Vampire Questionnaire

This was originally posted over at the NaNo message board, but I thought it would be useful to post here as well.

This doesn't cover everything there is to know about my vampires, but it's a pretty good start.

1. Are your vampires "alive" or "dead?"

My vampires are very much dead. The world allows for "living vampires," but I haven't dealt with them yet.

2. Can your vampires eat or drink? How about sleep?

They can't eat or drink except blood. They don't need to sleep, but they need rest because their minds are still active and resting/sleeping allows their minds to process everything, same as it does for humans.

3. It's pretty standard that sunlight and vampires go hand in hand. Is sunlight fatal to your vampires? Does it just bother them? DO THEY SPARKLE IN IT?

Sunlight is not fatal to my vamps, it just weakens their vampire powers/abilities. Most newer camps tend to stay indoors during the day just because the sun bothers their eyes and because they're pretty weak. But the older and/or more powerful vampires don't have as much of an issues with the sun because they have enough extra vampire power to make the sun's effects not seem like a weakness.

4. More myths! Do your vampires have to be invited in to a private residence? Do they have shadows? How about reflections? Are they harmed by Christian objects like crosses or holy water?

They don't have to be invited in. They do have shadows and reflections. And they can be harmed by any religious symbol, Christian or otherwise, so long as the person wielding the religious symbol knows that the vampire is in fact a vampire, believes in vampires, and believes that holding out a religious symbol will actually protect him/her from the vampire. It's possible to kill a vampire with a religious symbol, just not that likely because most people don't have that high of a belief in all three categories for it to be effective.

5. Blood. All vampires need it. Do your vampires drink human blood or animal blood? Can they drink both?

Yes, vampires can drink both human and animal blood and survive. But their preferred blood source is that of other supernaturals (like shapeshifters, witches, etc.).

6. IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE...NO, IT'S A FLYING VAMPIRE! ...Can your vampires fly or levitate? Do they have any other "special" powers? Are the super fast? Super strong? Telekinetic?

Most newly created vampires are nothing more than ghouls, who only care about getting their next meal. They barely even have a human consciousness. If they survive long enough they can eventually become more vampire-like. I don't know what their abilities are like because I haven't really worked with them much, but they are faster and stronger than humans. Plus they're dead, so not much can hurt them.

My strongest vampire is stronger and faster than other vampires, can "melt" into her surroundings, and has the power of her Beast (which I don't really know what that is yet either). And these are while the sun's at it's brightest. She also has some other abilities that I have written down but can't think of at the moment.

7. Speaking of dhampirs, does your novel have any? Oh, and for those of you that don't know, dhampirs are half human, half vampire.

No. Even though they could potentially exist in the world.

8. Okay, I gotta know. Can your vampires reproduce? Are they fertile? Can they "mate" with humans?

No. With the exception of "living vampires," but then I don't think those are really vampires to begin with.

9. Hey, you're almost done! Anyway, what do your vampires look like? Any defining characteristics? Are they more Count Orlok than Lestat?

The main characteristic of my vampires is that they all have ruby/blood red eyes. Also, they have a severe allergy to wood, so they tend to avoid things like toothpicks, wooden chopsticks, stakes, and pretty much anything else that contains wood.

10. Yay, last question! How were your vampires made? Virus? Evil warlock? Can they bite people and turn them into vampires?

The original vampire was created by the Angel of Death. He figured since the other gods were creating their own supernaturals that he should be able to create his own. So the Angel of Death created the first vampire, who changed his wife into the second vampire. Then the first vampire got cocky and wanted a priestess for his mistress even though she was married and had kids. But he changed her into a vampire anyway. When she changed her children into vampires, because she didn't want to spend eternity without them, the first two vampires tried to kill her. She killed them instead. Now she's the most powerful vampire. And her kids are responsible for making all the other vampires, except for one (my MC).

In order to become a vampire, you have to die (usually quite violently too), and loose over half your blood in the process. This is from a vampire trying to feed on you and/or kill you. Then either that same vampire or another vampire has to give you enough of their blood to make up for the blood you just lost. Since this severly weakens the vampire who gives you their blood, most are against actually doing this. Yes, my vampires would rather just let you die than turn a dying human into a vampire themselves.

What I'm Working On

Well, I've been trying to revise my vampire novel (my '06 Nano), and it's starting to bite me in the butt. When I started, I did the chapters that were easiest to revise, which were chapters 1 and 2, and then chapters 20 to 25 (the ending). All I have left is chapters 10 to 12, and am having difficulties remembering when different events and character revelations happened. Really, I should just read through the first nine chapters, or at least the chapter summaries I wrote, to figure out how to revise the remaining three chapters.

Other than that, I'm also finishing up my '08 Nano, which is about werewolves. It's been a while since I worked on that one, but it doesn't seem as difficult to write as I thought it would. So that's at least a good thing, since I wrote the first two acts and never got to act three when I stopped working on it. (I'm still not sure why I did that.)

The writing's going good and I'm excited to be working on something again rather than sitting in the funk I had been in when I couldn't figure out what to work on. I knew I wanted to work on something, I just had no idea what. And I went through idea after idea, trying to work on something, but nothing really clicked. I'm past all that, and I'm feeling much better.

Lack of Internet Equals Lack of Posts

As the title says, I am without internet. Unless, of course, I get creative and go place like coffee shops (which I haven't yet), the library (which the internet sometimes works for me), or out at my church (where I am now). Though of course, getting creative can be a bit of a challenge with a ten-month-old.

Anyway.

I've been trying to figure out a story to work on and revise and submit and all that. And I've finally settled on the young adult vampire story I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2006. I've worked on this story on and off for the last three years. It's good because I have more notes on revising the thing than I know what to do with. But at the same time, there's things that in one revision pass I deleted, then in another revision pass, I decided I wanted them put back in. So it's a bit of a challenge, and yet this time around it's been easier to revise than any of the other times I've attempted to do so.

I also came to the realization, which could account for this revision pass being easier than the others (both for this story and for others I've attempted to revise), that I way overthink things. Of course, back when I was in tae kwon do, my instructors kept trying to drill that into my head. So we'll see how well I listen this time.

National Novel Writing Month

I signed up for my fourth NaNo.

I had plans to finish Kitsu's story by November 1, but those kind of fell through when I went a couple weeks without working on her story. Instead, I read. Then I started revising my vampire novel. And since I got through the first half of it in just over a week, I figured it would take just as long to revise the second half of it. Not so. So now I have two partially edited novels awaiting my return.

Originally, my idea for NaNo this year was going to be about the Mage's daughter from my and my husband's Standard Issue universe. I was really excited to work on it too. There was the mage's daughter who is just about as powerful as the mage himself is, and the only thing that stopped her from using magic to screw with people (just like dear old dad) was whether or not she felt like it. I mean, she was going to high school after all so she didn't have as much free time on her hands, what with homework and extracurricular activities and all.

And in response to some of the teen paranormal romances out there that included a vampire werewolf love triangle, my mage was going to get involved in one. Only she would end up with the werewolf instead.

Then on one of the message boards I frequent, people started talking about zombies and the zombie apocalypse. And I thought, Hey, wouldn't that be fun?

So here's the one sentence summary of the novel I'm not writing this month.

Moonlight, A Standard Issue Teen novel
The all powerful Mage's daughter gets tangled up in a vampire werewolf love triangle until she summons her dead boyfriend from his grave and has to stop the impending zombie apocalypse all while going to high school.

What am I working on instead?

No Leaf Clover
17-year-old Pai must defend the Ancient Korean shortsword, Byung, from a Korean mummy, her new swordfighting instructor, and her crush--all to prove she's the sword's true heir.

It's a young adult novel I started in 2006 during my last semester in college, and I've been wanting to work on it ever since. I didn't work on it in previous years for NaNo because silly me thought it wasn't suitable for NaNo. Apparently, the story is proving me wrong. At the end of day 5, I had just over 15,000 words. that even surpasses my 2000 words a day goal.

Writing Goals

While I could have kept this post with my Clichés in Fantasy post, I decided to make a new one. Though this is really more just a note to myself of what I should be working on.

1. Finish writing, rewriting, and editing Kitsune, volume one of the Fox Chronicles. Write the synopsis, cover letter, bio, etc. for submitting Chapters 1 - 3 to the SHOMI Fiction Writing Contest by April 15. Type, rewrite, and edit during May and June (possibly July) of 2008. If SHOMI doesn't accept it, then I'll send it to agents and editors.

2. Rewrite and edit book one of the Forsaken trilogy, Like a Frothing Rabid Dog is Adorable. Rewrite the synopsis to match the edits made to the book. Once Ayako is suitably YA or Rabid Dog is long enough to be an adult novel, I will return to submitting it to agents and editors. (In a way, I'd prefer to keep it short and make it more YA.)

3. Start something new. This all depends on where I'm at. If I'm still in Japan when all of this is done, I have only the beginnings of novel ideas and plots that I started for the SHOMI contest (and ditched in favor of Kitsune). But if I'm back in Minnesota, than I have a whole slew of over books and novel ideas to go through.

a. Kerrianne May's story. I love the idea of the Intragalactic Fighting Tournament. And I think this story has a lot of potential. Also, I want to find out more about Lucius Ambrose.

b. I'm also curious to explore the new world of Aurora Dawn and Kala Black with gaias and ganas, and exorcists and revenants (their version of vampires).

c. Or I might return to the world of Whale Song and Dragon Rose, now that it seems like I've gained enough distance from the original messed up plots to pull them apart and reform them into something really good.

4. Admittedly, I would really like to skip #3 in favor of getting more than just four or five chapters done on No Leaf Clover. But that'll only happen if I'm in MN.