Doctor Who meets Dracula- a Time-Travelling Vampire

I never really intended to write any of my novels. I just started writing, and a sentence became a short story, then the short story became a chapter, then, a few years/months later, out popped a book into the cradling arms of its daddy- me!


hmm, perhaps we could get David Tennant for the title role?

On the other hand, when I began  A Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur’s Court  I had a complete goal in my mind. Not only a novel, but a trilogy- plot lines, titles, everything. It wasn’t like me at all. 

I had the ‘hook’- The title's play on Mark Twain's original time travel novel would spark attention.

I had the genre- Time travelling vampire; Doctor Who meets Dracula, a Bram Stoker’s Sam Beckett gone haywire.

I had the reluctant flawed character, racked with guilt, needing to squeeze revenge out of the situation. On his own, out of his depth, and no vampire buddies to fall back on.

Most importantly, I had the ‘history’…The deeply researched rich tapestry of Tudor England, with a twist; I was telling the story of a Prince that most people didn’t know; Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry the Seventh, big brother of Henry the Eighth, and first husband of Catherine of Aragon. Called Arthur as a throwback to England’s glorious mythical ages, he was a boy born to unite two warring factions in England. A unifying entity to end the bitter rivalries of the War of the Roses. He ended up being neither.
 

From the first line I threw my character in at the deep end.  A time-travelling vampire, thrown back five hundred and twelve years and a quarter of the earth’s diameter. Completely immersing myself in the project, in my first day I wrote 2000 words. I followed that pace for at least another ten days before faltering.

I wrote the entire 68,500 words in 51 days. I knew the punishing pace would be difficult at times, but little did I know it would be so much fun! I loved every page of it, and couldn’t keep the baby to myself.
 

I stopped. I had a day off. Then I sat the next morning, wondering what to write, and another 2000 words fell from my digitalized pen. Then another 2000. I’m five days into book two, A Connecticut Vampire in Queen Mary’s Court, and have already crossed the 10,000 word barrier. I’ve set myself a target: a trilogy in six months.

We all have stories in our heads. We all have time to sit at the computer. We all wonder if we’ll ever get published, if we’ll ever get discovered, if we’ll ever get famous. But we won’t find any of the above if we don’t write. And don’t think ‘luck’ is all you need.

Samuel Goldwyn once said; “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” As I sit at my computer tomorrow morning, churning out my next 2000 words, I’ll pray that I’ll get luckier too.

 

Scottish Curried Lentil Soup Recipe... Fast!

In past blogs, I've given real complex and intricate recipes for Scottish Curried Lentil Soup.
Here, we're aiming at the cook with more to do with his/her time than slave over a stove.
So here it is; Lentil Soup, quick-style.

1lb Carrots, (nicely chopped or brutally massacred in a blender)
1lb Rutabaga (Turnip to the rest of the world) treated as above.
One large onion (chopped, same as above, don’t cut yourself, but don’t go all crazy careful either)
Half a dozen Potatoes (chopped into small cubes)
(A healthy alternative to the potatoes here is half a cauliflower)
½ cup of RED Lentils
4 chicken stock cubes
Add to ½ pot of water.
Boil for a good hour, stirring regularly.
(Watch and not stick to bottom of pan)

Add cubes of the secret ingredient below to flavor.

Easy, tasty, and will keep in the fridge for a couple of days.
And why not go see more recipes here.... a whole new way to think of soup.

 

 

Time Travel, Vampires and 10,000 Words

Suprise, suprise- Ive another new project on the go!   Im just starting book two of my vampire/time travel adventure, this one entitled A Connecticut Vampire in Queen Mary's Court... 10,000 words in five days... still on fire...

 "I unlocked the door, and burst in, to find her advancing on me, smiling, tears falling down her beautiful face. Smiling in return, I slipped my dagger smoothly into her chest. I heard her dress tear, I felt a slight resistance as my blade separated her ribs, then I heard the gurgling as I pierced her heart. As she frowned at me questioningly, croaked her last unpronounceable words, and fell limp into my arms, a knife fell to the ground between us, clattering on the floor. I bent to pick it up. The thin blade had been coated in sticky green ichor. I had dodged another bullet."

Queen Mary 1 aka "Bloody Mary"

I finished the first volume, A Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur's Court, in 51 days. Here's brief excerpt

"The large four poster bed stood against one wall; only piece of furniture in the bedchamber, with a dark ornate carved headboard containing the coats of arms of both Arthur and Catherine. I pushed at the ‘mattress’ with the heel of my hand, finding it hard and unforgiving. The top coverlet was embroidered gold, but underneath, fine white silk sheets lay stretched tightly, the clean artist’s canvas for the coming night’s bloody painting. These, the sheets that would be held high for all to see, proving beyond doubt the broken hymen of a Spanish princess. The bloody stains that would be reported back to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella as the successful ploughing of her virgin daughter by a fifteen year old boy."

A Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur's Court  by Ian Hall will be published on Amazon very soon, and if things continued the way they have been, it will be soon followed by book two... stay tuned for the launch announcement. Hope you enjoy!

The Bloody Gavel: a Poem Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe

I am writing a short story for a collection called "The Bloody Gavel". As I rose this morning to get to work on the piece, it seemed I was channeling the darkness and grit of the "master of mystery and macabre"~ Edgar Allan Poe himself. I decided that the story should be in four parts, each woven from a verse of poetry...here is the poem I wrote:

The Bloody Gavel

By Ian Hall

“It matters not, where you lay your bones,
Or the compass direction of travel.
For the fate was set, in paper and stone
At the strike of the bloody gavel.”

“Revenge is a route that’s easy begun
But the plot takes time to unravel
But man and his fate are fused into one
At the strike of the bloody gavel.”

“When unity dies in a gang of lies
Conspirators quibble and cavil
But trickery’s sting will show in the eyes
At the strike of the bloody gavel.”

“We never hear death, or the sound of his breath
Or the crunch of his feet in the gravel.
But the Reaper will reap, like a ghostly Macbeth
At the strike of the bloody gavel.”

Vampire High School Backstory and Series Preview Now a FREE eBook

The Turning of Alan Rand is now a FREE download on most eBook sites. Many of the characters in our Vampire High School series became so fascinating to us that we decided to write their backstories as short eBooks and collections. No spoilers here, but Alan Rand gets killed in the first chapter of the first book (he's a vampire so you never know...) and there was a lot of  history to tell!

In addition to Alan's tale and to let you get your teeth (did I really write that?) into our Vampire High School series we decided to add FOUR free chapters to the FREE Alan Rand Download.

So... if you're looking for a new Vampire series to get your fangs into, here's where to go:

The Turning of Alan Rand, with FOUR FREE chapters of Vampire High School ~Kindle Edition


Have a great day, and "long may your blood run warm...."

Google Maps and the Author's Dream

Imagine the west coast highway in the USA, driving north from California to Alaska, through Canada.

Maybe you don’t have to imagine the scenery, perhaps you’ve driven the road, clinging to the California and Oregon Coastline like a then winding serpent. Perhaps you’ve seen pictures in National Geographic or some such publication.

As an author, we have to have a certain image of the road we’re describing; it helps for the reader’s enjoyment. It may even be essential to the plot.

This is all very well for this famous roadway, so often featured in periodicals all over the world. But what happens if you’re a French writer, too poor to travel, and you want to write a scene on a lonely Arizona road that’s never had pictures published.

As writers we used to rely completely on our imaginations for such a scene, and this isn’t great if our reader has already travelled the actual road.

But now, thanks to Google Maps we have to imagine no longer. We can not only plan out route, not only see satellite imagery to a great detail, but we can actually ‘click’ on the road, and view the road from a Google viewcam vehicle at road level.

Now the pictures might be a couple of years old, but Googlemaps are constantly adding and upgrading the whole system.

From country roads in Romania, Thailand and Gibraltar to the town streets of Charlotte, USA, we can drive our virtual cars and see the roads and the scenery on both sides in real images.

Using www.goolemaps.com we can utilize the internet to see our old home town.

We can shop for hotels, and see the areas they’re situated in.

We can see the way to grandma’s house, and see what it’s like to drive there.

But, dear author, we can also take our readers to our places of interest and describe the surrounds much more accurately than our imaginations could.

The door is open, let’s take a car and do some driving.

(Ian Hall is the co-author of the Vampire High School series, available in paperback and eBook)

The Dreaded First Post... or The Last Post?

It’s the first blog post. What do I write?

The pen slips to the paper for the first post in this new blog, and freezes, a millimeter above the parchment. A droplet of the deepest blue teasingly clings to the sharpened tip of the swan’s wing quill.

Do I make it pithy? Make it count?

The grandfather clock ticks against me. Every resounding click reminds me of Father; a lasting remnant of his impatient ‘tisk’ at my indecision.

The dry pristine paper below almost draws the blue ink downward, its desiccated form sucking heavily on the moisture held so tantalizingly above. But alas, the muscles holding the pen have no control, stationary as ordered, anticipating the first words from the vast human consciousness, hovering just a foot above.

Or comedic? I can do both. But comedic would not be good to look back on. No one will read this first post, but as the blog grows, people may look back to see earlier works. The first blog post.

Despite the lack of instruction, the tip of the pen vibrates slightly, the bead of ink shaking back and forth. Despite the human in the equation, the liquid must obey scientific laws. Until the droplet has attained sufficient mass to defeat the cloying grip of the molecules above, it cannot fall.

If the universe survives, this blog may be part of a larger information matrix. If I write something stupid, or crass, it would be there for eternity. Spelling mistakes and all.

The mind above scrambles for cogent thought like a chicken being chased by a young inexperienced fox. Feathers flying, the bird screams at the top of its voice, head raised high in alarm. Then suddenly all is calm.

The human has made a decision.

That’s it! Actually after all that indecision, it felt quite easy. I’m pleased; it’s pithy, thoughtful, almost, perfect! I feel relaxed, yet excited: almost smug.

The pen descends the last fraction with the confidence of a master classman. But he has misjudged the trajectory, or the distance, or the approach… or something. The nib breaks on the paper, sending shards of swan across the white surface. The dark blue liquid lands unfortunately; a small irregular blot of no importance whatsoever.

My first blog post is ruined.

Perhaps blogging is not for me after all.

The swan quill is set to one side, near the sharp knife. As the door closes, the feather wiggles in the resultant breeze. The dark cobalt liquid in the open inkwell evaporates slowly. The paper lies still on the desk. The inkblot dries, adhering the paper slightly to the worn wood below.

The air in the musty room becomes still.

The only sound is the mechanical arm above the cog in the large grandfather clock as it rasps over the worn brass tines.

Click. Click. Click.