Clark Hays's Blog - Posts Tagged "vampires"
Andy Warhol Saved My Vision
A detached retina put a serious crimp in my writing and reading.
On a recent trip to Washington, DC, with Kathleen (her home town) for a family event, we took in a Warhol exhibit at the Hirshhorn. Called Shadows, it featured 102 silk screen prints of exactly the same scene — a shadowy view from inside Warhol’s studio — in different colors. Each print was about three feet by four feet and displayed in a long, continuous line around the distinctive curved walls of the Hirshhorn.
As it turned out, the exhibit was a perfect vision test.
I’d been having vision trouble for several months — extremely tired eyes, a constellation of floaters, sparkling lights and odd, flickering motion — but wrote it off as eyestrain. I work in communications for a financial services company which means I spend a lot of time parked in front of a computer and I had just finished cranking through quarterly earnings. Compounding that, Kathleen and I had recently finished a blog tour in support of our book, The Cowboy and the Vampire, and we were hard at work on the final draft of the sequel, Blood and Whiskey. As a result, we had both spent an inordinate amount of time in front of our computers. I chalked up the symptoms as eyestrain.
It wasn’t. It was a torn retina that was gradually getting worse. Even though Kathleen had been insisting I get it checked out, I kept putting it off. Until I visited the Warhol exhibit.
Standing in front of the equally-sized prints, I could see 25 prints stretching away to the right; on the left side, I could only see 17. It was clear something was significantly wrong with my peripheral vision.
I made an appointment as soon as we got back from DC still expecting to hear “use these eye drops and spend a little less time on the computer.” Instead I heard “you’ll be having emergency surgery tomorrow.” The doctor was worried that waiting until after the long weekend would risk permanent vision loss in my right eye. For a writer and avid reader, the thought of losing my sight, even in one eye, was frightening.
At 11 a.m. the next morning, with a squeeze of my hand from Kathleen and a cheerful nod from an avuncular and talented anesthesiologist, I slipped off to sleep and woke up with a silicon fan belt around my eye. Thank you, Dr. Lo.
The surgery went well. Most of my peripheral vision returned to pre-detached levels, but the recovery was long, painful and irritating. For the first few days, it felt like I’d been hit in the eye with a flaming arrow. Not only was the right eye mostly out of commission, part of the treatment included injecting a gas bubble into the damaged eye to speed healing. That meant two weeks of looking at the world through the most boring kaleidoscope ever — it was all a blurry haze with a blob of ink at the end.
Naturally, the whole process put a serious crimp in my writing … and my reading. Obviously, my contributions to the editing process for Blood and Whiskey were put on hold. Thankfully, Kathleen picked up the slack. Almost as bad, I couldn’t read; I still can’t and that is truly torture. Copies of the New Yorker, Mental Floss and Psychology Today are still piling up. I had just started The Egyptian(thanks Niina), was planning to reread Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain, and got The Secret History of M16 for Christmas. And I still want to tackle Porius, my albatross. Instead, I watched a lot of bad movies with one eye, and always only on my right side.
I’m on the upside of the recovery process now, and I realized a couple of things. First, the eyes are very important, so treat them well. If you have any trouble, get it checked out. I love to read, and love to write, and while I know both can be done with one eye (I told myself that Snake Plissken saved the president with just one eye) it’s a lot easier with two.
The other thing I realized is that, Andy Warhol, wherever you are, I owe you one.
Note: We published this on our website as well at http://www.cowboyandvampire.com.
On a recent trip to Washington, DC, with Kathleen (her home town) for a family event, we took in a Warhol exhibit at the Hirshhorn. Called Shadows, it featured 102 silk screen prints of exactly the same scene — a shadowy view from inside Warhol’s studio — in different colors. Each print was about three feet by four feet and displayed in a long, continuous line around the distinctive curved walls of the Hirshhorn.
As it turned out, the exhibit was a perfect vision test.
I’d been having vision trouble for several months — extremely tired eyes, a constellation of floaters, sparkling lights and odd, flickering motion — but wrote it off as eyestrain. I work in communications for a financial services company which means I spend a lot of time parked in front of a computer and I had just finished cranking through quarterly earnings. Compounding that, Kathleen and I had recently finished a blog tour in support of our book, The Cowboy and the Vampire, and we were hard at work on the final draft of the sequel, Blood and Whiskey. As a result, we had both spent an inordinate amount of time in front of our computers. I chalked up the symptoms as eyestrain.
It wasn’t. It was a torn retina that was gradually getting worse. Even though Kathleen had been insisting I get it checked out, I kept putting it off. Until I visited the Warhol exhibit.
Standing in front of the equally-sized prints, I could see 25 prints stretching away to the right; on the left side, I could only see 17. It was clear something was significantly wrong with my peripheral vision.
I made an appointment as soon as we got back from DC still expecting to hear “use these eye drops and spend a little less time on the computer.” Instead I heard “you’ll be having emergency surgery tomorrow.” The doctor was worried that waiting until after the long weekend would risk permanent vision loss in my right eye. For a writer and avid reader, the thought of losing my sight, even in one eye, was frightening.
At 11 a.m. the next morning, with a squeeze of my hand from Kathleen and a cheerful nod from an avuncular and talented anesthesiologist, I slipped off to sleep and woke up with a silicon fan belt around my eye. Thank you, Dr. Lo.
The surgery went well. Most of my peripheral vision returned to pre-detached levels, but the recovery was long, painful and irritating. For the first few days, it felt like I’d been hit in the eye with a flaming arrow. Not only was the right eye mostly out of commission, part of the treatment included injecting a gas bubble into the damaged eye to speed healing. That meant two weeks of looking at the world through the most boring kaleidoscope ever — it was all a blurry haze with a blob of ink at the end.
Naturally, the whole process put a serious crimp in my writing … and my reading. Obviously, my contributions to the editing process for Blood and Whiskey were put on hold. Thankfully, Kathleen picked up the slack. Almost as bad, I couldn’t read; I still can’t and that is truly torture. Copies of the New Yorker, Mental Floss and Psychology Today are still piling up. I had just started The Egyptian(thanks Niina), was planning to reread Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain, and got The Secret History of M16 for Christmas. And I still want to tackle Porius, my albatross. Instead, I watched a lot of bad movies with one eye, and always only on my right side.
I’m on the upside of the recovery process now, and I realized a couple of things. First, the eyes are very important, so treat them well. If you have any trouble, get it checked out. I love to read, and love to write, and while I know both can be done with one eye (I told myself that Snake Plissken saved the president with just one eye) it’s a lot easier with two.
The other thing I realized is that, Andy Warhol, wherever you are, I owe you one.
Note: We published this on our website as well at http://www.cowboyandvampire.com.
The Lady of the Lake: A Ghost story
In the mood for a ghost story? Here's a post we wrote for Embrace the Shadows, a paranormal book review blog. It's a true story. Well it's based on a true story, and we truly stayed at the lodge where the Lady of the Lake worked before she was murdered and dumped in the water. It all starts with a definition...
Saponify: to convert a fat into soap by treating with an alkali
Thankfully, few of us know much about the process of saponification. A pair of fishermen in 1940 found out the hard way that when a human body is exposed to sufficient amounts of alkali and pressure, and refrigerated to prevent decay, naturally occurring fat turns into a soap-like substance. When they noticed a woman’s body (recognizably female and wearing slightly outdated clothes) bobbing on the surface of Lake Crescent, the flesh slipped and oozed off like soap as they wrestled her to shore.
Thus began the legend of the Lady of the Lake.
Fast forward 72 years. After a long few months leading up to the release of Blood and Whiskey, the second book in The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, we decided to take a week off and booked a cabin at Lake Crescent in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The Olympic National Park is a vast swath of wilderness about as far north and west as you can get in the lower 48 with mossy, old growth rain forests, the soaring, snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountains, an amazing stretch of rocky, undeveloped coastline, milky blue glacier-fed rivers and a series of historic lodges.
We stayed at Crescent Lodge, a turn-of-the-century building with a delightful solarium, dusty, glassy-eyed elk heads on the walls and, naturally, ghosts. During the 1920s and perhaps beyond, the Singer Tavern, as the lodge was then known, served double duty as a house of ill repute. Like any good creaky, historic and now-defunct brothel, it has its share of spirits unwilling to leave this mortal plane.
One such spirit is the Lady of the Lake. Her real name was Hallie Illingworth and she was a rough-around-the-edges beauty, a waitress at the tavern and married (the third time was not a charm) to a louse. He was a beer truck driver and incorrigible ladies man, even after marrying her, and they were prone to violent arguments and fist fights – with each other or other inhabitants of the bar. She disappeared one cold night in December, not to be seen again for four years.
That’s when her saponified corpse popped up out of the icy depths of Lake Crescent — 600 feet straight down in some places — and into the local legend. She had been bound in rope to which weights had been affixed. Her husband was convicted and served his time unremarkably. She, poor soul, continues to mope about the lodge much to the terrified delight of guests and staff.
On a tour of the building, our guide told us one of the newbies heard her clattering up and down the stairs in the wee hours just the night before. Other staff spoke of lights flickering, doors banging shut and music suddenly getting louder in the lounge. She had a reputation for hard drinking, so that makes sense. Others had seen her, or knew someone who had seen her, drifting along the shore and over the water, glowing in the darkness, pale and translucent and a little bit sudsy.
Sadly, we had no paranormal experiences save for an otherworldly stiffness inhabiting our bodies after a night on those historic mattresses. We did take a canoe across the lake to the vicinity where her body was found and stared down into the blue-green depths, half expecting to see her just under the surface of the water — so cold, so deep, and so high in alkali sluiced off the steep peaks surrounding the lake. But we only saw two trout. And an eagle. And later a purple butterfly that landed on Kathleen’s toe. But no ghosts.
It was too sunny for ghosts during the day, and we were far too tired for much to wake us up at night. The canoeing and hiking left us sleeping like the dead. Still, we felt her as we walked the trails around the lake where she died, felt her sorrow in the waters she haunted and felt the sadness that still haunted her all those years later.
There are no ghosts in Blood and Whiskey, but there are plenty of vampires. Check it out.
Saponify: to convert a fat into soap by treating with an alkali
Thankfully, few of us know much about the process of saponification. A pair of fishermen in 1940 found out the hard way that when a human body is exposed to sufficient amounts of alkali and pressure, and refrigerated to prevent decay, naturally occurring fat turns into a soap-like substance. When they noticed a woman’s body (recognizably female and wearing slightly outdated clothes) bobbing on the surface of Lake Crescent, the flesh slipped and oozed off like soap as they wrestled her to shore.
Thus began the legend of the Lady of the Lake.
Fast forward 72 years. After a long few months leading up to the release of Blood and Whiskey, the second book in The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, we decided to take a week off and booked a cabin at Lake Crescent in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The Olympic National Park is a vast swath of wilderness about as far north and west as you can get in the lower 48 with mossy, old growth rain forests, the soaring, snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountains, an amazing stretch of rocky, undeveloped coastline, milky blue glacier-fed rivers and a series of historic lodges.
We stayed at Crescent Lodge, a turn-of-the-century building with a delightful solarium, dusty, glassy-eyed elk heads on the walls and, naturally, ghosts. During the 1920s and perhaps beyond, the Singer Tavern, as the lodge was then known, served double duty as a house of ill repute. Like any good creaky, historic and now-defunct brothel, it has its share of spirits unwilling to leave this mortal plane.
One such spirit is the Lady of the Lake. Her real name was Hallie Illingworth and she was a rough-around-the-edges beauty, a waitress at the tavern and married (the third time was not a charm) to a louse. He was a beer truck driver and incorrigible ladies man, even after marrying her, and they were prone to violent arguments and fist fights – with each other or other inhabitants of the bar. She disappeared one cold night in December, not to be seen again for four years.
That’s when her saponified corpse popped up out of the icy depths of Lake Crescent — 600 feet straight down in some places — and into the local legend. She had been bound in rope to which weights had been affixed. Her husband was convicted and served his time unremarkably. She, poor soul, continues to mope about the lodge much to the terrified delight of guests and staff.
On a tour of the building, our guide told us one of the newbies heard her clattering up and down the stairs in the wee hours just the night before. Other staff spoke of lights flickering, doors banging shut and music suddenly getting louder in the lounge. She had a reputation for hard drinking, so that makes sense. Others had seen her, or knew someone who had seen her, drifting along the shore and over the water, glowing in the darkness, pale and translucent and a little bit sudsy.
Sadly, we had no paranormal experiences save for an otherworldly stiffness inhabiting our bodies after a night on those historic mattresses. We did take a canoe across the lake to the vicinity where her body was found and stared down into the blue-green depths, half expecting to see her just under the surface of the water — so cold, so deep, and so high in alkali sluiced off the steep peaks surrounding the lake. But we only saw two trout. And an eagle. And later a purple butterfly that landed on Kathleen’s toe. But no ghosts.
It was too sunny for ghosts during the day, and we were far too tired for much to wake us up at night. The canoeing and hiking left us sleeping like the dead. Still, we felt her as we walked the trails around the lake where she died, felt her sorrow in the waters she haunted and felt the sadness that still haunted her all those years later.
There are no ghosts in Blood and Whiskey, but there are plenty of vampires. Check it out.
Self-Inflicted Research
Here's something we wrote for the Ramblings From This Chick blog. It's a funny look at a not so funny topic -- the time I almost blew my leg off with a .44 mag.
My one and (hopefully) only experience getting shot.
By Clark Hays (with a lot of help from Kathleen)
In Blood and Whiskey, the second book in The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, there’s plenty of action. Since cowboys are involved, some of that action involves guns (along with romance and cowboy-on-vampire lust, of course).
But back to the guns. When we write about gunfights, I draw from my past. A former Montana cowboy, I did my share of shooting: targets, fence posts, pop cans, gophers (sorry gophers); I burned through a lot of ammo in those days. And while that’s probably not unique in cowboy country, I can draw from a less common experience for our writing: I’ve been on the receiving end of a six shooter.
A funny thing happened on the way to the prom
I was a junior in high school, Mom and Dad were gone for the weekend and I had a date for the prom. I’d rented a lovely sky blue tuxedo (it was the last one in the store that fit me, size doofus) and I had reservations at the nicest (only) steak house in nearby Butte, Montana.
Before all the festivities began, I took a walk in my 2,000-acre backyard and of course, strapped on a pistol first — a Ruger Blackhawk .44 mag. This was Montana, after all.
I was running down a canyon looking for coyotes to shoot at (not that I could have hit one) when I heard a terrible roar and felt an ugly tug on my leg. I looked down to see a gleaming flash of bone winking out of a gash along my knee, and my calf was scorched and blackened with powder burns. The bone wasn’t visible for long because blood began gushing down my leg, plus my vision got blurry.
The holster I was wearing broke and the gun tumbled out, landed hammer down on a rock and — it was an older model without a hammer guard — ignited the primer and sent a .44 caliber slug slicing alongside my leg. Another quarter of an inch and the bullet would have punched through my knee and I would have bled to death alone in the mountains. And missed the prom.
After the initial shock of just how close I’d come to a terminal mistake, I wrapped a bandana around my leg and hobbled home (after first unloading the stupid gun). I bandaged the wound, disposed of all the evidence and went to the prom.
I don’t remember much about the dance — pretty sure they played Stairway to Heaven — but I remember those sky blue pants had a bloodstain all down one leg by the end of the night. I dropped them off the next morning at the menswear store and never said a word.
Seriously: Do NOT try this at home, or anywhere
I am a big fan of authentic writing, but I cannot recommend taking research to this extreme. Guns are serious business and we treat them like that in our books. Tucker and his friends, like most folks in the west, see guns as tools and don’t invest them with any glorified movie fantasies. Of course, most folks aren’t dealing with bloodthirsty vampires. The undead are almost as scary as a sky blue tuxedo!
My one and (hopefully) only experience getting shot.
By Clark Hays (with a lot of help from Kathleen)
In Blood and Whiskey, the second book in The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, there’s plenty of action. Since cowboys are involved, some of that action involves guns (along with romance and cowboy-on-vampire lust, of course).
But back to the guns. When we write about gunfights, I draw from my past. A former Montana cowboy, I did my share of shooting: targets, fence posts, pop cans, gophers (sorry gophers); I burned through a lot of ammo in those days. And while that’s probably not unique in cowboy country, I can draw from a less common experience for our writing: I’ve been on the receiving end of a six shooter.
A funny thing happened on the way to the prom
I was a junior in high school, Mom and Dad were gone for the weekend and I had a date for the prom. I’d rented a lovely sky blue tuxedo (it was the last one in the store that fit me, size doofus) and I had reservations at the nicest (only) steak house in nearby Butte, Montana.
Before all the festivities began, I took a walk in my 2,000-acre backyard and of course, strapped on a pistol first — a Ruger Blackhawk .44 mag. This was Montana, after all.
I was running down a canyon looking for coyotes to shoot at (not that I could have hit one) when I heard a terrible roar and felt an ugly tug on my leg. I looked down to see a gleaming flash of bone winking out of a gash along my knee, and my calf was scorched and blackened with powder burns. The bone wasn’t visible for long because blood began gushing down my leg, plus my vision got blurry.
The holster I was wearing broke and the gun tumbled out, landed hammer down on a rock and — it was an older model without a hammer guard — ignited the primer and sent a .44 caliber slug slicing alongside my leg. Another quarter of an inch and the bullet would have punched through my knee and I would have bled to death alone in the mountains. And missed the prom.
After the initial shock of just how close I’d come to a terminal mistake, I wrapped a bandana around my leg and hobbled home (after first unloading the stupid gun). I bandaged the wound, disposed of all the evidence and went to the prom.
I don’t remember much about the dance — pretty sure they played Stairway to Heaven — but I remember those sky blue pants had a bloodstain all down one leg by the end of the night. I dropped them off the next morning at the menswear store and never said a word.
Seriously: Do NOT try this at home, or anywhere
I am a big fan of authentic writing, but I cannot recommend taking research to this extreme. Guns are serious business and we treat them like that in our books. Tucker and his friends, like most folks in the west, see guns as tools and don’t invest them with any glorified movie fantasies. Of course, most folks aren’t dealing with bloodthirsty vampires. The undead are almost as scary as a sky blue tuxedo!
Zombie Sex
Zombie versus vampire: Who’s better in the bedroom?
Note: Here's a little something we wrote for the Cocktails and Books blog.
When it comes to paranormal fiction, vampires and zombies are hot. Vampires have been with us for centuries in myths and legends and for about 200 years in their current incarnation, thanks to Poliodori and later, Bram Stoker. Zombies are, by comparison, relative new comers; the current iteration only dates back to the late 1960s and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. But despite their shambling footsteps, they seem to be everywhere these days — movies, books, graphic novels, corporate America.
The one place zombies are conspicuously absent? Romantic leads.
You won’t find any zombies in our books, The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Darkly Romantic Mystery and Blood and Whiskey, but not because we have anything against the living dead. It’s just that they don’t really lend themselves to romance or even erotic horror. Cowboys are almost too easy with their muscles, rough hands, gentle hearts and tight blue jeans. There’s a strong case to be made for cowgirls, too. And vampires have been steaming up the pages ever since Dracula caused Lucy to get all tingly inside and the sexy vampire sisters got all up in Jonathan Harkers’ libido.
Sultry vampires, the bad boys and girls of the paranormal world, are far more conflicted, sexy and fun to work with than the current headliner — zombies. Here’s a quick run down of pluses and minuses of sexing up vampires and zombies:
-- Vampires have coffin breath and eternal bed-head. (Minus one for the undead.)
-- Zombies want you for your brains, not your body. (Plus one for the living dead.)
-- Vampires have voracious sexual appetites and the males have what we like to call “resur-erections” — they can come back from the dead again and again. (Plus one for the vampires. Make that plus two.)
-- Zombies are into the group thing – the ménage a trARRGGGGGGRRRHHHH. (Uhm, let’s say group sex is neutral.)
-- After a wild night, vampires don’t mind disappearing during the day to give you a little space. (Vampires, plus one.)
-- When zombies slip you a little tongue, you can keep it. (Ewww, minus one.)
-- Vampires leave you feeling drained, usually not in the good way. (Neutral; it’s totally worth it.)
-- Zombies have unintentionally removable appendages. That can be … awkward. (Minus one.)
-- Vampires are experienced in the ways of seduction and dark arts of pleasure. (Plus one, unless you are the jealous type, which we are, so probably minus one.)
-- Zombies tend to have much shorter life spans and forget even the basic moves, like lights out/missionary. (Minus one; shake it up a little zombies.)
-- Vampires clean up well and you can take them almost anywhere, except on a lunchtime picnic where they would likely burst into flames. (Plus one except for when they ignite, then it’s minus two.)
-- Zombies are putrefying hulks of rotting flesh and no amount of body spray can cover up that smell. (Minus one.)
If you tally it all up, you can see why vampires make it into the bedrooms of so many unsuspecting victims while zombies are left on the outside looking in ... often through the window with a bunch of their pals, groaning and leaving bloody, chunky streaks on the glass. That’s not sexy. Someone has to clean that up.
For more ... tasteful sex scenes, check out our latest book, Blood and Whiskey. You won't find any zombies, but there are plenty of sexy vampires.
Note: Here's a little something we wrote for the Cocktails and Books blog.
When it comes to paranormal fiction, vampires and zombies are hot. Vampires have been with us for centuries in myths and legends and for about 200 years in their current incarnation, thanks to Poliodori and later, Bram Stoker. Zombies are, by comparison, relative new comers; the current iteration only dates back to the late 1960s and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. But despite their shambling footsteps, they seem to be everywhere these days — movies, books, graphic novels, corporate America.
The one place zombies are conspicuously absent? Romantic leads.
You won’t find any zombies in our books, The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Darkly Romantic Mystery and Blood and Whiskey, but not because we have anything against the living dead. It’s just that they don’t really lend themselves to romance or even erotic horror. Cowboys are almost too easy with their muscles, rough hands, gentle hearts and tight blue jeans. There’s a strong case to be made for cowgirls, too. And vampires have been steaming up the pages ever since Dracula caused Lucy to get all tingly inside and the sexy vampire sisters got all up in Jonathan Harkers’ libido.
Sultry vampires, the bad boys and girls of the paranormal world, are far more conflicted, sexy and fun to work with than the current headliner — zombies. Here’s a quick run down of pluses and minuses of sexing up vampires and zombies:
-- Vampires have coffin breath and eternal bed-head. (Minus one for the undead.)
-- Zombies want you for your brains, not your body. (Plus one for the living dead.)
-- Vampires have voracious sexual appetites and the males have what we like to call “resur-erections” — they can come back from the dead again and again. (Plus one for the vampires. Make that plus two.)
-- Zombies are into the group thing – the ménage a trARRGGGGGGRRRHHHH. (Uhm, let’s say group sex is neutral.)
-- After a wild night, vampires don’t mind disappearing during the day to give you a little space. (Vampires, plus one.)
-- When zombies slip you a little tongue, you can keep it. (Ewww, minus one.)
-- Vampires leave you feeling drained, usually not in the good way. (Neutral; it’s totally worth it.)
-- Zombies have unintentionally removable appendages. That can be … awkward. (Minus one.)
-- Vampires are experienced in the ways of seduction and dark arts of pleasure. (Plus one, unless you are the jealous type, which we are, so probably minus one.)
-- Zombies tend to have much shorter life spans and forget even the basic moves, like lights out/missionary. (Minus one; shake it up a little zombies.)
-- Vampires clean up well and you can take them almost anywhere, except on a lunchtime picnic where they would likely burst into flames. (Plus one except for when they ignite, then it’s minus two.)
-- Zombies are putrefying hulks of rotting flesh and no amount of body spray can cover up that smell. (Minus one.)
If you tally it all up, you can see why vampires make it into the bedrooms of so many unsuspecting victims while zombies are left on the outside looking in ... often through the window with a bunch of their pals, groaning and leaving bloody, chunky streaks on the glass. That’s not sexy. Someone has to clean that up.
For more ... tasteful sex scenes, check out our latest book, Blood and Whiskey. You won't find any zombies, but there are plenty of sexy vampires.
A Geologist and a Cloud-Watcher Walk into a Bar …
Writing together takes advantage of the power of opposites.
(Note: this is a post we wrote for the awesome A Chick Who Readsblog and features a hand-crafted joke.)
Kathleen and I have been writing together for more than ten years now, almost as long as we’ve been together, yet we could not be more different. She’s a geologist by training and spends most of her time watching the ground for sedimentary clues. I am a chronic cloud watcher and spend most of my time with my head in the stratosphere watching for lenticular clouds (Note: Mount Hood, near our home town of Portland, is a great place to spot them).
That difference is just the tip of the iceberg. She likes to read Russian fiction; I’m more into graphic novels. Kathleen is not a big fan of music — of any kind; I can’t make it more than ten waking minutes without reaching for the iPod (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are on in the background as I write). She’s vegan; I’m vegetarian … OK, so that’s not very different. She likes French movies with subtitles and whisper-thin plots that usually involve some sort of stolen look; I’m more of a horror/western/action movie junkie.
Those are just a few of the many differences between us, and exploring and focusing that tension makes our writing more than the sum of the parts. In our books — The Cowboy and the Vampire and Blood and Whiskey — the love between our hero and heroine mirrors the chaos and energy of our own opposites attract experiences.
Like us (Washington, DC; Whitehall, Montana), Tucker and Lizzie are from different worlds. Tucker is a down on his luck Wyoming cowboy and Lizzie is a reporter from New York. He was used to being by himself in the middle of nowhere with nothing but sagebrush and Rex, his long-suffering dog, to keep him company. Lizzie was used to the hustle and bustle of the capital of the world (sorry Paris but New York kind of is) and fighting to keep her space in a sea of people.
Their whirlwind romance, fueled by nights of scorching passion and, if they were honest with each other, a desperation born of the notion they would likely never see each other again, helped form a bond that would keep them together against seemingly insurmountable odds — and a horde of evil vampires.
In Blood and Whiskey, the differences between them only increase. Tucker has to deal with the fact that his girlfriend is suddenly the most powerful figure in the shadowy world of the vampires. Every single member of the undead tribes wants something from her, and some just want her dead. Lizzie just needs Tucker, and human blood, but can’t bring herself to kill. Or can she?
In our books, the opposites attract nature of our own relationship allows us to so easily get inside their heads. In a romance made stronger by two almost diametrically opposed world views, we found common ground in our love of writing, and it comes through in our books. Check out The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series to find out for yourself.
Oh yeah, about that joke:
So this geologist and a cloud watcher walk into a bar. The geologist says, “I’ll take a gin and tectonic.” The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve your types here.” The cloud watcher shakes his head and says, “Are you cirrus?”
(Note: this is a post we wrote for the awesome A Chick Who Readsblog and features a hand-crafted joke.)
Kathleen and I have been writing together for more than ten years now, almost as long as we’ve been together, yet we could not be more different. She’s a geologist by training and spends most of her time watching the ground for sedimentary clues. I am a chronic cloud watcher and spend most of my time with my head in the stratosphere watching for lenticular clouds (Note: Mount Hood, near our home town of Portland, is a great place to spot them).
That difference is just the tip of the iceberg. She likes to read Russian fiction; I’m more into graphic novels. Kathleen is not a big fan of music — of any kind; I can’t make it more than ten waking minutes without reaching for the iPod (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are on in the background as I write). She’s vegan; I’m vegetarian … OK, so that’s not very different. She likes French movies with subtitles and whisper-thin plots that usually involve some sort of stolen look; I’m more of a horror/western/action movie junkie.
Those are just a few of the many differences between us, and exploring and focusing that tension makes our writing more than the sum of the parts. In our books — The Cowboy and the Vampire and Blood and Whiskey — the love between our hero and heroine mirrors the chaos and energy of our own opposites attract experiences.
Like us (Washington, DC; Whitehall, Montana), Tucker and Lizzie are from different worlds. Tucker is a down on his luck Wyoming cowboy and Lizzie is a reporter from New York. He was used to being by himself in the middle of nowhere with nothing but sagebrush and Rex, his long-suffering dog, to keep him company. Lizzie was used to the hustle and bustle of the capital of the world (sorry Paris but New York kind of is) and fighting to keep her space in a sea of people.
Their whirlwind romance, fueled by nights of scorching passion and, if they were honest with each other, a desperation born of the notion they would likely never see each other again, helped form a bond that would keep them together against seemingly insurmountable odds — and a horde of evil vampires.
In Blood and Whiskey, the differences between them only increase. Tucker has to deal with the fact that his girlfriend is suddenly the most powerful figure in the shadowy world of the vampires. Every single member of the undead tribes wants something from her, and some just want her dead. Lizzie just needs Tucker, and human blood, but can’t bring herself to kill. Or can she?
In our books, the opposites attract nature of our own relationship allows us to so easily get inside their heads. In a romance made stronger by two almost diametrically opposed world views, we found common ground in our love of writing, and it comes through in our books. Check out The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series to find out for yourself.
Oh yeah, about that joke:
So this geologist and a cloud watcher walk into a bar. The geologist says, “I’ll take a gin and tectonic.” The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve your types here.” The cloud watcher shakes his head and says, “Are you cirrus?”
What if Vampires Wrote about Humans
by Kathleen McFall & Clark Hays
(Note: this is a post we wrote for our "splash" in the Orangeberry Summer Book Tour.)
Imagine if the undead featured on the pages of Blood and Whiskey were the ones writing about strange paranormal creatures of fantasy — humans — instead of the other way around.
Everybody loves a good fright story and there’s nothing more frightening than humans, forever skulking about in the sunlight with their wooden stakes and tan skin. In Blood and Whiskey, we tried to do something different and imaginative with our people, the non-dead, as they are known. Humans have existed in legends and folktales for thousands of years and each country seems to have similar stories about the sun-walkers. We stripped those stories down to the bare bones to re-think the traditional notion of humans as simple-minded monsters.
They are short lived, of course, existing in some cases for just 50 or 60 years. Evolution has left them physically defenseless, weak to the point of debilitation and vulnerable to injury and disease. Luckily, it also made their blood delicious and nutritious. We introduced a new concept — that the blood of evil humans was especially sustaining, but of course we all know blood is blood.
Our humans possess a cockroach-like tenacity to survive and have especially cunning little minds. They use those minds to fashion tools of destruction to attack the heroic vampires. The non-dead are also able to walk in full sunlight with no harm whatsoever, which makes them an even greater threat to the protagonists, who spend each day residing in The Meta. The humans in our book don’t even know The Meta exists.
We also introduced the concept of “love.” Our humans fall in love, a condition far removed from the ever-shifting relationships known to our kind, which are based on convenience and personal sexual satisfaction regardless of gender or familiarity. These humans have a monolithic belief that love is somehow shared between two beings, and of lasting import.
That’s the underlying comedic element of the book, almost absurdist. This love is somewhat infectious, passing between two humans and creating a shared derangement of the senses.
In our book, the evil human — from the mythical cowboy tribe — is a carrier of an especially virulent form of love. As improbable as it sounds, a vampire is infected by his love. We know that sounds almost disgusting, that a predator would feel any sort of connection to our prey, but the book is not supposed to be funny — it’s a tragedy; readers should be warned, this is not another “vampire triumphant” novel.
Learn more about the mythical, mystical world of humans in Blood and Whiskey
(Note: this is a post we wrote for our "splash" in the Orangeberry Summer Book Tour.)
Imagine if the undead featured on the pages of Blood and Whiskey were the ones writing about strange paranormal creatures of fantasy — humans — instead of the other way around.
Everybody loves a good fright story and there’s nothing more frightening than humans, forever skulking about in the sunlight with their wooden stakes and tan skin. In Blood and Whiskey, we tried to do something different and imaginative with our people, the non-dead, as they are known. Humans have existed in legends and folktales for thousands of years and each country seems to have similar stories about the sun-walkers. We stripped those stories down to the bare bones to re-think the traditional notion of humans as simple-minded monsters.
They are short lived, of course, existing in some cases for just 50 or 60 years. Evolution has left them physically defenseless, weak to the point of debilitation and vulnerable to injury and disease. Luckily, it also made their blood delicious and nutritious. We introduced a new concept — that the blood of evil humans was especially sustaining, but of course we all know blood is blood.
Our humans possess a cockroach-like tenacity to survive and have especially cunning little minds. They use those minds to fashion tools of destruction to attack the heroic vampires. The non-dead are also able to walk in full sunlight with no harm whatsoever, which makes them an even greater threat to the protagonists, who spend each day residing in The Meta. The humans in our book don’t even know The Meta exists.
We also introduced the concept of “love.” Our humans fall in love, a condition far removed from the ever-shifting relationships known to our kind, which are based on convenience and personal sexual satisfaction regardless of gender or familiarity. These humans have a monolithic belief that love is somehow shared between two beings, and of lasting import.
That’s the underlying comedic element of the book, almost absurdist. This love is somewhat infectious, passing between two humans and creating a shared derangement of the senses.
In our book, the evil human — from the mythical cowboy tribe — is a carrier of an especially virulent form of love. As improbable as it sounds, a vampire is infected by his love. We know that sounds almost disgusting, that a predator would feel any sort of connection to our prey, but the book is not supposed to be funny — it’s a tragedy; readers should be warned, this is not another “vampire triumphant” novel.
Learn more about the mythical, mystical world of humans in Blood and Whiskey
Blood and Whiskey: Inspired by Paranoia
How one character, in particular, sets the tone for the blood- and romance-drenched second book in The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series.
Note: This is a post we wrote for the Book Lovin Mamas blog.
Blood and Whiskey is an opposites-attract love story. It’s hard to get more opposite than the salt-of-the-earth cowboy, Tucker, who falls irreversibly, hat over heels in love with Lizzie, the queen of the undead. She’s nuts about him too, and she wasn’t always a vampire — when she met Tucker she was a big city girl who thought the handsome, undereducated stranger would make for a memorable drunken mistake.
A lot can change in a few months. Now they’re pregnant, for starters.
The book captures the magic and chaos of their very different worlds colliding in a love affair for the ages. Like any new lovers, they have plenty of stuff to work through. She favors martinis and piano bars; he likes camping. He flosses too loudly; she needs human blood to survive. And that’s just the easy stuff. They are also being pursued by vampire assassins, and the world of the night walkers is teetering on the edge of civil war which could spell disaster for the human race. Plenty of action, sizzling romance and dark humor swirl around them.
With all the chemistry and passion and heartaches between them, it would be easy to assume Tucker or Lizzie provided the impetus for Blood and Whiskey. Easy, but not entirely correct. And no, it’s not Elita either, the sexy two thousand year old vampire forever taking out her boredom on unsuspecting victims in an orgy of blood and kinky sex. She demands attention, it’s true, but the secret source of paranoid energy powering Blood and Whiskey comes courtesy of Lenny.
Lenny is Tucker’s best friend and a way-off-the-grid survivalist. He once designed weapons for the military, but exposure to hazardous chemicals and dark deeds in the name of national security earned him a medical discharge.
Lenny has never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, from Roswell to the JFK assassination, from black helicopters to cattle mutilators. He lives in a bunker in LonePine with his wife June surrounded by enough dried meals and stockpiled weapons to last through any apocalypse. Little did he know it would spill out of a musty coffin.
In The Cowboy and the Vampire, when the evil vampire hordes threaten Lizzie’s life, Tucker turns to Lenny for help. With weapons Lenny designed and some “wet work,” they survive the worst the undead could throw at them. In Blood and Whiskey, it’s Lenny who needs help. His niece Rose, an orphan and runaway, is kidnapped from the streets of Portland, Oregon, but not before she has time to make one panicked phone call to her uncle.
Lenny calls in his favor with Tucker and they drive to Portland, then on to a deranged meat packing plant in Plush where Rose is being held.
Along the way, Lenny:
* uses military grade amphetamines to try and stay awake — they seem to have the opposite effect and Tucker has to do all of the driving
* admits that his engine modifications allow his car, an old Pontiac LeMans, to run for thousands of miles on a single tank, but worries that OPEC will kill him to suppress the invention
* threatens to “pop” an evil cowboy with a special deep sea diver’s knife designed to puff a ball of compressed air into sharks
* acknowledges that the U.S. government killed Michael Jackson with propofol
* admits that he’s seen aliens
And that’s just in the first third of the book. Things really heat up from there.
Lenny might not be one of the star-crossed main characters, and he may not be sexy or plagued by world-shaking issues of good and evil, but he knows the world “ain’t what it seems.” He always knew an Illuminati was pulling the strings, he just didn’t know the mysterious overlords were terminally allergic to sunlight.
While the love between Tucker and Lizzie anchors The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, Lenny is the one who insisted this story to be told. Because Lenny knows that reality — when you look it straight in the eye and don’t flinch — is darker than we could ever dream and that humans are not at the top of the food chain.
Find out more about Lenny, and his pal Tucker, in Blood and Whiskey
Note: This is a post we wrote for the Book Lovin Mamas blog.
Blood and Whiskey is an opposites-attract love story. It’s hard to get more opposite than the salt-of-the-earth cowboy, Tucker, who falls irreversibly, hat over heels in love with Lizzie, the queen of the undead. She’s nuts about him too, and she wasn’t always a vampire — when she met Tucker she was a big city girl who thought the handsome, undereducated stranger would make for a memorable drunken mistake.
A lot can change in a few months. Now they’re pregnant, for starters.
The book captures the magic and chaos of their very different worlds colliding in a love affair for the ages. Like any new lovers, they have plenty of stuff to work through. She favors martinis and piano bars; he likes camping. He flosses too loudly; she needs human blood to survive. And that’s just the easy stuff. They are also being pursued by vampire assassins, and the world of the night walkers is teetering on the edge of civil war which could spell disaster for the human race. Plenty of action, sizzling romance and dark humor swirl around them.
With all the chemistry and passion and heartaches between them, it would be easy to assume Tucker or Lizzie provided the impetus for Blood and Whiskey. Easy, but not entirely correct. And no, it’s not Elita either, the sexy two thousand year old vampire forever taking out her boredom on unsuspecting victims in an orgy of blood and kinky sex. She demands attention, it’s true, but the secret source of paranoid energy powering Blood and Whiskey comes courtesy of Lenny.
Lenny is Tucker’s best friend and a way-off-the-grid survivalist. He once designed weapons for the military, but exposure to hazardous chemicals and dark deeds in the name of national security earned him a medical discharge.
Lenny has never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, from Roswell to the JFK assassination, from black helicopters to cattle mutilators. He lives in a bunker in LonePine with his wife June surrounded by enough dried meals and stockpiled weapons to last through any apocalypse. Little did he know it would spill out of a musty coffin.
In The Cowboy and the Vampire, when the evil vampire hordes threaten Lizzie’s life, Tucker turns to Lenny for help. With weapons Lenny designed and some “wet work,” they survive the worst the undead could throw at them. In Blood and Whiskey, it’s Lenny who needs help. His niece Rose, an orphan and runaway, is kidnapped from the streets of Portland, Oregon, but not before she has time to make one panicked phone call to her uncle.
Lenny calls in his favor with Tucker and they drive to Portland, then on to a deranged meat packing plant in Plush where Rose is being held.
Along the way, Lenny:
* uses military grade amphetamines to try and stay awake — they seem to have the opposite effect and Tucker has to do all of the driving
* admits that his engine modifications allow his car, an old Pontiac LeMans, to run for thousands of miles on a single tank, but worries that OPEC will kill him to suppress the invention
* threatens to “pop” an evil cowboy with a special deep sea diver’s knife designed to puff a ball of compressed air into sharks
* acknowledges that the U.S. government killed Michael Jackson with propofol
* admits that he’s seen aliens
And that’s just in the first third of the book. Things really heat up from there.
Lenny might not be one of the star-crossed main characters, and he may not be sexy or plagued by world-shaking issues of good and evil, but he knows the world “ain’t what it seems.” He always knew an Illuminati was pulling the strings, he just didn’t know the mysterious overlords were terminally allergic to sunlight.
While the love between Tucker and Lizzie anchors The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, Lenny is the one who insisted this story to be told. Because Lenny knows that reality — when you look it straight in the eye and don’t flinch — is darker than we could ever dream and that humans are not at the top of the food chain.
Find out more about Lenny, and his pal Tucker, in Blood and Whiskey
Welcome to the Meta, but will you ever leave?
This week, we are talking about Near Death Experiences on our webpage and facebook page. Head on over and vote in the poll for a chance to win a free book.
And check out this post about how the Meta came to be:
Vampires have been around in popular legends for hundreds of years and in popular fiction, courtesy of Polidori and then Stoker, for more than a century. Working with such a popular archetype has its pluses — immediately resonating with readers — and minuses: tiredly expected attributes, like fangs and shrinking, hissing, from crucifixes, can feel tired. That’s why every author hopes to come up with some new take that’s still grounded in the classics.
When we began work on The Cowboy and the Vampire Thriller Series, we were intrigued by several aspects of the vampire myth: how it plugged into religion, the politics of the two castes of vampires and how could an advanced, sentient being die repeatedly — literally; we’re talking full biologic shutdown — only to be resurrected each sundown with all their memories and their personality intact. It’s that last topic that we explore more deeply in Blood and Whiskey.
Because our vampires die, fully, every dawn they have a classic near death experience every single morning. When they die, their consciousness zips off into “the Meta,” a giant energy field and external shared consciousness that contains and sustains all life. At sundown, all of those strands of energy untangle and the vampires return to their bodies once again and arise none the worse for wear. And hungry.
It’s not just for vampires though. Humans go to the Meta as well when they have a near death experience. Think of the classic NDE with the tunnel of light, meeting familiar relatives and experiencing a sense of bliss and meaning. Of course, that only happens to a very small number of people, and to some advanced mental travelers who are able to enter the Meta by meditating.
Vampires, however, enter the Meta every single day.
The concept of the Meta, and what it means for human spirituality, is resonating. In their review of Blood and Whiskey, Kirkus Reviews says:
“While a number of existentialist underpinnings give the series some depth, the book is first and foremost a thriller, upping the ante in every chapter as bullets fly and relationships strain under the weight of old loyalties and new revelations. In a way, it’s a shame more time isn’t spent exploring the existence of this meta world where consciousnesses wait out the daylight hours and immortality has all sorts of ramifications for human spirituality. But with strong writing, funny characters (no irony is lost on one vampiress who takes to sporting a “Future Farmers of America” jacket) and plenty of action, it’s hard to fault the authors for keeping the focus on a story this riveting.”
We agree, and are definitely spending more time in the Meta in book three (we are hard at work on it), but Blood and Whiskey has a huge focus on this new take on the afterlife (and the before and during life as well) based on morphic fields.
Here are a few quotes and sections from Blood and Whiskey that deal with the Meta:
Page 46
After all they shared it was hard to believe Julius was really dead. Lizzie still refused to discuss the details of what happened that night, saying only that she had taken care of the situation. Elita knew he was dead though. She felt his force wither away and bleed into the Meta, smelled and saw his blood on Lizzie’s breath and felt it coursing within her.
Page 65
Lizzie struggled to climb out of what felt like an endless, undifferentiated and always terrifying, darkness. Elita promised her it would get easier, being reborn anew every night, and that soon she’d find her place in the darkness — the Meta — and sense others there too. Not their bodies or their voices, not like in the ghost stories of humans, but their essence, able to feel the part of them that existed after death, the part that existed underneath life. For now, it was all a jumble and still disconcerting.
Page 231
There was a flash of ruby incandescence that erupted from where their blood mingled, growing in power and then consuming her and catapulting her thoughts out of her body. She swirled up into the arch of the sky and beyond, slamming into Virote’s soul on the way. They intertwined, joining together as one, their consciousness and experience of sensations now singular and shared, gloriously rushing along a tunnel of light, spiritual adrenaline flowing, radiant and free.
Page 280
As the sun dropped below the horizon, life flooded back into Lizzie and she sat up with a gasp. Her once dead lungs labored anew as her heart began to beat and formless, racing thoughts reorganized into ‘Lizzie,’ a unique body separate from the Meta. But tonight, as death retreated again into the night, a raw and unexpected power coursed through her dusty veins.
Page 280
A Vampire was present; several, actually, but one was particularly strong. She could feel them all re-inhabiting their bodies as well, their energies so recently intertwined in the Meta now separating back into distinct individuals. Humans too, evil humans; she could taste their corpuscles circulating underneath their skin as they walked around encased in evil and she hungered for them.
Page 284
She closed her eyes again, centering herself and letting energy from the Meta flow through her. Where had it been these last few days? She could feel them approaching, could feel the surge in adrenaline and testosterone, could even feel the blood engorging the penises of her assailants.
Page 319
Lizzie looked at him incredulously. “You seriously never, ever listen to me Tucker,” she said. “I’ve told you about this a hundred times; what it’s like, where our thoughts go, our consciousness, our sense of self, when we die.”
Page 323
“I saw your mother,” Dad said. “She’s waiting for me. In the Metro or whatever it’s called.”
If these have you wondering more about the Meta, check out The Cowboy and The Vampire and Blood and Whiskey for insights into a new and decidedly undead take on spirituality.
And check out this post about how the Meta came to be:
Vampires have been around in popular legends for hundreds of years and in popular fiction, courtesy of Polidori and then Stoker, for more than a century. Working with such a popular archetype has its pluses — immediately resonating with readers — and minuses: tiredly expected attributes, like fangs and shrinking, hissing, from crucifixes, can feel tired. That’s why every author hopes to come up with some new take that’s still grounded in the classics.
When we began work on The Cowboy and the Vampire Thriller Series, we were intrigued by several aspects of the vampire myth: how it plugged into religion, the politics of the two castes of vampires and how could an advanced, sentient being die repeatedly — literally; we’re talking full biologic shutdown — only to be resurrected each sundown with all their memories and their personality intact. It’s that last topic that we explore more deeply in Blood and Whiskey.
Because our vampires die, fully, every dawn they have a classic near death experience every single morning. When they die, their consciousness zips off into “the Meta,” a giant energy field and external shared consciousness that contains and sustains all life. At sundown, all of those strands of energy untangle and the vampires return to their bodies once again and arise none the worse for wear. And hungry.
It’s not just for vampires though. Humans go to the Meta as well when they have a near death experience. Think of the classic NDE with the tunnel of light, meeting familiar relatives and experiencing a sense of bliss and meaning. Of course, that only happens to a very small number of people, and to some advanced mental travelers who are able to enter the Meta by meditating.
Vampires, however, enter the Meta every single day.
The concept of the Meta, and what it means for human spirituality, is resonating. In their review of Blood and Whiskey, Kirkus Reviews says:
“While a number of existentialist underpinnings give the series some depth, the book is first and foremost a thriller, upping the ante in every chapter as bullets fly and relationships strain under the weight of old loyalties and new revelations. In a way, it’s a shame more time isn’t spent exploring the existence of this meta world where consciousnesses wait out the daylight hours and immortality has all sorts of ramifications for human spirituality. But with strong writing, funny characters (no irony is lost on one vampiress who takes to sporting a “Future Farmers of America” jacket) and plenty of action, it’s hard to fault the authors for keeping the focus on a story this riveting.”
We agree, and are definitely spending more time in the Meta in book three (we are hard at work on it), but Blood and Whiskey has a huge focus on this new take on the afterlife (and the before and during life as well) based on morphic fields.
Here are a few quotes and sections from Blood and Whiskey that deal with the Meta:
Page 46
After all they shared it was hard to believe Julius was really dead. Lizzie still refused to discuss the details of what happened that night, saying only that she had taken care of the situation. Elita knew he was dead though. She felt his force wither away and bleed into the Meta, smelled and saw his blood on Lizzie’s breath and felt it coursing within her.
Page 65
Lizzie struggled to climb out of what felt like an endless, undifferentiated and always terrifying, darkness. Elita promised her it would get easier, being reborn anew every night, and that soon she’d find her place in the darkness — the Meta — and sense others there too. Not their bodies or their voices, not like in the ghost stories of humans, but their essence, able to feel the part of them that existed after death, the part that existed underneath life. For now, it was all a jumble and still disconcerting.
Page 231
There was a flash of ruby incandescence that erupted from where their blood mingled, growing in power and then consuming her and catapulting her thoughts out of her body. She swirled up into the arch of the sky and beyond, slamming into Virote’s soul on the way. They intertwined, joining together as one, their consciousness and experience of sensations now singular and shared, gloriously rushing along a tunnel of light, spiritual adrenaline flowing, radiant and free.
Page 280
As the sun dropped below the horizon, life flooded back into Lizzie and she sat up with a gasp. Her once dead lungs labored anew as her heart began to beat and formless, racing thoughts reorganized into ‘Lizzie,’ a unique body separate from the Meta. But tonight, as death retreated again into the night, a raw and unexpected power coursed through her dusty veins.
Page 280
A Vampire was present; several, actually, but one was particularly strong. She could feel them all re-inhabiting their bodies as well, their energies so recently intertwined in the Meta now separating back into distinct individuals. Humans too, evil humans; she could taste their corpuscles circulating underneath their skin as they walked around encased in evil and she hungered for them.
Page 284
She closed her eyes again, centering herself and letting energy from the Meta flow through her. Where had it been these last few days? She could feel them approaching, could feel the surge in adrenaline and testosterone, could even feel the blood engorging the penises of her assailants.
Page 319
Lizzie looked at him incredulously. “You seriously never, ever listen to me Tucker,” she said. “I’ve told you about this a hundred times; what it’s like, where our thoughts go, our consciousness, our sense of self, when we die.”
Page 323
“I saw your mother,” Dad said. “She’s waiting for me. In the Metro or whatever it’s called.”
If these have you wondering more about the Meta, check out The Cowboy and The Vampire and Blood and Whiskey for insights into a new and decidedly undead take on spirituality.
Welcome to LonePine, Wyoming, population 438
It’s like any other small, slowly dying town in the modern American west, only with vampires.
Note: This is a post Kathleen McFall and I wrote for the awesome Book Chick City blog. It's British, which makes us international celebrity wannabes.
Cut off from the rest of the world by miles of open range and rugged snow-capped mountains, LonePine is the quintessential American western town: the county fair and rodeo is still the biggest social event of the year, crusty old ranchers drive to town at sun-up for breakfast — waving at every pickup truck they pass because there are no strangers — and it’s not unusual to see a horse or two tethered outside the Watering Hole, the town’s favorite saloon. Not much has changed there in a hundred years … until then the undead ride into town.
The first vampire to visit LonePine (at least in THIS century: Red Winter) is Lizzie Vaughn, a beautiful, ambitious reporter from New York who falls hard for Tucker, a down-on-his-luck cowboy born and raised in LonePine. From opposite worlds to begin with, their relationship takes a turn for the paranormal when they learn Lizzie is a latent vampire.
Worse, a special power courses through her veins and the entire undead world wants to either control it, or eliminate her entirely. The ensuing clash of urban and rural cultures — between star-crossed lovers and between good and evil forces — is at the heart of The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series.
Fittingly, we came up with the concept for The Cowboy and the Vampire , the first book in the series, in 1999 at a rural western truckstop in the high desert town of Madras, Oregon. We were trying to rekindle our own relationship and the worlds-collide storyline (Kathleen is from Washington, D.C., and Clark was raised in Montana), along with the macabre and gothic elements, fit the moment and our personalities. And the decision to anchor the series in the modern American west tapped into our shared love of the region and the myths that sustain it.
People are fundamentally shaped by their environment, and that is especially evident for those hailing from the western U.S. Cowboy country covers thousands of square miles, from northern Montana down through southern Arizona, from eastern Oregon to western Nebraska, and everything in between. People who live in the west tend to value silence and space because their nearest neighbor may be ten miles away, their daytime view is uninterrupted by buildings all the way out to the craggy mountain peaks along the horizon and at night, most westerners can hear coyotes or wolves (if they are lucky) beneath clear, starry skies.
The west we love is a place where people can be alone with nature and their thoughts, which is why our books feature a distinctive element — a wide open spirituality that’s as big as the west and linked to vampires: the Meta. Along with the expected characteristics of the undead — insatiable blood lust, solar mortality — our vampires die every dawn, completely. That means they have a never-ending series of near death experiences as their souls, their consciousnesses, go racing of into the Meta. The Meta is an external shared consciousness, like a giant energy field, where humans and vampires alike exist before and after death. Experiencing the Meta, just like humans who “come back” after death, gives one a profound sense of calmness, certainty and belonging.
That uncluttered confidence is common in the west, which gets to the heart of the region as an ideal, tangling up history with the golden myths of movie screen cowboys and pulp fiction heroes. Those who settled the frontier were tough, resilient and independent, characteristics which earned them a permanent place in the national, and even international, psyche. Hollywood added a sheen that mostly canceled out any of the negatives associated with life in a hard time — the brutality and cruelty and greed; they were human, after all — until the historic cowboy became an icon and a symbol of all that’s good and right in the world. And the perfect foil for the time-tested symbols of evil, corruption and decadence — vampires.
Of course, nothing is ever exactly what it seems in LonePine — cowboys are not always heroes and vampires are not always villains. The only thing that’s certain is that romance is always hard. We hope you’ll take the time to visit LonePine and meet some of the cowboys, cowgirls, survivalists, ranchers, barmaids, vampires and overly sensitive cowdogs that make it a funny, sexy and scary destination.
Check out Blood and Whiskey to learn more about the Meta and the wide open, wild and undead West.
Note: This is a post Kathleen McFall and I wrote for the awesome Book Chick City blog. It's British, which makes us international celebrity wannabes.
Cut off from the rest of the world by miles of open range and rugged snow-capped mountains, LonePine is the quintessential American western town: the county fair and rodeo is still the biggest social event of the year, crusty old ranchers drive to town at sun-up for breakfast — waving at every pickup truck they pass because there are no strangers — and it’s not unusual to see a horse or two tethered outside the Watering Hole, the town’s favorite saloon. Not much has changed there in a hundred years … until then the undead ride into town.
The first vampire to visit LonePine (at least in THIS century: Red Winter) is Lizzie Vaughn, a beautiful, ambitious reporter from New York who falls hard for Tucker, a down-on-his-luck cowboy born and raised in LonePine. From opposite worlds to begin with, their relationship takes a turn for the paranormal when they learn Lizzie is a latent vampire.
Worse, a special power courses through her veins and the entire undead world wants to either control it, or eliminate her entirely. The ensuing clash of urban and rural cultures — between star-crossed lovers and between good and evil forces — is at the heart of The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series.
Fittingly, we came up with the concept for The Cowboy and the Vampire , the first book in the series, in 1999 at a rural western truckstop in the high desert town of Madras, Oregon. We were trying to rekindle our own relationship and the worlds-collide storyline (Kathleen is from Washington, D.C., and Clark was raised in Montana), along with the macabre and gothic elements, fit the moment and our personalities. And the decision to anchor the series in the modern American west tapped into our shared love of the region and the myths that sustain it.
People are fundamentally shaped by their environment, and that is especially evident for those hailing from the western U.S. Cowboy country covers thousands of square miles, from northern Montana down through southern Arizona, from eastern Oregon to western Nebraska, and everything in between. People who live in the west tend to value silence and space because their nearest neighbor may be ten miles away, their daytime view is uninterrupted by buildings all the way out to the craggy mountain peaks along the horizon and at night, most westerners can hear coyotes or wolves (if they are lucky) beneath clear, starry skies.
The west we love is a place where people can be alone with nature and their thoughts, which is why our books feature a distinctive element — a wide open spirituality that’s as big as the west and linked to vampires: the Meta. Along with the expected characteristics of the undead — insatiable blood lust, solar mortality — our vampires die every dawn, completely. That means they have a never-ending series of near death experiences as their souls, their consciousnesses, go racing of into the Meta. The Meta is an external shared consciousness, like a giant energy field, where humans and vampires alike exist before and after death. Experiencing the Meta, just like humans who “come back” after death, gives one a profound sense of calmness, certainty and belonging.
That uncluttered confidence is common in the west, which gets to the heart of the region as an ideal, tangling up history with the golden myths of movie screen cowboys and pulp fiction heroes. Those who settled the frontier were tough, resilient and independent, characteristics which earned them a permanent place in the national, and even international, psyche. Hollywood added a sheen that mostly canceled out any of the negatives associated with life in a hard time — the brutality and cruelty and greed; they were human, after all — until the historic cowboy became an icon and a symbol of all that’s good and right in the world. And the perfect foil for the time-tested symbols of evil, corruption and decadence — vampires.
Of course, nothing is ever exactly what it seems in LonePine — cowboys are not always heroes and vampires are not always villains. The only thing that’s certain is that romance is always hard. We hope you’ll take the time to visit LonePine and meet some of the cowboys, cowgirls, survivalists, ranchers, barmaids, vampires and overly sensitive cowdogs that make it a funny, sexy and scary destination.
Check out Blood and Whiskey to learn more about the Meta and the wide open, wild and undead West.
Bugging Out with the Cast of Blood and Whiskey
Any self-respecting prepper keeps a bug-out bag loaded with survival gear near the door, and the characters from The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series are definitely used to dealing with the worst.
The rationale behind a bug-out bag is simple — it’s a backpack or some other form of personal conveyance loaded with all the stuff necessary to survive the first few days after some kind of catastrophic event. Say a meteor hits — doesn’t seem so unlikely now, does it Russia? — or there’s a huge, city-leveling earthquake or solar flares disrupt earth communications and turn half the population into solar zombies. Whatever the cause, when (not if) disaster strikes, a bug-out bag provides careful planners with a head start that won’t be enjoyed by his or her neighbors who will be wandering around wringing their hands and wondering what to do. And probably becoming zombie food.A bug-out bag is basically the first step of survival 101. A typical starter bag might have some waterproof matches, a pocket knife, a couple of ponchos and a few granola bars. Moving up the scale of sophistication, start thinking about adding a first aid kid, some duct tape and a water purifier.
We have a modest bug out bag. And so do the characters from our books, The Cowboy and the Vampire and Blood and Whiskey. Here’s a rundown of what our characters keep close at hand for when the Juan de Fuca plate drops open and a tsunami wipes out half of the west.
Tucker: He’s a tough, resourceful, perpetually-broke cowboy living in LonePine, Wyoming who falls for a vampire (Lizzie). His bug-out bag, kept in a pair of saddlebags in his truck, is pretty simple:
* Duct tape
* A folding knife
* A pair of fencing pliers (sort of the cowboy multi-tool)
* A bottle of whiskey
* A bag of snack cakes with enough preservatives to withstand the end of times
Lizzie: She’s a newly turned vampire queen in love with a cowboy (Tucker). Her bug out bag, though she would be loathe to admit she has one, is focused more on intellectual rather than physical survival. Now that she’s a vampire, she could survive just about anything anyway, except for direct sunlight, which is why she only keeps a few things in her purse:
* A copy of Anna Karenina
* A notebook and three pens
* A juice box of blood
* A body bag (in case she gets caught out doors at dawn
* A corkscrew (hopefully there will be wine after the apocalypse)
Lenny: He’s Tucker’s best friend and a way-off-the-grid-survivalist who practically invented the concept of bug out bags. He lives in a hidden bunker with stockpiles of guns, ammo and freeze dried meals. But Lenny, who has never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, knows all too well that a single bunker-buster dropped from a drone would leave him homeless. That’s why he has a bug-out bag by the exit of the escape tunnel from his bunker. Actually, it’s more like a bug-out trunk, with a bug out bag in it, as well as:
* Shelf-stable food and water for five days
* A collapsible assault rifle with 500 round of ammo
* A Geiger counter
* A first aid kit and mobile surgical operating suite
* Bio waste bags
* A hand crank power generator
* Solar chargers
* An emergency radio
* Lanterns
* Flares
* A kindle loaded with every how-to book ever printed
* A tool kit, U.S. and metric
* Fire starter tablets and matches
* A wire saw
* A tent
* Sleeping pads
* Night vision goggles
* A collapsible commuter bike
* A water filtration system
* Much more
Elita: She’s a sexy, powerful vampire who has lived through all manner of catastrophes. No matter the challenge, from feuding vampire species to angry villagers with torches, she always lands on her feet. It doesn’t hurt that she’s painfully beautiful and sexually insatiable. Her bug out bag fits neatly in one pocket:
* Lipstick
* A matching bra and panty set
* A fresh pack of clove cigarettes, but no matches— she can always find someone else to light them
With all the bad stuff going on in the world, a focus on self-reliance is on the upswing and blissful ignorance is waning. People are taking survival preparation more seriously — there’s even a show about it — and after a few killer storms, it doesn’t seem quite so crazy these days to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Some people choose to assemble their own bug-out bags, others buy them fully assembled online to save the time. No matter the source, one thing is clear, no bug-out bag is complete without a copy of The Cowboy and the Vampire and Blood and Whiskey. It can get mighty boring in a nuclear winter, so bring some good books. Actually bring a couple copies. They can be bartered for supplies.
The rationale behind a bug-out bag is simple — it’s a backpack or some other form of personal conveyance loaded with all the stuff necessary to survive the first few days after some kind of catastrophic event. Say a meteor hits — doesn’t seem so unlikely now, does it Russia? — or there’s a huge, city-leveling earthquake or solar flares disrupt earth communications and turn half the population into solar zombies. Whatever the cause, when (not if) disaster strikes, a bug-out bag provides careful planners with a head start that won’t be enjoyed by his or her neighbors who will be wandering around wringing their hands and wondering what to do. And probably becoming zombie food.A bug-out bag is basically the first step of survival 101. A typical starter bag might have some waterproof matches, a pocket knife, a couple of ponchos and a few granola bars. Moving up the scale of sophistication, start thinking about adding a first aid kid, some duct tape and a water purifier.
We have a modest bug out bag. And so do the characters from our books, The Cowboy and the Vampire and Blood and Whiskey. Here’s a rundown of what our characters keep close at hand for when the Juan de Fuca plate drops open and a tsunami wipes out half of the west.
Tucker: He’s a tough, resourceful, perpetually-broke cowboy living in LonePine, Wyoming who falls for a vampire (Lizzie). His bug-out bag, kept in a pair of saddlebags in his truck, is pretty simple:
* Duct tape
* A folding knife
* A pair of fencing pliers (sort of the cowboy multi-tool)
* A bottle of whiskey
* A bag of snack cakes with enough preservatives to withstand the end of times
Lizzie: She’s a newly turned vampire queen in love with a cowboy (Tucker). Her bug out bag, though she would be loathe to admit she has one, is focused more on intellectual rather than physical survival. Now that she’s a vampire, she could survive just about anything anyway, except for direct sunlight, which is why she only keeps a few things in her purse:
* A copy of Anna Karenina
* A notebook and three pens
* A juice box of blood
* A body bag (in case she gets caught out doors at dawn
* A corkscrew (hopefully there will be wine after the apocalypse)
Lenny: He’s Tucker’s best friend and a way-off-the-grid-survivalist who practically invented the concept of bug out bags. He lives in a hidden bunker with stockpiles of guns, ammo and freeze dried meals. But Lenny, who has never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, knows all too well that a single bunker-buster dropped from a drone would leave him homeless. That’s why he has a bug-out bag by the exit of the escape tunnel from his bunker. Actually, it’s more like a bug-out trunk, with a bug out bag in it, as well as:
* Shelf-stable food and water for five days
* A collapsible assault rifle with 500 round of ammo
* A Geiger counter
* A first aid kit and mobile surgical operating suite
* Bio waste bags
* A hand crank power generator
* Solar chargers
* An emergency radio
* Lanterns
* Flares
* A kindle loaded with every how-to book ever printed
* A tool kit, U.S. and metric
* Fire starter tablets and matches
* A wire saw
* A tent
* Sleeping pads
* Night vision goggles
* A collapsible commuter bike
* A water filtration system
* Much more
Elita: She’s a sexy, powerful vampire who has lived through all manner of catastrophes. No matter the challenge, from feuding vampire species to angry villagers with torches, she always lands on her feet. It doesn’t hurt that she’s painfully beautiful and sexually insatiable. Her bug out bag fits neatly in one pocket:
* Lipstick
* A matching bra and panty set
* A fresh pack of clove cigarettes, but no matches— she can always find someone else to light them
With all the bad stuff going on in the world, a focus on self-reliance is on the upswing and blissful ignorance is waning. People are taking survival preparation more seriously — there’s even a show about it — and after a few killer storms, it doesn’t seem quite so crazy these days to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Some people choose to assemble their own bug-out bags, others buy them fully assembled online to save the time. No matter the source, one thing is clear, no bug-out bag is complete without a copy of The Cowboy and the Vampire and Blood and Whiskey. It can get mighty boring in a nuclear winter, so bring some good books. Actually bring a couple copies. They can be bartered for supplies.
