Brian Patrick McKinley's Blog, page 10

Strain-ing My Patience: Vampires Are Not Zombies!!

I’ve been watching The Strain, the FX series based on the novels by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. So far, I can’t say I’m really loving the show. The story reminds me too much of Dracula, complete with an old Jewish Van Helsing (played by David Bradley of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones fame), but tries to have it both ways by having its vampirism be both scientific and mystical at the same time. My biggest problem with the show and the story in general is that, despite the large array of focus characters, I haven’t found many of them to be at all interesting.

 

It’s like The Walking Dead, except we get to watch the world fall apart very slowly and without any interesting characters to follow.

 

And the vampires?

Well, they might as well be zombies. They’re revenants with a bad case of worms and an over-developed case of Alien-mouth-envy. Aside from the novelty of watching them vomit their giant, lamprey tongues out, there’s not much new here. Lots of gross attention to the unpleasant transformations, but no personalities or real stories. The only exception to this is the sinister Nazi vampire played by Richard Sammell with wonderfully creepy subtlety, but even this character has very little substance when really examined. Maybe I went in with too many expectations after hearing about how incredible and different the novels were, but what did I see? Big box of earth, ship of the dead, minions, “The Master”, and the old vampire-hunter that no one believes. Sound familiar?

 

“I’m mostly known for my weddings…”

 

However, my purpose here isn’t to bash The Strain. Well, okay, not my only purpose. It just made me think about all the current rage for making vampires “scary” again and how that unfortunately gets translated to mean “mindless.” Sure, the vampires in The Strain and 30 Days of Night might technically have some form of intelligence, but are they interesting?

No.

 

The savage, feral monster vampire may have its place in folklore and film, but I don’t really see the point anymore. We have zombies now to represent the mindless, cannibalistic dead, so why make vampires like that too? It’s boring, it’s repetitive, and it’s a waste of the natural potential of the vampire archetype.

I’ve always maintained that the thing which makes the vampire interesting and truly frightening is its ability to resemble us. Obviously, I’m not saying that all vampires should be sexy lovers or stereotypical aristocrats, but I love the potential for variety that the vampire possesses. Let the vampire have some personality! If you want them to be evil, fine, but make their evil an expression of their individual desires and needs.

Like this little bastard. Creepier than any vampire!

 

Keeping the vampire a monster isn’t a problem, but rendering them into monotonous beasts is just wasteful.

What Puts Readers Off Self-Published Books?

xuemertie:

This didn’t surprise me, but it’s worth spreading around.

Originally posted on Tara Sparling writes:

ANOTHER graph! Heaven…. I’m in Heaven….

Oh, we’ve come a long way from What Makes People Buy Self-Published Books last week, ladies and gentlesirs!

Brace yourselves now, as we enter the dark side of book marketing: the things which make you REFUSE to buy self-published books.

And we’ve all experienced this to some degree. Self-publishing often gets a very bad rap. If people avoided some of the behaviour which follows, the industry can only benefit.

Cobbled together from the feedback from you, the nice people who comment, I now have a list of what’s most likely to make sure you will never buy a book from a certain author, let alone read one.

These fall loosely into 3 categories:

1. Pushy Marketing Tactics
2. Bad Book Design
3. The Writing Itself

These categories also come in the order which they would turn readers off a book. Even if a book didn’t…

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Top Ten Vampires

So, somebody finally created a list of vampires that I can agree with! I’d move Lestat and Spike closer to the top, I think, and bump Dracula down a few notches, but over-all it’s a good list.

 

Slipping Beneath the Skin: Thoughts on Conjuring Characters

Originally posted on PORTALS AND PATHWAYS:

Every author has favorite parts of the writing process, or particular strengths or weaknesses. One of my passions in storytelling is characterization. I don’t like reading books about one-dimensional characters who act like their personalities came off of statistic sheets in a Dungeons and Dragons game, and I don’t write people like that, either.

Yes, I said ‘write people.’ That’s the key to good characterization—don’t ‘create characters.’ Characters are the marks that appear on your screen when you strike the keys on your keyboard. The men, women, or creatures in your story should be more than that—so write people.

“How do I do that?” you might be wondering. “They’re made up, right?”

The people in your stories might not be literally walking around in flesh and blood and three dimensions, but if your reader can’t believe that they could be, then your story is on the way to being dead…

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Belated Presents

xuemertie:

Here’s a segment from our resident Vampirologist, Anthony Hogg:

Originally posted on The Vampirologist:

Whenever someone asks me what I want for Christmas or my birthday, I respond with “Books.” And by “Books”, I of course mean vampire non-fiction.

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My Writing Progress Blog

Hi! So I was suckered into—I mean, invited to take part in this My Writing Progress Blog Tour by author L.M. David (http://lmdavid54.wordpress.com/). This should be a real treat for you readers because, really, there’s nothing I love more than thinking about how little progress I’ve been making on my work. Seriously, though, L.M. David’s a great writer whose work I enjoy and I got free publicity on her blog, so why not?

 

Anyway, here’s the questions I was asked (complete with answers because I was feeling generous):

 

1. What am I working on?

Good question, mysterious first-person interviewer! Right now I’m working on a blog article about My Writing Process. I’m also working on keeping my snarkiness under control, but that’s a lost cause. I was working on the sequel to my first novel Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony but I lost my steam and it all began to feel bleak and hopeless and depressing… So now I’ve gone back to working on my outline for the sequel to my second novel, Drawing Dead: A Faolan O’Connor Novel. Jesus, what is with me always putting the word “novel” in the subtitle? It’s like I’m afraid people won’t realize it’s fiction or something—I also don’t understand how some authors can crank out a novel every six months or so, because this shit’s as difficult and time-consuming as what I image bringing a child to term and giving birth would be.

Pre-release cover by David McDowell Blue. Watch for publication cover on this blog!

 

2. How does my work differ from others in my genre?

Well, it’s better, of course! LOL!

Oh, you want an answer with real thought? Fine, fine. Really, I think the major difference lies in the details. I take my vampires for what they are as characters and let them do their thing. I don’t make apologies for them and they don’t make apologies for being vampires. I try to make my fictional world as realistic as I can, meaning that I try to think about all the stupid little details of life with regard to my people. They have a whole society set up, so I think about how that really works. How do the vampires get their hair cut? How do they get people to work for them and keep them? It’s a little meta and more than a little self-aware, but we live in a pop-culture saturated culture and my vampires aren’t immune to that. I like to think about how different people and different cultures solve problems, so some of my vampires are monstrous assholes while others are relatively decent people who happen to drink blood. I hate one-size-fits-all vampire mythologies where all vampires are [insert stereotypical image here]. Why shouldn’t the vampires within a story be just as diverse as the human beings they originally were? It’s definitely a matter of taste, so some people will find my vamps a refreshing change from the norm while others will be bothered that I didn’t stick to a standard formula.

First world vampire problems

I can’t control what other authors write and I think it’s silly to pretend that my novels are super-original concepts. There’s been other authors with similar ideas to mine, some whom I’ve read and other that I’ve never heard of, but it really comes down to the characters and the stories. There are lots of spy novels in the world, but only one James Bond. I write my novels from the heart and I try to make them the best that they can be, which is all I can really promise. They’re the kind of novels I’d want to read, the kind I so rarely find when I look. My new novel, Drawing Dead, for instance, is about vampire gangsters in the 1930s New York. Now that’s a pretty great premise, but what I really think sets it apart from other novels I’ve read that tried to combine those ideas is the character of Faolan O’Connor. That’s why I gave it the subtitle I did. It’s not a “Vampire Gangsters of New York” novel, it’s a Faolan O’Connor novel. Give it a try and I think you’ll see the difference.

 

3. Why do I write what I do?

Um, because I like it? Seriously, why does everyone always ask this? It’s not like I suffered a bizarre childhood trauma that forever compelled me to write about vampires! I’m a writer and have experimented with a number of different genres and styles. Ancient Blood started out as a challenge to write a better vampire movie, something that I’d actually like to see rather than the crap that was out at the time. I was eventually inspired to transform Ancient Blood into a novel because it would allow me to expand on and explain the bizarre and wonderful vampire society I’d created. That story made me think of other stories I could tell in the same universe and other characters I could chronicle. I’m really all about my characters—many of those characters are vampires because of the role-playing games I’ve played in—and so I write vampire stories. One day, when I want/need to take a break from The Order Saga, there’s a sci-fi action/adventure story I’ve got waiting in the dark corners of my mind. By the time I get around to that, I’ll probably have a bunch of other ideas. By the way, if any authors out there are looking for some great stories to do, just contact me and I’ll sell you some. I’ve got plenty that I’ll probably never get around to using.

 

4. How does my writing process work?

Boy, I wish I knew the answer to that! Most of the time, it doesn’t seem to work at all.

What? I’m preoccupied…

Here’s the routine:

a) Sleep obscenely late and struggle to get myself out of bed at all. My dreams are usually annoying and nonsensical and don’t provide me with any inspiration at all.

b) I decide that I’m going to try to get some writing done, but first I have to eat, get ready, and take care of various chores.

c) Get caught up on Facebook, emails, or TV and feel vaguely ashamed of myself for not working on something.

d) Finally force myself to pack up my laptop and go to Panera Bread or some other place with air-conditioning, refillable sodas, and wi-fi and get set up.

e) I check back on Facebook and email to make sure I haven’t missed anything important and usually find stuff to comment on.

f) Mentally scold myself, pull up my WIP, and proceed to stare at it for a while before creeping back onto Facebook.

g) I decide to “compromise” by working on a blog post, critique group submission, or something else vaguely “writing” related so that I don’t feel so bad.

h) Search for and fill out an online job application because I’m out of work.

i) Think of something cool and then spend half an hour trying to figure out how to work it into whatever I’m working on. Sometimes I find a place for it and sometimes I just have to file it away for a later story.

j) Then I have to go home because Panera is closing, and I spend the rest of the night feeling unsatisfied because I didn’t get anything worthwhile done. I promise myself that I’ll do more tomorrow, but even I don’t believe myself.

So I’m going to walk away from the keyboard and have a good cry. Happy now?

 

Well, thanks for joining me for My Writing Process Blog Tour! It’s been a fun-and-misery-filled rampage through self-pity and depression, hasn’t it? If you can handle it, here’s the two victims I tagged to continue this modern chain letter: Daven Anderson and Theresa Oliver!

 

 

Daven Anderson spends his nights modifying cars for the Council of Thirteen’s elite Venator law enforcers; because when you’re a Vampire, there’s no such thing as “too much horsepower.” Daven brings supercharged concept cars to life, so the Venators have the power they need to chase rabid  vampires, chupacabras, cattle-mutilating aliens, vampire hunters, and whoever or whatever else the Council deems a threat to the security of the Vampire community.

The Venators love to have long conversations with Daven while he works on their cars. Unbeknownst to them, Daven has been secretly recording the Venators’ tales, using them as the basis for the Vampire Syndrome saga. After a long night’s work, Daven plays back the tapes, transcribes the best excerpts and sends them as “fiction writing” to the unsuspecting staff members at PDMI Publishing.

The normal people’s constant misrepresentations and misunderstandings of Vampires over the last three centuries, culminating in the most recent shimmering, over-emoting caricatures of  “vampires”, finally motivated Daven to “hide the truth in plain sight” with the Vampire Syndrome saga. Thanks to Daven’s transcriptions, with the assistance of PDMI Publishing, the normal world can at long last read the tales of the Vampires’ elite law enforcers, without the sugar-coated glittering stardust that passes for modern “vampire fiction.”

Daven has hired a professional double, who was previously a grocery store cashier, to promote his novels and work in PDMI’s marketing department, so Daven can continue to chronicle the Venator’s adventures for future volumes of the Vampire Syndrome saga.

 

Theresa grew up in southern Indiana, across from Louisville, Kentucky, in Clarksville, Indiana. In her childhood, she fell in love with the power of the written word, a love affair that has continued throughout her life. She moved to Florida, where she has lived much of my adult life. Oliver attended the University of Tennessee at Martin, Martin, Tenn., and earned her Bachelor of Arts in Communications, News Editorial sequence, and then a Master of Arts in Teaching, Early Childhood Education sequence, from Armstrong Atlantic State University, Savannah, Ga. She is currently a writer and a full-time teacher in Kissimmee, Fla. However, her biggest adventure is as a mother of three beautiful boys. But most of all, she loves writing and sharing it with you!

 

Yes, Officer, I’m An Author.

xuemertie:

Represent, Daven!

Originally posted on Vampire Syndrome Blog:

Here at PDMI Publishing, LLC, our Authors are a most diverse lot, covering a wide social spectrum within the diverse halls of our company. Our Authors create oil paintings, host Civil War re-enactments, work with film producers, roleplay at Science Fiction conventions, host educational events for children, caregive for the homebound, and cruise around in loud musclecars.

Wait a minute, did I just say “cruise around in loud musclecars?” Yes, I did. For, you see, I, PDMI Publishing, LLC Author Daven Anderson, am a lifelong “gearhead”, as devoted to the piston as I am to the keyboard.

Many outside our supercharged world of cruising machines view us “gearheads” as being barely above the status of motorcycle gangs, and cast many churlish presumptions our way. Least not of which is a predisposition that our social circle can barely read books, let alone write them.

Earlier today, I joined a few dozen…

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Scammers and Suckers: A Cautionary Tale

Like all artists, writers want to be loved. We want to be praised and complimented because we toil away in solitude for so long, dreaming of the day we can present our work to the world. Sure, we put on a show of modesty, often hiding behind our characters and worlds like stage moms living vicariously through our creations, but we want that validation just the same. We need to know that all that time and effort hasn’t been for nothing and that we can live up to hopes of all those who wished us success throughout our lives. We’re hungry for others to recognize our talent and offer us success.

 

I’m no different.

 

Pictured: My writing desk.

 

I came of age in the pre-digital age of publishing, when authors needed an agent to open doors for them and “self-publishing” meant shelling out big bucks to the scam artists who ran vanity presses so you could buy terrible-looking copies of your own book to give out to friends and family. I took writing courses, I joined writing groups, and I listened when all the guest speakers told us the same thing: “Never pay to get published.” In short, I considered myself an above-average amateur, in as much as I had never been professionally published, but I had learned the ropes and was just waiting for that lucky break.

 

My first experience came after I gave up on trying to land an agent after several years of trying. Instead, I began sending queries directly to publishers big and small, despite knowing that most were destined for the slush pile. However, I got lucky and got a positive response from a small company called Tekno Books. I was ecstatic! It wasn’t much of an advance, of course, but it was real money from a real company and it was what I’d been waiting most of my life for. After going through editing and being ready to see my precious book in all its hardcover glory, I received an email stating that Tekno was discontinuing the Five Star line under which my novel was scheduled to be published. I got to keep my advance (lucky, since I’d already spent it) and the rights to Ancient Blood reverted back to me, but I wasn’t going to be published after all.

 

Here’s what that feels like.

 

Saddened, but renewed by my near-miss with success, I re-queried my top pick agents with the news that my novel had been proven good enough to sell and was ready to go. Still no interest. I began to fear that Ancient Blood would meet the fate of many author’s first works and gather dust while I moved on. I did move on, of course, and kept working on a new novel that built on everything I’d learned while writing Ancient Blood. However, I had a bad falling out with the friend I was living with, and wound up homeless and unemployed for a while. I lost a lot of my stuff and had to leave most of my friends behind to move back home with my mom, who wasn’t exactly thrilled to have me dependant on her again.

 

So, there I was: depressed (without meds), lonely, broke, unemployed, and discouraged. I decided I had nothing to loose now, and having heard of the boom in digital publishing, I self-published Ancient Blood on Amazon. I figured I could at least have the satisfaction of seeing it in print and, who knows, maybe people would actually buy it. Nobody really did, not even my family and friends, but my meager promotional efforts on Facebook caught the attention of someone I’m going to call T.

 

T messaged me on Facebook to tell me how much she loved Ancient Blood and how cool the premise was, which was music to my ears. It turned out that T had recently taken over a small indie publisher and was looking for good material to help build the company. She wanted to publish Ancient Blood! I would have to pay the costs for an editor and cover design up front, which did set off red flags, but T was offering so much for the price: professional editing and layout, a book trailer, a blog tour, promotional materials, and swag. Most importantly, however, she offered a non-stop flow of praise for my work and my talent as an author. I was invited to her company’s Facebook group, where all the other authors were so friendly that I ignored my misgivings and signed on—not because I thought I was going to make a fortune, but because T and her “family” atmosphere very quickly made me feel like I belonged to a close-knit group of friends. There were endless chats about various topics, loads of encouragement for everyone, and lots of fun events. We were always hosting Facebook release parties for one of our authors or talking in private about our lives. T was able to make me feel as though I was an intimate friend within a week or two of knowing her. She seemed so open and I responded in kind, pouring out all of my fears and hopes and problems; she was always sympathetic.

You can see where this is going, right?

 

So, Ancient Blood was released officially under its new banner. To be fair, I got the edit, a less-than-professional cover design, and the book trailers (cut together by T herself using copyrighted images from the internet, but I was told not to worry because T put a disclaimer on the trailer). The blog tour turned out to be a few interviews with other authors of the company who had blogs. Still, I kept an open mind, thinking that I was supporting a fledgling company that would eventually build up.

 

Jump forward a month and, amid a lot of awkward references to comments and conversations that I hadn’t been privy to, T sent out a general letter to everyone telling us that the company was folding. She was heartbroken, but there were just too many debts left by the previous owners for her to cover. All contracts were null and void. I had yet to receive a single royalty check or statement and had just given T $70 for an order of author copies for promotional purposes. I talked to T, of course, and she promised that everything would be taken care of and I was understanding and supportive. It was tragic, of course, but no one’s fault.

 

Over the next couple of weeks, however, I began to hear from other authors who’d been involved in the company (most of whom are still friends of mine and terrific people, by the way). They started by hinting at irregularities, but eventually came out and told me how they were being ignored by T, how they’d never been paid or never received most of the things they’d been promised, etc. I won’t go into all of it, because the whole sad aftermath has played itself out across several blogs on the internet if you really want to look it up. Just look for any references to “Mystic Press” or Pheonix [sic] Fire. The real upshot was that, less than two months after “closing,” T started a new publishing company with some of the same people. All groups, websites, and references to the old company had disappeared. My trailers had been taken down.

 

T invited me to join her new company at a discounted price. I politely refused, seeing as how I still hadn’t gotten any of the money she owed me (I still haven’t). Turns out T’s company never officially existed in a legal sense and I doubt her new “company” is any different. As far as I know, no one who worked with her has ever been paid any of the money they were promised and no one was ever refunded the money they paid up front for the services they never received.

 

Lesson learned: Never pay to be published. No matter what their story is.

 

So, what now? After going through an ordeal like that, some authors would throw in the towel and go strictly self-published. A lot of the former authors from T’s company did. Me, I got messaged on Facebook soon after the closing by another small press owner, who offered to take Ancient Blood into her house. As you can well imagine, I was extremely skeptical! However, after a month of asking around and investigation online, I came to the conclusion that my second too-good-to-be-true offer was, in fact, genuine. The friends I’d made during my time with T’s company had connected me to others. For all the mistakes I’d made, word of my novel had circulated, at least enough to catch the attention of a legitimate small press that liked what it heard. Ancient Blood was published again (third time, for those keeping count) and I started over. Within several months, however, the owner became harder to contact and things kept getting delayed. The owner made various excuses about moving and such, but sure enough, I was contacted by one my friends (who I’ll call J) close to the owner and warned that things weren’t looking good.

 

This time, the process wasn’t quite so painful as the first. This woman wasn’t out to con anyone, but she had no real business sense and didn’t know how to run a company. This time, we were all allowed to seamlessly transfer our contracts to the company my friend J worked for and my book stayed in print with just a change of imprint label. Crisis averted, or so I thought.

 

Yeah, I can’t believe myself either.

 

After another few months, J left the company and, once again, I started to notice that statements weren’t being sent out, royalties weren’t being paid, and messages were either ignored or responded to with apologies and excuses. Lesson learned, I had already sent my next book to a reputable publisher that had a large client list. I spoke to several of them before-hand and made certain that they were indeed making money with this publisher and getting support. I checked my sources. Within a day of being accepted by them, I could already see the difference in professionalism. This was a business, a professional operation, rather than some well-meaning authors working out of their houses trying to be a publishing company. The benefit of signing with the inept small publisher was that they were equally inexperienced in creating contracts, so I was able to pull my book from them without difficulty and offer it to my new company.

I guess the real lesson here is just to be careful and know exactly who you’re dealing with. There are a lot of scammers out there that know that authors are vulnerable targets. We’re all dreamers and dreamers want to believe the kinds of lies these people craft. There are so many fake services that cater to naïve authors desperate for praise and acceptance, so just beware. If it seems too good to believe, then question it. If someone asks for money prior to delivering any kind of product or service, I’d probably go elsewhere. There are legitimate artists, agents, and small publishers out there, but you have to look closely to identify them. Equally dangerous can be the well-meaning start-up companies that this digital boom has created. Too many authors think that because they were able to self-publish their book on Createspace, that they can be a publishing house. Know who you’re dealing with before you sign anything.

 

So, how did I do it? How could I just jump right back in after all that grief? Well, I’m not going to pretend that it was easy, but I also can’t tell you how to do the same. All I can tell you is that, deep down after all my soul searching, it came down to the book. My characters, my stories, my world: they wouldn’t let that be the end. No more than they would let me give up all those other times. I feel that I’ve become an actual writer now, not because I’ve been published, but because I’ve come to understand that my stories own me as much as I own them. I can stumble, I can fall, but I can’t stop trying.

 

They just won’t let me.

Authors: There’s a Thief in Your House, and Here’s How To Narc on Them.

xuemertie:

Important!

Originally posted on The Amazon Iowan:

Huge, mammoth hat tip to Bree and Donna for teaching me the magic that is Whois. And for translating it because I still don’t understand. Now, let me tell you a scary story, then hand you a machete.

ETA: The links in the next paragraph trip a lot of people’s antivirus, and a lot of evidence is pointing now to these sites being not pirate sites at all, that they aren’t giving any books, only mining credit cards. Which is actually a little worse if anyone stumbling into that site genuinely mistakes them for a legit seller.  A lot of authors and pubs are sending take-down requests, but it’s still a serious issue.

This site is selling works without permission. So is this one, but Devin on twitter says they have similar stuff in the guts or something computer-ish that I don’t understand, which boils down to they’re probably…

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Vampire Conspiracy: Completed

xuemertie:

A quick message from my literary family-member, Daven Anderson:

Originally posted on Vampire Syndrome Blog:

I have just completed “Vampire Conspiracy”, Book Two of the Vampire Syndrome saga.

Coming soon from PDMI Publishing, LLC

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