series, Lightning Rod. Unlike my other works, Lightning Rod has a lot of personal significance to me in that it’s the first City story, it got me my MFA,  took me several years to write, and some other issues I’ve discussed previously on the blog.

Next will be House of Stone, which I’m hoping to have finished by the end of the week, or beginning of next week. So, without further ado, enjoy some spoiler-free tidbits about the writing of Lightning Rod.

1. The protagonist was, at first, a vampire. And then a Goth.

James Black, the protagonist of “Lightning Rod”, was originally Gandalf James McKellan.

Yeah. I cringe to look at it too, now.

I used to be big into tabletop roleplaying, particularly the White Wolf system, so I’d rolled a Tremere vampire, and gave him that… ugh, THAT name. He lasted maybe one session, but I liked the core concept of a sorcerer since to be honest I prefer charming rogues to spellslingers. (Like a certain Coyote…) I eventually got into Mage: the Ascension, and decided to recycle the concept for White Wolf’s official moderated chat: New Bremen. I rolled James as a Hollow One, but his name wouldn’t fly because, well, trademarked name and the last name was a little too on-the-nose. I could get away with one or the other. So, to be spiteful, his full name became Gandalf James Eric Carlos Miles Coltrane Tarrant Canmore, my explanation being that he was Catholic, and his parents were into jazz and classic rock, all traits that still for the most part survived in some form, though his name was cut down. Eventually, I stopped playing there, and changed the name to G. James Black, figuring I could try my hand at writing a longer work for him. That was in 2003. I didn’t even write the first paragraph until 2006.

2. It was supposed to be the very first City novel

For those of you who’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you’ll know that the very *first* City book was The Last Paladin, which I sold through Torquere as a 3-part serial. It introduced the City, took place primarily in Allora, and established satyrs, Pan, the Palace of Wisdom, and the pantheon of gods that were dominant in the City itself. A lot of things that are alluded to in Last Paladin are actually the events of Lightning Rod, which was first completed in 2008. Originally, I had written a story in undergraduate school called “A City Dweller’s Guide to the Supernatural, or How to Date People That Shouldn’t Exist”, a paranormal romance about a street poet that falls for a drummer in a punk band that turns out to be a satyr. It’ll never see the light of day, primarily because I cannibalized chunks of it for my City novels and it wasn’t as strong as I was hoping. The protagonist of the story was G. James Black. When I got into graduate school, we were required to produce a creative thesis, and I chose to scrap City Dwellers and write a new story using G. James as the protagonist.

3. It was originally much longer, and had a higher body count.

I won’t comment on what the body count is now, or if there even is one, honestly, but the first draft of “Lightning Rod” that I turned in at grad school was 131,457 words. Truthfully, in the fiction program, this was one of the shorter works. (There were at least 2 projects that I knew of that were well over 1500 pages. One guy had been writing it since junior high and my God did it show…) Now it’s about 40,000 words shorter with a LOT of fat trimmed out, but even now, looking at that old draft, I can’t believe that they gave me a degree for that thing. I also killed off a fair share of characters, innocents, probably thinking it would give more emotional weight, but I more think I was just following the lead of Joss Whedon to kill people off for shock value and prove that “no one was safe”. Seriously, I know I’m sparking a flame war, but did he REALLY have to kill those two in Serenity?

4. It has been completely rewritten from scratch twice.

I’m not ashamed to say that “Lightning Rod” is a redux of “City Dwellers” with a shift toward Urban Fantasy instead of Paranormal Romance. When I was whittling down the 131,000 words monstrosity, I still had to explain this and that, patch up sections with massive cuts, lift out side plots that didn’t work and remove any mention, it was exhausting, honestly. What I ended up with was a Frankensteinian… thing that got me my degree but had such weird stop and start plot speed I’m not really surprised I couldn’t get many publishers to look at it. Instead, I concentrated on other projects, such as “House of Stone”, which got me in at Samhain and with an amazing editor. I told her about “Lightning Rod” after selling “Coyote’s Creed”, and she agreed to look at it. After a couple months I got a “good rejection”, in that it was a no, but here’s a lot of feedback to fix it, and she agreed to look at it again if I addressed the issues. Once I actually, y’know, got over myself, I realized that all of the concerns were valid, and that there was a surefire way to fix the problem: Completely rewrite “Lightning Rod”. And God, I have no idea what I was thinking, but I did it, despite quite a few author friends questioning my sanity, and sent it off.

And it got rejected, but with more feedback.

I fixed it, sent it off again, and decided if it got the thumbs down, I was going to just write it off and go Emo. Instead it got picked up, and became the second part of my Broken Mirrors series, and now instead of it being a stand alone, I have ideas for James and Spence for at least three more books.

5. I was going to write a dystopian sci-fi, but a housemate told me I had to follow Rule 35.

To be honest, I didn’t even want to write urban fantasy because I’d been reading Jim Butcher and Richelle Mead and Ilona Andrews and Rob Thurman and I was convinced I would never be able to write as well as them. What I was hoping to find was a gay urban fantasy hero, because I’m gay and I wouldn’t mind having some “family” to cheer for. I really only saw one gay character in my favorite authors, and I’m pretty sure he was bisexual anyway. I know if I searched long enough I’d eventually find something buried in an indie bookstore, but I couldn’t find anything. Rule 34, as we all know is: If you can think of it, you can find porn of it. Rule 35? “If you cannot find it, it is your solemn duty to put it out there.”

I know that there are dozens upon hundreds of M/M books out there with gay protagonists that are vampires or werewolves or sorcerers or shifters (sooooo many shifters), but for the most part, they’re romance. That’s all well and good, but that’s not what I’m looking for. I want a gay guy to save the world. I want a gay guy who has a life like Harry Dresden’s (well, not EXACTLY like Harry Dresden’s, that guy’s approaching 30 kinds of fucked up now). When people pick up a copy of the latest Dresden Files, they wonder how Harry’s going to get further screwed by Fate, not who he’s going to screw. Sure, there’s an Inevitable Couple there, but that’s not the focus of the story, or the series. When that’s what you’re looking for, a gay protagonist becomes a whole hell of a lot harder to find.

So… going by Rule 35, it was my job to put it out there.

Random Tidbits

- Lightning Rod, the final version, that is, was written mostly to Tool, Rise Against, The Offspring and Muse, who I thank in my acknowledgments.

- The title is actually taken from the Offspring song “Lightning Rod”, off their Splinter album.

- The name of the series was inspired by Rise Against.

- A supporting character was originally slated to be killed in the story, but was so beloved by my betas that I decided against it.

- Lightning Rod originally featured cameos by characters from The Last Paladin, but most of the cameos were cut. The cameos lived on though in Coyote’s Creed when Spencer visits the Palace of Wisdom.  One cameo survived, and turned into a full-fledged guest spot for the remainder of the series.

Lightning Rod will be released on October 9th. Pre-order direct from Samhain, or pre-order from Amazon here.

Storytellers: Coyote’s Creed

The following post is a repost from my Facebook page, but I’m trying to get back into posting on the blog, so I figured I’d prime the pump a little bit. I’ll be posting the Storytellers for Lightning Rod next, and then I’ll work on posts for House of Stone, Vampire Fred, and Last Paladin, before doing one for Community Service, the next book in the Broken Mirrors series that comes out next year. If you guys have any questions about some of the “behind the scenes” stuff on any of my books, feel free to ask in the comments. 

 

Anyone remember VH1 Storytellers? I liked it because the artist would give the audience about 3-5 minutes of backstory on a song before they performed it. Maybe it ruined the mystery, but I always thought it was a cool idea.

1) Coyote’s Creed was initially available for free.

A couple of years ago I got the idea to try a project that came to be known as Free Fiction Friday. The premise was pretty simple: Post at least 1000 words or a chapter of a serial novel every Friday. At one point we had a few pro authors including myself, I.D. Locke, and Cassandra Gold, as well as a few freelance authors such as Simon Fielding.  Coyote’s Creed was originally called “The King’s Confidante”, and was posted one chapter a week for about half a year. The book was actually about 15,000 words longer, but to be honest, most of it was fat, there’s not much in the way of “deleted scenes”, and the book’s offline anyway since it’s under contract now. Most of the stories I posted to the Free Fiction Friday community were canon to the City setting, though “Dead In The Water”, a James Black novella, is pretty much disavowed as it doesn’t fit in with the continuity anymore.

 

2) Both Coyote’s Creed and the Broken Mirrors series were never intended to be young adult.

They still aren’t, essentially, but this was asked about the series itself considering that Spencer is 18. The reason that he’s 18 is so that he’ll be legal and of the age of consent. I even made sure he was a few months over the line to avoid any “barely legal” connotations. He starts the story at 18, but by the time the series gets into full swing he’ll be in his 20s. There was always going to be adult content in the story, both because that’s an aspect I imagined for tricksters in my setting, and because it’s generally expected when the possibility of a gay romance is in there. I know I’m courting a firestorm here, but if you’re writing a gay character in a modern setting and it’s not about him coming out or dealing with AIDS, sex scenes are recommended, so it’s best to make them organic to the story, so that’s what I tried to do with Spencer and Rourke. Speaking of which…

 

3) I seriously had no idea Spencer and Rourke would get the kind of backlash they did.

No kidding, I got hate mail over the age difference. I can’t really try to explain it away using the story itself, because well, that’s implying “you just weren’t reading it right” and that’s a dick move that I don’t want to pull out. I missed a key factor in my research, in that in gay relationships, the readers generally won’t tolerate more than 10 years age difference, and the key here is “perceived age.” Spence was 18 in CC and looked 18. Rourke was… well past a few centuries, actually, and the mistake I made was that “vampire rules” applied. I forgot that vampires may be 200-900 years old, but they are perceived to be in their twenties.  (Or high school age in the case of a certain vampire with the initials E.C.) Rourke was perceived to be in his fifties, and that squicked out a number of readers. Sorry about that.

 

4) Spencer Crain was initially inspired by a baseball game, and then The Sims 3.

I’m a gamer, I’ve admitted that a couple times, I think. Sports games are both my passion and my bane, particularly ones where you can play out the career of a single player. A friend of mine lent me MLB 2K10, and I made a right fielder for the Oakland A’s, and picked some names at random until I found one I liked: Spencer Crain. I liked the sound of the name, and eventually used the name when making a Sims house. I randomly assigned traits, and Spence came up with Sense of Humor, Couch Potato, and Kleptomaniac, while his mom came up with Insane and an aspiration to be a writer. Seriously. Major facets of the characters’ personalities were selected at random by the Sims, but I thought it was an interesting development, so I took a few notes on it, figuring I could make a story for Spencer later.

 

5) The Battle of the Blonde Jokes is based on a Werewolf: The Apocalypse session I ran in college. 

God, did people love that chapter. I did a lot of research, mined the internet, and asked friends in my WoW guild for jokes (Thanks OBC!), but the whole idea for that chapter is based off a session where my friend, who was running a Bone Gnawer named Dane St. James, entered into a riddle contest with a spirit of enigmas, and countered every one of its Tolkienesque riddles… with a blonde joke. Eventually, since I was running out of elaborate poetic puzzles, I dragged out every blonde joke I’d heard and it turned into an epic battle. Ever since, I wanted a serious battle of wits to be settled… with blonde jokes. When I finally got to have Spencer face off against his nemesis, I knew I had my chance.

 

6) Spencer was in tutoring because I had to work that job.

Spencer’s philosophies on how to slide through the day doing little work or none at all? Almost all of it was what I observed the kids doing while I worked as a tutor. My job was pretty simple, really: get the kids to work on their assignments and get them turned in. Far easier said than done. Much like Spencer proclaims in one chapter, “If I had the kind of work ethic they were asking for, I wouldn’t need to be here.” Most of the kids I got were like Spencer; kids who just cut a lot of class and fell really far behind. Seniors, such as Spence, got a lot of attention because we wanted them to graduate both so they could start their lives AND get out of the system, or at least the school system. And yes, if the kids were doing their work and not being disruptive, we didn’t really care why they were there to begin with.

And if I’d had Spencer in my group? I’d have taken his cards and limited his bathroom breaks until he got his work done.

 

7) There are a few pokes at the M/M genre in there.

This was mostly because while I was posting the story to the Free Fiction Friday community, I received some messages specifically requesting that I write in a sex scene not between Rourke and Spence, but rather between… (Ugh, this is painful to type) Spencer and Thornton and one request for… Spencer and Justin. Yes. Some readers who were disgusted by Spencer sleeping with a man appearing to be 30 years older than him wanted to see Spencer have sex with his half-brother or his father. They even called it “Crain-cest.” Hence the running gag of Spence and Thornton shuddering at even the suggestion. Seriously guys, that’s a line I’m not looking at much less crossing, kay?

 

Tiny Tidbits:

- All of the chapter titles are named tropes at TVTropes.org

- Spencer originally had Italian ancestry instead of Swedish

- At the wake scene, all of the Coyotes present were initially his half-brothers, but I cut it down.

- Coyote’s Creed is not only the first book of the Broken Mirrors series, canon-wise it’s the first City story chronologically.

- I wrote Father Coyote imagining him played by Nathan Fillion, and Thornton played by Jared Leto, but I have no idea who’d play Spencer.

- All edits and revisions to the manuscript were done to Tenacious D and Stephen Lynch CDs.

- Coyote’s Creed was accepted about a week after submission, probably the fastest response I’ve ever received on a manuscript ever.

- Spencer’s “one and done” hero gig was largely inspired by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “The Zeppo”. Yes, I imagine Spence as the Xander of the group.

 

Well, that’s it for this session. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

Coyote's Creed Review Roundup :)

Here's the reviews of Coyote's Creed I've been able to find thus far. :)

A 5 of 5 recommended read from Reviews by Jessewave!

5 of 5 from MM Good Book Reviews!

5 of 5 from Literary Nymphs!

A great review from Elisa Rolle!

4.5 of 5 from The Romance Studio!

4 of 5 from Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews!

Thanks for all the great reviews!

Looking to pick up a copy of Coyote's Creed?

Buy it here from Amazon!

Buy it from Fictionwise

Buy from AllRomanceEbooks.com

Buy direct from Samhain! (This is the best "support the author" option. :) )


You might've noticed that the blog's been... neglected of late. Mostly, I'm on Twitter and Facebook now.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/vaughndemont
Facebook: http://facebook.com/VaughnRDemont

Coffee Time Romance Reviews House of Stone!

And they gave it a five out of five!
I'm really honored that they'd give it a full five, they're pretty stingy with those from what I hear. :)

Release Day - Tales of the City

Tales of the City: An Anthology

A collection of previously unpublished vignettes and longer works which introduce new characters and stories to Demont's ever-growing cast and setting.

In "Drive-Through", a late-night run for barbecue takes an unexpected turn, while "The Line of the Hunt" tells the tale of a were-cheetah struggling to maintain a normal life despite his bestial nature, and how a chance encounter with another of his kind threatens to bring his house of cards tumbling down. "Happy Birthday" returns the reader to the romantic leads of "The Vampire Fred" for a brief but important night in Fred's life. The collection finishes with the novella "Let the River Run", the story of an incubus accused of murder who recounts his story and origins in an attempt to prove his innocence.

Warning: This work contains scenes of explicit erotic content.

Buy here from Kindle Direct for $0.99

So Here We Are Again...

Gotta admit I'm trying.

Five interviews in the last three weeks, all of it goes well, I'm a great interview, personable, all that, until my education is brought up. Master's degrees and Bachelor's degrees do not help like they tell you in college. Overqualified is a word I'm growing sick of. I seriously had no idea that employers require that their workers be absolutely enthralled with what they're doing. The good folk at McDonald's, Burger King, Domino's, Arby's and the local gas station were all quick to tell me I'd be bored, and only there until I got a better job. I couldn't even get a job picking up trash in front of a building.
Still, it's not all gloom and doom. That civil service exam I took for the City? Finally got a callback, and interviewed, and it went very well. I got asked the education question, but this time I had a proper comeback. The job is civil service, after all, and my "overeducation" doesn't play into it since it's all determined by your score on the exam. Also, and this was my selling point, I'm on the ICR for my student loan debt, which very highly encourages people to seek civil service. I was able to tell them if hired they'd have me ten years guaranteed. It definitely changed the mood of the interview, but I won't hear anything back for 3-4 weeks. Such is bureaucracy.
In the meantime, well, summer sucks when your main source of income is a job in education. I'm lucky enough to have friends who invite me over for meals, a couple people who make little care packages to help through the especially lean weeks (running isn't the only reason I've lost thirty pounds in the last 4 months).

I'm not asking for help, but I certainly won't turn it down at this point. I can offer commissions at rates to be negotiated, or give looks to stories or manuscripts.
If you want to just buy a book to show support, or want to direct someone, my Amazon page is: http://www.amazon.com/Vaughn-R.-Demont/e/B004FS3S02/
If you want want to tip, or donate, my Paypal is: solomonphoenix at yahoo dot com.

An Update on My Back Catalog

Well, the contracts for Lennox and Fred are up, and Torquere has elected to compile Last Paladin 1, 2, and 3 into one volume for easy buying on Amazon and other sites. :)

Fred, on the other hand, wasn't picked up again, so if anyone wanted to check it out on Kindle, The Vampire Fred will be available to buy direct from Amazon for $0.99 in 2-4 days, about $5 cheaper than when it was first released. :)

Lightning Rod is off to Samhain, so we'll see how that turns out before I start work on the third installment of Broken Mirrors, and thanks to my readers who've already pre-ordered Coyote's Creed from Amazon!

The Coyote's Creed Cover

Cover art by Angela Waters

Seriously sooooooo excited for how this turned out. :)

Tweets for Today

07:56 Cuomo signed it into law, it's official. It's finally hitting me, can't stop crying. So damned proud to be a New Yorker. #ILoveNY #NY4M # 08:49 Where I Was When... (I Love NY) j.mp/jRWM7U #Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Where I Was When... (I Love NY)

It's easy to be cynical.

In the weeks leading up to this, I did my usual thing if asked about it: I displayed cynicism in a clumsy cloak of hope. This has happened before, you see. It's been pushed, it passes the Assembly, we get our hopes up, the Senate shoots it down, the pundits either rejoice or condemn, we wait a year or so and do it all over again.

People I know online who live outside this state, or this country sometimes asked me why it wouldn't pass here. After all, to the majority of the world, New York State is synomynous with New York City, so some never really learn that if it weren't for New York City, New York State would be more conservative than Texas. The Republicans here are not RINOs (Republican In Name Only), they're just as right-leaning for the most part as you'd find in Texas and Arizona.

So when it comes up that the deciding votes are held by two Republicans, one who's long been against gay marriage, and the other a Roman Catholic who got in on the Tea Party Express, well...

As I said, it's easy to be cynical. Though I used to calling it "betting on human nature".

I don't know if it says more about me or my country when I admit that when I read about all of the conferences, negotiations, and politicking to get the bill to the floor, I believed it was a stall tactic, that senators would force concessions only to vote no anyway, that it would all turn out to be some grand hoax. I watched a live broadcast of the senate floor on local TV, and watched the supporters stumble and pause through their remarks, and had to keep switching back to Netflix and episodes of Eureka to keep myself from getting pissed off. I said I called it betting on human nature, but it doesn't mean I like winning.

And then I glance over to see the undecided senator who voted against it before, and listen to his remarks, wait for the words that will justify my cynicism...

"While I understand that my vote will disappoint many, I also know my vote is a vote of conscience. I am doing the right thing in voting to support marriage equality." - Sen. Stephen Saland (R-Poughkeepsie)

And then I feel hope, cloaked in clumsy cynicism. It could really happen, couldn't it? I don't want to watch, but I can't stop. I watch the parade of senators make their statements, some that inspire now, some that disappoint, but all expected, and then it comes to the Roman Catholic senator. It's looking like it's going to pass now, it might really happen, but as I listen to his words...

He says that he cannot deny anyone basic rights. "I apologize to those I offend, but I believe you can be wiser today than yesterday. I believe this state needs to provide equal rights and protections for all its residents." - Sen. Mark Grisanti (R-Buffalo)

And in that moment I am shamed.

As I said, it's easy to be cynical. It's easy to hate, it's easy to make excuses, or fall back on platitudes and talking points to conceal pure self-service. It's easy to look at politicians today and think that people who vote their conscience instead of the party line only exist in the movies. It's easy to forget that when you bet on human nature, you're also betting on the innate compassion that gives us our humanity.

It passed 33-29, and was signed into law before midnight. I started crying then, I'm still crying now, even as I write this.

Thank you, New York. Thank you for seeing me as a human being.