It was many years in the making. I sat down after supper back in 2002-03 and clacked the keys with no actual plot or really thinking I’d write a full length book. It took me twelve years to crank out this vampire book. It took me an additional three of those twelve years to flesh it out, give it some strange characters both made up and unique.
I didn’t want to be too detailed-oriented about a Jetsons-like take on Times of the Past and that wasn’t my aim. The vehicles hover and mortals live with life like robot companions and that's about as far as I went envisioning what the future of 2075 might look like. I wanted something frightening—maybe even shocking and throw in some major micromanaging in the mix. Before I did, I read a lot of general articles online, political news stories from all around the world and keeping abreast of SARS, Swine Flu and Bird Flu. I kept notes in my thick spiral bound notebook, and while sorting laundry one evening, I had the partial name to my fake epidemic I'd put in my book, but L-501 doesn’t conjure up a terrifying image of any of the three aforementioned CDC scares in my mind. Levi's jeans don’t really scare the spandex pants off me, either. So I went back in time to the past. I read more pages on the Influenza outbreak of 1919 that I care to shake a stick at. I poured over images that would make a creepy back cover design, however, couldn’t find the correct copyright holder(s) to such spooky black and white photos and elected to scrap the back cover design. I wasn’t out to slap my book together in one night and declare very triumphantly, “I am now a published indie author!”
So, it was back to the keyboard, and by now my thought process is so wrapped up in Times of the Past, that it’s difficult for me to break away. I was “in the zone” quite a bit and when the ideas flow: a writer has to write and that’s what I did.
I wanted my protagonist to start off mortal, then get attacked… actually they’re cursed by their betrothed’s aunt, who despises my protagonist because why? Maybe they’re too clean cut and honest. Maybe they want to make a good impression on the family first, then elope… and like any situation, that didn’t pan out for my protagonist. He marches off to the Civil War, goes AWHOL and finds his Southern belle unharmed during the chaos, but just equally terrified and torn between one of two options: prevent the vampire curse from coming true or facing it head on and accepting it with optimism. They took the plunge and let the curse come true. I won’t give away anything else, but do have the strong tendency to write very short scenes and then skip down two spaces to a brand new scene. I was hoping to hurdle all of the detail-oriented stuff this way. Yeah, we know how they get to point A and point B, but how many times I can reiterate it before it looses its charm?
Fast forward to Two-hundred-and-twelve years into the future. My undead protagonists exist in a draconian universe. And with a new serious epidemic comes rape, pillage, plunder and civil unrest. The nation has collapsed in the future. Everything is in economic ruin and mortals have to fend for their property, hoards of food, guns and supplies… oh, yeah, and if they get severely injured, infected or become ill, there’s hardly a physical medical practice to help them. This is where my second undead protagonist enters the picture and right on the heels of his long time’s friend death which he knows nothing about until the night he arrives in town, strung out from the road, travel-weary and thirsty.
All hope seems lost, but he locates the young woman who his dear friend matched him up with. Unlike real life where odds would be great a blind meeting such as this could go either way, I know my undead protagonist (also a medical doctor), will fall in love and everything works out… but with a twist. They kind of sneak around about it in the beginning and try as hard as they can to keep their love and professional lives separate. Not always easy and that’s where I wanted to throw in some real life drama into Times of the Past.
Why be so err… vague with the sex scenes between two lovers? Good grief if I don’t find some major earth-shattering “rock your world”, xxx rated stuff at the turn of the next page, then this book bites (pun intended).
Does every sex scene need to read like a cookie cutter steamy graphic romance novel to get the point across? My characters will want deeper meaning and relief bringing them together for the first time. My undead protagonist has been a medical doctor and has seen and heard it all in their existence from many a patient, but he might want to try something slow and sensual. Why make direct grabs at the obvious body parts? No, I don't “see” my characters doing that right off the bat. I was thinking more in terms of spiritually and physically discovering. I could see my characters needing close intimacy and languid passion, but I couldn’t foresee them hopping in the sack the first night they essentially meet in person. And like I so often do, wrote out their sex scene off the top of my head. I restricted myself from all media, pictures and video and just let my imagination and whatever music I was listening to at the time, do the rest. It’s difficult to “show” the reader what goes on in the characters minds. I will strive to do my best and go through segments with a fine tooth comb to improve upon a scene.
Times of the Past, the very title came to me in a dream and I used it. I was also writing out my own grief after having lost my great grandmother the very same year I began clacking the keys to what would later evolve into my second book. I won’t spoil it for those that haven’t checked out Times of the Past.
I didn’t want to be too detailed-oriented about a Jetsons-like take on Times of the Past and that wasn’t my aim. The vehicles hover and mortals live with life like robot companions and that's about as far as I went envisioning what the future of 2075 might look like. I wanted something frightening—maybe even shocking and throw in some major micromanaging in the mix. Before I did, I read a lot of general articles online, political news stories from all around the world and keeping abreast of SARS, Swine Flu and Bird Flu. I kept notes in my thick spiral bound notebook, and while sorting laundry one evening, I had the partial name to my fake epidemic I'd put in my book, but L-501 doesn’t conjure up a terrifying image of any of the three aforementioned CDC scares in my mind. Levi's jeans don’t really scare the spandex pants off me, either. So I went back in time to the past. I read more pages on the Influenza outbreak of 1919 that I care to shake a stick at. I poured over images that would make a creepy back cover design, however, couldn’t find the correct copyright holder(s) to such spooky black and white photos and elected to scrap the back cover design. I wasn’t out to slap my book together in one night and declare very triumphantly, “I am now a published indie author!”
So, it was back to the keyboard, and by now my thought process is so wrapped up in Times of the Past, that it’s difficult for me to break away. I was “in the zone” quite a bit and when the ideas flow: a writer has to write and that’s what I did.
I wanted my protagonist to start off mortal, then get attacked… actually they’re cursed by their betrothed’s aunt, who despises my protagonist because why? Maybe they’re too clean cut and honest. Maybe they want to make a good impression on the family first, then elope… and like any situation, that didn’t pan out for my protagonist. He marches off to the Civil War, goes AWHOL and finds his Southern belle unharmed during the chaos, but just equally terrified and torn between one of two options: prevent the vampire curse from coming true or facing it head on and accepting it with optimism. They took the plunge and let the curse come true. I won’t give away anything else, but do have the strong tendency to write very short scenes and then skip down two spaces to a brand new scene. I was hoping to hurdle all of the detail-oriented stuff this way. Yeah, we know how they get to point A and point B, but how many times I can reiterate it before it looses its charm?
Fast forward to Two-hundred-and-twelve years into the future. My undead protagonists exist in a draconian universe. And with a new serious epidemic comes rape, pillage, plunder and civil unrest. The nation has collapsed in the future. Everything is in economic ruin and mortals have to fend for their property, hoards of food, guns and supplies… oh, yeah, and if they get severely injured, infected or become ill, there’s hardly a physical medical practice to help them. This is where my second undead protagonist enters the picture and right on the heels of his long time’s friend death which he knows nothing about until the night he arrives in town, strung out from the road, travel-weary and thirsty.
All hope seems lost, but he locates the young woman who his dear friend matched him up with. Unlike real life where odds would be great a blind meeting such as this could go either way, I know my undead protagonist (also a medical doctor), will fall in love and everything works out… but with a twist. They kind of sneak around about it in the beginning and try as hard as they can to keep their love and professional lives separate. Not always easy and that’s where I wanted to throw in some real life drama into Times of the Past.
Why be so err… vague with the sex scenes between two lovers? Good grief if I don’t find some major earth-shattering “rock your world”, xxx rated stuff at the turn of the next page, then this book bites (pun intended).
Does every sex scene need to read like a cookie cutter steamy graphic romance novel to get the point across? My characters will want deeper meaning and relief bringing them together for the first time. My undead protagonist has been a medical doctor and has seen and heard it all in their existence from many a patient, but he might want to try something slow and sensual. Why make direct grabs at the obvious body parts? No, I don't “see” my characters doing that right off the bat. I was thinking more in terms of spiritually and physically discovering. I could see my characters needing close intimacy and languid passion, but I couldn’t foresee them hopping in the sack the first night they essentially meet in person. And like I so often do, wrote out their sex scene off the top of my head. I restricted myself from all media, pictures and video and just let my imagination and whatever music I was listening to at the time, do the rest. It’s difficult to “show” the reader what goes on in the characters minds. I will strive to do my best and go through segments with a fine tooth comb to improve upon a scene.
Times of the Past, the very title came to me in a dream and I used it. I was also writing out my own grief after having lost my great grandmother the very same year I began clacking the keys to what would later evolve into my second book. I won’t spoil it for those that haven’t checked out Times of the Past.