Guess what I've never seen? The Vampire Diaries. Or Trueblood. I'm not much of a fan for any vampire movie that's come out in the last ten years either, when it comes to that. I take my inspiration from the vampires of my youth, so to speak. I read all of LJ Smith's vampire books, and Christopher Pike's, and the lovely Anne Rice. I memorized The Lost Boys and you should see my Buffy scrap book, which I carried religiously for 4 years of high school. Below is a list of vampires I consider the cream of the crop, which have definitely shaped how I write vampires.
None of these vampires are guilt-ridden, non-murdering, pitiful drama-queens
like a lot of other vampires you may know. They have accepted their undead status and glorify in it.
Angelus (Buffy)
Not Angel--he's a pansy. Angelus. No one does sadistic the way Angelus does. Fond of torturing women into insanity before turning them into vampires, Angelus loves mind games. He is best known for horrifying audiences by killing Jenny Calender and traumatizing Giles with her dead body. Also for turning Spike into a cuckold by getting it on with his lady.
David (The Lost Boys)
Keifer Sutherland plays a vampire that just wants to have fun and kill shit. He is the original Teenaged Vampire, a real embodiment of youth and immortality. Best known for practical jokes involving maggots, hanging out with a bunch of dudes at the beach and pulling off a mullet. (No, this movie isn't gay at all....) David takes having fun with your lack of conscience and immortality to new levels.
Claudia (Interview with the Vampire)
Played by 12 year old Kirsten Dunst in the movie Interview with the Vampire, this character was only like, 6 years old in the books when she was turned into a vampire. She takes creepy and wrong to new levels in her relationship with Louis, which is why I love her. Best known for keeping corpses as pets and the repetitive murder of her sire (unfortunately it's Lestat, and the man cannot be killed). Claudia makes you feel not quite right about things even when you love her.
Evil Vampire Willow (Buffy)
AU Willow plays the role of psychotic sexual master so very, very nicely. Her one track mind of torture and fun are an inspiration to all that know her. Best known for being bisexual (and very into the idea of having sex with herself) and her one-liners like "Bored now" and "In my world there are people in chains and we ride them like ponies." You can't get any kinkier than this and get away with it on television.
Dracula (Bram Stoker's Dracula)
Gary Oldman really brought sexy back to a tired tale. Dracula is the longest lasting literary vampire to date (fun fact--the first literary vampire, Carmilla, was a lesbian) and the vampire on which all vampires are based. They just don't keep making him movies because he's public domain--he was the first "sexy" monster after all. Best known for keeping multiple wives and stalking teenage girls. He is classy and classic.
Lestat (Interview with the Vampire)
Lestat is a vampire among vampires, the most powerful, impossible to kill and impossible to resist. Despite being only a few hundred years old he's fed off of every ancient and important vampire in his universe. The biggest Mary Sue ever written. Not that anyone cares. Best known for being overtly gay, turning his mother into a vampire (Freud would have a field day), and becoming a rock star. Lestat is the embodiment of flamboyancy and everything that's right about being a vampire.
Copyright. The fanfic writer's worst enemy. (And, I suppose, the plagiarists, but they are assholes and we don't like them.) For the record, I am no expert on the subject, I've just read about it a lot when I do things like decide to write Alice and Wonderland porn. If you're not 100% sure about the legalities of using something in your work either find someone who IS an expert...or maybe let the idea rest for now.
This article is based on US copyright. I'm not familiar with the copyright laws in other countries, but I think most are very similar.
Basic Rules
Works created prior to 1923 are considered public domain. Any works produced after that year are considered public domain 70 years after the death of the original creator.
What Can be Copyrighted?
Any work of art, literature, or music. Titles, names of characters, words, and phrases can not be copyrighted, meaning if you want to name your book after your favorite Beatles song, you can. These things can be trademarked though, so make sure you double-check. A specific arrangement of a song, as far as I know, cannot be copyrighted.
How to Copyright
You don't have to "purchase" a copyright anywhere. As soon as you create something it legally belongs to you. The best way to assure that you can legally prove a piece belongs to you is to have it date stamped in some way. In the old days the best way to do this was to mail your manuscript to yourself and not open the envelope, that way you would have a sealed document dated by the government. Nowadays we have computers. When you make a file the date it was made is encrypted into it. (You can email it to yourself if you want too--also great for keeping backups.)
Public Domain
Works written prior to 1923 are public domain, as well as works where the copyright has lapsed. These works can be used and abused without fear of being sued. This means you can re-write as much classic literature into zombie porn as you want and no one can do anything except tell you its in bad taste. This applies to art, music, and film as well, meaning you can use these things for covers and promotional material with no problems. (Mind you, while a song might be in public domain, a specific recording may not be.)
Creative Commons
This is a piece of work (literature, art, music, film) that is NOT in the public domain, but is still legal to use, usually with restrictions, like you have to attribute the artist or you're not allowed to use it to make money. When in doubt, check with the original creator.
Love, love, love this story. It has the feels for reals. And check out my lovely book trailer for the series.
As you know, book 1, Drain Me Dry is free in many markets (click here for a list). As a treat I'm reducing the price of Addicted to the Bite to 99 cents on Amazon and it will be FREE on Smashwords from the 15th to the 22nd.
Bloodlines Synopsis:
Damian owes his immortal life to his sire Marcello, and now he owes him money too. To pay his debts Damian must board the Bloodlines Cruise Ship, which will sail to international waters where there is no law against turning humans into vampires. He must share his blood with one of Marcello's 'guests'--humans paying large amounts of money for the chance at immortality. Damian doesn't want to turn a stranger into a vampire. He doesn't know what he wants.
Jamie-boy is pissed off. Damian refuses to admit his love for Jamie-boy, and he begins to question whether or not it exists at all. To make it worse, Damian has been taken away by his beautiful sire for ten whole days. Jamie-boy doesn't give himself a chance to feel alone though, because an incubus named Trent is more than willing to be his new friend.
Loyalties and love are tested in this latest installment of the Deadly Liaisons series.
(Contains m/m sex, BDSM, violence)
Excerpt:
Summer was coming to an end and the beginnings of fall chill
stirred in the air once the sun went down. Jamie-boy was wearing a pair of very
short cut-offs and a baggy black sweatshirt. He liked to wear as little
clothing as possible around Damian because he liked the reaction he got from
the old vampire. Somehow it was like the era of shorts and mini-skirts had
never happened in Damian’s mind, because Jamie-boy often caught him staring at
scantily clad people in public.
They walked up together. Jamie-boy was proud to be at the
side of the city’s most important vampire. Everyone loved Damian, and he
belonged to him. Everyone they passed in the bar would stop to look at them and
say hello—sometimes Damian spent half the night just greeting people.
“Evening Damian,” the vampire working the door, Veronica,
said.
“Everything going well tonight?” he asked.
“Lover’s Walk was late, but they’re setting up now,” she
said, referring to the first decent band Damian had ever managed to book. As
she and Damian spoke Jamie-boy’s attention wandered. His eyes scanned the
street and grew wide at the large antique limousine driving towards them. It
ignored the curb, pulling up onto the sidewalk in front of the door. Jamie-boy
jumped and Damian pulled him back out of the way as it rolled to a stop feet
from where they stood.
The vehicle had a giant chrome grill and round, buggy
looking headlights resting on the front fenders. A large silver swan rested
primly at the end of the hood. It was the kind of limousine Damian would ride
in if Damian rode in a limo, which he never would. Grand displays were not a
part of Damian’s personality. To Jamie-boy it was part of what made him so
comfortable to be around. He could be ostentatious if he wanted to, but he
wasn't. Aside from his car and the occasional suit worn to the bar he looked
like everyone else, only his calm authority raising him a step above the other
vampires in New Franklin.
The driver got out and opened the back door. A pinstriped
leg stepped out of the limo, followed by the rest of a three piece suit and a
silver-topped cane. The person connected to all this grandeur had to be a
vampire, otherwise he was a kid younger than Jamie-boy with a real superiority complex.
The vampire was about Jamie-boy’s height, slim in the
well-fitted suit and blood red tie. His dark chestnut hair fell loose around his
shoulders and only his clothing gave away his gender. His face was androgynous
and perfect with full lips, high cheekbones and dark eyes like pools of ink. He
was too perfect to be real, beyond the celestial beauty Jamie-boy thought of
when he looked at Damian. If Damian was an angel, this vampire was a god.
Jamie-boy glanced up at Damian. His blue eyes were locked
onto the new stranger, who seemed to float across the sidewalk like he weighed
nothing. “Damian?” Jamie-boy questioned. His vampire lover ignored him.
“Marcello. What are you doing here?” Damian demanded of the
stranger.
"What? No 'hello, I missed you so?' I'm hurt."
"No you aren't," Damian. "Seriously, what are
you doing here?" Jamie-boy looked at Damian, at the stranger and back to
Damian again. His gaze on Marcello (whoever he was) was intense and unwavering.
The stranger only raised his eyebrows, making Damian sigh with the same
exasperation he often gave Jamie-boy. "Fine. Hello. I missed you so."
"That's better. So this is what my money paid
for?" he asked, looking over the front of the building and it's shabby,
smoke-stained bricks. Jamie-boy immediately felt defensive of the bar he had
grown to love. The front door was beautiful heavy oak and the stained glass
windows glowed with light from within. He thought it looked old-fashioned and
lovely. This vampire didn't seem impressed.
"Damian," Jamie-boy said, grabbing at his hand.
"Not now Jamie-boy. Go inside, I'll be right
there."
Jamie-boy pulled away, hurt. Veronica gave him a sympathetic
nod as he went inside. He didn't like knowing that Damian was often with other
people (humans mostly, as a precursor to a meal), but he always knew that he
was the favorite. He spent more nights with Damian than without him, even if it
was just a short hello before he went in to work the night shift at the Taco
King. But this Marcello was different. Damian watched him like he was
everything. Maybe he was. “It’s nothing,” Jamie-boy tried to convince himself.
“Just because he’s so beautiful doesn't mean anything.”
Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra. The guy in the
boxers is Chad--he looks just like Jamie-boy, for the record.
Last Monday I decided, as a depressed crazy person, to do something properly crazy for once in my life. I bought a non-refundable bus ticket I couldn't afford and went to NYC to see Amanda Palmer play at Lincoln Center. I went by myself and slept on the couch of a complete stranger that night and the scariest part was deciding to do it. Once I was there it wasn't scary at all.
But this isn't a "look at my amazing vacation" blog post. I do have a point. I'm even going to talk about writing eventually.
First, if you don't know who Amanda Palmer is, you need to fix that. She's kinda rock-pop-cabaret-everything. She plays the piano and the ukulele, often only 1/2 clothed. She doesn't believe in shaving her pits. Her music is beautiful and emotional and true. Some people find her off-putting because she's so brash and wears her heart on her sleeve (and they don't understand what she's trying to say), but I wish I could do what she does and be the kind of person that she is.
So the point. Right. At the show Amanda sang two songs that I want to talk about. The first one is not one of my favorites by any means, but it makes a point. She wrote it as a response to the existence of Lady Gaga a few years ago. Its called "Gaga, Palmer, Madonna: A Polemic." In this song Amanda talks about how "art is great: you can do anything--you can make pop music, you can paint ducks" and that "art is simple, just ask Andy Warhol." As a rule I don't like 95% of pop music and I think Andy Warhol is kind of...weird and unoriginal (I've seen one of his pieces IRL--it was giant wooden boxes painted like Brillo Pad packaging and I was all "I don't think he's trying to say anything....") BUT what it breaks down to is--Andy Warhol or Lady Gaga, they are artists, and while they might not be what I consider good artists, that's not really the point.
The other song I want to talk about is fucking amazing and one of my favorites. It's called "Ukulele Anthem" and it talks about Sid Vicious and John Lennon and how if Lizzie Borden had been able to express herself musically she wouldn't have axed her parents. The song is about making art, and how it enriches the world because making art is more important than anything. "It takes about an hour to teach someone to play the ukulele, about the same as teaching someone to build a standard pipe bomb--you do the math!" she sings at one point. Art is important. Art is the whole reason we are people instead of animals, and this song is saying, it doesn't matter if you can't make art well--the point is you need to do it.
Good art takes years of practice, dedication, skill and talent. But making bad art is fine too, because it's all about passion and being alive. "Stop pretending art is hard: limit yourself to three chords and do not practice daily," Amanda suggests. She's right--good art is hard, but art doesn't have to be good to be worthwhile, and even if you don't have the time or the inclination to dedicate every moment of your life to mastering something doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Ten years ago I had a great singing voice. Now I don't spend 2 hours a day in choir rehearsals so it's not so great anymore, but I should still sing and not be ashamed of singing in public (mostly I sing only when I'm home alone) because I love to sing even though it's bad.
I admit that I can be mean sometimes. I bitch about bad writing a lot, and while it's fine that I don't like it, sometimes I say these bad artists (especially Stephanie Meyer and E L James) shouldn't be creating their art. And that's wrong.
They should be able to write as much bad sparkle porn as they want. I'd rather I didn't have to see it, and I sure as hell am going to be mad and jealous when they make millions of dollars with their books while I make $75 a month, but to say they shouldn't do it is mean. Make as much bad art as you want, and if, for some bizarre reason the world wants to see it, good for you. And good does come out of bad art. For example, when Twilight came out all of L. J. Smith's excellent teenage vampire romances from the '90's went back into print and she got a bunch of TV show money with Vampire Diaries.
And when E. L. James' terrible self-published porn went big I looked at my own work and thought, "Fuck. I'm 50 times better than this--I need to get out there and share my work too." And now I get $75 per month that I didn't have before doing what makes me happy--writing sappy gay vampire erotica. And people love it and tell me they love it and they feel for my characters and that makes me feel so good inside. Because I'm a depressed crazy person and being an artist is the only thing that has ever mattered to me.
So I'm going to try to not make fun of bad art so much. It's not fair and it's mean. Make as much bad art as you want. It's healthy and liberating and free.
When Drain Me Dry went free a while back in the US I talked about how having a free book on Amazon helps with sales. This is still very true. Will comment about that in just one second. First off, book 1 of the Deadly Liaisons series is FREE for everyone to try. You can get it for free in the following places:
Now, I REALLY wanna get this title listed for free in the UK, but I need your help. Amazon works with a price matching system. When multiple people report a lower price elsewhere online they will match it on the main page. I'm sure the number of people is very small because I don't have many readers in Canada and it went free there this month. If just a handful of you would go to the Amazon UK page, scroll down to the "tell us about a lower price" link (under the book/file stats) and give them this link right here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/241395 I and all of the gay vampire fans in the United Kingdom would be eternally grateful. I really would like "Drain Me Dry" to be free there by the time "Bloodlines" goes up for sale in a few weeks.
Now, for the authors/writers reading this page, let me tell you about my experiences with offering Drain Me Dry for free now that I've been doing it for a few months.
I get about a 10% return on all those free stories I give away (20% in Germany--they really like me there). I give away about 500 copies of Drain Me Dry every month and sell around 50-60 copies of "Addicted to the Bite" and "Club Midnight." It's totally worth it, given that Drain Me Dry is an 8,000 word short story I wrote last September.
(Indie fantasy author Lindsay Buroker has had great success with this method, btw. Check out her stuff here.)
As a reader I don't want the first four chapters of something--I want an entire, neatly wrapped package. I feel the author is a kind, generous person and it makes me much more likely to go read more, and spend money on said author. If you're writing a series, I think it definitely helps to make the first book free. Writing a shorter intro story is also a great way to step into a series (while "Drain Me Dry" is a short story, "Addicted to the Bite is a novelette at 12k words and all of the books from "Club Midnight" on will be at least 20k) or even a nice intro to a stand alone novel. A free short which directly ties to a full-length novel would be a great way to pick up readers.
So, free stuff is great. And UK readers should go whine to Amazon for me. :)
Not exactly a writing or story related post today, but some of the tools I left out of the Tools for Indie Writers post a few weeks back were social networking tools, and I wanted to share what I use to keep up my Twitter account.
Before I started on this indie author business last year I had a twitter, but I didn't know what to do with it. The only people I followed were Neil Gaiman and my fiance and I never tweeted. But no one will seek out your stuff unless they know you exist, so I got online, learned how to use Twitter effectively, and here I am, making enough money to pay TWO bills every month. (Woo!)
I like Twitter over other social networking options for a few reasons. A gajillion people are on it, for one. For another, it doesn't seem to care how pornographic my posts get. For those of you who follow me on twitter, you know I can get...interesting. It's easy to use and limiting one's posts to 140 characters is great for the short attention spans of the 21st century.
The best part was getting to the point where I needed tools to manage my twitter account. Most twitter management programs require you to pay them money, but as long as you don't have more than one account I've discovered it's easy to cover your bases with just two management sites.
Manage Flitter
Their paid membership covers all kinds of stuff, but if you don't want to go that route, this is the best site I've found for finding and unfollowing your unfollowers (allowing you to free up space for new followers). It also weeds out spam accounts. Sadly that's about all you can do with the free account, but it allows you to bulk unfollow and while it limits the number of unfollows you have per day you can unlock more with little issue.
Social Oomph
This is the site's shtick is being able to post across multiple types of social media...with a paid account. It has a lot of options for free though. I mainly use it to schedule tweets for later. Back when I had a job I used to work a lot of double shifts w/o access to the internet. I didn't like my presence being gone all day long, so I would write out posts in advance. You can schedule as many tweets as you want ahead of time with this service's free account, and it also offers a variety of statistics, a URL shortener, and some follower management with the free account.
And those two sites are the only things I use to manage my Twitter account. I've found facebook to be mostly useless and tedious. I have a facebook page, but I pretty much ignore it. Ditto Google+ (though I get more traffic there than on Facebook). I'm considering the possibilities of Pinterest right now, but I still havent decided if I like it or not. I'm not active on Goodreads because I find the site design tedious. Twitter. It's where its at.
Been writing up a storm today, doing a lot of work on Bloodlines. I've decided to try something a lot of writers do with their books, and that's collaging them. Because setting up with magazines and a glue stick seems tedious and unnecessary, I've decided to use Pinterest for this. If you're interested in seeing the images inspiring Bloodlines, check them out here: http://pinterest.com/leighwilder/wip-bloodlines-dl4/
And because I'm awesome, here's a bit from chapter 1 of Bloodlines
to get you excited:
“The night is young and I am hungry. Find me some succulent
young thing to amuse me. What about that boy so keen on you, Damian? Has he
been properly debauched? We could share him.”
“I don’t think he would like that,” he said, bristling at
the very idea of sharing Jamie-boy with anyone, even his beloved (yet annoying)
sire.
“C’est la vie,”
Marcello lamented. “Tell me you have
decent alcohol in this place.”
Like magic Jilly appeared at the bar. “Drinks gentlemen?”
she asked.
“Why aren't you serving the actual customers?” Damian asked
her, annoyed over the whole situation.
Jilly leaned into them. “Everyone wants to know who your
delicious boy toy here is, and if he’s available.”
“Very available,” Damian assured, hoping Marcello didn't reveal the truth—that it was the other way around and Damian was the toy.
Marcello appeared willing to play along with the idea that
Damian was in charge. “How about you?” he asked Jilly, no doubt amused at her
frankness. She actually blushed.
“How is Midnight Star doing?” Damian asked, derailing the
train before it had a chance to chug down the tracks. There was no way Marcello
was going to seduce away one of his most promising people. Mentioning Star
effectively pulled Jilly’s attention from Marcello.
“She’s holding on,” she said. “The scars are gone, but she doesn't like to leave our house. I have to bring her meals to her. Thank you
for the promotion,” she added. “It helps to know I can take care of her.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
She reached for his hand and squeezed it before hurrying
away to serve a vamp tramp at the other end of the bar.
Damian noticed that the tramp was staring at them. In fact,
a large portion of the crowd kept sneaking glances as Marcello, hands down the
most beautiful creature in the club. Damian tried not to feel pride that
someone like Marcello had chosen him
when he could have had anyone as a companion. Being the partner of the best
looking person in the room was always satisfying. But this was his club, and he didn't want to look like he belonged to anybody.
The band began to play the first chords of their opening
number, the human half of the duo launching into the first words of “Personal
Jesus” in her low, raspy voice. “Go dance,” Damian suggested. Marcello loved to
dance. “Every human and vampire in this room is waiting for a chance to touch
you.”
“They are, aren't they?” Marcello said with a smile. He
unbuttoned the jacket of his suit and waltzed into the crowd like it belonged
to him instead of Damian.
A moment later Jamie-boy reappeared at Damian’s side. “Please
tell me what’s going on. Where are you going with him?”
“Eavesdropping is rude, Jamie-boy.” All the same, he couldn't be mad because he hadn't told him he was leaving. Marcello was ruining everything. “Let’s go upstairs,” Damian said, handing
over Jamie-boy’s discarded sweatshirt. “We’ll talk.”
“You never talk to me about anything,” Jamie-boy pouted,
pulling the garment over his head.
