The story of Blood Ex Libris

Post the insane Spooky Season events and marketing drive, it’s a time of fallowness for this author. Of course I’ll do a bit of Winter Holiday stuff, but the real highlight of my book promotion year has just passed, and now I want to just focus inward—and get that next novel closer to publication 💪

That means the newsletter this month are not going to be the high energy, thrilling affairs you’ve gotten used to. If what I am doing is research and pure creation, it’s not much to write about. Here are some pictures from the weekend, of me continuing the research part…

But yeah, unless I share snippets of the writing with you, we’re not in a very dynamic place right now—from your point of view. From mine, I’m actually in the place I like best, which is just me and the page, and the words pouring out of my mind onto the page.

Where, sadly, they won’t come out perfect the first time, but will require lots of editing—and sometimes being deleted in chunks and completely reworked. But I’m a very weird writer, and I actually enjoy the “polishing” process as much as the pure creativity part, so as far as I’m concerned, all the best parts of being a writer are ahead of me, this month.

There’s a bunch of new readers to this newsletter—warm greetings to those of you who signed up at the Pandemonium Spooky Geek Faire! So I thought for this newsletter I’d go back and tell the story of how Blood Ex Libris came to be in the first place.

I knew I’d wanted to be an author all the way back in 1st Grade. (Although it was “author-illustrator” at the time. Sadly, reality has forced me to admit the fact that I cannot draw images the way I can draw with words.) In case you were wondering, this “what do I want to do when I grow up moment” came in between “paleontologist” (which since I couldn’t say my “l”s yet was said as “paweontowogist”) and “the Goddess Athena” (I apparently thought it was the kind of job that would have openings—which turned out later to be the plot of Fred Saberhagen’s excellent Books of the Gods fantasy series, so I was not the only one thinking about that!)

I wrote stories. I had “published” my first book by then. It was about the legend of the phoenix, and it was called “The Firebird,” and I did both the story and illustrations in Crayola marker. “Publication” was being displayed in the local library. I was deeply proud.

I was constantly working on stories after that. I always had a story I was working on, but the novels never got more than a few chapters in.

When I was 17 I became sick and never got well again. I was finally diagnosed with ME/CFS, but before I ever got a diagnosis I had found one of the things that would help get me through, and that was science fiction. I started by plundering my parent’s library, then whenever I was well enough I dragged my unwell ass to the local library and brought home huge stacks of books, which I used as pure escapism from my physical reality.

It was then that I first read Robert Heinlein and Samuel Delany. Both of those writers made me decide, “I can really do this!” and I started writing a science fiction novel.

That novel got stopped and restarted for years, each time coming in at a different angle. I kept realizing that I hadn’t really lived enough to tell the story I wanted to tell. I was keeping busy with life (getting my research in! 😂) so there was no rush—but I had no doubt that I was a writer and that I would eventually get a novel done and out into the world.

And then one night, I dreamed the first sex scene from Blood Ex Libris—in detail! I woke up, and grabbed my laptop and wrote it out. In doing so, I realized I knew it was Vlad Dracula but he was going by another name, and I knew a fair bit already about the main character Noosh. So I went back to the beginning of the story and started writing it, to catch up to that first sex scene.

And then I kept going. There was a huge set-back when I lost about 3000 words I’d written, and I stopped writing for six months because I was so upset about it, but I finally got over it and dove back into finishing the story. (It’s crazy to me now that I nearly didn’t write the book because I had lost only 3000 words. On a good day, I can write that many words in one day!)

Anyway, that’s the story of how Blood Ex Libris, and the whole Blood & Ancient Scrolls Series began. There’s a lot more story about the story, about how I managed to get it out into the world for you to read, but that’s for another time.

I’ll go back to working on the next novel now, as I know so many of you wish I’d get it out NOW. Thank you for your patience in waiting for it! And thank you to all who made it this far in the newsletter today. You are the bestest of fans and I so deeply appreciate you! 💖

Until the next newsletter, be good or be good at it! 😉

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