ROBUST discussion

There seems to be some vamp obsession on this group from time to time. On one of the threads there were comments to vamps being dead and smelly. Well this morning when I opened Goodreads, this thread jumped out at me on the Breaking Dawn discussion - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

Read and enjoy. :)

I'm actually thinking of doing a 'vampire' novel, but it would have to completely destroy just about every vampire legend and mythology ever (damn human propaganda). I suppose you would think more along the lines of the film 'ultraviolet' except nothing like that. lol. Hey, it would be a hoot.

Come on. Vampires are fun. Someone gave me a copy of Sims 2 one slow wet season. I realized it was actually a lesbian vampire game. lol.

Have you read Robin McKinley's Sunshine? Apart from the original Bram Stoker, I like her book immensely. There are no sequels, no dramatic paranormal storylines like in the newer crop of vamp stuff. And I really enjoy reading fantasy type books where myths and legends are torn to shreds.

Never played Sims. More into Age of Empires myself.

Isn't there a cheat in Age of Empires that will bring out an army of zombies to attack the enemy? ;)

Ah zombies. Now there is a creature with a few issues. They seem to make being a vampire quite a breeze.

I'm not a huge zombies fan. Maybe because they are the oh so obviously rotting recent dead? I do like the Resident Evil type zombie though.

Katie, I have no idea about that cheat! Will have to google it.

Claudine, I just looked it up and it looks like I was wrong. I'm sure I've seen it, but knowing my teenage son, it was probably one of his own adaptations of AoE that he was showing me.

Vampires. Ugh. All the life has been sucked out of that anemic creature.

Dave wrote: "Vampires. Ugh. All the life has been sucked out of that anemic creature."

Yes, but how about if you have high blood pressure. Get yourself an anemic vampire girlfriend, relieve the pressure, a mutually beneficial parasitic relationship.

I loved Anne Rice's Vampires.

She had the right mix of savage undead and almost human. They didn't have sex, died in sunlight, and drank each other's blood for kicks.

Since then it's been all down hill for me - with one exception - Tanya Huff's Henry Fitzroy.

Now for the link.

Kat said: I loved Anne Rice's Vampires.

Me too! Rice is my vampire hero. I started writing the DeVante series because it just took her too damn long to get the next book out. Not that I can criticize, it took me 10 years to finish writing my first book!

I modeled my vamps after hers to a point - the mix of humanity and monster, and the tight relationships between the vampires that know each other. But mine have sex, because I like writing about sex. (grin).

Ooh, I loved Henry Fitzroy, too! Adrian Phoenix's vamps had potential, but I thought the 3rd book fizzled, and haven't read the 4th yet.

Claudine wrote: "There seems to be some vamp obsession on this group from time to time. On one of the threads there were comments to vamps being dead and smelly. Well this morning when I opened Goodreads, this th..."

Oh dear. I'm not a Twilight fan, so I might have gotten in trouble over there.

Kat wrote: "I loved Anne Rice's Vampires.

She had the right mix of savage undead and almost human. They didn't have sex, died in sunlight, and drank each other's blood for kicks.

Since then it's been a..."

I responded to this, don't know where it went, so I'll try again. Love, love, love Rice's vamps. She was my inspiration, and I tried in my DeVante series to create a similar human yet monster dynamic.

I also liked Henry Fitzroy. Adrian Phoenix's vamps were promising, too, until the 3rd book when nothing much happened. I haven't read the 4th yet.

I saw the series 'Blood Ties' because a few of my e-gf's were passing around pictures. I was still working on 'Swallow the Moon.'

Tanya Huff did a great job with her world-building.

I'm with Dave on Vampires, I'm afraid. I spent months as a 7-year-old having nightmares because some silly student teacher read us a story about vampires and I've hated them ever since.

Tanya Huff is on my TBR pile.

I never got into Anne Rice's books. I read the first two, Interview and Lestat and never went back to get the others.

I read on Robin McKinley's website that she had never planned to write a sequel and I actually enjoyed the book more because of that.

There is no shortage of vampires out there.

The bookstores are full of them.

OK...that did it. I personally can't stand the vampire trend. I even wrote a short story breaking some rules on purpose, in a hope to ween people off the garbage.

I'm writing another one. I'll probably have it done in a few days. Another freebie of course. Here's the plot outline.

It's the distant future. The captain of a space frigate that's in charge of disovering new planets is a raging alcholic. Over half of his crew are involved in the onboard AA group. They are so far out of the standard shipping lanes, even now they're rationing the ship's booze stores.

They find a planet filled with a beautiful, soft spoken and well mannered humanoid species. Before they transmit the data, they learn that the blood of the people on this planet is almost identical to beer in both flavor and color!

The captain, in a fit of withdrawl bleeds one of the 'soft spoken beautiful women' as the last of the onboard booze is gone. Mayhem ensues.

The natives of this planet has a lifespan of only 3 years. They are birthed in four weeks, grow to adulthood in six months... and they become terrified of the 'immortal blood drinkers' that can't seem to get enough of their essence. They must be immortal, right? The captain himself is like 40 years old...(gasp!)

They will eventually storm the landed ship and loose thousands in a final battle to kill the 'monsters' and they succeed. Thus the story will end with us humans as the monsters being put down.

The Title: "I'm afraid there's only a little blood in your alcohol stream..."

It's time to start derailing this train known as the vampire obession. Anyone else who wants to write a kooky vamp short story and pub it up, are most welcome to help in this effort. Buwahahahahahahahaaa! *Lightning strikes in the background*

Here comes the new Messiah, who will rid us of the Evil that Anne Rice seeded on our planet. All hail, Daniel!

Kat wrote: "There is no shortage of vampires out there.

The bookstores are full of them."

I think that's the best reason to not write anymore vampire books. By the time a new book is crafted, the reading trend may have moved on to another genre.

Daniel wrote: "OK...that did it. I personally can't stand the vampire trend. I even wrote a short story breaking some rules on purpose, in a hope to ween people off the garbage.

I'm writing another one. I..."

Daniel, I wish I could be as skilled at something I didn't like. That's a great plot line.

I read that one story Daniel? The water one? Nice twist!

I doubt the vampire genre will die a bloody death. The basic plotline has been around for far too many centuries. It could only get worse, though I don't know what is worse than some of the books and plotlines floating around out there now.

Andre! I'll do my best!

Larry, thanks for the compliment!

Claudine, yes the water one. Thanks for the compliment!

6,815 words from start to finish. Checking it over for blunders now. If anyone wants to read and help with any missed issues, I'll give you editor credits on the front matter. I can send it to anyone in .doc, .rtf or .txt quite easily. Just PM me your email if I don't have it. I'm looking for a five day turn around which is easy for a little less than 7K words. ^_^

It's truly sick. Most people won't know it's a vamp thing until 75% of the way through, and the ending really hammers home the irony of it all. Ah-hahahahahaha! It's a dark thing, trust me.

I think there are women who will hunt down Vampire novels single-mindedly for life.

The trick for me is writing something I like - that appeals to readers. Not just me. (I was thrilled with the handwritten 60 pager I wrote in High School. I wouldn't show it to a soul, then or now.)

Kat wrote: "I think there are women who will hunt down Vampire novels single-mindedly for life.

The trick for me is writing something I like - that appeals to readers. Not just me. (I was thrilled with the ..."

I write on three levels of motivation or it doesn't get written. Sometimes they combine, sometimes they don't, depends on the genre and topic.

You hit upon the first one, Kat. It appeals to you. If you were to ever publish it, you might be surprised as to how many others think like you do. ^_^

My second motivation is to instruct, teach and guide. I take what knowledge I possess and put it to paper in a manner that others will fully understand. To keep it original and never to talk down to my readers, which can mistakenly happen if one is not careful with that type of writing.

My third motivation is unique to my own personality - I call it "Salty Hubris" where something strikes me just right, and I react to it by writing content that focuses on the counter message through fiction while using a broken moral compass.

That third motivation was recently generated by this very thread. Hehehe.

And you're right, Kat. There are women out there who will hunt down the genre single mindedly for life. One of them gave me my first one star right here on Goodreads. (A jalapeno for the vampire) And I expected it. I broke rules. I made the vampire ugly. I put in humor. I gave her strength of personality and a keen intelligence, and I made him into a beast. Those women won't know it by reading the trailer description or the book title. I love those kinds of traps.

And I just wrote another one, muwahahahahahahaaa! (Still on my Salty Hubris high here. Give me a few days to come down.)

Interesting...

One thing, I've got two books out. 'Swallow the Moon' and 'Let's Do Lunch' are both e-books, soon to be paperbacks.

If you like, I will give you Smashwords codes so you can take a look.

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/vie...

Kat wrote: "Interesting...

One thing, I've got two books out. 'Swallow the Moon' and 'Let's Do Lunch' are both e-books, soon to be paperbacks.

If you like, I will give you Smashwords codes so you can ta..."

I'd like to take a read for Swallow the Moon. Sounds like a fun read. ^_^ Take a look at my list, if there's one there you might want to take a gander at, I'll pass you a code right back. :)

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

And a heads up, a few of those are non-fiction. They are easily identified if you know to separate them out as you browse.

salty hubris, that's a good one, Daniel.

I love the word hubris, especially when I can apply it to something I have done. Cheeky hubris would more describe my style but then I suppose the adjective can be a synonym for the noun and would be redundant...

Vampires - I just don't get it, sigh...

I once lived with a man who sucked the life out of me.

Does that count?

He stalked me, too. (Which is why 'Twilight' disgusted me. The girl wasn't smart enough to figure out she had a stalker. What a dumb bunny!)

Seriously, when a person has lived with an emotional or financial vampire - the appeal is lost.

I once said that 'Skinny, with red-eyes and impossible hair, only comes out at night, has no visible means of support and a blood-sucker - Sounds like every musician I ever dated and half the actors as well.'

Well folks, here it is. And it's free, forever, no code needed.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

The trap is set. Twi-Hards and other vamp followers are going to get pissed off and one star me. Good. Muwahahahahahaaaaa!

But those of us who might enjoy an unusual twist to science fiction and horror should get a kick out of the final words of Captain Mark Trevor in the end.

Should....

I once lived with a man who sucked the life out of me... Seriously, when a person has lived with an emotional or financial vampire - the appeal is lost...

I once said that 'Skinny, with red-eyes and impossible hair, only comes out at night, has no visible means of support and a blood-sucker - Sounds like every musician I ever dated and half the actors as well.'

Kat, honestly, you are going to have to be on your toes always, I have come to rely upon you to provide laughs for my day...

I think if I ever lose my sense of humor it will be the end of 'culture as we know it.'

Daniel wrote: "OK...that did it. I personally can't stand the vampire trend. I even wrote a short story breaking some rules on purpose, in a hope to ween people off the garbage.

I'm writing another one. I..."

I love this idea. I'd love to read it when it's ready. Why would a wooden stake be needed to kill a human, though? And why would they have to avoid the sunlight?

JJ wrote: I love this idea. I'd love to read it when it's ready. Why would a wooden stake be needed to kill a human, though? And why would they have to avoid the sunlight?"

JJ, go up about three posts above yours, it's been ready and I gave the link n that post. I also made it free. Enjoy. ^_^