Starting All Over Again
On December 8th, the sixth book of the saga will release.
The problem with writing a serial saga, as opposed to a series of stand alone books, is that people will be lost if they don’t start at the beginning with Book #1. At the very least, the reader’s enjoyment will be compromised if all the details and characters aren’t understood with the depth and complexity intended. That’s the downside.
The upside is that there is an exquisite pleasure in an ongoing story that is not available in loosely related novels. It’s swimming in the deep end instead of always standing in thigh deep water. The overarching story available to the author of saga allows for an experience of total submersion that the short starts and stops of individual novels can’t aspire to. It’s SO satisfying to write. I’m these characters’ number one fan.
Initiation into this experiment in paranormal romance begins at the beginning
…with My Familiar Stranger, the first book which is “perma-free” and available everywhere. So, regardless of my excitement about the latest installment release, it all comes back to the beginning.
Interview with Ram #2
An Update with Rammel Hawking
by Victoria Danann
me: Sir Hawking, it’s such a pleasure to interview you again. A lot has happened since the last time we talked.
Ram: Aye. Some good. Some bad.
me: Yes. Well, that’s life.
Ram: No. ‘Tis no’ life. ‘Tis commercial fiction that has us runnin’ all over the Western world barely recoverin’ from one horrendous injury before you have us doin’ bleedin’ sheet time again. And, when I say “bleedin'”, ’tis meant literally.
me: Yes. I know, but let’s focus on the great things that have happened. You’ve been inducted into the Hall of Heroes. You’ve got a beautiful, healthy, charismatic baby boy…
Ram: I’m no’ complainin’ about Helm and you know it. He’s bloomin’ perfection. ‘Tis the hero thin’ that turned out dubious because now my wife thinks I should conduct myself with a certain decorum befittin’ the honor. Great Paddy.
me: She’s very proud of you.
Ram: (He smiles.)
me: See? Your life isn’t so bad.
Ram: It has its moments. But you’re always trickin’ us into believin’ we’re doin’ one thin’ and then you sprin’ somethin’ entirely different on us and we’re goin’ in a bloody different direction. We never have a chance to decide if we’re comin’ or goin’.
me: Give me an example.
Ram: You think I can no’ come up with one? Right off the top of my head? How ’bout this? You led us to believe we were retirin’. Gonna enjoy life! Fruit of the vine and all that. So I’m busy bustin’ hump to get Elora’s dream home finished before the baby comes. Matter of fact that’s where I was when she was bein’ attacked by fuckers from her dimension of origin.
me: (I have to laugh.) Dimension of origin?
Ram: Aye. You have a problem with me callin’ it that, Mistress?
me: No. Not at all. It’s just that the phrase “dimension of origin” seems so politically correct and academic. I guess I wouldn’t have had you say that because I would have thought it was out of character.
Ram: (Scowls.) You think I’m no’ bright?
me: Of course I don’t think that! You wouldn’t have made it through Black Swan training if you weren’t smart.
Ram: (Nods) Exactly right. In the future, if you’re wantin’ to know what is or is no’ in “character” for me, then just ask me. ‘Tis what you should have been doin’ all along anyhow.
me: Quite right. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.
Ram: Because your vanity does no’ have limits.
me: Did you enjoy that?
Ram: (grins)
me: Okay. If it makes you feel better to say such things to me, go ahead.
Ram: Well, if you’re serious, I have quite a lengthy list of thin’s I’d like to say to you.
me: (My turn to show him a third finger.)
Ram: (grins)
me: This might be a good time to switch topics. You’ve collected quite a fan base since the last time we talked.
Ram: Really?
me: Yes. You’re the focus of nocturnal fantasies for a growing chunk of the fairer sex.
Ram: Fairer sex, is it? I do no’ believe women are especially fair. Selfish or self-involved maybe.
me: No, Ram. The expression doesn’t mean fairness as in justice. It means the prettier sex.
Ram: Duh! It was a joke!
me: Well, forgive me a moment of being uncharacteristically dense.
Ram: (Laughs and shakes his head.) You probably think bein’ dense is “out of character” for you.
me: (blink, blink) What does that mean?
Ram: Have you seriously never considered that you may be just one of the characters in this story? ‘Tis your job to play the spy who lurks and journals on what those of us with real lives say and do.
me: Is that what you think?
Ram: (smiles) Nah. I’m just fuckin’ with you.
me: Okay. Back to your fans…
Ram: Look. I do no’ want to seem rude or unnecessarily conceited, but attractin’ the fairer sex has never been a problem for me. ‘Tis no’ very surprisin’ that some would like to picture themselves in my mate’s position. (He chuckles.) Or maybe I should say positions.
me: Hmmm. No doubt. Well, let’s wrap this up. Why don’t you tell me where you see yourself in five years.
Ram: (narrows his eyes) ‘Tis a trick? I tell you what I’d like so you can make sure it does no’ happen?
me: You know it truly hurts that you think I’m so devious. Of course I want to see you get your happily ever after.
Ram: If I’m feelin’ distrustful of you, ’tis entirely your own fault. Reapin’ what you sow, you know.
me: Okay.
Ram: I’d like us to be home on the farm, feeling safe and secure, raising elfren and Alsatian dogs. I want my mate happy every second of every day. She deserves it.
me: I’ll see what I can do.
5/25/2013 Moonlight Release
An Interview with Deliverance
An Interview with Deliverance
Victoria: Thank you for taking the time to give an interview. Your fans will be happy to hear from you.
Deliverance: Of course they will. What a shame I can’t give them all an ‘interview’ (air quotes) in person.
Victoria: Yes, well, they’d love that, I’m sure.
Deliverance: They would. (smiles) Guaranteed.
Victoria: (sigh) Whatever.
Deliverance: (frowns) I don’t get it. Why don’t you like me?
Victoria: What makes you think I don’t like you?
Deliverance: (smirks) The way I know how to read women, what do you think are your chances of hiding your feelings from me? Take, for instance, the way you keep clenching your teeth between questions.
Victoria: (I try to relax my jaw.) Just pre-release day stress. Nothing to do with you.
Deliverance: Bull. Shit. (says it in a very metrosexual sing song way)
Victoria: Fine. Let’s start with this. Disrespect. You’ve come to my interview wearing nothing but doeskin pants, which look incredibly soft and comfortable and luxurious by the way. You don’t even have on shoes.
Deliverance: (looks at his feet and admires his stretching toes) Is there something wrong with my feet?
Victoria: No, demon. Even your feet are beautiful. You know it. I know it. (He smiles wickedly.) That’s not the point.
Deliverance: It’s not?
Victoria: No.
Deliverance: Well, I didn’t know this was a no shirts, no shoes, no shit interview.
Victoria: It’s not! Obviously. Since I’m talking to you.
Deliverance: If we agree that my feet are nice to look at, then why would I want to cover them up?
Victoria: Why are you wearing pants?
Deliverance: Because I get too much of the wrong kind of attention in your dimension if I display the uncensored version of glory. But since it’s just the two of us… (stands and reaches for his waistband)
Victoria: Stop right there! I’m a married woman.
Deliverance: (stares before throwing his head back to laugh) And you think most of my fuel isn’t provided courtesy of married women? You still haven’t given me a reason why you don’t like me. (sits, pants on)
Victoria: Because I pride myself on multifaceted characters and you’re pretty close to one-dimensional.
Deliverance: One-dimensional Funny.
Victoria: (grins) It was. It is. I need to make a note and use that in a book. (I look around for something to write on.)
Deliverance: I’m not one-dimensional. I have a family.
Victoria: That’s the only thing that keeps you from being completely one-dimensional. Except for that, your entire existence is nothing but sex.
Deliverance: What’s wrong with that?
Victoria: What’s wrong with that is – sex is not everything!
Deliverance: If I put you someplace where there’s no food for two days and then ask if food is everything to you, my bet is you’d say yes.
Victoria: Okay. You have a point there. I’ll give you that. But that’s not all. There’s the fact that you are completely self-absorbed and as irresponsible as a fifteen year old. It’s a waste of eight hundred years.
Deliverance: (laughs) Okay. I get it. You hate me because I’m beautiful, live for sex, never age, and may live forever. You’re jealous!
Victoria: I am not!
Deliverance: Are too.
Victoria: Not!
Deliverance: Look. You’re holding the pen. You don’t like me like I am. Write me different.
Victoria: (pouting)
Deliverance: So. Are you gonna do that?
Victoria: No.
Deliverance: (smiles) Fine. Then let’s move on to something more pleasant.
9/19/2013 Gathering Storm Release Day
Interview with Ram #3
An Interview with Ram
Victoria: Well, Sir Hawking. Always a pleasure.
Ram: So you say.
Victoria: Come on. For once could we just have a quiet and cordial conversation? Can I make you tea?
Ram: (slouches in chair and gives me a look of incredulity, which is distracting because the slouch posture is very sexy and I’m supposed to be concentrating on the interview and not another woman’s husband) ‘Tis your best plan for makin’ up to me? Fuckin’ tea?
Victoria: Well, uh, I can’t say that I actually had a plan per se. Did you have something else in mind? Something you wanted?
Ram: You know perfectly well what I want.
Victoria: I know it probably seems that way, but it’s not entirely true. I suspect that you want to go back to your little bit of Irish heaven with Elora, Helm, and Blackie and raise Alsatian dogs in quiet familial bliss.
Ram: Could no’ have said it better myself. Like I said, you know perfectly well what the fuck I want.
Victoria: Yes, but are you sure? I mean you lived a pretty tumultuous life as a vampire slayer. You’re the most celebrated Black Swan knight of the last hundred years. That’s a lot of excitement to trade in for life on the farm.
Ram: Aye. And I can no’ wait to be doin’ precisely that. You, mistress, have the power to make that happen with a simple stroke of the pen. Or click of the keyboard or whatever.
Victoria: I could, but here’s the thing. I saw the little smile and the dark twinkle in your eyes when I was just talking about you as legendary hunter. I know you love the recognition. Remember how you felt when Elora gushed all over you, repeatedly. “Oh, Ram, your portrait is so handsome, your beauty captured for all time here, where you belong, in the Hall of Heroes. You’re perfection personified. So special, so unique, unlike any other.” (I delivered this paraphrase in an exaggerated mock-Elora voice.)
Ram: (laughing) Aye, you have me there, mistress. Who would no’ fuckin’ crave hearin’ such thin’s from his beautiful mate?
Victoria: Everyone longs for that sort of attention, Ram. The point is that you don’t get that sort of attention down home on the farm.
Ram: Perhaps ‘no. But as was pointed out in Book Five in a tussle over whether or no’ Storm and I would be playin’ rugby, I’m no’ gettin’ younger. Will you be gettin’ me sliced up in bar fights when I’m ninety then? Give the others their fair chance at sheet time.
Victoria: But you’re my favorite, Ram.
Ram: (gaping) And bein’ your favorite means always bein’ one fuckin’ step away from catastrophe?
Victoria: Well… yes. Fact is, slogging about in Wellies feeding chickens and watering wolf-dogs is not novel-worthy because, well, because it’s not novel.
Ram: For the moment, let’s be leavin’ me out o’ the discussion. What about my wife? The injuries you’ve visited on me are paper cuts next to what you do to her. Great Paddy in the Mornin’. The way you punish her is beyond… (stops abruptly, narrows eyes, then pins me with a glare) So I’m your favorite, am I? Are you jealous of my wife?
Victoria: What? Of course not!
Ram: Jealous enough to be punishin’ her in unspeakable ways?
Victoria: No! Ram! Do you hear yourself? That’s crazy talk.
Ram: Oh? ‘Twas you who’s so fond o’ sayin’ the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. And that is, without a doubt, the simplest explanation.
Victoria: This is an exception to that rule.
Ram: After everythin’ she went through to reach my world, you would think a writer with heart would be seekin’ to brin’ her only happiness.
Victoria: Again, happiness without incident? Not interesting.
Ram: Cold-hearted bitch. Tell your husband I said ‘tis unbelievable you snagged a mate.
Victoria: If that was true, the cold-hearted bitch part, shouldn’t you be trying to suck up to me instead of insulting me?
Ram: Well, then I would no’ be the hot-blooded rash personality you’re so hot for, would I?
Victoria: (nothing to say to that)
Ram: So here’s my proposition. If you want me to continue cooperatin’ with your farfetched ridiculous pain-in-the-ass stories that no one in their right mind would be believin’, which – by the way – says quite a lo’ about your readers, then you will lay off my wife. AND my child.
Victoria: First, my readers are perfectly sane. They have excellent taste in literature and marvelous creative imaginations.
Ram: (smirks)
Victoria: You may be my favorite, at least you were before this interview, but the Black Swan saga is Elora’s story. I can’t make promises about the entire future of the tale, but I can promise you that Elora and Helm pass through Book Six without injury. How’s that?
Ram: (considers) How ‘bout me?
Victoria: (seeing the opportunity for pay back, smiles wickedly) You, my love, will have to wait and see.
Ram: Paddy.
Victoria: Exactly.
9/19/2013 RELEASE DAY GATHERING STORM
MUSIC FROM GATHERING STORM
The Attack on J.U. Playlist.
Music from Spazmodoc, The Voice of the Fray.
1. DANCE HALL DAYS (Wang Chung)
2. STAYIN’ ALIVE (BeeGees)
3. HANGIN’ TOUGH (New Kids on the Block)
4. MAMA TOLD ME NOT TO COME (Three Dog Night)
5. LOSING MY RELIGION (Scary Kids Scaring Kids)
6. SHOOT TO THRILL (AC/DC)
THE GREAT EQUINOX FALL RELEASE HOP
WE HAVE WINNERS!
LISA HIGH and SALENA HARTSELL SMITH
Hello and Welcome to my stop on The Great Fall Equinox Release Day Hop!! I am sponsoring this Blog Hop to celebrate the release of Gathering Storm, September 19th.
LISTOPIA One More Chapter’s Top Books of September 
