Tag: Feeding the Vampire

Topsy-Turvy

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

We’ve had pouring rain since yesterday afternoon. It’s funny – the stucco gets so drenched you can see the crack-repair material, which is usually invisible.

So, when I was in high school, I was on the Speech & Debate team. Yeah, I know – but you all already knew I was a nerd. But hey! I lettered in speech. Got my green and gold O. Of course, I had no jacket to sew it onto, so I stuck it on my bulletin board with the Octagon Club awards and horse-show ribbons and did I mention I was kind of a nerd?

At any rate, I competed mainly in dramatic interpretation of drama and poetry, plus a memorable stint in duet acting. Overall I did okay. I qualified for the state competitions a few times, but never the national ones. One of the things I noticed, though, was that I was absolutely incapable of knowing when I’d done well in a round. Usually we’d compete in three rounds of 5-6 people, then, if we did well enough, advance to semi-finals and finals. Inevitably, when I thought I’d done badly, I’d won. And when I thought I was great, I’d actually bombed out.

I have no idea still, why this is.

But I’m noticing it with writing, too. Blog posts give pretty much instant feedback, compared to other kinds of writing. Often when I think I’ve posted something clever or interesting, I’ll get bupkis response. And frequently the posts that I fear are muddy, or when I’ve maybe ranted or whined excessively, end up being the most popular and passed around.

I’m seeing it with the stories, too, some. Petals and Thorns was loved in a way that Feeding the Vampire wasn’t as much. Early responses to Sapphire are different than I expected. Not bad – just different. I’ve heard other authors mention this, that sometimes the books they love languish and some of the less-heartfelt books end up selling spectacularly well.

Clearly there’s just no saying.

In speech, I used to try to predict given the reverse logic, but that was never a sure thing either. Sometimes I knew a bomb for what it was. Sometimes I nailed the round and felt it.

This is why I believe in editors.

Three If by River

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

 

You all know by now how much I love interesting changes in perspective.

I was in West Virginia this week for the day job, specifically the capitol, Charleston. It’s really a lovely little city, with the Kanawha River flowing at its feet. I’m told “Kanawha” is pronounced “Kanaaaaahhhh.” I suspect it helps to have a southern accent. At any rate, I love cities on big rivers. I grew up in the Rocky Mountain West where we just don’t *do* big rivers. Cricks and washes, yes; waterways capable of bearing traffic, oh no no no.

See, that’s the cool thing. The capitol building in West Virginia seems like it’s facing the wrong direction. It’s kind of away from downtown and it sits sideways to the big thoroughfare next to it. Kanawaha Blvd runs in front of it, but that’s not the main route to downtown from the interstate by any stretch. But if you walk along the riverfront pathway – which is a lovely walk – you can see it. The building faces the river. Steps and an esplanade run right down to the river and the building rises above it, greeting guests who’ve arrived by boat, not by automobile.

I recognize this because I went through an obsession a phase where I visited plantation homes. Many of those show their best faces to the river, because that’s how people arrived. Before everything became about the car.

I’ve been toying with post-apocalyptic scenarios. Especially since people keep bugging me that Feeding the Vampire is too short. It would be interesting to write about a string of communities that return to traveling and trading by the river that joins them, walling themselves off to all other avenues of entry. Everything would become about controlling and protecting the river.

Fun to think about.

Feeding the Vampire Coming Soon!

admin / / Blog

Two weeks from today!

Yeah, I know it’s fast. See it’s a “Quickie” (har har) because it’s a short – only 7K words. And Ellora’s Cave turned it around really fast. Their editorial process, in face, is very slick. My editor, Grace, is very sharp and delightful to work with, too.

You didn’t really know I’d written this one?

Well, see it’s my post-apocalyptic vampire erotica. I know, right? My critique partners just shake their heads at me. But it’s not like I*plan* these things. Sometimes I think it would be cool to be one of those writers who plans what they’ll write, but I’m just not.

Here’s the blurb:

Feeding the Vampire

Jeffe Kennedy

Through good luck and healthy cowardice, Misty has survived the earthquakes that have torn the world apart, but has no skills to speak of. Or so she thinks. She does have blood, and someone must feed the vampire who has offered his protection and strength in exchange for sustenance. Feeding Ivan is a priority, and Misty finally serves a purpose.

But when she awakens tied to his bed, an unwilling gift to Ivan from the townspeople, she discovers he has hungers other than blood. Hungers he expects her to satisfy in the most carnal manner. Under his seductive persuasion Misty discovers she has the power to sustain Ivan in all ways, while experiencing unspeakable pleasure herself.

See, they all come from dreams. Sometimes daydream-type images, but this one is an honest-to-god full-featured dream. In fact, the excerpt below is pretty much what I dreamed and I built the story from there:

I was compelled to feed him. I had no choice, really.

Earl cleared his throat. “Thank you.” Our town administrator looked around for agreement, but they weren’t meeting his eyes either. Like kids ducking the teacher’s gaze. “Thank you, Misty. We all appreciate your…” He trailed off uncomfortably.

Sacrifice? Surely no one wanted to hear that word aloud. Martyr to the cause? No, not much better.

Earl shuffled the papers in his lap. Waiting for me to get to it, I supposed. Well, he had just said that feeding Ivan ought to be the first order of business. We couldn’t very well make plans for our community while the guy in charge of our defenses wilted before our eyes, especially since we needed him alert and focused. Me? I was pretty damn expendable. I hadn’t brought much to the table so far, except my survival, which really was accidental. Right place at the right time. Turns out stolid New England was just the right place to be for the particular form this apocalypse took. Granite bedrock and all that.

My boring hometown was a safe haven and everyone wanted in on our resources. The people turning up every day were let in or turned away depending on what they offered. I counted my lucky stars I’d been grandfathered in simply because my neighbors didn’t have the heart to kick me out. Excellent keyboarding skills and a customer-friendly personality didn’t count for much in this economy. Especially without, um, customers or working keyboards.

I couldn’t afford to be a useless mouth to feed. Their hearts would harden—they already had. Tonight was pivotal. We’d acquired a vampire of our own for defense. Everyone felt better about our future—if we could keep him happy. At least I knew how to make blood. You could say I was a natural.

And yet, the certainty that had propelled me to my feet seemed to be bleeding away, frightened off by Ivan’s fixed intensity and everyone else’s obvious relief. They waited, restless, for me to just get on with it. Uncomfortable silence.

Hi, I’m Misty and I’m a Fool. I haven’t done anything really unwise in twenty-seven days. Kind of a record for me really. Apparently I was due.

The vampire just stared at me.

I set my yellow pad on the chair and made myself walk across the circle to where he sat in the tacky folding metal chair. My sandals slapped lightly on the tiles, making tinny echoes. Ivan’s roving gaze sent tremors of anticipation up my thighs.

A few murmured conversations resumed. They probably didn’t like the creepy silence any more than I did. I appreciated their polite attempt not to gawk. I’d never seen a vampire feed—probably none of them had either.

I stopped in front of Ivan. He leaned back, long legs sprawled out in careless indolence. He tilted his head at my hesitation and held out his hands as if to help me down from a carriage.

“Perhaps we should step out of the room?” I tried.

“I haven’t the strength to stand.” His grave eyes watched me with avid intent.

If I ran, he would definitely find the strength to hunt me down. After all, he’d walked into this room. Heck, he’d arrived at the bridge leading to our sleepy town only last night, offering his protection in return for our shelter and sustenance. He had to have gotten there somehow.

He wrapped his long fingers around my wrists, cuffing them with bands of steel. Exerting steady pressure, he drew me closer, parting his lips. White fangs gleamed with fluorescent highlights. My heart thumped in panic, hot fear filling me.

“Will it hurt?” My voice sounded thready, weak.

Hunger flared in his eyes at the question. “It always does.”

Ivan snapped me against his hard body. The sharp movement splintered any second thoughts. He pulled me astraddle his lap. My cheap cotton dress hiked up alarmingly. The chafe of his dark denim jeans sent tremors up my fully exposed thighs. Shame and terror flashed through me.

Then all thought and emotion burst in flame, immolating me through the fierce violence of his teeth sinking into my throat. The agony of the deep puncture, fear feeding pain, fired through my blood. I struggled like a wild thing, without thought. Animal instinct screamed at me to flee, to escape by any means possible.

The vampire held me trapped. There was no escape for me, the mouse flailing under the cat’s paw.

My will, never my strong point, snapped. The fight ebbed away with the tide of my blood. The steady drop of pressure left me enervated, without resistance. Darkness filled my brain, prickled with sparking stars. I wilted, becoming a bit of detritus washed upon the shore of Ivan’s body.

Pain filled my veins, pumped through my heart. It replaced my blood, spiraling through my body from the insistent penetration of Ivan’s teeth in my throat. Helpless against the crashing waves, I relinquished my last hold on consciousness and sank into the hot, tarry sea of oblivion.

Yeah. Now you know why I remembered THAT dream so clearly.

I really kind of love Misty. She’s different from my other heroines, not as sharp or capable. But she has a different sort of confidence that comes from knowing her limitations. If this story does well, I’d like to write more about her. I suspect she has a lot more to offer than she thinks.

At any rate, you can see the story Here.

Art or Smut?

admin / / Blog

The fire near Los Alamos (the Las Conchas fire, officially) is confined enough now to look like a giant train, steaming ahead on the horizon. I hope it gets where it’s going soon.

Last week, I received the quarterly newsletter from the Ucross Foundation. This is a really wonderful group that supports artists of many varieties. They sponsor a residency program where you can go stay for two to six weeks and, well, create full-time. I particularly like the Ucross take on this because the 8-10 residents at any given time can be writers, composers, photographers, painters, sculptors, etc.

Getting a residency is competitive and you have to pass several stages of admission. Once there, they give you a room to sleep in and a study. I had this amazing study that was like a library, with a little deck off of it. We were on our own for breakfast, which we pulled from this amazingly well-stocked kitchen. At night, we all convened for dinner and always fascinating conversation. For lunch, they would creep up outside your study door and leave a sack lunch. I never heard anyone come or go. It was like we were curing cancer.

This was an incredible experience for me and something I highly recommend to any writer.

This was the first time for me that my identity, and sole purpose for two whole weeks, was entirely about writing. It was a huge transformation for me and will always be an experience and memory I treasure.

They follow their former residents and include news of their careers in the newsletter. The five writers who had stories in Best American Short Stories, the gallery showings, the concerts. All pretty fabulous activities.

I wasn’t in there.

And I’m not saying this as a Poor Me thing. The reason my news isn’t in there is because I haven’t sent it to them. So this got me thinking.

Why haven’t I told them about Petals and Thorns, or the upcoming Feeding the Vampire and Sapphire? I don’t think I’m ashamed. However, clearly I’m not proud.

Or I would have told them. Right?

I know some of this comes down to the eternal battle between literachur and genre. I noticed that a couple writers I know reported fairly minor journalistic publications for listing. I probably would do that, too, before I’d send out notices about my very naughty novellas.

It surprised me that I think this way and I haven’t decided what to do about it. I did a little Twitter poll on the topic and most people said to own it, be proud and send in my info. One gal told me she wouldn’t do it either, but then, she was still “festering” about the people in grad school. Something I totally get.

So, I haven’t decided. Am I eternally seeking approval from the academics? Do I trumpet my work, which is selling far better than anything else I’ve ever written, and spread the good word about careers in digital-first publishing?

What would Anais Nin do?

Beaked Yucca Lessons

admin / / Blog

Update on the yucca flowering:

Not so much?

If you haven’t been following along with the Blooming of the Rescue Yucca, it started sending up a spire here and was much bigger here. I should have done an update last Monday, but I clearly had important ranting to do about appreciating the role of serendipity and chance in life.

So, you’d think there would be actual flowers by now, that there would be fragrant blooming. After all, it’s been weeks and weeks. Surely that’s enough time and effort? But no – the buds are covered with some kind of sticky stuff that the bugs seem to like. It’s all alien-looking and kind of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

The moral here is obvious.

Not all stages of growth are pretty. Things progress on their own schedule.

It always seems like a long time, when you’re waiting for the blossoms.

A few of my own flowers opened this weekend, though. Ellora’s Cave is making an offer on a short story tentativley called Feeding the Vampire. That’s right – it’s my Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Vampire story.

What?

Hey – I don’t tell the dream faeries what stories to send.

Also, Petals and Thorns finalled in another contest – More Than Magic – for best novella! I’m so pleased to see P&T getting some love.

I don’t even mind the little bugs.