Hot Summer Nights

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell”
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way

Welcome to this stop on the Hot Summer Nights Blog Hop! This post comes soon after the paperback release of my novel Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order. I’ll be introducing the key players and at the end of the post I’ll tell you how you can win a free print copy of the novel! Also, if you leave a comment and your email address you will be entered to win one of two prizes:

1st Grand Prize – A Kindle Fire
2nd Grand Prize – $100 Amazon Gift Card

I’m sure most people recognize the lyrics of “Hotel California” by the Eagles that I quoted at the beginning. When I think “Hot Summer Nights” this is the song that comes to mind. According to Don Henley, it was “an interpretation of the high life in California.” I grew up in Southern California and for me, the song captures the sensuousness of my youthful fantasies. I wanted to go to that hotel and be tempted by the mysterious figure who lit up the candle and showed the stranger the way. Or did I? To me, the song conjures the image of Dracula’s opening scene when the count appears at the door and meets Harker and leads him inside after a long journey. Could “she” be the vampire Alexandra in the present day? The vampire who found freedom as a thief of both gold and blood?

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

Oh, how I remember that summer when my first true love broke up with me. Such exquisite pain. I would do anything to forget and anything to remember. How much worse then would it be for the Vampire Roquelaure who lost his one true love to old age while he still appeared to be a young man? How much worse could it be when the woman was none other than King Arthur’s own Queen Guinevere? He finds comfort in the shadows and in the arms of Alexandra.

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
“Relax, ” said the night man,
“We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! ”

Desmond, Lord Draco was a knight in ancient Britain who served alongside Arthur, a man destined to be king. Like both Roquelaure and Arthur, Desmond loved Guinevere, but that love was denied when he fell in battle only to come back as a vampire. Draco sought the Holy Grail and an even more precious relic. When those treasures were denied him, he began an eternal search for truth—stuck in a life where he could check out any time he liked, but never able to leave. Like Roquelaure, he finds a companion in Alexandra. What happens when Draco and Roquelaure collide?

And she said “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”
And in the master’s chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can’t kill the beast

Three vampires. Three lives. What will happen when they all collide?

Have I intrigued you? If so, I hope you’ll take some time to learn more about Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order. There’s an excerpt and order information at the Dragon’s Fall page. And, of course, I’m giving away a signed, print copy of the novel. Click the Rafflecopter link to enter!

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Don’t forget to leave a comment with your email address so you can be entered to win the grand prizes!

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Hot Summer Nights Are Coming Soon

Today my wife and I celebrate our twenty-third wedding anniversary. So, I hope you’ll understand if I keep this week’s regular post short and sweet. To make up for it, I have an extra special post coming up mid-week that includes some amazing giveaways!

Kumie and I met at a very rigorous science college called New Mexico Tech. When we first met, we were both physics majors. Kumie eventually switched to mathematics, but I stayed in physics. Most of my friends considered my writing a strange hobby that I would get over, but not Kumie. She believed in me and encouraged me when others doubted my dreams. Vampires of the Scarlet Order is dedicated to her, the enchantress of my heart, forevermore.

Now then, coming up in the middle of the week, we have the Hot Summer Nights blog hop. All the posts on the blog hop will go live on May 22 and each of us will post something on the theme of hot summer nights. I will talk about a song that evokes that idea for me.

Each of us is giving something away, so don’t just stop at one or two destinations. I’m giving away a signed print edition of Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order. What’s more, if you leave a comment at a participating blog along with your email address you will be entered to win one of two fantastic prizes. The first grand prize is a Kindle Fire. The second grand prize is a $100 Amazon Gift Card. How cool is that?

Now, it’s time for me to go spend time with my special lady. I’ll see you back here on Wednesday. Don’t be late!

The Terror of Possession

One of the historical ideas of a vampire is that they’re a demon-possessed corpse. For a horror writer, this can generate some truly frightening scenarios. Imagine seeing a loved one you thought dead, back from the grave. Then imagine what happens when you realize that loved one no longer recognizes you and has even become a savage monster.

I actually took this idea and gave it a little twist for a story that was published in Hungur Magazine a few years ago called “Jiang Shi.” Instead of a demon, an alien comes to Earth, kills a woman, then uses her like a puppet to try to communicate with humans to disastrous effect.

Although this scenario is frightening for those surrounding the dead person, the one possessed is typically beyond caring. To me, what would be even more frightening is to have a being controlling you while you’re conscious of its manipulation.

Now that Dragon’s Fall is out, I’m returning to work on my Clockwork Legion steampunk series. In the first book, Owl Dance, I return to the idea of an alien coming to Earth but instead of destroying its host, it attempts to form something of a symbiotic bond. It drives the first person it encounters mad because of what’s happening.

The Scarlet Order vampires are not possessed, but rather they are humans who have been transformed somehow into a new type of creature. The horror for them comes from the fact that they can’t always control their impulses to hunt or even kill.

So, how do you like your vampires? Are they best as demon-possessed fiends? Tragic figures who can’t prevent their own actions? Or simply possessed of their own appetites?

Before I wrap up this week’s post, if you’re on Goodreads, be sure to sign up for the Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order giveaway. One lucky person will get a signed copy of the novel. The giveaway is at: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/50183-dragon-s-fall-rise-of-the-scarlet-order

If you can’t wait for the giveaway to end, you can always drop over to Amazon for the Kindle Edition or Barnes and Noble for the Nook Edition.

Holding a New Book

My first copy of Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order arrived this week. This is my seventh novel published in paperback and it’s always a great feeling to actually hold a finished copy for the first time.

Sure, I’ve seen galley proofs, but this is the first time I’ve actually held one of the final, finished copies. It’s a quiet thrill, neither as intense as the first time you’re intimate with a loved one or the first time you hold your child. Still, like those experiences, you don’t quite want to turn your eyes away. It’s almost like after a long wait, it’ll vanish if you stop looking at it.

My breath caught the first time I opened the book. A nicer font was used in the opening pages than I’d seen in the galley proofs. The rest of the book was about as expected, a nice, clean readable font and the words I wrote. The book was a little thicker than my other novels, but that shouldn’t have surprised me. Dragon’s Fall is the longest novel I’ve written.

Now comes the special part. You can get a copy of the book for yourself and make the experiences, adventures, and romances of the Scarlet Order vampires your own.

I’ll be giving away a signed print copy at the end of the Hot Summer Nights Blog Hop running from May 22-May 29. So be sure to drop in here to find out how to enter to win. Also, I’ll be giving away a copy on Goodreads. I’ll post details as soon as they’re available.

I’ll also have copies available to buy at upcoming convention appearances such as Phoenix Comicon and WorldCon in San Antonio. If you can’t make those, you can always pick up a copy of the book at Amazon.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me here at the Scarlet Order Vampires Blog. The book is here. The fun and adventure are just beginning!

Ten Years in the Making

The big news this week is that my novel Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order has just been released as a trade paperback. In fact, the news is so new, that I haven’t actually seen the book yet, but copies are on their way to me. This is especially exciting to me because, as the title of this post indicates, I realized this week that the book has been a full decade in the making.

My first vampire novel, Vampires of the Scarlet Order was written between 2001 and 2003. As people who regularly follow this journal no doubt realize, it started off as a handful of short stories that were published in such small press venues as The Vampire’s Crypt, Night to Dawn, and Parchment Symbols. As I wrote these stories, I realized I was telling parts of a longer story and I folded them into a continuous novel. Soon after I completed a version of the novel I was happy with, I began to consider whether this could work as a series and I sat down to write four synopses for more novels.

The four synopses were called Dragon’s Fall, The New World, Revolution, and Nosferatu. Dragons’ Fall would tell the story of the Scarlet Order’s origin. The New World would tell about the vampire Rudolfo traveling to America and his adventures with Mercedes Rodriguez during the Pueblo Revolt. Revolution would tell about the Scarlet Order’s involvement in the French Revolution and Nosferatu would continue the story of Vampires of the Scarlet Order into the future.

If I had planned this chronologically from the start, Dragon’s Fall would likely have been the first novel and Vampires of the Scarlet Order would be more like number five. What’s more, I felt some more ground work needed to be laid with these characters before I wrote a sequel, so I decided to go back to the beginning of the story and write Dragon’s Fall. I wrote a prologue and a couple of chapters before Vampires of the Scarlet Order was released.

Vampires of the Scarlet Order went on to a lot of success upon release. It was picked up by Barnes and Noble and distributed to a number of their stores. I received letters from people excited about the possibility of more books in the series. The only issue is that I still needed to wrap up my Old Star/New Earth space opera series. So, I put Dragon’s Fall on the back burner while I finished the novel Heirs of the New Earth. Soon after finishing that, my publisher challenged me to write a novel for the National Novel Writing Month of 2004. During my first attempt, I wrote The Solar Sea, a prequel to the Old Star/New Earth books.

I had only made modest progress on Dragon’s Fall by the end of 2005, so I made it my NaNoWriMo project for that year. Of course, NaNoWriMo’s goal is to write 50,000 words. I achieved that goal with Dragon’s Fall, but it turns out, that was only about half the novel. The novel went on the back burner as I finished polishing The Solar Sea for release and worked on a number of editing projects.

In 2007, Jackie Druga, owner of LBF Books, the publisher of Vampires of the Scarlet Order, announced that she was selling the company to Carole Spencer, owner of Lachesis Publishing. At the end of that year, I received a call from Kitt Peak National Observatory asking if I would be interested in returning to my old job there. Back burner projects such as Dragon’s Fall looked like they might be tabled indefinitely.

However, Carole Spencer had an interesting proposal. She suggested that I write a series of novellas about the Scarlet Order Vampires. I realized that Dragon’s Fall was structured in such a way that it was very suitable for this project, so I proposed we use that as the basis for the series. She suggested the addition of a little more romance, which actually suited the story and helped answer some issues I was dealing with. Two of those novellas were released: Bondage and The Dragon’s Quest. Unfortunately, Carole started facing some health challenges as the first novella was released and had to step down at the crucial stage when the series most needed a marketing push from all parties involved.

Finally, last year after reorganizing Lachesis and getting things back on track, the current owner, LeeAnn Lessard decided that rather than try to kickstart the whole novella series back into action, it would be better to come full circle and release Dragon’s Fall as one standalone novel. The ebook was released at the end of last year and now the trade paperback is available. You can pick up a copy today at Amazon.com.

So, this leaves just one last question. Will there be more Scarlet Order novels? Well, the short answer is that depends on you. If the current book does well, I’m sure my publisher will be interested in having me write more. Of course, buying the books helps, but if you like these novels, please review them in places like Amazon and Goodreads. Tell your friends about them. I’m more than happy to discuss the Scarlet Order books here at this blog or at the Scarlet Order Facebook page. I love knowing what things you liked and I’m even happy to hear about the things that didn’t work for you.

Thanks to everyone who has supported the Scarlet Order vampire series so far! I hope you enjoy Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order!

Billy the Kid vs. Dracula

In Vampires of the Scarlet Order, the vampires Jane, Mercy, Marcella, and Daniel all converge at the manner house of the mysterious Lord Draco. This is part of their exchange:

“Billy the Kid?” asked Jane, wide eyed. “Wasn’t there an old movie called, Billy the Kid versus Dracula.”

“There was,” said Mercy with a wink. “I guess you could say it was Marcella’s life story.”

“So, what exactly is a ‘bloofer lady?’” I asked, innocently.

“Oh, it’s a reference to Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula,” said Jane. “After the Count killed Lucy she became the ‘bloofer lady’ and starts abducting children.”

Mercy shot both of us a dark look. “Some parts of the past are best left alone.”

When I wrote that scene in 2004, I had not seen the movie Billy the Kid vs. Dracula. Nearly a decade later, I finally found a copy of the film on DVD and got to sit down and watch it. As you might expect from the title, it’s good campy fun. Whereas I took pains to weave the vampire Marcella into the real history of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, this movie seems to be set in an alternate reality where the Kid lived well past his twenty-first birthday and decided to give up his outlaw ways and settle down with the girl of his dreams. The only problem is that a vampire played by John Carradine, sporting a beard so sharp you could cut yourself on it, has arrived and also has eyes for Billy’s girl.

The movie’s title is the only clue we have that the vampire is, in fact, supposed to be Dracula traveling in the old west a few years before he bought property in Whitby, England. We meet him as he kills the daughter of some German immigrants moving west. A short time later, he turns up in a stagecoach and meets the aunt and uncle of Billy the Kid’s intended, Betty Bentley. The stagecoach stops for the night and our vampire strikes a peaceful encampment of Native Americans, who in turn blame the passengers of the stage and kill them. The vampire assumes the identity of Betty’s uncle and begins stalking her with the intention of turning her into a vampire.

Fortunately for Betty, the German immigrants show up and the woman, played by Virginia Christine who I remember as Mrs. Olson from Folgers Coffee commercials, recognizes the vampire for what he is. As it turns out, Betty’s most formidable ally isn’t Billy the Kid, but Dr. Henrietta Hull, a no-nonsense country doctor who does what she needs to do to help Billy get rid of the pesky vampire.

The movie features a rubber bat on a wire, a vampire who mysteriously materializes in rooms and whose face turns red for no discernible reason when he hypnotizes someone. Billy the Kid is a surprisingly affable gunslinger who must be no younger than his late twenties or early thirties. John Carradine’s vampire seems more a creepy old man at times than a fearsome vampire. Despite all that, I found this an enjoyable Saturday afternoon popcorn movie.

One thing I found especially interesting was a parallel with Vampires of the Scarlet Order that has nothing to do with history. Near the end of the movie, we see the vampire turning into bones on the floor. Outside, we see the bat he transforms into fluttering on the breeze, then falling to earth. Clearly the vampire and the bat were somehow two separate entities. I actually imply something very much like this in my novel. I won’t say too much more to avoid spoilers, but I will point to one of the age-old problems with shape-shifting. Where does all the mass go if you transform from a human into a small bat?

If you’d like some clues about how I resolve this paradox, check out Vampires of the Scarlet Order, available at many fine book retailers including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Marcella vs. Billy the Kid

In the fourth chapter of Vampires of the Scarlet Order, Cajun vampire Marcella DuBois goes west to Mesilla, New Mexico where she encounters both Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, who she knows by the alias Henry McCarthy. Here’s a snippet from that chapter’s crescendo.

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I found Pat and his deputies outside Pete Maxwell’s shack shortly after sunset. I didn’t approach them, figuring it was dangerous to go up to a group of nervous, armed men at night. Instead I found a hiding place and watched things for a bit. I wasn’t sure why Pat hadn’t just gone in and asked Maxwell his questions. Being a vampire, I had very good hearing. From their conversation, I was able to make out that there was a man staying with Maxwell. The deputies and Pat were arguing among themselves about who that man was. I decided to take matters into my own hands and find out.

I made my way through the rocks around Maxwell’s shack, staying out of sight of Pat Garrett and his deputies. Behind the shack, I went up to one of the windows and looked inside. Sure enough, sitting on the bed was Henry McCarthy. He was whittling a piece of wood and talking to a man in another bed, apparently trying to go to sleep. I presumed the other man was Pete Maxwell.

I rapped lightly on the window glass.

Henry looked up from his whittling. I smiled and licked one of my fangs. He gasped, but quickly recovered. “I’m gonna go and get me some meat,” said Henry, hungrily.

“Fine, whatever…” said Maxwell, sounding glad to be rid of Henry.

A few minutes later, Henry came around the corner of the house and stopped cold. “It is you, isn’t it, from the Dobé in Cruces? What are you doing here?”

I smiled and swayed over to him. I was wearing a riding outfit of leather pants and jacket. I knew I looked good—sometimes I wish I still had that outfit. “I heard you’d broken out of jail, and I wanted to say, ‘hi.’”

He eyed me suspiciously and pointed his knife at me. “Stay back.”

“Now, Henry,” I sighed. “What did I tell you about pulling weapons on me?” I leapt forward and took Billy the Kid into my arms. He fought to get the knife into a position where he could stab me while I once again teased his neck with my fangs. Before he could strike with his knife, I bit into his neck. My lips caressed Henry’s neck and I luxuriated in the taste of his blood. I heard Pat’s voice from inside the shack and I briefly allowed myself to be pulled into a fantasy where it was Pat I was drinking from and not obnoxious little Henry McCarthy.

I stopped short of killing Henry—stopped short of even causing him to lose consciousness. I put my revolver in Henry’s hand, and sent him dazedly stumbling in the direction of the shack’s door.

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One of my favorite parts of this chapter was exploring the similarities and differences between gunslingers and vampires. Certainly the idea that a vampire would be attracted to the wild west where shootouts were common and blood flowed freely seemed natural enough. However, as a fan of B-movies, I realized that the idea was quite similar to the one promised by the title of the 1966 film Billy the Kid vs. Dracula.

Thing is, I wanted to see the film, but when I wrote the novel, I never had the opportunity. I looked for a DVD or even a video tape, but couldn’t find one. I finally gave up my search.

On a whim, a little over a week ago, I took another look for the movie. This time I found a DVD copy in print at eBay. I snatched it up and finally watched it. Next week, I’ll take a closer look at the movie here at the Scarlet Order Vampire Journal.

In the meantime, if you’d like to read the full story of Marcella’s encounter with Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, you can pick up a copy of Vampires of the Scarlet Order at many fine book retailers including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Vampire Weaknesses

Vampires mean different things to different people. To some, they are blood-sucking fiends that must be destroyed at all costs. To others, they’re tragic figures, having lost their souls for all eternity. Still others see vampires as romantic anti-heroes. No matter how you prefer your vampires, they should have some weaknesses. Without weaknesses, the blood-sucking fiends can’t be destroyed. Without weaknesses, vampires aren’t tragic or approachable enough to be romantic.

Ultimately, it’s the weaknesses that let us write stories about vampires that tell us something about ourselves as humans.

Desmond, Lord Draco sums up the weaknesses of the Scarlet Order vampires in the first chapter of Vampires of the Scarlet Order when he says, “We are blessed with virtual immortality, but we are not unkillable.” Despite the fact that the Scarlet Order vampires can heal themselves and regenerate their cells, there are just some things they can’t heal, such as decapitation or having a stake thrust through the heart.

The Scarlet Order vampires are vulnerable to sunlight. I don’t describe what happens in detail, but in short, they will sustain cellular damage in sunlight. If they’re out in sunlight long enough, they won’t be able to regenerate fast enough and they will die. Of course in summer, when the nights are short, this can be quite a weakness, limiting the time the vampires can be out and about!

Crosses weaken the Scarlet Order vampires. In the case of the Scarlet Order vampires, this isn’t a religious thing, but for some reason the cross form seems to drain the vampires, as though they’re being sucked into some kind of portal…

The Scarlet Order vampires get violently ill if they consume too much blood. On one hand, this allows my vampires to be sympathetic. They don’t actually have to kill most of the time in order to survive. However, it’s also a limitation on their powers. They can’t simply go on a killing spree drinking blood to get out of a truly bad situation. Of course, that doesn’t mean that can’t go on a killing spree simply using claws and teeth and not drinking blood!

The Scarlet Order vampires have to be careful not to smile. Unlike Hollywood vampires of recent years, the Scarlet Order vampires do not have retractable fangs. Their fangs are always visible, like the fangs of a dog. For them, being a vampire is not a secret that can be hidden away easily. Opening their mouth too wide will tell an enemy exactly what they are.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Scarlet Order vampires. If you’re writing about vampires, hopefully it’ll challenge you to think about ways you can adapt the tropes to your needs. Also, I hope to encourage you to use whatever rules you design consistently.

Remember, you can grab copies of the Scarlet Order vampire novels at most on-line retailers. Direct links are in the pages bookmarked to the right. Clicking the book covers below will take you to the books at Amazon.

Vampire Powers

Back in 2005 when Vampires of the Scarlet Order was first released, one of the questions I frequently received was “whose vampires did you base yours on?” My answer was “nobody’s!” The vampires I created follow their own set of rules. I didn’t write Bram Stoker’s vampires, Anne Rice’s vampires, Stephen King’s vampires or anyone else’s Sure, I borrowed a trope here or tweaked an idea there, but the vampires that resulted are uniquely mine. That said, this does raise an important point. Whenever you create a fantasy world or a magical creature, you should follow a set of rules that’s consistent within all the stories you write in that world.

So, what characterizes the vampires of a Scarlet Order story? My vampires have a set of powers and weaknesses that I have tried to apply consistently in the stories and novels where they appear. This post will address some of the powers. Next week, I’ll look at some of the weaknesses.

The Scarlet Order vampires can shapeshift. This was one of the first abilities I gave my vampires. Part of the reason I did this was reactionary. When I was reading vampire fiction in the late 1990′s, it seemed like many stories had to go out of their way to tell you that vampires could not shapeshift or fly. In fact, I’d say the statement of how vampires were not like the Hollywood vampires of the 1930s and 40s became almost a trope in its own right. So, I wanted my vampires to be able to change into wolves or bats. The limitation I placed on them was that each vampire could only change into one creature. What’s more, it’s not really a literal shapeshifting. I won’t reveal exactly how it does work, because that would be something of a spoiler.

The Scarlet Order vampires have super strength. This really comes from many vampire stories and legends. Vampires are typically stronger than your average human. They are, after all, predators of humans and need to have the speed and strength to capture their prey. They also have extraordinary sight and hearing to go with their enhanced strength.

The Scarlet Order vampires can read minds and influence thoughts. This is really something that comes out of Victorian vampires like Dracula more than with any classic vampire folklore or modern sources. The Victorians were fascinated by things like hypnotism and mesmerism. In my case, this is a limited ability. The vampires can only read strong thoughts and influence minds that have some willingness to be influenced. In a way, their ability is more like the “Jedi mind trick” than anything else.

The Scarlet Order vampires heal rapidly and do not age. In many ways, these two powers go together. The cells of the vampires regenerate rapidly whenever there is damage. So, the “damage” that comes from aging, is rapidly reversed. In fact, the process of becoming a vampire can make one a person more beautiful, thus allowing the vampire to more easily attract prey. The process of this is explained in Vampires of the Scarlet Order, so I won’t spoil it here.

So, with all these wonderful powers, why wouldn’t everyone want to become a vampire? We’ll look at that next week when we look at some of the weaknesses of the Scarlet Order vampires.

Remember, you can grab copies of the Scarlet Order vampire novels at most on-line retailers. Direct links are in the pages bookmarked to the right. Clicking the book covers below will take you to the books at Amazon.

Shine On Award

Once again, Emily Guido has honored me with a blog award. This one is the Shine On Award.

Emily has been absolutely wonderful in her support of my paranormal fiction and the Scarlet Order vampires. Drop by her page and learn more the Light-Bearer Series where a heavenly Light-Bearer named Charmeine falls in love with a Blood-Hunter called Tabbruis. Sparks literally fly as their relationship grows and develops in a world where the forces of light and dark war with one another.

The Shine On Award comes with no rules. So, I thought I would give a shout-out to some of the people who encouraged me in the creation of the Scarlet Order vampires and provide a few insights into the history of the series.

First and foremost, a lot of credit goes to Janni Lee Simner. Despite the similarity of our names, we’re not related. However, in 2000, Janni graciously agreed to be on a panel I was hosting at the Border Book Festival in Las Cruces, New Mexico looking at science fiction and fantasy in the twenty-first century. After the panel, Janni and I were talking and she made an off-hand comment about the possibility of vampires in Las Cruces—literally the city of crosses. She said if the idea interested me, I was welcome to it since she didn’t write vampire fiction. I did run with it and about a week later, I wrote a story called “Vampire in the City of Crosses” which introduced the Scarlet Order vampires Daniel and Mercy.

I then looked around for a place to sell my story. The second place I sent the story was The Vampire’s Crypt edited by Margaret L. Carter. Not only did she buy that story, but she bought a sequel called “Vampires in the World of Dreams” and a story that still creeps me out—a vampiric take on the La Llorona legend called “The Weeping Woman.” These stories were edited and ultimately became part of Vampires of the Scarlet Order.

Another editor who believed in me early on was Kate Hill. She bought several of my early stories including a tale called “The Last Conquestador” which ran in her zine Parchment Symbols and introduced the vampires Rudolfo de Cordoba and Jane Heckman. Another story she purchased was written after I visited both Carlsbad Caverns and Roswell, New Mexico. It was called “Bat-Flight South of Roswell” and introduced Marcella DuBois. Again, both of these stories were reworked and became part of Vampires of the Scarlet Order.

Finally, I want to make a special shout-out to Jacqueline Druga. She bought Vampires of the Scarlet Order and introduced me to the National Novel Writing Month. I wrote two novels for NaNoWriMo. The first was my science fiction adventure The Solar Sea. The second was my prequel to Vampires of the Scarlet Order called Dragon’s Fall. Of course, Dragon’s Fall was just released this past year.

Go learn about all these women and buy their books. There would be no Scarlet Order vampires without them!