I wanted to share the opening scene of Two Princes featuring my favorite vampire twins. Their conversations are entirely too much fun to write.
See my Published Works page for info about the two preceding stories, Family Matters and The Rising Son.
Enjoy!
*~*~*~*
(more…)In my last, so very long ago post, I mentioned that I was about to (re)publish Freeroll so I could be done with my old pen name. Well, apparently my vampires became jealous that I dared to pay attention to another story for even a moment and decided to bombard me with all the inspiration. As a result, Two Princes is pretty much finished, and now I will start editing it and pretend that I haven’t been doing that all along while writing it.
But first, I will get Freeroll published. I’m giving myself a deadline of my birthday to do it, which is coming up soon. So no more moving the goalposts, damn it.
Anywho, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was lovely, even though I’m pretty sure I ate enough turkey to last me until next year. 🙂 Happy writing!
Some belated Fathers’ Day love for my two favorite vampire daddies. Vaddies?
From An Unexpected Addition, a short story included in Family Matters as bonus content.
~*~*~*~
For a couple of vampires who had learned, sometimes begrudgingly, to make use of all the modern conveniences that the world now had to offer, Dominic and Jacob were quickly discovering that diapers were one of the most frustrating modern conveniences of all.
(more…)When it comes to creating stories, I think I spend more time coming up with character names than any other step in the process. I even remember having one of those baby name books back in the day for the sole purpose of having ideas for character names. And while I’m hardly naĂŻve enough to think that every single one of my characters’ names are original, sometimes I do think I might be a little bit in the clear with some of them. Except apparently not.
I loved the movie Mulholland Drive. It was mysterious and creepy and lovely, the kind of movie that was stuck in my head for days after I first watched it 20+ years ago. A few weeks ago, I decided to read the TV Tropes pages for it (something I’ll occasionally do for movies as opposed to rewatching them), and it was there that I realized that a fictional Vincenzo Castigliane existed well before I named my Vincenzo Castigliane.
I totally remember Dan Hedaya’s character, and I remember that scene. But if you had asked me his character’s name before I read that TV Tropes entry, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. And yet, deep in the pit of my subconscious, I must have decided that Vincenzo Castigliane was an awesome name. And, I mean, it really is. Also, this Vincenzo probably hasn’t done half the terrible things that my Vincenzo has done… maybe.
Anyway, hi there. Two Princes is coming along nicely. In a perfect world, I’d have it done by the end of this month. Realistically, I’m aiming to have it done by the end of next month, though that might depend on whether or not I decide to pause writing it to work on a short story for Father’s Day. I want to write all the things. I just wish I had all the time.
Until next time.
“The world was a different place when I was turned. For all I knew, it was never going to change. I would have rather died than spend the rest of existence as someone’s property.” ~ Jacob, Family Matters
“Did you know they all cheered with every single lash? My punishment was very entertaining, apparently. I guess it’s a good thing they didn’t hang me. The show would’ve been over much quicker.” ~ Jacob, Scars from the Past (a Family Matters bonus story)
Today I was thinking about my fictional character, who was partially inspired by a very real person.
While his past as a slave isn’t a primary focus of the series, it is something that I wanted to acknowledge. And while he is, perhaps oddly enough, one of the most well-adjusted characters overall, he is still occasionally affected by his past trauma, as evidenced by the fact that after two centuries, he still cringes whenever his partner touches his scarred back.
I was thinking about this because there are those who would say that slaves didn’t have it all that bad. There are also those who would rather erase that time in our history altogether. And that, friends, is all the bullshit.
Anyway, I have to be up in six hours. Have a great day, and a fantastic Black History Month. And always remember what they want you to forget.
“How long have you and Michael been together?” Denny asked after the server left.
“One month.”
“That’s not long.”
“It is for me,” Xan said. “Before Michael, I was pretty… open.”
“Open-minded?”
“Open-legged.”
The Rising Son is now available.
My Published Works page has been updated.
It’s 6am. That was the best I could do.
The Rising Son has been submitted to D2D and will be added to the Published Works page once digital and print options become available. Now I can finally focus my full attention on #3, Two Princes. I really can’t wait to get to where the story is going. It’s tempting to wish that I could write full-time, but I also know that if I didn’t have my day job, I would just spend most of my free time gaming and napping and thinking about writing. Plus I would be considerably poorer.
I really intended to avoid doing all the social media writer stuff, but that Bluesky seems like an okay place. More importantly, a safe place. I’ll update when I get around to creating an account.
That’s all for now. I’m off to bed in the hopes that we’re not buried in snow when I wake up. At least not more than we already are. If any of you are also in Northeast PA, stay warm and stay safe.
Coming soon.
Tuck loves that song. If you don’t know who my favorite gum-chewing vampire is, you can meet him here:
Ebook and paperback versions now available.
All that being said, I’m very happy with how this turned out. Using Draft2Digital was shockingly easy, and it makes me really grateful for how far self-publishing has come over the years (for those of you who may have been around long enough to remember things like the Small Publisher’s Co-op back in the day). I’m hoping to have The Rising Son (#2) republished within the next few weeks, and after that, I can fully focus on finishing Two Princes (#3) and Freeroll (part 1 is available here but not forever).
I love it when a plan comes together. Okay, yeah, that’s from The A-Team, but it still applies.
I really love being in “the zone” when I’m working on a story. The problem is that I forget to do little things like sleep. Who has time for that when there’s creating to be done? Back when I originally wrote Family Matters, I was lucky if I got 3-4 hours of sleep a night, in addition to working a day job. But I just couldn’t turn off my brain. My entire existence was writing that story. And I was perfectly okay with that… except that one time I had a little bout of microsleep while I was driving home from work and, during those few seconds, dreamt about Philip Seymour Hoffman being naked and covered in gold paint for some reason. I have no idea where that came from; maybe my brain decided to give me one of the weirdest mini-dreams ever as a reminder to get some damn sleep before I wake up in a ditch. At best.
So now I’m determined to get more sleep while I’m working on a story. Maybe not tonight, because it’s almost 6am right now, but eventually.
The revised Family Matters, complete with a bunch of bonus content, is in the hands of my formatter now (@arkonna at Fiverr, who has been exceedingly awesome with my previous stories), and as soon as they’re done working their magic, I’ll be publishing it. Stay tuned.
But first, sleep.
C. L. Ingro 