Thanks, J.K. Rowling

I've been having a bit of the publishing blues lately while waiting to hear if anything will happen with The Vampire's Wife. There have been plenty of ups and downs and countless revisions, and I'm doing my best not to think about what the book's doing in New York.

If any of you are going through the writing process, the agent querying process, or the stage where an agent has submitted your book to pubs, I encourage you to check out J.K. Rowling's biography on her official website. I've recently read so many stories of writers speedily landing agents and publishing contracts, and it gets frustrating when one's publishing path is a long and difficult road. But it always cheers me up a bit to read that even the great Rowling couldn't land a publishing contract until a year after she signed with an agent. Here's to non-overnight success!

Why we crave vampires

The results are in for my poll that asked, "Why are we so attracted to vampires?". Keep in mind that visitors were allowed to vote for more than one answer. Here are the results, listed from the most popular to the least popular:

1. The goth look is so damn sexy.
2. The appealing immortality factor.
3. A tie:
A subconscious desire to be dominated.
The intimate nature of blood drinking.
4. They're the ultimate tortured loners.

I'm sure there are other factors to explain vampire appeal, but these are the top reasons I came across while reading several articles on the subject.

Interestingly, the goth look is actually a modern contribution to vampire lore, and the original legends featured undead creatures who were far from sexy. Instead of brooding loners with the appearance of dark eye makeup and pitch-black hair, you'd hear tales of bloodthirsty demons with lovely traits such as pointed tongues, red eyes, and foul breath. Certainly, it would kill the erotic mood of many a modern vampire tale if we stuck to those original descriptions. I've read that vampires in literature and film tend to reflect what's occurring in the world around them, and I can certainly see why, in this era, there's a need for distracting, appealing, invincible creatures who walk the line between good and evil.

I plan to put up a new poll about vampire dining habits in a few moments.

Reading, writing, loving spring break

I love spring break. My husband is off work and helps with the kids, and I can stay up reading and writing late at night without worrying about rushing my daughter off to school early in the morning. I've read about a third of Twilight and made great progress on writing Sea Hags (and just thought of a plot twist this afternoon). We're even squeezing in some children's theater, and we attempted a zoo trip this morning, but it had snowed at the zoo's altitude, and we weren't dressed warm enough for the winter-like cold.

Two more days until we're back to the normal routine, but I'm going to try with all my might to keep up my Sea Hags momentum. My characters and setting (coastal Oregon) are starting to really come to life for me.

Oh--and just a few minutes left on my poll about vampire appeal.

Cupcake Jones

This has nothing to do with vampires or writing, but if you live in Portland, OR, or plan to visit the area, be sure to check out Cupcake Jones. I just had their cupcake called "The Pearl," which is topped with vanilla bean buttercream and filled with vanilla pastry cream. Yummmm. I can't stop thinking about the heavenly taste.

Twilight

I started reading Stephenie Meyer's young-adult vampire novel Twilight. Because I don't normally read young adult novels, I hadn't heard of it until I saw info about the upcoming movie adaptation in Entertainment Weekly (see my previous post about the movie). The cover is gorgeous, the story sounded interesting, and I read that the author wasn't a big reader of vampire novels herself, so all those factors combined intrigued me. So far, I'm enjoying it. I have a hard time finding vampire novels I like, so it's nice to discover a read that goes more along the lines of what I'm looking for in vampire lit.

I'm also listening to my new Blondie Greatest Hits CD and thinking the song playing right now, "In the Flesh," would work well somewhere in The Vampire's Wife. For every book I write, I tend to have "theme songs" that remind me of the overall feeling of the book or the moods of certain scenes. The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" became sort of a theme song when I was writing Vampire's Wife, so I did slip that one into the manuscript. I guess it goes back to how I view my stories cinematically before writing them down.

The sexy goth look

I'm meeting my goal of making sizable progress on writing Sea Hags and Other Modern Women this week, so I wanted to check in and make a few remarks on my poll-in-progress. I thank other sites for linking to my discussion about why we're so attracted to vampires, the most recent one being Amberkatze's Book Blog.

It's interesting to note that visitors are happily airing their opinions on the poll, but, so far, the only person who's responded to my original post, Why are we so attracted to vampires, discussed things he doesn't enjoy about vampires. Perhaps explaining one's own attraction to these undead creatures is a little too personal--too closely tied to revealing the inner workings of one's subconscious. Either that, or it's just much faster to respond to a poll.

"The goth look is so damn sexy" is the current leading choice of visitors, but it looks like that could quickly change. Personally, I'm indeed a bit drawn to the goth look. I dislike how modern novels frequently portray male vampires as rugged guys with long black hair--the goth look intermingled with Fabio's look does nothing for me. But, in general, there's something about the overall goth appearance that appeals to me, as attested by my college days of hanging up Cure posters featuring pasty-white Robert Smith and his wild Tim Burton-esque hair. Why it appeals? I have no idea. You'd have to ask my subconscious--which only pipes up in my fiction.

Urban Fantasy Land

The nice folks at Urban Fantasy Land have added a link to my current poll on why we're attracted to vampires, so I wanted to say "hello" to anyone coming over from that fantastic site.

If you enjoy urban fantasy fiction, make sure you check out Urban Fantasy Land's recent post titled Urban Fantasy Everywhere.

Here's also news from Orbit Books regarding the appearance of UF in bestseller lists: Urban Fantasy Come True. I've heard news that urban fantasy is on the decline in the U.S., so it's encouraging to read such info.

Why are we so attracted to vampires?

I'm a little post-happy today, but I'm planning to work on my novels-in-progress as much as possible during spring break next week, so I'll concentrate on blog stuff today.

The new poll question: Why are we so attracted to vampires? In reality, the foul body odor described in vampire lore, the excessive emotional baggage from years of blood drinking, and the disturbing amount of time spent as a corpse would make for a pretty bad date, but why do so many books and movies explore the idea of human beings becoming intimately involved with the undead? I'm guilty myself--just look at the title of my novel making the rounds to publishers. But I tried to come at it from a different angle by using wry humor to look at how love can overcome even the downsides of cohabiting with a guy who smells terrible under all that mouthwash and cologne.

I thought of the idea of the poll while reading an old post at Spout blog titled Vampire Lust, which even asks why smart, feminist women are attracted to vampires. Here are links to two other interesting articles on the subject. The first one was written by a vampire novelist/psychotherapist, and the second one was published only two weeks ago and looks at the popularity of vampires in young adult fiction.

Why Do Women Love Vampires?

Zombies, Schmombies! Teen Girls Are Vamping It Up!

I'm certainly not saying that men aren't attracted to vampires, too, and I encourage males to respond to the poll and/or leave feedback about vampire appeal. One of the articles suggests males tend to prefer the version of vampires found in old-world legends--creatures that more closely resemble horror movie monsters than romantic, tortured souls. Interestingly enough, one of the only major female cult figures in vampire entertainment is Buffy--a vampire hunter and not a vampire herself. Does that say something about the different way vampires appeal to the sexes?

Speaking of butt covers...

I'm on a TV program right now. No, I don't appear as a writer--I wish I could say that was the case. I'm on a short, on-demand cable show that features a Portland children's restaurant. They were filming there about a month ago when I took my three-year-old son out to lunch, and because they weren't featuring his name and they'd only show him playing with a group of kids, I figured it was safe to sign the release form.

I remembered this morning that the people filming said the show should be available for viewing around now, so I flipped though my on-demand options and, sure enough, the show was listed. I watched it once, saw some cute shots of my son playing with other kids, and realized I didn't appear in the program at all. They mainly interviewed moms who were sitting at tables with friends and not hanging out as mom loners; therefore, I figured it made sense that I didn't show up in the final product.

However, I watched a second time, and I discovered I do make a screen appearance--twice. I'm in the background, bending over to help my son, and the only thing showing is my rear end, looking like an escapee from the Saturday Night Live Mom Jeans commercial. If you caught my earlier post about urban fantasy butt covers, I really wish I could say I appeared on television looking like a kick-ass vampire hunter in low-rise jeans and animal print belts. But, no. Sadly, I wore my jeans without any back pockets. Mom jeans. I made a remark about my bottom appearing on TV to my son, and, of course, that produced much laughter and requests to see my "bum-bum" on the show.

So, that's my big claim to fame right now. I'm taking a jazz fitness class right now, so hopefully it will become my "little" claim to fame before summer arrives.

Werewolves take the lead

Werewolves indeed topped my poll that asked, "What is your favorite non-vampire supernatural being?" Witches came in second, and fairies followed in third. Leprechauns and my favorite, ghosts, had the least votes.

I've mentioned statistically significant polls before (polls that receive over forty votes). This was one of them, so there you have it--it's been statistically proven that 43% of Suburban Vampire visitors would chose werewolves as their favorite non-vampire supernatural creature. Be sure to look for those earth-shattering results on the front cover of Newsweek. ;-) Seriously though, thanks to everyone who comes by and participates. I get a kick out of learning a little bit about my visitors.

I'm excited about my next poll, and will try to get that up, as well as some comments about it, a little later today.

Made some good progress on Sea Hags last night.

Creature of the night

The title of this post is meant to be sung in the tune of "Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Do people go to Rocky Horror these days? It was still big when I was in college in the early nineties, and I saw it several times on Balboa Peninsula in Orange County, CA.

Anyway...I wanted to comment on the favorite non-vampire supernatural being poll. It ends tomorrow, but werewolves are taking a giant lead. Fairies were pulling ahead initially, but werewolves quickly took over. Ironically, I originally thought of the poll as a way to stick leprechauns in there, but they've received zero votes (unless you count an honorary vote from my daughter, who adores leprechauns, although she admitted if she were voting, it would be hard to decide between them and wizards.)

I recently read an article saying men tend to prefer werewolves and women tend to prefer vampires? Do you agree? Certainly, similarities between the two creatures exist, making it clear why fans of one would enjoy the other. But I'd be curious to know how many of the werewolf votes were from males versus females and if a particular creature appeals to one gender more than the other.

Writing frenzy

I'm going to try pouring my writing energy more fully into my works-in-progress and probably won't post so many entries over the next week or so. Next week is spring break for all the schools here, and my husband, a teacher, will be around more to help out with the kids. That often means there will be more writing time for me.

I've mentioned I've had some good momentum with Sea Hags and Other Modern Women, but I'm also doing some work on a Vampire's Wife sequel. My latest revisions opened up a door to an intriguing concept for a second vampire book, so I've been playing around with that option.

I did read a fascinating article about the appeal of vampires yesterday and have a fun idea for the new poll I'll be posting this Friday. Be sure to check back--and bring your inner Freudian.

No ghosts?

I was just checking the status of my poll on favorite non-vampire supernatural beings. I'm surprised to see no one has voted for ghosts. If I were voting, that would be my personal choice--I've been fascinated by ghosts since childhood.

Growing up, I was convinced my room was haunted, with each tiny creak surely being due to a spectral presence, so much so that when other explanations for the phenomena were given, I breathed huge sighs of relief. One time I could have sworn ghosts were hammering the walls outside my room. The explanation? We were remodeling our house, and rain was falling through our opened roof. An enormous relief to me (but not my parents). Another time my closet doors started shaking violently, and I was certain it was the ghosts inside getting angry.

"It's okay," my mom shouted down the hall.

"No, it's not!" I cried.

"It's just an earthquake," she explained.

"Thank God!" I thought.

As an adult, I've taken ghost tours throughout the US, including one in New Orleans that included vampire lore. My historical novel Voices Airy delves into spirits and seances. Shows about haunted hotels and travel locations are my style of reality TV. And, yes, give me a ghost movie with a good twist like The Sixth Sense and The Others, and I'm as happy as can be.

So there you have it, the confessions of a ghost junkie.

Purple hyacinths

I noticed this morning that purple hyacinths bloomed in my front yard. They play a part in The Vampire's Wife, so it was a pleasant surprise to see them, sort of like seeing a part of my characters in tangible form (I know, that's one of those crazy author things to say).

dearg-diulai

I'm descended from Potato Famine immigrants (we even have some great, old family photos from around the 1850s). Therefore, I'm feeling the surge of Irish pride we Americans get on St. Patrick's Day and want to pass along the Irish vampire legend of the dearg-diulai.

Dearg-diulai--otherwise known as dearg-due, dearg-dul, dearg-dur, among other names--is the story of a beautiful Irish woman who rises from the grave once a year (or more often, depending on which version of the legend you read). Her name is said to mean "red blood sucker," and she lures men with sexual advances before drinking their blood.

While writing The Vampire's Wife, I researched vampire legends from around the world and loved learning about the different techniques of keeping vampires in their graves. In the case of the dearg-diulai, the popular method of keeping her from rising is to pile heavy stones on top of her grave.

And let's not forget that one of the most legendary vampire novelists of all time was an Irishman: Bram Stoker. As was Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the author of the influential 1870s vampire novella Carmilla.

There's your Irish vampire history and literary studies lesson in a nutshell. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Vampire movie alert

This week's Entertainment Weekly shows a sneak peek of a still from the upcoming film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's young adult vampire novel Twilight. I haven't read the novel, but after visiting its page at Amazon, I have to say I'm intrigued.

According to Twilight's IMDB page, the movie is scheduled to be released December 2008. Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Thirteen and The Nativity Story, is in charge, so it should be an interesting take on the pangs of teens and vampires.

Attack of the Thin Mints

I had great momentum working on Sea Hags this past week, but everything came to a grinding halt last night when I had to deal with a Girl Scout Cookie fiasco my daughter's troop has been enduring for the last few weeks. This is the suburban side of Suburban Vampire, and sometimes it can be much scarier than the vampire side. Let's just say that cookie money is due today, and because of a huge problem involving sales gone terribly wrong when a parent took pre-orders at work, our troop still has about fifty more boxes to sell.

Anyway...on a much lighter note, Van Helsing topped the favorite vampire hunter poll with 43% of the votes. I'm curious if Van Helsing fans came to love him because of Stoker's novel, the Hugh Jackman film, or other movies. Perhaps that shall be another poll.

This week's poll asks, "What's your favorite non-vampire supernatural being?" It was pretty much a way to get leprechauns into a poll, seeing as St. Patrick's Day is Monday. My 8-year-old is obsessed with St. Patrick's Days and Ireland. She watched Riverdance on PBS when she was 1 1/2, and she's been hooked on Celtic music and Irish culture ever since. Each March she erects a leprechaun hotel in her room so they'll stop by and visit (she's going to love it if she ever reads this post years from now and learns I'm revealing this). She's also a die hard Harry Potter fan (she started the series this past January and is almost done with book 5), so wizards also made it on the poll. I've also listed ghosts, werewolves, fairies, etc.

I'll discuss my personal favorite, ghosts, another time, but I need to run and get ready for the in-laws' visit.

Another vampire name generator

I found a vampire name generator on the web that may suit my visitors' needs more than one I previously attached to the blog. You'll need to head over to the following site:

http://www.emmadavies.net/vampire/

Here are my personal results:

The Great Archives determine you to have gone by the identity:
Marion Tussaud

Known in some parts of the world as:
Wraith of Gypsies

The Great Archives Record:
A traveller of travellers, of good humour but dangerous.

Hmm...of good humor, but dangerous. Interesting. I have a visit with the in-laws coming up this weekend. If my FIL gets out of line, let's hope my Marion Tussaud side doesn't appear. ;-)

Gothic Beagle

I stumbled upon the following website today, and since it's a company based near me in Portland, OR, I figured I should help support a local business:

http://www.myspace.com/gothicbeagle

It's called Gothic Beagle, and the slogan is "Dark fashions for your pet." Because I have people visiting my site in search of vampire names for themselves and their babies, I assume some of my guests may also have goth dogs. Has anyone out there given a pet a vampire name? Any furry friends that answer to the name of Vlad, perhaps?

Van Helsing/Buffy Smackdown

Van Helsing has been taking a huge lead in my poll on favorite vampire hunters, but it looks like the Buffy fans are starting to air their opinions. I haven't had any Anita Blake fans stop by yet, but I'll include a link to author Laurel K. Hamilton's Overview of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series.

In other news, now that I've finished those recent Vampire revisions, I'm back to working more on Sea Hags and Other Modern Women. If anyone knows of a novel that uses the first-person point of view for two separate characters--and the author distinguishes the two voices well--let me know. I've seen it done skillfully in a Joanne Harris novel, but I'd be curious to read some other examples before tackling it myself.

I'm a little behind on posting this, but...

The title of this post is actually a terrible, terrible pun, but I couldn't resist. If you're a fan of urban fantasy fiction, make sure you check out Urban Fantasy Land's February discussion of the trend of "butt covers" in the genre. As an example, I'm including the cover of Stray by Rachel Vincent, another Irene Goodman author. If you have some opinions on the rear end trend, make sure you head over to Urban Fantasy Land and add your two cents.

Let's not forget the vampire hunters

The poll I posted earlier this week was a floundering dud, so I put it out of its misery. Realizing I've forgotten a key figure in vampire films and literature, I've instead added a poll that asks you to choose your favorite vampire hunter. I've listed Van Helsing, Anita Blake, Buffy, Blade, and Sam and Edgar (aka "The Coreys") from The Lost Boys.

Some vampire fans might not consider Sam and Edgar as being in the same league as the others, but I was actually reminded of them when I looked up an entry about vampire hunters in one of my reference books. The Lost Boys came out the summer I turned sixteen, and I remember it being a pretty hip movie at the time, with those oh-so-cool, maggot-eating vampires like Kiefer Sutherland's David and Jami Gertz's Star. Plus it starred Dianne Wiest as the mom, and you can't go wrong there (see also Edward Scissorhands and Parenthood).

If I've failed to list your favorite vampire hunter, please feel free to discuss your slayer of choice in the comments section.

New look to blog

I've been messing around with my blog's appearance and think I've settled upon a new look. My main motivation to change it was the fact that you could never read my poll results unless you dragged your mouse over the results and highlighted them--which I doubt anyone else was doing but myself. If the new look is hard to read on your browser, let me know, and I'll play around with the colors more. I also wanted to give the blog a more modern look to match The Vampire's Wife's contemporary setting. I'm so used to making my websites have a historical feel due to my earlier books that I'm not used to playing around with contemporary designs. I'm a little like my fusty, old vampire character in a thirty-something body, I guess.

Women's History Month

Happy Women's History Month. I formerly wrote historical novels, one of which (Gilded) involved a story set amid the growing women's rights movement of the late-1890s. I was asked by two history museums to give a talk on the relationship between the bicycle and female liberation, which was a ton of fun to speak about. When I have more time, I'll see if I can dig up some of the great, humorous 1890s poems that portrayed the fear of women leaving the hearth and home to go gliding around the world on their bikes.

Sequels, revisited

Lestat indeed ended up with the most votes on my favorite male vampire poll. Second and third place went to Spike and Dracula, respectively.

My newest poll refers to a subject I've brought up before on the blog, but I've never put it in poll form. Do you generally prefer sequels or stand-alone novels?

Male vampire poll

There are three more hours to vote on favorite male vampires. It looks like Lestat is taking the lead, but this one is a close one. Unlike my female vampire poll, "Other" doesn't seem to have the most votes, so either I did a better job listing options or that says something about the unfortunate lack of iconic female vampires. I also haven't received any comments about vampires that weren't listed...unlike with the females.

I see Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows has only received one vote so far. Are no Dark Shadows fans stopping by? I recently mentioned I'm a movie buff, and I have to admit Entertainment Weekly is my favorite guilty pleasure read. I've read that a Dark Shadows movie may be in the works with Johnny Depp's production company involved. He led my ill-fated poll regarding which Academy Award nominee would best portray a vampire (again, my apologies to the lovely and classy Julie Christie for putting you in the running in a vampire poll--unless, of course, that's what you've been itching to play all these years).

And in case anyone is unsure who Jules Duchon is, he's the protagonist of the novels Fat White Vampire Blues and Bride of the Fat White Vampire by Andrew Fox.

Moody Oregon sky

I just finished my latest revisions yesterday, and we're now playing the publisher waiting game again...so, I could either work on taxes right now, which have been waiting for those revisions to get finished, or do dishes. Nah. Instead, I decided to include a photo of a moody March sky here in Oregon. We have a beautiful view of evergreens in our neighborhood, and they always look gorgeous against the sky, no matter if it's gray or blue.

I'm excited because our Netflix for The Darjeeling Limited just arrived today. On another post I discussed great movies for writers to empathize with other writers' pain, and this is one of them. I originally saw it in the theater with my sis.

Belated happy birthday to Mr. Geisel

I forgot to say happy birthday to Dr. Seuss yesterday. I know celebrations were underway at some places today--my daughter's school served ham sandwiches and green egg cookies for lunch today. At her former school, I'd go in and read to her classes, and I'd get to wear a large Cat in the Hat hat.

My parents did an excellent job reading to me from a very young age, and Dr. Seuss books were certainly a huge part of my early years. Books were never forced down my throat; they were just a lovely part of life. My daughter is now on the fourth Harry Potter book, and it thrills me to no end that she's developed the same love of reading and imagination. My three-year-old has become a book addict in the past year, too. Neither of them need to grow up to become writers, but all adults could use a touch of imagination in their everyday lives, so I hope the nonsensical, colorful world of authors like Dr. Seuss will keep that magical part of their brains alive for years to come.