Monthly Archives: October 2011

Astrid Maxxim Update

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Late last night, I finished the first draft of Astrid Maxxim.  It was about as close to the original outline as any book I’ve ever written.  It was plotted at 30,000 words and came out at 30,284.  As always, things change when I start to rewrite, but I’m setting it aside for a bit before revising.  Now back to Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 4: The Young Sorceress.

Blood Trade: Chapter 6 Excerpt

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“I can take care of both those jobs this evening,” suggested Novelyne.  “That is, if you have other things to do.  I really, really like the Lanks.  I think they’re really, really nice—both of them.”

“You don’t really, really like them.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“You can’t like them,” said Xochitl turning around.  “You can’t like, love, admire, or care about anyone.  You don’t have it in you.  You’re heart doesn’t beat.  You’re a damned, dead thing.  The only thing you feel is that certain attraction that a predator has for its prey.  You play with your food like a cat plays with a mouse, like a shark plays with a seal, tossing it in the air, and having fun with it, and then tearing it apart.  You vampires beguile your victims with grotesque little pantomimes as lovers or even friends.  You become fascinated with them, but only until you suck the last of their lives away.”

“You don’t know anything about it.” 

“I know too much about it,” hissed Xochitl.

“You see what you want to see!” shouted Novelyne, her face masked in anger, but staying in its human form.  “You don’t know what I feel.  I’m still me.  I’m me!  You don’t know what I feel.  … The predator’s fascination with its prey…  At least that’s a feeling!  At least I feel something!  You don’t feel anything at all!”

She turned on her heel and started down the stairs.

“I’m leaving.”

“The sun hasn’t gone down yet.”

“It’s dark enough for me!”

The slamming door announced that Novelyne was no longer in the office.

Blood Trade: Chapter Five Excerpt

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The Lank home looked just as Xochitl had left it.  She paid the little cab driver with the unpronounceable name, including his big tip, and watched the vehicle drive away before approaching the house.  Rather than go to the front door, she opened the side gate and stepped quietly up to a kitchen window.  Looking inside, she didn’t see Novelyne or either of the Lanks, but nothing seemed out of place.  She continued on.  The Lanks had a beautifully landscaped back yard, with a large pool fed by a waterfall.  Just as Xochitl was rounding the back corner of the house, she heard a noise from across the yard.  She dropped to her knees.

At the back edge of the yard was a garden shed, and right beside that was a metal gate in the cinder block wall that surrounded the property.  As she watched, the gate opened just wide enough to admit a person, and one after the other, three passed through.  The last closed the gate behind him.  They crossed toward the house, stepping past the waterfall and into the light streaming out from the large double-paned windows.  All three men appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties.  All three had pistols, two still had them in their belt holsters; one carried his in his left hand.  This meant they wouldn’t be vampires.  Vampires didn’t need to carry firearms.

“Freeze,” said Xochitl from her kneeling position.

The man with the gun raised it and fired.  The bullet whizzed by close enough to her head that it brushed her hair.  She shot him twice in the chest.  Without pause, she shot the second man twice above his right eye.  He hadn’t quite reached the hand grip of his weapon.  The third man had.  He managed to raise it halfway before she shot him twice, one bullet hitting lower than intended, a gut shot, but the second right through the heart. 

Xochitl stood up before she realized that the first man was still standing.  He had two bullet holes through his chest, but he raised his gun again.  She shot him twice in the face and then emptied her clip into his body.  Though he staggered backwards, he still didn’t go down.  A growl brought her attention to his face.  It had a grotesque hole in the forehead, but that wasn’t the most disturbing thing about it.  It had shifted to the face of the blood-sucking fiend, with long fangs and yellow eyes.  Alright, so don’t make generalizations.  Vampires might carry guns after all.

The vampire fired his pistol twice more and Xochitl felt a burning pain shoot through her right side.  Casting the gun aside, he leapt at her.  She darted forward spinning into a flying back kick, making contact with his face, and sending a stream of blood and brains from the hole in his head in an arc across the back yard.  He hardly seemed to notice.  Grabbing her foot from the air, he threw her down, knocking the wind from her lungs.

Kindle Fire

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A few days ago, Amazon announced its new Kindle Fire tablet.  It looks pretty amazing, especially for the price of $199.  I suppos the real test of how great a buy it is will be how easy it is to add content that doesn’t come from Amazon.  It only has 8g of storage vs. unlimited cloud storage for your Amazon purchases.

It’s all up-side for me though.  The more people who have Amazon ereaders, the more potential customers that are out there.  If you get yourself a new Kindle Fire, check out one of my books from the Kindle Store.  I think the cover of Blood Trade will look particularly good on this device with its black border.

Astrid Maxxim Update

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I am in the middle of Chapter 17 right now, so the first draft of Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike should be done within the week.  It’s originally plotted at 20 chapters (30,000 words) and it may run slightly over that.

When I finish the draft, I’ll probably set it aside for a week or two.  That usually works best for me.  It gives me a little perspective before I start the revision process.  That way when I come back, I can actually read the words without skipping over them when I remember what I wrote.

I should be able to do the revision and then the editing within a few weeks.  This is a short book– about the same size as the Tom Swift Jr. books which inspired me.

In the meantime, I’ll get back to work on Senta and the Steel Dragon 4: The Young Sorceress.

Kindle Touch

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The other day Amazon announced a whole group of new Kindles, including the long awaited Kindle with a touch screen.  They look pretty good and the price point is excellent.  This is great for several reasons.  More people will buy ereaders.  Ereaders are the best way to enjoy books.  Of course for me, it means that the audience for my books has increased.  For those of you with new kindles, follow the links at the side of the blog page to go directly to the Kindle editions of my books, or find them in the Kindle store.  Happy reading.

Book Sales

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I checked my email and saw that today at Smashwords somebody bought a copy of His Robot Wife.  Somebody else bought His Robot Wife, The Drache Girl, and Women of Power.  If you are either of those people, thanks.

I check my book sales frequently.  At Smashwords, I get real-time feedback, but I check at Amazon usually once a day, and I the other ebook stores as frequently as possible.  Book sales are only one indicator of success as a writer– feedback is another, as are posted reviews.  Book sales are really gratifying– that someone thinks enough of your writing to purchase a book, especially if they are buying the second or third book in a series.

To all of you out there who have purchased one of my books, thanks.

Blood Trade: Chapter 4 Excerpt

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Xochitl stood in front of the bathroom mirror, with Novelyne behind her, and painted a thick coating of Goth white makeup over her face and breasts.  Then she took out her eyebrow stencils and painted dark upswept anime brows punctuated by tiny stars.  She had replaced her combat boots with black seven and a half inch fetish knee-highs.  Her fishnets didn’t quite reach the bottom of her black leather pleated mini skirt, revealing the two tattooed names written in script across her right thigh.  The black lamb skin corset was laced up tight in the back, squeezing her waist to six inches smaller than her natural form and pressing her pale breasts up over the top.  She had already arranged the dread falls in her hair.

“I’m not sure what you’re supposed to be,” said Novelyne.

“A Gothic slut.”

“Oh, well, mission accomplished then.”

Making her way down the alley, Xochitl entered the back door of Robot Slut Tattoo to find Sid’s friend Terry had turned the back room into a photo studio.  He was no slouch either, with a big Hasselblad set up on a tripod, surrounded by flash umbrellas.  His white backdrop was arranged against the wall, and just in front of that, a large white wing back chair.

Terry was a tall and very skinny man in his early thirties, with short cropped hair just going grey and a John Waters mustache.  For the next two hours he used his sweaty hands to place Xochitl in a variety poses draped across the white chair.  Halfway through, the miniskirt was discarded, leaving her in a vinyl microbikini, and several minutes later the corset followed the skirt, leaving her naked above the waist except for two pieces of electrical tape forming an X over each nipple.

“You are awesome,” said Terry as he snapped away.  “We could make some serious scratch from fetish magazines, if you’re into that.”

“The pictures are for Sid.” 

“It’s not like nobody’s going to see them.  You know he’s putting them on his sign… probably a billboard too.”

“That’s Sid’s business.”

As Xochitl was shimmying back into her skirt, the tattoo artist came back from the front of the store where he had been etching a fairy and mushroom on a redhead’s left breast in between games of Angry Birds on his laptop.

“Are feeling alright, Xochitl?  I can see your ribs.”

“You’re not looking at my ribs.”

“When did you last eat something?” he asked.

“I honestly don’t remember.” She slipped the corset around her and zipped it up the front.  “Why don’t you take me out to lunch?”

“Really?” 

She laughed at his eagerness.  “Sure.”

“Do you want to go change?”

“No.  Come on.  We can hit Food Factory.”
“Hell no.  If I’m taking somebody that looks like you to lunch, then it’s going to be someplace nice and hopefully someplace where a lot of people see me.”