Windhaven 14

Hi,

Welcome to my What If? and novel writing blog. My original intention was to post a few pages  of Windhaven every week. That obviously hasn’t happened. I’m working on another novel, the fourth in my Blood Justice series, and that has to take priority in order to meet my self imposed deadline of December 31.  I will still post here, but it will have to be on a time available basis.  I’m sorry. I, too, look forward to finding out who survives.

Meanwhile,

I usually write about supernatural stuff or mystery/thrillers. Windhaven might have some thrills but no mystery and no vampires or trips to hell (see my other books.) It’s a survival adventure that could happen any day now.  I’m not doing official chapters every post, just whenever.  The numbers are to keep it all in order, for you and me.  This is all first draft, so comments and suggestions are always welcome.

To start Windhaven from the beginning go HERE

 

What Ifs?

 

What If a cave explorer disappeared while exploring the huge caves in Borneo’s Gunung Mulu national park? Search parties were unable to find him, he was presumed dead. A couple weeks later he emerges and starts telling people that he met Gaia, Earth as a sentient being. He preached that Gaia was pissed off at what the people were doing to her. He was written off as a crackpot until he said an earthquake was coming – Right Now. And it did. Coincidence they said, until it happened again and again. Tornados appeared at his command. He gained followers and disciples and finally governments were forced to accept what he said and actually did what needed to be done. A happy ending for the Earth.

 

What If a vampire and a werewolf fell in love and had a baby? What would the kid be like? What if he/she had all the attributes of vamps and weres? They’d be unstoppable. Also a freak, possibly shunned by both sides. They might go off on their own, maybe to the light side, or dark, depending on how they were treated – Become the Night Wolf. Of course there comes a time for all superheroes when they have to choose to help those who wronged them, or leave them to their fate. Perhaps a human, also lonely and wronged, could help Night Wolf decide which side to choose.

 

Windhaven

Chapter 15

 Noah woke. His mouth so dry his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He was thirsty and had to piss and the newly risen sun shone through a crack in the grey clouds and through the corner of a window, illuminating his face, but he held his eyes closed. Just for a minute or two or three he wanted to be waking up on his boat to the smell of coffee his wife had made while he slept. He wanted to feel the warmth of the sun and breeze. He wanted to be sailing on calm seas over warm water. He wanted to take a mug of fresh coffee to his wife and sit next to her by the wheel. He wanted to feel her skin on his and know that all was right with the world. And it was, for about three minutes, until an errant wave slapped the hull and Leigh cussed loud enough to wake King Neptune, as if they didn’t have enough problems.

“Noah, your fucking self-steering broke, again. There’s coffee. Will you bring me a cup… please.”

“Yes, Dear.”

Several minutes later he handed Leigh a covered coffee mug. He set his mug in a cup holder and holding tight to the bent electronics bridge he pissed over the side while Leigh hand steered.

“I hate you men in general because you can do that,” she told him over her shoulder.

Noah sat beside her. “You can hang it over the side, too. Just hang on tight.”

“With my luck that cold ass water would slap my butt. I’ll stick with a bucket, thank you very much.”

They sipped their coffee for a few minutes before Leigh asked, “You check on the guys lately?”

“I gave Thomas some coffee and helped him to the head. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Keep them watered, fed and clean. I think Thomas will be okay, but I’m worried about Red. He moans with pain, but I don’t know where it’s coming from. He’s delirious most of the time and his eyes look like they’re going to pop out of his head. And Alain, I’m giving him antibiotics and water. I think most of his injuries are internal. That’s beyond my pay grade.”

“We need that Emergency medical book. Has it dried out any?”

“Not much.”

Noah sipped and let out a deep sigh. “I think we have one good battery. I didn’t even notice that we lost all but one of our solar panels. If both are good we might at least have lights. All those electronics were under water weren’t they?”

“Yep. Several times.”

“I’ll fix the steering and see what I can figure out. You should get some rest.”

Leigh nodded, letting her head hang as if she was going to fall asleep right there. Noah gently squeezed her shoulder. She looked at him sideways. “You know we’re in real trouble here.”

Noah sighed, “I know.”

Leigh pushed herself up and toward the companionway.

“You have someone waiting for you back home, wherever that is?”

“Husband”

“So you don’t hate all men.”

She shrugged, flashed a smile, and vanished down the companionway.

 

Sitting in Larry’s command chair, Noah studied the main electrical panel. It was state of the art, but with a layout similar to the old panel in his boat. Except for the fine layer of salt on everything. Water had dripped out when he opened the door. Most of the breakers were tripped.

He had found a multi-meter to test voltage in an electrical toolbox. Water dripped out when he picked it up. Just for the hell of it he tested the one house battery. It worked, then froze at eleven and a half volts. Something at least.

It took him half an hour to sort out the wiring and run a direct wire to the lone remaining solar panel. He had no way of knowing if it worked, but it should, so he moved on.

He ran a direct wire to one of the interior lights breakers. Nothing. He pulled the breaker and connected directly to the interior wiring. Lights! Some in the galley and main salon. It would be a big help nonetheless.

Two hours later he hadn’t been able, between having been under water, cracked, battered and no antenna, to make any of the radios work. They had had satellite internet through Larry’s computer which was found smashed and underwater. Noah found a handheld satellite radio in a drawer in three inches of water, its internal batteries fried.

Noah slumped in the nav station chair. It really hit him then – They were on their own, and he only had a vague idea where they were. He had to press his lips tight to endure that old sinking stomach fear. Really, he just wanted to cry. Visions of Linda slid across the back of his eyelids. He liked thinking of her, seeing her in his mind. He had a good feeling about her, and thought she had the same for him. He hoped so, but he’d never know if he didn’t make it home.

Among the debris they’d found floating in the water and hadn’t done anything with yet, Noah found the large scale paper chartLarry had marked their daily position on. Their last known position had been S 51°10’ 24.8 by    W 167° 24’ 12.3, about two hundred nautical miles East of New Zealand. That was noon on the day the wave hit. Say another hundred miles by the time the wave threw them into survivor mode. Those that survived.

Noah had no idea how far they’d traveled since then or what course. He remembered Larry had mentioned… Christ, Larry, his body lay in a forward bunk. They couldn’t keep him there indefinitely.

Larry had mentioned they were in an area of circular currents, pushing them south as they sailed east. For a moment he let hopelessness grip his chest. They were, literally, in the middle of nowhere.

He took a deep breath, sat up and slapped the desk with both palms. For all he knew Linda had forgotten about him, but she was the only thing he had to hold on to. So, no feeling sorry for himself, get his shit together and move on.

In a drawer he found a handheld GPS unit in a soaking box filled with foam and water. To his surprise it lit up. Gaze fixed on the flashing numbers he willed it to show their position. The numbers stopped. He checked the chart. “Shit.” He was pretty sure they were not 50 miles south of Tahiti.

He shook the unit, water came out and he threw it on the desk in disgust. The numbers flashed, and showed a position that made sense – S 53°06’ 48.8 by W 161°15’ 03.6. They were still in the middle of nowhere, a thousand miles from anywhere, but at least he knew where in nowhere. A quick calculation showed about five thousand plus miles East to Chili. Doable if they didn’t starve or run out of water or sink first.

Something positive achieved. Noah allowed a smile to creep onto his face. It vanished when Leigh cried out, “Noah, come here!”

Comments and suggestions welcomed – dcburtonjr@gmail.com

https://davidburtonwriting.com

 

Vamps in Space!

First, a shameless plug… hustle… ah, notice of importance. My novel Hell Cop is now available in print from Amazon.

I’ve been thinking lately (always good to try something new) about what happens to vampires in space. Why am I thinking about that, you ask. And you should ask, because who the hell thinks, or cares, about the physiological effects of space on vampires? Except for Vampires and those who want to round them up, send them up and Good-fracking-bye paleface bloodsuckers.

It all began a long time ago, but never mind that. What matters is that I recently sent off the sequel to my novel Blood Justice — tentatively titled Blood on the Water.  So, fool, glutton for punishment, and/or masochist that I am, I’m already thinking about the next book in the series. There has to be a next book because two isn’t a series — it’s a couple of books looking for a third for gin rummy, a night of kinky pleasure, or maybe just a chaperon. I already have an idea for that all important third; but what about the next and next and next? If you keep going far enough you have to go up to space or down to Hell.

Hell — been there — the Hell Cop almost series (2 1/4 and counting) — and plan to go again, but vamps have to go up. So what are the rules up there? Think a space station, inside and out, no suit.

No air – No problem. Vampires don’t need to breathe, except to talk. Though if one got shoved out an airlock they could beat on the door all they wanted but would certainly prove the truth of the  phrase – “In space, nobody can hear you scream.” (Thank you, James Cameron)

Vacuum – Problem, sort of. Explosive decompression will do to vamps what it did to all those mortals in all those B Sci-Fi movies when their helmets got cracked – Phump, all nasty inside the faceplate. However, slow decompression they can handle, though not without a lot of grimacing and uncomfortableness  in the nether regions. Their quick healing can counteract all that cell and gas (yes they have gas, too) expansion.

Cold –  Even the toughest already dead vampire will be a stone-cold vamp way before getting close to absolute zero (0° K, 273.15°c,459.67° F) By -50°c, they’re getting creaky. By -100° C they’re barely able to move. Below that for any  time and they’re likely to be stone dead and not coming back a third time. Even vampire healing can only go so far. Although that might depend on whether they’re a good guy or bad guy and the state of alien technology . (See below)

Heat — For you, much time over 115° and you’re done. Vampires, 130-140° and their super repair faculty can’t keep up with the damage.  From vamp to mummy real quick.

Sun — Big Problem. We (unless you’re a hard core Buffy buff) all know that a Vampire has a maximum 30 minutes in the sun until they’re ash and dust. At 15 minutes they are praying for the immolation agony to be over. That’s on Earth where they get some shielding from the atmosphere. In space — 15 minutes max and they’re dust in the solar wind. No repairs. No redos.

With a proper space suit (a mortal one will do) they would be good to go for a long time. That sounds good until you get kicked out an air lock and are flung out into space to drift to the next star. You’d get mighty lonely floating out there for years, ravaged by a Blood Hunger that can never be fulfilled.

IDEAS

What if a vampire was ejected, intentionally or accidentally, into space for decades or years or even a really long time and was picked up by some aliens and rejuvenated, reconstituted, reanimated, revived, or whatever. What would they think? What would he or she think? What if the aliens were at war with some nasty invaders — like humans? Who would the vamp fight for? What would humans be/look like by that time? Would the long lost vampire finally find romance in an alien war?

What if  a vampire was a security chief on a huge Ark ship on the way to ____? He would have to solve murders, find stolen goods, locate missing people (whether they wanted to be missing or not) in a sort of Hardboiled/Spock/Sherlock H. kind of way. But who would be Watson?

What if the Earth was invaded by aliens and they were winning. There was one last escape ship ready to go with lots of important people — scientists, engineers, women, children on board. No vampires allowed – they’re being blamed for the invasion. The last group (the ones who know how to run the ship and where to go once they get away) race toward the ship. A group of vamps want to escape, too, and they know that one of the last group is an agent for the aliens. Would they be able to stop him/her from boarding? Of course not. So, how do they get onboard and find the spy before the Ark ship is blown up or captured, the humans enslaved, tortured or eaten? Whew!

Makes me hungry just thinking about it. And thinking about eating, unlike zombies, not all vampires are bad. And you don’t have to be an immortal dead to read about some. Go HERE at vamp speed, not zombie speed, and check it out. In the UK go HERE.

Pleasant dreams.

Who you calling old?

One of the characters in the novel I’m working on, Blood on the Water, (the sequel to Blood Justice) had herself turned into a vampire to seek revenge. That got me thinking…

If there are such things as vampires, I hope before one changes me into a ravaging blood-thirsty beast I have time to get hair plugs, a face lift, a tummy tuck, a bit-o-liposuction, and a little tightening of the neck. My nose is good. Even though I’ll be lurking in back alleys and dark parks looking for cute, blonde teenage girls (I didn’t add smart because a smart girl wouldn’t be in those places) to slake my maddening thirst for fresh young blood, I want to look good for the rest of my immortal life.

I just celebrated (?) one of those milestone birthdays no one looks forward to. If I’m destined to be changed into an immortal beast monster gentelman this isn’t the one I’d have chosen to be changed at.

What  would be the best age to be upgraded to immortal? “Go Young” you might say. But how young? Certainly not less than 18. It might sound fun to be a teenager for ever, but after 30 or 40 years you might want to go into a bar and have more than a Shirley Temple. They card vampires too, you know. Not to mention that as a teenager you might think you know it all, but you don’t. Unlike Rodney Dangerfield, if you want some respect, you should wait until at least 21 before allowing that charming bad boy/girl vamp to give you the bite that lasts. Even at 21 you’ll still get carded everywhere, and after 20 or 30 years nobody is going to look at your ID and believe you’re 40 or 50 years old. You don’t want people looking into your birth records then bugging you for the secret of how you’ve stayed so young looking, do you?

If you want to flow through the centuries with a certain level of gravitas, you might wait until 50, or even 60. Maybe 62 if you’re big on Senior Discounts. Who knows, if us mortals continue to live longer on our own 60 might be the perfect time to get that sporty convertible to scratch that mid-life crises itch. However, if you’re going to choose that option I suggest you go vegan and to the gym, starting now.

30ish would seem to be the ideal age to receive the gift, or curse, of immortality. Old enough to leave some, not all, of that youthful wildness behind you and still have your body, good looks, and hair.  If male pattern baldness is already creeping up on you, you might consider going younger, or learn how to shave your head. Bald is beautiful, Baby! You’ll also be young enough to be envied by all those old folks over 40. A plus for sure.  At 30, with experience and youthful indiscretions behind you, you’ll be ready to start building the fortune that will sustain you for the coming millennium or two; houses, cars, boats, travel, spouses.

Speaking of hair, make sure you have your hair cut in a classic style for the ages that you like. Because I’m not sure the hair of vampiric immortals will grow out to fix a bad haircut.

IDEAS

What if you were young and down on your luck, maybe living in your car, with few prospects, and a stranger, say 65-70 years old, offers you $100,000 dollars for your youth.  You would still be you, just 65-70 years old. Maybe some grey hair and some sagging here and there, but still you with the same mind as now, just older. You agree. Abra Cadabra you’re old, but not without some intelligence. You look into this age swap thing, find out the stranger’s secret, reverse engineer it, offer some not too bright drunk 25-year-old $5000 for his youth. “Sure. Why not?” he says. You swap, and then you find someone else with $100,000 and make them an offer. And you do this swap again and a again, a nice lucrative business. Except there are some bad guys who want a piece (all of it) of your action. And then there’s the father of a woman whose youth you sort of stole. And a cop who knows more about youth stealing than he should and he’s looking for you.

What if some kids are telling their Grandpa how proud they are of him that he’s such a hero, and he says, “Ain’t nothin’ to be proud of here.” And the kids say, “But everybody says you saved the town, village, city, country, world, galaxy.” “Humph,” he says. “Maybe at the end I did somethin’ good. But that ain’t how it started. They don’t tell ya that, do they?” “What do you mean, Grandpa?” He sips his whiskey and tells them, “Once upon a time….”

What if  you were a retired criminal well into your 60s, but still vital, living nicely with your wife on your ill-gotten gains. Then you had a visit from a some of your old crew. One of the old crew is dying of cancer, because a particular doctor misdiagnosed him, possibly on purpose. He has a family that depends on him. So you agree to look into it and find a criminal enterprise way beyond what you used to do. So you all decide to go against the doctor and all the other white collars who are letting people die for their own gain. The old street-smart tough guys against  the new ruthless, boardroom smart guys.

What if there was a planet where the sentient inhabitants grew old in the usual way, but at a certain time they grew younger, Benjamin Button style. As the unaged they brought all their experience of growing and being old to their government, business and culture. How would that make said government, business and culture different from ours?

What ever your age, be nice to the oldsters. Because sooner than you think you’ll be one of them bitchin that them youngsters don’t give any respect, just like you.

3 a.m. light in the window

Okay, so you’re driving from here to there and it’s 3 a.m.  You’re cruising at 70 mph past a small town you never heard of and have no idea why it’s where it is. It’s the kind of town the phrase, Roll up the sidewalks at 9 p.m., was made for. It’s all dark but for scattered streetlights. You barely know it’s there until you spot a lighted second story window. With nothing on the radio but way past their prime Oldies, Country music, or some talk show host whose only agenda is to make spurious accusations with the intent of dissing someone in power, (you know who I mean) you wonder, Who the hell is up at 3am? And why?

Could it be as simple as a parent up with a child sick with a common cold, or maybe the kid discovered the Halloween candy his/her parents hid six months ago and decided to make up for months of lost candy time in one day? Maybe it’s not so simple. The child is dying and the parent is sitting up desperately trying to thinking of a way to save the kid. And to keep yourself awake as you blithely motor by, you wonder, “What would I do to save my child?”

Of course you’d take a second job, (if you could find one) or a second mortgage, (if you could find one) or set up a website to solicit donations. Who wouldn’t? But what if money wasn’t the problem? How far would you go off the grid, out of the box? If that old cliché’ A Deal with the Devil was a viable option, would you? There are other possible deal options. A lesser demon trying to gain some sort of street cred by recruiting humans to his/her/its thrall. Aliens who need humans to carry out some ambiguous (to you) plan. A sorcerer or witch with an agenda. (see below)

If the only way to keep your child with you was to have him or her changed into a vampire, would you? Did you see the movie Let the right one in? Think carefully. Maybe it’s a vampire kid who’s sick. He got hold of some tainted blood from a drunk methhead and it was screwing up his natural vamp immunity, and his mother is up practicing her Just say no to drugged up humans speech. Or maybe change the child into a werewolf? At least he/she could go out during the day.

That 3 a.m. lighted window could be as simple as a wife waiting up for her husband whose plane was late. The question of whether or not she has a gun beside her to blow that philandering bastard away when he walks into the bedroom is a question that will have to wait for the early morning news from the police blotter to answer.

And by the way, why are you driving past that window at 3 a.m?

IDEAS

See above.

What if it was a sorcerer or witch that made your kid sick then conveniently made himself (I’ll go with sorcerer, but witches can have the same magical problems) available to cure him/her. Cures like that of course don’t come free. Where’s the story in that?  At some future date he will need your help. Of course you agree. It’s your kid and he’s not the Devil, after all. He calls. You go. He wants you to kill somebody. And he’s scared. You try and cry for another deal. No new deal. You allow him to convince you that the woman he wants dead is an evil, scheming, murdering bitch, so to keep your kid well, you agree.  Besides, you got royally screwed over 15 years ago by your BFF/evil, scheming bitch and the thought of bashing in the head of an evil, scheming, murdering bitch has a certain appeal. So, putting aside any flashes of rational thought and downing a couple of whisky neats, you go see this monster all dressed up as a hot babe and…. This is where you have to decide whether you’re going to take the high road or the low road, the road less taken, the sorcerer’s  way or the highway. And that will determine what exciting, dramatic, humorous, emotional journey comes next.

What if there’s a lonely person in that room who’s tearily writing a suicide note, though she’s convinced nobody will ever read it, or care if they do. The window is beside her. It looks out on a cold lonely landscape just like the one she has inside her. Then she sees a car drive by, the first in hours. And for a moment her despair lifts, there is someone else in the world. She presses her face to the window  and her eyes follow you in that car as you turn off to stop at an all night diner, though you weren’t planning to. Suddenly, filled with a strange purpose, the woman dashes out of the room,  races down the steps, jumps in her car and speeds to the diner where she parks next to your car.  Inside, she sits at the counter next to the only customer, you. It takes a while, but, beginning with a simple smile and a “Hi,” a conversation begins. Where it ends is up to you.

What if two lovers are in the room? They keep the light on so they can always see each other. In a tangle of sheets they lay panting, not a care in the world, just basking in  the afterglow. A car drives up. Someone gets out, enters, climbs the steps to the room. This person has a gun. Neither the lover in the bed nor the lover hiding behind the door have a gun. Yet, the car is found two days later in the all-nite diner’s parking lot. It’s owner is nowhere to be found. At least for a week or a month or a year or….

What if you are in that room? Why, good or bad, would you be up at 3a.m?

Whoever is in that lonely room, thanks to Jazz Tales streaming on KUVO 89.3 in Denver www.kuvo.org –  Sunday nights at 10p.m. Mountain Time – Weird Nightmares episode. Check it out.

Please watch out for my new adult, young adult e-novel, Ancient Mariners. It should be available by end of August.

Destiny plus 6

A quick announcment: Hell Cop: Sneaker will be a free download on Amazon.com this Saturday and Sunday, March 31 and April 1. No fooling. Find it here. (It’s your Destiny. That sounds better than Fate, don’t you think?)

What’s your destiny, and do you even have one? And how can you tell? After all, no matter what you do, you can never know if it was of your own free will or just what Destiny, one of Dream’s  brothers in Neil Gamin’s Sandman graphic novel series, had written in one of his books.

Speaking of books and destiny – I recently finished the first draft of a short story that experienced an unplanned  growth spurt to 25000 words. Destiny made me do it. Maybe Destiny has the hots for beautiful French Accidental Vampires? Maybe it’s my destiny to become rich and famous by writing about Simone Gireaux’s first 350 years. I’ll never know until I try and you buy. (Sorry, couldn’t resist. It’s the long hidden, for good reason, huckster in me.)

Coincidence or fate, can you ever know the truth and could you handle it if you did. Like, you can never know if that person you had a one night stand with and then slipped out before they woke up and then, with some trepidation, ran into a few days later but they were only pissed because they wanted to ask you out on a proper date and they did and you ended up happily/unhappily married to was only a coincidence or Destiny looking at his Big Book of You and pushing you here or there with his Unfickle Finger of Fixed Fate.

The only way that I can think of offhand to KNOW if you fucked up your life on your own or if it was written in some big blank book by a pothead with a trust fund, would be to die and ask St. Peter, if you go that way, or Joe Smith the ticket taker on Captain Charon’s Cross River Excursion pontoon boat for an appeal. It’s your right, after all. That way you get to review all the documents and videos pertaining to your life and you should be able to ascertain why it went so bad.  If it went good, keep your mouth shut and take the credit.

One reason to believe in Destiny is that you don’t have to take the blame if things go bad. “Oh come on. It’s not my fault I’m  lazy and carry a few extra pounds which BTW I can take off any time, and nothing good ever happened to me, and I still live in my parent’s basement and that stupid manager at the video store won’t give me a raise to $8.25 an hour so I can get my own place and go to school and get married to my high School girlfriend even though she lives in an oceanfront mansion with her husband and three kids. It’s destiny’s fault. I’m the victim here!”

I think we’re all born with a do-it-yourself Destiny Kit. All you have to do is read and follow the instructions, even if the ones giving you the instructions (presumably parents) didn’t follow them because they believed that Dream’s brother had already written their life so why bother. Bother, man! Maybe Destiny has an eraser.

IDEAS

What if Destiny really did have an eraser? What would his price be to change yours? You know there’s always a price for that sort of thing. But what is it? Maybe you’d have to seek out a Fate Broker. It’s his or her job to go to Destiny’s secluded secret library and negotiate with the head librarian. There’s usually a task involved in these things. If you achieve your task then you get what you want out of life. If not, you go back one step. Make sure you read the fine print.

What if you weren’t happy with the way your life turned out and then you died. You’d been beginning to believe in reincarnation lately and thinking maybe you should do something good for someone else for a change when you died. Then you’re standing in that never-ending Purgatorial line waiting to find out if you get the golden escalator up or that rattley, stinky service elevator down, when you see stuck in a crack in the rough stone wall a business card. You take it. It’s for an attorney who promises to handle an appeal/assessment/refund of your destiny. Hmmm? Eventually you come across a pay phone, but you have no dimes (Inflation hasn’t caught up down there, yet.) A guy behind you has a slug on a string. You have the number, he has the slug. You call, make an appointment for both of you. He/she is slick and slimy – Angel, Demon, Soul? – and makes you fill out stacks of bureaucraticly official red tape, jump through hoops, (literally) and find witnesses (far too many are already in Hell. Hmmm). Finally you get your professional assessment of your destiny, and you find… What?! Your attorney urges you to sue.

What if you worked for Destiny? You had to make sure that what he wrote, happened as he wrote it. So you go to Life on a job and… fall in love. We all know the crazy shit that makes people do.

So we do have a destiny. But you’ll never know whether it’s Dream’s brother’s fault or your own. So just in case it ain’t him, better get to it.

Please watch out for the new novella whose title I don’t know yet. It was Mentor, then A Novice Vampire to go with the orignal, An Accidental Vampire, but neither one is quite right. If you happen on a novella by me and it’s about a Young Blood French vampire named Simone Gireaux, that’ll be it.  Young Blood. Hmmm.

It Suits You…Or Not

It suits you all to read a good vampire thriller, I know it does, and you do too. And this being your lucky day, I have  one handy, Blood Justice, in case you didn’t know already. Just because I’m a nice guy I’m going to tell (not show, sorry) you where you can find this fine tome, my third, you know. For those of you in the area, or wanting an excuse to see the Pacific Ocean, on November 6 at 2 p.m. I will be signing Blood Justice at the Mysterious Galaxy Book Store in San Diego. I had lines and lines of links to the various places where my book can be obtained (legally, anyway.) But one link will open up a wonder of other links to all the places a book buyer needs to know about. That being – http://bylightunseenmedia.com/bj.htm. Check the lower right corner.  I know you’re tired, or will be tired, of hearing about this great book, but,  like pledging for your PBS station, once you’ve pledged, you don’t have to feel guilty three times a year when they ask for money.  You know what I mean? Nuff said.

Everybody is suited for something. Some people are suited to be sales persons. (Can you feel my body shudder at the thought of being a salesman? Promise you’ll never mention Encyclopedia Britannica to me. I’m over that. Really, I am.)  Some are suited to be politicians. See above. Scientists, indoor and outdoor, teachers, we need more of those, too bad we spent the money for them on something else, business persons, actors, soldiers, sex workers, and worker bees, somebody is suited for all those jobs.

Writers, too. Some are suited (blessed?) to be bestselling, self-promoting, (and liking it, for God’s sake!) gad about, life of the party, conversational maven writers. Some are more suited to hole up in a dark room with Jazz in the earphones and write  stories for my… I mean themselves that no one else wants to read, and if forced to socialize prefer to stand in the corner and hope nobody wants to talk to them.

In Blood Justice (I’m sure you know what I”m talking about by now) the heroine (is that correct terminology or is it now PC to call all heroes, ah…heroes?) Justine Kroft is well suited to be a vampire avenger. She’s a strong-willed, successful, single mother with martial arts training, one friend, and nothing else to live for. It’s a no brainer she’d want to be a vampire to avenge the murder of her daughter.

Similarly, Simone Gireaux, a 350 year-old Vampire, is suited for her role. She, too, lost her family to murderous vampires (see the Accidental Vampire page, top right) so is willing to help Justine in her quest for revenge.

Teresa Diaz, Justine’s one true friend, also is suited to help Justine. Her daughter is missing, so she knows what Justine feels. Her husband and other two children have moved on, Teresa has not. She is a real “friend.” If Justine needs her help, she’ll help.

So what makes these women so well suited to do what they do? Nature or nurture? No doubt their past experiences shaped them into what they are today. But, all that nurture had their individual natures to work with. If Justine had been a shy, withdrawn, delicate child would the same experiences have led her to give up her mortal life to go after a bad-ass vampire? If Simone had been a weak, unintelligent (not, uneducated) cowering peasant woman, would she have been able to survive 350 years of superstition, ignorance and fear? Not likely. It’s Teresa’s nature not to forget her missing daughter and to continue to search for answers. Just like it’s her husband’s nature to put it behind him and move on.

Nature deals you a hand, nurture determines whether you’re suitable to risk a raise, or fold. 

IDEAS

What if a good girl hooked up with an unsuitable bad boy and tragedy ensued? As if you didn’t think of that first thing.  As if all the gender, age, class permutations of that idea haven’t been around since forever. It’s still as fresh as it was back when Mag met Ugh and he showed her his cave paintings. The private ones way in the back. It will probably still  be fresh when Magzet meets Zook2 and he takes her for a ride on his spacecycle, even though her parents forbid her to see that bum, out to his underground asteroid weekend home and shows her his diamond laser etchings. The private ones in the back.  So I think there’s still a story or two there.

What if a nice, but nerdy, plain-looking man actually hooked up with an unsuitable (at first glance) hot chick. Though she might be a flirty party girl, she’s one of the rare ones who can look beyond the geek exterior and see the good guy inside, and also see in the future that he’s going to be a gazillionaire one day, and she really does come to love him. Then the tragedy. She’s  assaulted, with extreme violence, and the guy, being weak and inexperienced and never having to test his bravery, can’t help her. Helpless,  he has to watch whatever  happens to her. He’s broken. He loses his niceness, his innocence. He doesn’t have a strong body, but he’s strong where it counts, between the ears. What would such a guy do to deliver suitable justice to the bad guy? Or, reverse the genders. How would that change the story?

What if young love happened but the parents disapproved, “He/she is unsuitable for my child,” he opined.  Another oldey but goody.  But what if the unsuitable one goes away and comes back as A: rich and successful – boring. Or B: A different sex. There’s that nature again. Maybe not so boring. Again, reverse some genders and sexual preferences and see what happens. And is the “child,” no matter how old he/she is, in on the secret? The big question is, will there be a happy or tragic ending?

Whatever’s suitable for you, go for it. Whether that includes vampires or not, thanks for your support.

The Universe Might Hate You

I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been rewriting a previously published novel by changing one character to a vampire.  I’m assuming vamps will be around for a while longer.   Zombies are big these days,  but vampires are, after all, immortal. 

The character I’m changing became a vampire by accident, as far as she knows. And as far as I know. There may be a reason she was changed in the next book or two of the series:  A little light vengeance for ruining what would have been a gourmet family feast,  maybe a sly move in a complicated conspiracy to take over San Francisco, or maybe a more personal motive — the woman is hot and sexy, whether slaying demons or having a quiet beer, but would not be inclined to have warm and fuzzy feelings for a vicious, greedy, blood thirsty creature of the night, no matter how hot and sexy he or she might be . Or,  maybe it was only an accident.

She didn’t want to be a vampire.  Didn’t even know they existed until two minutes before she became one. She has nobody to teach her how to be a vamp —  a couple of friends who’d give up some blood for her, but have no knowledge of the undead except cliché’s  gleaned from  movies and a zillion vampire novels.  She cursed the Universe at her fate.  “Why me? Why not one of the 7 billion other people on the planet. Why screw with my life that maybe wasn’t so great, but at least it was mine and I could go to the grocery store at noon if I wanted, and though I’m not that big on the chamber of commerce brochure natural world (she has plenty of exposure to the  unnatural world)  I did like to sit on the dock on the bay on a sunny afternoon?”  (Change is hard, even when it’s good) The universe didn’t answer her perfectly logical question because the universe doesn’t care about her.

Though it’s not much solace, the universe isn’t  just indifferent to her, it doesn’t care about anybody.    Among billions  of galaxies and trillions of stars what  happens on a little rock in a mundane pin prick of space means nothing.  What’s it to the universe that she got made a vampire? Nothing. A seven billion to one chance that something will happen to somebody is pretty slim odds, but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. In the greater universe that may be even odds.  She may hate the Universe for what happened to her, but the Universe doesn’t hate her, it just doesn’t care.  But should it?

IDEAS

What if, like that doomed tropical rainforest butterfly,  this woman being turned into a vampire does affect the well-being or life of the universe? Maybe she, not knowing what she’s doing, inadvertently turns a brilliant scientist into a vamp, as happened to her, and  that scientist uses his or her vamp abilities, such as stamina, speed, and not having to stop for lunch breaks, to invent a way for humans to gain the stars,  not just a few neighborly planets but the STARS. And we all know what will happen if humans  go into space. They’ll stick their noses in where they don’t belong, try to control all the real estate, even if somebody else owns it, fight, procreate, and leave a trail of litter from Earth to the Crab Nebula and beyond. Any one of those activities could trigger the premature end of the universe as we know it. Maybe the Universe should hate us?

What if the Universe is sentient? And in trouble? Maybe, like above, that scientist is turned because big U wants us out there. Wants us to populate and pollinate like a swarm of bees with too many Queens looking for a hive of their own. Unfortunately, maybe we turn out to be the Africanized version of bees and the Universe that loved us and helped us realizes we’re making a dangerous nuisance of ourselves and becomes afraid of us, making the jump to hate all too easy and has to break out that big smoke pot to put us all to sleep, permanently. Of course being human, some will survive. 

What if you had a Pollyanna point of view and thought there would be a happy ending to the above idea.  With odds of, by then, 100 billion to one, it could happen.

What if the Universe, in this case all the sentient beings in the space known as the Universe, hated you. Not humans in general, (that’s another story) but you.    Maybe you were conducting geological scientific experiments on the planet Honee, the home, and only, planet of the Honees, a well-respected religious Peoples with a calming influence throughout all space.  And the planet explodes. And you are the only survivor. And they blame you.  And peace in the Universe begins to break down as the Honee influence wans. And then all the civilizations, and governments and individuals hate you for what you’ve done. And want to kill you. What do you do? As the most hated person in known and unknown space, run and hide would be your first move. Then what? You are innocent, afterall. Continue to hide in fear untill one of a thousand assassins finally takes you out?  Or find out who is really to blame and why, then go out  and clear your name?

No matter what the universe feels about me, love, hate, indifference, I have to go and convince my character that the Universe doesn’t hate her. Though it might.