Writing a novel is like building house (I’ve done both).
It’s always nice to finish the foundation and get the framing up, just to see everything taking shape and your plan coming together. Of course, you still have the plumbing, wiring, HVAC, walls, shingles, appliances, flooring, carpeting, and everything else to do before it’s actually finished. Yay!
Afterwards you have to put the house on the market, put ads in the paper, start shopping it around…
For the second book in my vampire novel series, The Matriarch: Guardians, I began to invent items unique to my vampire-infested world. One of them was a modular fauchard – affectionately dubbed “the Decapitator” – designed to hunt neophyte vampires too new to their undead world to fully understand their abilities. Yes, that’s real…and currently being built as a show-piece prop; it’s what all the cool vampire hunters are carrying most nights.
For seven seasons, the HBO series “True Blood” – based on the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse books – deviated almost unrecognizably away from the source material. Every character not killed off managed to pair up with someone, but similar to the final Harris novel that reportedly left fans unsatisfied, HBO botched a chance to one-up the author on the final outcome of Sookie and Bill.
Here’s three suggested treatments for a better ending; this is just off the top of my head, but I prefer number three.
***SPOILERS IF YOU STILL CARE!***
Pick one…they’re all better than what crawled out of the writer’s room.
October 24-26, 2014: Literary guest (confirmed) at Spooky Empire Ultimate Horror Weekend in Orlando, Florida.
We’re also putting together what may be the BIGGEST Ultimate Occult Showdown we’ve ever done; just waiting on word for day and time. Fingers crossed for the BIG room!
See highlights from my past guest gigs on the Appearance Page.
Yes, I’m a bit of a shutterbug, so I made this video with highlights from the show…not everything, but a lot of what I saw passing our table and walking around the floor. I’m working on a different video with Ultimate Occult Showdown 2014 highlights, so watch for that coming out soon! Meanwhile…
I get this question all the time. A LOT.
Fox Mulder inspired my preferred answer…with a heavy influence from Bela Lugosi.
The Matriarch: Guardians is available NOW, but here’s a “mood trailer” for you with bits of dialogue lifted from the text. Enjoy…and feel free to comment and share!
Extra fun bit! If you have a cool sound system or really great headphones, you’ll get a bit of a treat; I put a lot of cool and creepy stuff into the soundtrack that you’ll miss on a teeny phone speaker. Turn it up!
Popular Arts Conventions are great places for fans and artists to meet and interact over common interests: books, film, television, cosplay, web, or whatever. The fear, however, is that fans – abbreviated from the word “fanatics” – are the only source of irresponsibility and poor judgment. For those of us who at one time or another have stood on both sides of the convention table, there IS such a thing as a bad guest.
Fortunately, David Gerrold has nailed a comprehensive list of essential guidelines that guests new and old should probably abide by. With his kind permission, I have immortalized it not only for myself but for anyone in the industry.
All of you know someone who might have benefited from such knowledge.
Don’t be that guest…ever. Or ever again.
Read and heed.
It took over a year to capture the original pictures and longer still to process them into a storybook format. I’ve had to learn a few new music and media skills to get this far, but this trailer is 100% created by me. PLEASE let me know if you do or don’t like it; any and all feedback will help me improve my work in the future. I hope you enjoy it.
Lend me your ears…that’s disgusting; take those back this instant!
After taking a year off to concentrate on my burdening…no, bludgeoning… wait, *burgeoning* writing career, I’m a guest at this year’s Ancient City Con at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront on July 18th-20th, 2014. I’ll be bringing a bunch of books: copies of The Matriarch and The Matriarch: Guardians. If you already have one or both, bring them by to get those dead-tree editions signed at no charge! There will be panels…oh yes, there WILL be panels…including an all-new edition of The Ultimate Occult Showdown with myself and Brett Link as your enforcers…whoops, I meant “hosts!”
C’mon down, get a hotel room right on the waterfront, and party with us for the eighth-annual Ancient City Con this mid-July. Seriously, there’s nothing else to do that weekend in Jacksonville…I promise. Would I lie? I mean, when it’s important?!
See ya there!
Kevin A. Ranson 