Robin Layne's Blog: From the Red, Read Robin - Posts Tagged "interview"

Tonight I tried to add a few things to my basic profile information: My new blog address (though I'll keep this one going, too, with a different emphasis), and the news about my earning my editing certificate (see previous blog entry). Goodreads wouldn't let me save the changes because, it said, my Influence list was too long. I hadn't even changed my Influences list. I hadn't even touched it. And no matter what I did, I got the same message. I had to give up making the changes. I'm reminded of a shirt I once had (until it got stolen). It said "Computer Wizard and the Glitch." The Glitch was a little monster sitting on the wizard's shoulder.

Speaking of monsters, my friend Francis Franklin let me know about a contest (or it was originally a contest; I don't think now that it has winners, unless everyone nominated is a winner) called the Vampire Lover Blog Award. People were asked, If you could ask a vampire one thing, what would it be? Actually, some people submitted more than one question, but all 29 questions submitted are available to choose from by any vampire who wishes to respond by picking and answering 11. Being a writer of vampire stories, I was immediately interested, and I submitted a question and told Francis my Carletta was aching to talk. Soon I had four vampires lined up and wrote all their interviews in Word files. But someone was missing. Ah,then I remembered, the new kid on the block. I will post them all in the order I wrote them--but not on this blog, because it won't let me attach special images to my blog, and it's part of the rules to post the logo of the contest on your blog. So I started a new blog on Wordpress.com. Here it is, with 11 things about myself to start and then my first interview with a vampire: robinlayneauthor

If you want to join in the fun of the contest, see vampireloverblogaward

(I hope those links work. Writing them in code is a pain.)

In 2013, a friend on this site, Francis Franklin, started The Vampire Lover Blog Award--a chance for people to write the questions they were dying to ask vampires. Bloggers like me let their vampires out to respond to 11 questions of their (or the blogger's) choice. Because we were expected to include the nice graphic for the "award" with the blog posts, and Goodreads doesn't have an option for a separate pictures on blog posts, I started a second blog on Wordpress, Robin Layne, Author: Welcome to the AVS. I had five vampire characters answer the most appropriate 11 of the questions asked, including the one I submitted, in separate interviews that August. But some of my vamps could provide interesting answers to more than 11 of the questions, and, inspired by an interview Francis wrote, I decided to let two of these characters answer the rest of the questions in a descriptive scene instead of just quoting the questions and having the vamp simply answer each in written form. The setting for the dual interview is a Starbucks. I'm the uneasy interviewer, and the vampires, Luke and Carletta, don't like each other. In the interview posted on October 3, 2013, Luke helped interview the 16-year-old beauty Carletta--using psychic manipulation and bribery to get her to answer honestly questions she wanted to avoid. We left the post with the promise that Carletta would help interview Luke next. Now, after 2 years and over 5 months, the I have at last finished and posted Luke's second interview! And in the interim, guess what? Several MORE questions were posted to the Vampire Lover's Blog Award site. So Carletta had to answer those along with Luke.
Please consider all the time this literary meal has been on the loving backburner and go enjoy At Last--Luke Answers the Rest of the Questions!
I had a lot of fun writing it, and every project I do with my characters helps me know them better, adding to the depth of the books I've been working on since about 2000. It will be a whole series (AVS:The Anti-Vampirism Society). I'm thinking of 6 books at this point. Later, I'll post notes on what it's like to envision and put together a series of novels. I'm learning as I go along. It's harder than I thought it would be, and I'm taking longer than most writers seem to. But why boast about how LITTLE time it takes to write books, when life increases the meaning and skill that go into them?
I think you'll enjoy the whole blog, if you haven't read the other parts yet.