Stand-Alones and Sequels and Series, Oh My!

But first, a word from our sponsor. Take a gander at that cover up there. Ain’t it purty? That’s my new ménage, Jessalina’s Pets, and it’ll be out around the end of August. If you’d like a peek at the blog post and photos that inspired the book, just follow the link right here. The story was almost a standard M/F, but that photo of Jensen Ackles practically forced me to add the second hero. Fin’s whole personality is right there in that pic. I probably owe Jensen money.

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Right now I’m in my finished-a-book-and-floundering-around phase, while I sift through ideas and abandoned WIPs in search of the one that grabs me. I could save myself a ton of anguish if I’d just write a series. Then there’d be no question which book was coming next. I’ve got a number of series ideas, and I’ve always been infected with sequelitis. Plus Siren loves series. (Serieses?) I could put together a bunch of characters and a multi-book story arc and fill up my dance card for months.

And yet, I’m pretty sure my next book will end up as another stand-alone.

That’s pretty much how my mind works. I’m always primed for the next new idea. It hits and I run with it. I finish the book. Then something in the book sparks ideas for a sequel, or sometimes a number of sequels. I’ve even written a couple. However, I draw the line at calling these a series. My version of a series is a bunch of stand-alone sequels strung together by a common thread. Read one, read several, read ‘em in any order, it doesn’t make a difference because each book is a world unto itself, with no dangling threads left behind. Even if you come in on the middle, you’ll still get a satisfying read.

What do I consider a true series? Something like Harry Potter or Stephen King’s Dark Tower. The books can each be read on their own, but read in order, one after the other, they tell a single massive story. I had one of those planned out years ago, with a beginning, middle and end. Unfortunately for me, I’m a slow writer, and the first book never got off the ground. I still have all the notes and huge chunks of prose in my closet. Maybe I’ll get back to it someday.

Sequels are easier. Legacy happened because I couldn’t let go of the characters from Belonging. There’s still a third book sitting in the back of my brain, waiting for the plot to gel. I’ve also written a YA offshoot, and I could at some point write the book that wraps up their story for good. Would that make it a series? There’d be more than three books involved, so that lets out a trilogy, and it would tell a single big story. I just feel like a true series should be more than four books and a sidebar. How many “(Whatever) in Death” books has Nora Roberts/J. D. Robb written? Now there’s a series for you.

That’s the other definition of series: a bunch of books connected by a common cast of characters or background, overarching story arc optional. I could probably do one of those. Like I said, I’ve had ideas. The shapeshifters who work at the seaside bar, finding love at the Jersey Shore. The family of cowboy vampire hunters (which also grew out of Belonging. Annie Stanton, nee Colt, is a former slayer, the boys’ aunt, and the one who trained them. Sequels just seem to happen to me). The multi-book story of the alien invasion, with people finding love along the way. That one’s closest to my idea of what a “true” series should be. I’ve already got some vague ideas and characters. All I need are some solid plots and I’d be set for months.

More like years, or decades. I write really slow. I think that’s the real reason I haven’t committed myself to a series. Once I start the stupid thing, it would take me forever. I’m not one of those writers who pops out a new book every month. I wish I was. I could write five or six series at the same time and make a decent living at this. At least a better one than what I’ve got right now.

Until I get the self-discipline in gear, looks like I’m stuck with stand-alones. And sequels, which are basically stand-alones inspired by a previous book. If I do enough of those, I suppose I could call it a series, after a decade or so.

At the moment I’m toying with ideas for sequels to Jessalina’s Pets. I left the villain in a bad state. Yeah, he was a dick, but he also looks like Ian Somerhalder. I want to write a book about him so I can have that image in my head. Then there’s the guy whose shapeshifter breed is practically extinct and the threesome’s plans to rectify that, which is going to require new female characters and a lot of sex scenes. If I write these, I still won’t have a series, but maybe I can squeeze out a trilogy. I want to see how sales for the first one go before I commit myself.

In the meantime, I’m still working through my list of WIPs, all of which are stand-alones. For now. My sequelitis might kick in, or I might end up with an accidental series after all. Hey, it’s writing. Anything is possible.

Bits 'n' Pieces

Random stuff to fill out the blog for a Thursday …

We’ll start with the unintentional shout-out Supernatural gave to my book Belonging on Tuesday. It’s the story of a vampire (played in my mind-movie by Jensen) and his human lover (as portrayed by Jared). In his human days the vampire was a slayer on an Oz-themed team; his street name was the Tin Man. His pet name for his lover is Scarecrow. Well, the recent ep had its own Oz theme. Imagine my surprise when the demon Crowley referred to Sam and Dean as the Scarecrow and the Tin Man. Nyah, nyah, I was there first, a couple years and a M/M/F sequel ago. The King of Hell needs to catch up on his M/M reading. You can read a stand-alone scene involving these characters here on this blog (“Origin Story,” 6/27/13). I'd make it a link but I don't know how. Damn computer age!

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I see some head-scratching among the newbies. Those initials up there, M/M, etc. What’s that mean? That’s the secret code of romance writers, especially in the erotica subgenre. Okay, it’s not really all that secret, but it can get a bit confusing.

These letters are a guide to readers as to what kind of relationships they can expect in their reading experience. M/F is the traditional boy-and-girl, or Male/Female. Two guys is M/M, or Male/Male, and F/F is Female/Female. It’s when you start getting into multiples that things get tricky. M/F/M is two dudes and a chick, but the dudes have no romantic entanglement. M/M/F is two dudes in a relationship who branch out by adding a chick. If the men in the M/F/M are brothers, you need to specify there’s no sexual contact between the men during the deed, because that’s incest and largely frowned upon except in fan fiction. In an M/M/F the boys can have their own sex scene as well as romps with the lady. It helps if you warn the reader beforehand. Just label it M/M/F with M/M elements.

Similarly, F/M/F would be one man with two women (lucky him), but the ladies aren’t into each other, whereas in a F/F/M they would be (again, lucky him). I’ve never heard of a M/F/F, but I’m guessing there must be one somewhere. I recently learned there’s such a thing as F/M/M, a dominant female with two or more men in her harem. Good thing, because I wrote a flash scene (“Double Dipping”, 10/9/13) that, if I decide to expand it into a story, would fall into that category. I didn’t even know it was a category, but apparently some publishers do run stories with the chick in charge. If mine makes it to full length, it’ll be F/M/M with M/M elements, because the guys get horny and she has to sleep sometime. I don’t know how a woman in a M/F/M/M/M/M/M survives to the end of the book.

On the same writing forum where I learned about F/M/M, I asked why the “M” always comes first, when most of these books are about the woman and are aimed at female readers. I was told the first letter signifies the dominant partner. Since that’s usually the guy, he comes first. I was also told a lower-case m or f signifies a subordinate or submissive partner. This is why dom/sub labels are written D/s and not D/S. Since the two guys in my maybe-book up there are the woman’s legal slaves, I suppose I could write it F/m/m, though it’s more slaves in name only by the end. Something tells me M/f (dominant male, submissive female) isn’t popular, but if you make him a Dom and her a willing sub you can probably get away with it.

As more genres get mixed in with erotic romance, we’re liable to see M/F/N (male, female, neuter) or F/M/B (female, male, bi). Or, if you’re into science fiction, M/F/WTF. That one should be interesting. I’d better bone up on my alphabet.

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Here’s another term you might run across: mpreg. That’s male pregnancy, and you can thank fanfic writers for that. It’s a way for your two lovely boys to experience the joy of parenthood without involving a woman and her icky girl cooties. It helps if one of the partners is an alien or knows magic or something, because the last time I checked human men don’t have a uterus or a birth canal, which would make gestation and labor pretty messy. Pouches are one alternative if you don’t want to give your hero a womb. On the TV show Alien Nation, not only did the woman have to be fertilized by a third party before she could conceive with her mate, but toward the end of the pregnancy she transferred the fetus to the man’s pouch and he carried the kid until birth. If your main character’s dating a seahorse shifter, you could end up with one of these stories. I’d love to see their medical textbooks, or sit in on a sex-ed class.

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Speaking of reproduction, a stray cat in our neighborhood has been raising her two kittens under the guy on the corner’s shed. Fortunately we’re in a semi-rural area, and the local farmers always welcome outdoor cats to keep the rodents out of the feed. Mom and her brood are already assured of a home and all the mice they can hunt. Now we just have to catch them. And how is your week going?

Origin Story

Basic rule of blogging: if you can’t come up with a topic, write a flash. Today’s post is a bridge scene between the end of my M/M/F ménage, Legacy, and my YA spinoff Slayer for Hire, as the hero of Slayer makes his first-ever appearance.

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“Here we go,” Annie said. “Show time.”

“About damn time,” Colleen growled. She knew her full attention should have been focused on birthing her third child, but she found her awareness split between her contractions and the window, and the soon-to-rise sun beyond it. Babies came when they came, with no regard for arbitrary adult schedules. Least of all a vampire’s.

Wallace crowded against the narrow bed, both his hands gripping one of Colleen’s. Like her, he nervously watched the window as well as her efforts. Colleen was only half vampire and could withstand the sun, but its rays meant death for him. Nevertheless she knew he’d risk it to stay by her side until their child entered the world. The stubborn bastard.

Del had been a daylight baby too. Wallace had toughed it out, swaddled in a hooded robe and dark glasses, until he could hold their newborn son in his arms. Dina had been more accommodating; she’d arrived in the dead of night, daddy’s girl from the start. This one seemed intent on making his debut with the dawn, and it looked like his intentions were going to trump his parents’.

Colleen bore down with all her impressive vampire strength. Still the little prick refused to come out. Oh great, yet another hard-headed addition to the flock. Didn’t they have enough of those already?

As always, Jeremy took quick action to protect his beloved vampires. He pried Colleen’s other hand from around his wrist and went to the window to draw the blinds and curtains. On his return route he detoured to the bedroom closet for an extra blanket, which he handed to Wallace. “Wrap yourself in this. I think that window faces north anyway, but no point in taking chances. Annie?”

“North or northwest, I’m not sure,” Annie said from between Colleen’s legs. “C’mon, sonny boy, you’re holding up the show. Not to mention your daddy’s bedtime.”

“You’re not sure?” Wallace squeaked. “It’s your house.”

“You could have done this at your place, y’know. I’ve brought babies into the world in stranger places than a vampire’s lair.”

“I didn’t tell my water to break in the middle of dinner,” Colleen snapped. Her hand clamped around Wallace’s. “Sorry. I thought I had at least two weeks to go. And now, after all this, the little shit doesn’t want to come out after all.”

“Can’t blame him there,” Wallace said. “I like to stay buried inside you too.”

Jeremy grinned. “Same here.”

Colleen squeezed both their hands. Wallace, with his superhuman strength, took her grip in stride. “Ow!” human Jeremy yelped. “What are you punishing me for? I’m not the one who got you pregnant.”

“It’s not punishment,” Colleen gasped between pants. “He must have heard you. He’s on his way.”

The baby crowned just as the sun rose. Wallace snarled at the window, but didn’t budge from her bedside. Jeremy angled his body to block any stray rays of sunlight from Wallace.

“Atta girl,” Annie said. “One more push—”

After all the contractions, the bother and the drama, the baby arrived just like his siblings, quickly and with very little pain. The advantages of a half-vampiric physiology. Annie cut the cord with expert precision. Colleen expelled the afterbirth with a tiny grunt. Wallace grunted too, as the smell of fresh hot blood attacked his nostrils. “You okay?” Jeremy said.

“I’m good.” Wallace rubbed his nose. “How about you, sweetheart?”

Colleen struggled upright, already reaching out. “How’s the baby?”

“Fine and dandy,” Annie said. “You’ve got yourself another healthy boy. How much vampire? Too soon to say. We’ll know more when his teeth come in.” She brought the baby, now cleaned up and wrapped in a blanket, over to the bed. “Here you go, pardner. Say howdy to your mom and dad.”

Colleen took the baby and cradled him close. He wriggled against her, curious, already trying to smile. Such a perfect little thing. Big dark eyes and little wiggly fingers and toes and features that could have been anybody’s. Both Del and Dina favored their father. She wondered if their newest brother would follow suit.

But something was off, just a hair. He didn’t smell the same as Del and Dina had when they’d been born. Colleen fought a surge of alarm. It wasn’t a wrong or sick odor, just different. More like … she couldn’t put her finger on it.

She turned to Wallace and noticed his nostrils working. He’d picked up on it too. His elated smile dimmed for a second before it shifted into another direction.

Attuned to them both, Jeremy asked worriedly, “Was is it? What’s wrong? Is the baby okay?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” Wallace said with an odd half-grin. “You want to hold him, scarecrow?”

“His father should take a turn first.”

“Exactly.” Wallace’s grin widened until his fangs showed, but not in a threatening way. “I don’t know how you pulled it off, scarecrow, but this one’s yours.”

“What?” Jeremy stared down at the baby in Colleen’s protective arms, then up at Wallace. “No.”

“This says yes.” Wallace tapped his nose, still grinning like a manic jack o’lantern. “His scent’s too human. Del and Dina’s blood smelled like mine. His doesn’t. Congratulations, scarecrow. You’re a daddy.”

“But—no. How did that happen?”

“You don’t know?” Annie said. “Here’s how it works. The man sticks his poker up the lady’s chimney, and nine months later a baby shows up. Stop me if the terms get too technical.”

“That isn’t what I meant. I meant, he can’t be mine. I’m human. I can’t get Colleen pregnant. Colleen, tell them.”

“He’s right.” Colleen tenderly brushed the dark fuzz on her new son’s perfect little head, drinking in his scent. “Wallace is right. That’s what’s different about him.” She looked up at Jeremy, smiling. “He smells just like you.”

“Good, strong heartbeat,” Wallace added. “More times a minute than the other two. Look at you.” Wallace chuckled and tweaked a fold of the baby’s blanket. “Snuggled up in your mama’s arms like you never want to leave. That how you got here?”

Annie speared a look at Jeremy. “You two weren’t using protection?”

“I didn’t think we needed to,” Jeremy said testily. “Colleen was genetically designed to breed vampire children. She can’t have babies with humans.”

“You’ve been taking doses of my blood,” Colleen pointed out. “Wallace’s too. Maybe it was enough.”

“That and the non-stop sex,” Wallace said. “You two go at it like rabbits while I’m asleep. I can smell you all over the house. Looks like you got the ammo, Fertile Freddy. Maybe I should start using protection.”

“Stop it,” Jeremy snarled. “Just—”

The baby gurgled and yawned. Jeremy automatically glanced down. The look of longing, of hope that flashed across his face nearly broke Colleen’s heart.

Annie came up behind him and squeezed his shoulder. “There are ways to check,” she said. “I know discrete people. The kind who won’t ask questions if something funny pops up in the baby’s DNA.”

“Or we can just wait about fifteen years,” Wallace said. “When he shoots up to seven feet tall, we’ll know for sure.”

“You really think it’s possible?” Jeremy asked softly. “You’re not angry?”

Wallace leaned across the bed, Colleen and the newborn to catch Jeremy by the back of the head and draw him in for a powerful kiss. “How could I be angry? This is the life I wanted for you. Fussing over your girl and your kid instead of over a cranky bat. C’mon, I’ve seen how you are with our kids. If ever a man was born to be a mom, it’s you.”

Colleen pressed Jeremy’s hand. “Would you like to hold your son?”

Jeremy didn’t move, so Annie accepted the baby from Colleen and handed him to his father. Jeremy’s hands shook. It wasn’t nervousness. He’d had plenty of experience with her and Wallace’s children. Maybe more; their children were active in daylight. She knew what brought on the trembling. Her own emotions trembled as she watched one of the two men she adored fall head over heels for the tiny life he now held in his arms.

“Any ideas for a name?” Annie asked. “Or would you rather wait a little bit and let it all sink in?”

“Colleen and I had a few ideas,” Wallace said. “Back when we thought I was the one who hit the moving target.”

“We’re not calling him Ghidrah,” Colleen said firmly. “And I’m not letting you watch those movies any more. What about Matthew?” she added to Jeremy. “Wasn’t that your father’s name?”

“Um?” Jeremy stirred briefly out of his fatherhood trance. “I don’t even remember my father.”

Wallace snickered. “Bet you remember this.”

“I doubt if I’ll ever forget.” He smiled down at the baby. The baby sort of smiled back. “Hey, Matt. Welcome to the flock.”

“And on that note,” Annie said, “Mommy needs a break. Scoot, fellahs. We’ll take it from here.”

“I’m staying,” Jeremy announced. “Until Colleen kicks me out.”

“But I can’t,” Wallace said. He winced in the direction of the window. With a sigh of a growl he kissed Colleen, then Jeremy, then the baby, and finally Annie. “Gotta go. See you folks tonight.”

But he didn’t leave, not at once. He paused in the bedroom doorway. Jeremy perched on the edge of the bed, one arm around Colleen, the other around their child. All three looked so beautiful, so happy. So alive.

The vampire’s heart beat. Just for a minute, a series of powerful thumps. Then he wrenched himself away and sped downstairs, to the windowless room in the basement that would protect him until nightfall, when he could rejoin his family.

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For the rest of the story, both the threesome’s and Matt’s, check out my page on Amazon (www.amazon.com/Pat-Cunningham/e/B005EMOBF4/ref=sr_tc_ep?qid=1311881989). There’s other stuff on there too, like shapeshifters and gay superheroes. Something for everyone.

The Book I Won't Be Writing

I didn’t mean to write a series. Belonging was supposed to be a stand-alone. However, my sequelitis kicked in, and before you know it, there was Legacy. That book sparked my spin-off, the upcoming Slayer for Hire, involving my threesome’s children. Preacher’s book is sitting in limbo right now, waiting for the plot to gel, and I’ve got an idea involving Wallace’s daughter Dina, who co-stars in Slayer for Hire.

I suppose these two books will get written eventually. I love the characters, and the ideas just keep coming. I can’t let go of them yet. I want to keep it going. As long as I keep coming up with plots and publishers keep showing interest, I suppose I can squeeze another couple stories out of these people.

But there’s one story I don’t think I could write, even though I recently figured out a way to give it an HEA. That’s the wrap-up, the grand finale. For lack of a better word, the end.

There’s a huge elephant in this family’s room, one they (and I) have been trying not to deal with. There’s Wallace the vampire, his human lover Jeremy, their half-vampire lover Colleen, and the kids. So far, so good. Here’s the problem: everybody except Wallace is mortal, or partially mortal. Nobody wants to be turned. They’re content with their mortality and everything it means.

What it means is, Wallace’s family—his partners, his children, everyone he loves—will eventually grow old and die. Sooner or later, inevitably, even the kids will be gone, and immortal Wallace will have to go on without them. The only ending I could imagine involved Wallace walking into the sunlight. That’s something I, as these people’s “mother,” just don’t want to face.

Luckily for me, though not necessarily for one of the other characters, my subconscious couldn’t take it either and came up with a workable solution. It involves someone we haven’t seen for awhile: Shayla, the adopted daughter of Gus and Annie Stanton.

Don’t get your squick in an uproar. Shayla’s not the five-year-old we last saw in Legacy. At least 25 years have passed since then (Jeremy’s son Matt is 22 in Slayer, and he has two older siblings). She’s had a full life in the interim, with relationships and jobs and possibly a failed marriage that didn’t produce any children (the reason why it failed?). She comes back to California to reconnect with her family, and walks right into peril.

At one point in the long-lost past, Gus and Annie were slayers. A vampire from that era returns to exact his revenge. However, since vampires don’t age, they don’t always have a firm grasp on the passage of time. This one finally gets his vengeful ass in gear 50 years too late. Natural causes have already done the job for him. Well, the vamp decides, if he can’t kill the slayers, he’ll replace the flock they staked, his family, with their family. He targets the Stantons’ children and grandchildren, starting with Shayla.

Wallace’s retaliation comes too late. The vampire’s already turned her.

Now Shayla’s joined the undead. There’s no cure. All Wallace and his family can do is take her in, and teach her how to be a vampire. Over the course of the following weeks, as Wallace and Shayla share vampire hunting and blood on the nighttime streets of Los Angeles, the inevitable happens.

It’s not as icky as it sounds. Like I said, this Shayla is a grown woman. She’s roughly the same age Wallace was when he got turned. She knows about her parents’ former vocation. She’s known for years Wallace is a vampire (his failure to age was a dead giveaway). She knows he’s the one who saved her from vampires when she was a child. She even had a crush on him in her teens, though nothing ever came of it. She grew up, left California, had a life, and came back. Now she’s undead and falling in love with a man she’s always admired. Wallace has always been fond of her too, and that fondness quickly grows.

So the threesome becomes a foursome, at least emotionally. (Adult or not, no way Jeremy’s sleeping with someone he remembers as the little girl he used to sing to sleep.) Colleen and Jeremy are good with it, even relieved. Now they can grow old together without guilt, knowing Wallace will have someone to look after him when their time finally comes. The new couple might even find a pretty young man they can share, and start the flock over again.

That’s my happy ending, but I don’t think I can write it. It’s enough for me to know I’m leaving Wallace and his family in a good place. There’s also the time factor to think about. I was able to fudge it with Slayer because it’s a different genre appearing under another publisher. There’s a 25-year gap between Legacy and Slayer, yet both appear to take place in the current now. Somebody’s bound to notice. Either that, or Matt and his siblings were born and matured within the space of a couple years. I know they did that in the final Twilight book, but I try to stay away from Twilight plots.

Maybe I can write the book, stick it in the closet for 10 to 15 years, then shop it around and hope the new generation of readers isn’t swift on math. Or just direct the curious to this blog. That’ll reassure any concerned readers, and save me a lot of time. Life goes on, even for vampires, especially when their creators are willing to twist time, space and logic to guarantee they get their HEA. I wish real life could be manipulated that easily. I’d be a whole lot richer and a whole lot thinner. Wouldn’t we all?

John Fogerty: A Cautionary Tale

Lately I find myself considering the case of John Fogerty. For those of you who weren’t born in the Middle Ages, Fogerty was a co-founder of Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of those oddly-named ‘60s bands your parents used to listen to (Strawberry Alarm Clock, anyone?). They had a slew of hits like “Proud Mary” and "Green River" and “Down on the Corner” and other songs with the words “swamp” and “bayou” in them. If you see the initials CCR, that’s who we’re talking about.

Anyway, the band had about five-six years of success, then broke up in the ‘70s. John moved on to a solo career. As happens with a lot of bands desperate for money, the rights to CCR’s songs, most of them written by John, were sold to someone else. And there’s where the fun begins.

John, in the course of his solo career, wrote a song called “The Old Man Down the Road.” The new owners of the CCR catalogue thought it sounded far too similar to “Run Through the Jungle”—also written by John. So they sued. Mr. Fogerty found himself in court, accused to plagiarizing himself.

What does this have to do with writing? Glad you asked. That YA book I’ve been blogging about grew out of two published novels, a M/M and its follow-up, a M/M/F. That’s a human man, a male vampire, and a vampire/human woman. I got wondering what their kids would be like, so I wrote about it. There’s where the problem enters in. Technically it’s a sequel of sorts to my published books. Maybe “spinoff” is more accurate.

At any rate, I’ve got this paragraph in my contract with my publisher. I understand it’s standard in most contracts. “B. If AUTHOR writes another WORK that is a sequel to the WORK covered in this contract, using an identical theme and/or major characters from the contracted WORK, PUBLISHER retains a right of first refusal for the subsequent WORK. If PUBLISHER does not accept for publication this additional WORK within ninety (90) days of submission, it will be considered refused and AUTHOR will be free to market rights to the new work without encumbrance.”

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. Having related (by characters or theme) books all come out from the same publisher makes sense from a marketing standpoint. If readers like one of the books, they know right where to go for the others. My problem is, I jumped genres. The first two books were erotic romances. The continuation is YA with no sex and a plot not focused on romance. It’s intended for a wholly different audience and age group. You don’t need to read the other two to understand what’s going on in the third. In fact, if you’re under 18, I’d rather you didn’t.

However, under the terms of my contract, does my current publisher (who doesn’t publish YA) have a claim on it? If I try to market it to YA publishers, am I in violation of contract? Am I in danger of becoming John Fogerty?

Fortunately this was easily resolved. I emailed the publisher and explained the situation. They agreed it wasn’t their cup of tea, in spite of its origins. The new book is intended for a different age group and audience, so there’s no conflict of interest. I’m free to market it to YA publishers, where it belongs.

Now, if I ever write the other sequel, the one about the secondary character from the other books, that’ll be a whole different situation. That one is a romance, possibly a steamy one, and even though it’s M/F it’s something that company publishes, and it’s using characters and themes taken directly from the previous books, and major characters from the first two make cameo appearances. In that case, right of first refusal would definitely kick in. I have no problem with that.

The moral of the story is, just because you created something doesn’t mean you’ll end up owning it. The minute contracts come into play and money changes hands it’s a whole new ballgame. In fact, the second there’s profit to be made is when the fun begins. Read those contracts carefully, have a lawyer go over them if necessary, and be careful what you’re selling and what rights you’re signing away. Both Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster have passed on, but I think their estates’ lawsuit against DC comics is still going on. (They sold all rights to Superman back in the ‘40s, I think. It was a comic book character. Who knew?)

Maybe I should have asked Paul McCartney to write this blog. He’d know what I’m talking about.

Okay, enough with the legal crap. Gotta write something no publisher has a stake in yet. I think I’ll listen to my “Best of CCR” album. On vinyl. Middle Ages, remember.

My Favorite Vampire

Thanks to Hurricane Sandy’s multi-day trip through the Northeast, I was able to spend half a week indoors typing up my longhand young adult manuscript (see blogs from September 6 and October 11). It looks like it’s going to come out to around 60,000 words, more or less, depending on how much I cut and how much I add in the final draft. I thought it would top out in the 45K range, so the length was a bit of a surprise.

I’m surprised I’m still writing about vampires. I thought my writing career would consist of lots of werewolf and shapeshifter sex. I’ve always been a dog person, so liking werewolves comes naturally. The vampire storyline kind of snuck up on me and bit me, and now I’m stuck chronicling this particular flock’s adventures.

I do have a favorite vampire. It’s not Count Chocula. I put him in for the humor. I do like chocolate, though. Maybe if he brought me chocolates I’d go out with him. We could go to Hersheypark. How do you stake this guy? With a swizzle stick from your hot chocolate? I’m not sure how it works with cartoons.

It’s not Edward Cullin. I read Twilight just to see what all the fuss was about. I can see why 14-year-old girls are enamored of him. I haven’t been 14 in quite a while, so I wasn’t impressed. He’s a bit of a wuss. I’ve only seen snatches of the

movies on TV, and then I tend to get distracted by Taylor Lautner’s chest. In fact, screw Edward. Here’s Jacob. Told you I prefer werewolves.

It’s not Louis and Lestat. Louis is whiny and angsty and Lestat is a twit. I blame Anne Rice for all the wimpy, emo vampires we’ve been subjected to over the last twenty years. I’ll bet Louis and Edward are drinking buddies and get together regularly to bitch to each other. At least Louis isn’t dating a high schooler. He just hangs out with the five-year-old little girl vampire. This all gets ickier the longer I think about it. Technically, I suppose all vampires are pedophiles. Given their ages, it’s not like they have a choice. As George Burns once said, “I’d date women my age, but there are no women my age.”

It’s not Barnabas Collins, though I do have a fondness for him. I was one of those kids who ran home from school to watch the original Dark Shadows. Barnabas was my first encounter with a sympathetic vampire character. However, I wasn’t watching the show for him. I was watching for Quentin Collins, the uber-sexy werewolf. Dog person, remember?

It’s not Batman. Batman’s not a vampire. Batman is my choice for “superhero I’d most want watching my back if I ever got into a jam.” I can’t picture Edward, Louis or Lestat earning the respect of the entire Justice League while having no superpowers. Take that, creatures of the night.

It’s not even Wallace, my own vampire creation, even though in my mind he looks like

Jensen Ackles. Maybe that’s because I’m a Sam girl. Wonder if Jared Padalecki ever played a werewolf?

So who’s my favorite vampire? Is there any doubt?

SPIKE!!!!

This is what vampires are supposed to be. Bloodsucking bad boys in leather and bleached hair with an accent to melt your knees. What the hell was Buffy doing with that wussified Angel when she could have had this? Spike could mop the floor with all those other posers combined and take you out for a drink afterwards. You might be the drink, but who cares?

Closing the gap to second place: Damon Salvatore, Spike’s dark brother from another mother. He’s making vampires fun again. Gotta love those intense eyes. They make up for the lack of accent. I can easily picture Spike and Damon arm-wrestling in a bar over who gets to bang and then suck on the waitress. I need to check out the fan fiction sites. Somebody’s sure to have written that. Some series demand a crossover.

Once the YA’s done and out of the house, I’m going back to shapeshifters for a while. At the moment the frontrunner stars a mountain lion who looks like Brendan Fraser. My Favorite Mummy? I don’t think so …

Taking the Easy Way Out

Rather than strain my brain coming up with an original blog, today I’ve decided to post a scene from my WIP. In short, I’m taking the day off. Ain’t I a stinker?

The lead-in: Waitress Billie has a major fangirl crush on Dylan, the star of her favorite TV show, Slayer for Hire (coincidentally also the title of the book). However, when the show comes to film in her hometown, she finds herself falling for Dylan’s co-star, Matt (shown above). Meanwhile, Dylan’s being stalked by an actual vampire, and Billie’s also a target. Matt, who comes from a family of slayers, stops by Billie’s apartment to guard her. We pick up as they’re discussing higher education …

“It’s okay if you didn’t go to college,” Matt said. “I didn’t, and it worked out fine for me.” He leaned toward me to whisper, “I’ve been taking courses at USC when I can fit them in. I want to surprise my dad with a diploma. Maybe in about ten years, at the rate I’m going.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve been taking online courses. I’ve got a jar full of tip money set aside for it. Pay as you go.”

“What are you studying?”

“Fashion design. I could go to New York for school if I wanted. My dad’s offered to pay for the first year, at least.” Yeah, I could do that. Why hadn’t I?

“You know how to sew?” He sounded impressed.

“Uh-huh. My Gram taught me.” I hopped up and went to the kitchen table. It meant leaving the heavenly circle of his arm, but it also meant a change of subject. I grabbed at that. I could grab the arm later.

Matt got up and joined me at the table. He whistled as I paged through the sketch book. “These are good. Have you actually made any of them?”

“Some. I sewed my own prom dress,” I added proudly. “For $45. People thought I’d sent to New York for it. I’d show it to you, but I don’t have it any more. Some twit at the prom spilled punch on it.” Cough Ava cough.

“Was this it?”

Oh God. Wouldn’t you know, I’d stopped at the sketch of the princess gown, the one I’d made the color of his eyes. Don’t notice don’t notice don’t notice, I prayed.

“Maya would love that,” Matt went on. “Add another layer of ruffles and she’d be your fan forever.”

“Maya, your sister? The wannabe football player?”

“When she’s off the field, she turns uber-girlie. What’s this one?”

He picked up the pad labeled “Costumes” before I could stop him. I dropped mine and grabbed at it frantically. “That’s nothing. Discarded ideas. It’s—”

Too late. He flipped the cover open. My interpretation of Dylan Garber as Jesse Pierce leaped out at both of us. The clothes I’d drawn to dress him in were way tighter than what he wore on the show. Especially in the crotch and butt. Yes, I’d done front and back views.

“Good likeness,” Matt said, his voice neutral. Was that a hint of red in his eyes?

“Jesse Pierce needs a new outfit,” I said weakly. I tugged on the sketchpad but he wouldn’t give it up. He went on flipping through the book. Page after page of Dylan, Dylan, and nothing but Dylan, in various outfits and assorted weaponry. “He wears the same thing week after week. He should mix it up. You know, scarves and turtlenecks or something, to protect his throat.”

Matt grunted. He went on flipping, and I went on tugging. My blatant Dylan obsession wasn’t the worst thing in there. I had to get it away from him before he found it.

He turned the last page to my most recent drawing, and stopped there.

Shit.

There stood Emmett Land in full-color glory, a lot straighter and more heroic than he appeared on TV, holding a crossbow and glaring out at the viewer with Matt’s handsome face and stormy blue-gray eyes.

Naked.

Even with the crossbow held at a strategic angle and the big, thick bolt obscuring his youknow, there was no getting around it. He wasn’t just nude. He was nuuuuuuuuuude.

Matt’s brows shot up into his hair.

“Emmett could do with a makeover too.” My voice cracked into shrill little pieces.

“Nice,” Matt said, “but a bit too minimalist for TV.”

# # #

And now, the book’s only sex scene, in its entirety: “If this is the part you’ve all been waiting for, too bad. I’m not the kind of girl who kisses or does anything else and tells. Let’s just say Matt missed his flight and let it go at that.” Enjoy.

Uncharted Territory

The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley, or so the saying goes. We can add writers to the list. We can definitely add this writer, because my twisty mind took another turn down a bumpy side road, and now I’m dealing with the consequences.

A couple weeks ago I explained how I ended up as a writer of M/M romances: by accident. I had ideas and ran with them, and happily it paid off. I also suffer from a bad case of sequelitis. One idea sparks others, and next thing you know I’m writing a series. It’s how I wound up writing my first ménage, something else I’d never done before. The ménage sparked an idea for a second sequel, which I swear I’ll get to eventually.

Then the ménage fooled me by sparking—well, I can’t exactly call it a sequel. Let’s call it a follow-up. It’s an outgrowth of the first two books, but with different characters … and in a whole other genre.

Suddenly I find myself contemplating the creation of a young adult novel.

It’s like this. At the end of Legacy, human Jeremy, vampire Wallace, and human/vamp hybrid Colleen have formed a household. In the last chapter, we learn Colleen is pregnant. She and Wally will soon be proud parents, with equally-proud co-parent Jeremy helping out as the nanny. HEA, over and done with, on to the next book idea.

Except … I couldn’t let go of the characters. Colleen wanted a lot of kids, and she was sleeping with both the men. I decided they ended up with four kids. Kid #3, a son, is Jeremy’s. He grows up to look just like his dad, height and all. In high school he falls in love with the Drama Club. Instead of going to college he gets his first role and goes into acting. He ends up on the cult-hit TV show Slayer for Hire, about two guys who travel around the country killing monsters. Yes, I’m still milking That Show.

Then I got ideas for a plot and characters, and now I’m writing the thing.

It’s not erotica. It’s not even a romance, though it has romantic elements. The girl’s 19, the boy’s 22. There’s no sex. They hug and kiss a bit. It’s a lighthearted romp, in spite of the vampires and a couple of grisly murders. Right now it looks like the overarching theme involves rabid fangirls, fantasy versus reality, and the dangers of getting too caught up in a TV show. Might as well write what I know.

I figure it’ll work best as YA, given the ages of the leads, and the girl’s struggle with figuring out her place in the new-to-her, confusing world of responsible adulthood. This means I’ll have to learn a whole genre’s worth of new rules. Brain, what have you gotten me into this time?

I’m not sure where or how it’ll go. I’ve only got the first half plotted. I’ve figured out who kills the bad guy vampire, and how. Foreshadowing is fun. I suppose if I finish it and do try to market it, I’d better ask Siren’s permission first, because of that one paragraph in the contracts. It’s not a direct sequel, but it does use concepts and characters from books Siren published, even if they’re only alluded to. I figure on using my P. E. Cunningham byline for this, the one I keep for my SF and fantasy work as opposed to the romance books, or maybe come up with a new one. I’ve heard some YA authors are using grown-up versions of their characters to write erotica works and cash in on that market. I don’t think anyone’s ever gone in the other direction. I doubt if the Belonging and Legacy readers would be interested in YA. I know I’d rather not have any teen readers looking at my source material.

That’s where I stand right now, mired hip-deep in a whole new genre and trying to write myself free. Well, it’s always good for personal growth to try new things. That’s how I ended up writing romance, paranormal and M/M. Maybe I’ll finally learn how to draw and go into comic books next. It never ends …

Why Guy?

I didn’t deliberately set out to become a writer of M/M paranormal romance fiction. When the grade-school teachers asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, I didn’t stand in front of the class and announce, “I want to write stories about two or more hawt men falling in love with each other, complete with explicit sex.” (Imagine if I had, though. I’d probably still be in detention.)

I ended up in this subgenre the way I ended up in a lot of my day jobs, and the same way I ended up as a romance writer in general: I just kind of fell into it. I always wanted to be a writer—that much was a deliberate choice—but I always thought I’d make my name in science fiction and fantasy. Somehow I drifted into romance, specifically paranormal romance. It was the same thing I’d been writing, just with hot bits.

Many people believe the whole M/M genre grew out of slash fan fiction, which began with Kirk/Spock back in the 1970s. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series contains elements of M/M, F/F and ménage in a science fantasy setting. The leap from one genre to the other wasn’t that wide of a jump.

However, I started with traditional M/F, or as traditional as that gets with werewolves and vampires involved. My slide into same-sex debauchery began with a publisher’s call for novellas involving angels and/or demons. I came up with an idea of a demon and an angel competing for a human woman. Except, as the plot moved along, they became less interested in the woman and more and more drawn to each other. Oops. Oh well, what the hell. And that’s how Bad Boys came to be, and how I wrote my first M/M.

Not that I planned on making M/M my career choice. I’d had an idea, I had fun writing it, now we move on to the next. “The next” turned out to be Belonging. The inciting idea was basically “a brothel intended for vampires,” so the leads were a prostitute and the vampire customer she falls in love with. Yes, I did say “she.” That book started life as M/F. Then I discovered Supernatural. Jared and Jensen were just so pretty and had so much on-screen chemistry, they inspired me to give my hooker a sex change. The she became a he, the book became M/M, and I found myself writing in a whole new category.

And it ain’t over yet! I have a list of M/F stories I’d like to get to someday, but I also have a growing list of M/M plots, including an idea for a series. Those dang horny boys just won’t go away.

I think I’ve finally figured out why.

I like men. They’re cute. They’re fun. They can change overhead light bulbs without needing a ladder and open stubborn jars. They may not have much sense, but at least they’re trainable. Then there are the other obvious pluses, which I won’t go into here. We all have our own top-ten lists.

As a writer, it’s my duty to create a male lead a female reader would gladly take home to meet the parents. What do I like in a man? What turns me on? What draws me in? I take all my favorite physical, mental and emotional traits and pour them into one drop-dead-gorgeous man-package. Over and over, I create my ideal mate, my perfect man—

And turn him over to someone else. Some undeserving bitch.

There’s the one big drawback to being a writer of romance. The leads have to fall in love with each other and live happily ever after. Terrific for you two, but what about me? I’m not my heroines. They’re all younger and tougher and prettier and a whole lot thinner than I am. I keep coming up with variations on my perfect boyfriend, then have to watch him ride off into the sunset with another woman, the skanky tramp bimbo whore.

Ah, but then we’ve got M/M. I get to create two perfect men, and I get to keep them. Two drool-worthy, be-still-my-heart hunkalicious males, making out on the page with tender abandon and no rival women in sight. I get my paranormal fix, my romance fix, and my guy fix. Show me the downside to any of that.

I’m not alone in this mindset. There are M/M fans out there who won’t read a ménage if there’s a woman involved. A reviewer who read Legacy expressed initial trepidation because she hadn’t wanted to see a woman come between Wallace and Jeremy. I hadn’t either, but the idea hit and I ran with it. I guess it worked out. It gave me the chance to write about the Preacher, with his smoldering eyes and single-minded intensity. I’ll get to his story eventually. He ends up with another woman. I appear to be addicted to self-punishment.

As you can see, I’m not giving up on M/F entirely. I’m willing to concede some of my female leads are worthy of the men I give them. Fine, Amber/Ashley/Brittany, you can have Todd/Brent/Mitchell. I’m keeping Adam and Donner. They’re werewolves, they’re naked, they’re hungry for each other and they’re mine.

All of a sudden I’m in the mood to reread my favorite Spenser books by Robert B. Parker. Then I can picture Robert Urich and Avery Brooks solving crimes together. I’ll just skip the scenes with Spenser’s girlfriend Susan in them. Those two men … yummy yum yum.

When to Shut the Bedroom Door

A discussion on a readers’ forum got me wondering about this topic. How much sex is needed in the average romance novel? When do you want to get down and dirty, and when should you just shut the door? Answer: depends on the heat level and how much the story demands, and whether or not the sex scene informs characterization or furthers the story, or is plain ol’ PWP (porn without plot). While PWP can be fun to read (and write), if you’re on a limited word count – say, with a novella or short story – every sex scene described had better do more than bring the characters to orgiastic fulfillment.

First of all, how many sex scenes? As many as the story needs. Some books might have one explosive scene at the very end. Or it may be one quiet scene. I once read a Nocturne where the characters don’t even have on-screen sex; there’s some explicit foreplay, then they consummate their passion between scene breaks. In other books the characters can and do tumble into bed in Chapter 1 and never let up from there. Too much of a good thing? Maybe not to them, but to each their own.

Next, how hot should they be? Euphemisms or fuck me fuck me? Again, that’s up to the story, the characters, and whatever publisher or line you’re aiming for. You probably won’t find too many trembling virgins being gently deflowered in the final chapter at Ellora’s Cave. Write your story the way it needs to be, study publishers’ guidelines (better still, examples of what they’re publishing), send yours to the one that best matches what you’ve written, and cross all fingers.

Keep in mind the characters can have sex every other page if they want to, but we don’t necessarily have to watch. Does the sex scene serve another purpose? Does it further the story? Does it tell us something new about the characters? If not, skim over it or skip it. If it does, that’s the one we want to see.

My M/M couple in Belonging has plenty of sex, but not all of it is onstage. I chose which scenes I described and didn’t describe deliberately. When the story opens, Jeremy is a prostitute working in a brothel and his vampire lover, Wallace, is a regular customer. Wallace has just fed and he’s in the throes of blood lust. All he wants is a quick, hard lay. He won’t even remember the particulars afterwards. Though emotions are involved, this is first and foremost a business transaction. As Wallace’s sanity fades out, so does the scene. There’s little point in watching a mindless vampire receive what amounts to physical therapy. Therefore, we don’t have to.

A couple chapters later they have sex again. This time it’s different. Wallace isn’t in blood lust and knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s determined to show Jeremy the difference between the brutal, blood-lust sex Jeremy’s accustomed to and actual, tender lovemaking. This scene is described in detail because it’s more than sex; it deepens their relationship and moves the plot forward. Subsequent sex scenes are glossed over or hinted at. They’re together now and they’re falling in love. It’s okay to save the explicit stuff for when it actually matters. Otherwise it’s just PWP and a waste of wordage.

Later on in the story Jeremy learns a devastating secret about Wallace’s past which the vampire has been keeping from him. He’s heartbroken and furious. He finds Wallace at his house, dying of blood lust, and only sex can save him. Angry as he is, Jeremy can’t leave the vampire to suffer and die. He picks up his lover, slams into the bedroom and kicks the door shut. What’s about to follow will be ugly and have nothing to do with love. Therefore, it isn’t shown. The story picks up in the aftermath, with emotions clashing as brutally as their bodies did moments before.

There are only two more descriptive scenes: their reconciliation, where Wallace conquers his blood lust and actually stays aware throughout the act, and the HEA finale. In restrospect, I probably could have cut the second one, but I wanted my characters to go out on a high note. Anyone who’s read the book, let me know: does the final sex scene add to the story, or could I have axed it without consequences? That’s the ultimate test of any scene, sex or non: Does it add to the story? Consider that when you’re wondering whether to leave in that scene between Axel and Molly and the matching dildoes, or if you’re better off with just an ellipsis.

Too much? Too little? In the end it’s a tightrope walk. We all learn by doing. With time and practice, instinct should tell you if you’ve hit a workable balance. Otherwise the readers will, God love ‘em. Hard to believe you can go wrong describing explicit sex, but that’s one of the joys of writing. Have fun!

Legacy in Print!

It’s here! My first-ever ménage and sequel to Belonging is now available in print at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It’s got mystery, action, excitement, two guys making out and a woman joining in, and one of the guys is a vampire. I always try to give my readers their money’s worth.

I realize Kindle and its kin are the wave of the future, but I really, really, really like print. There’s just something immensely satisfying about holding your novel in your hand and seeing your name printed on the cover. It’s so permanent.

In brief: Colleen Brenner is being stalked by vampires. Wallace and Jeremy, the vampire/human couple from Belonging, offer to help her out. Through the twists and turns of the story she falls in love with them both. Who wouldn’t? I liked these guys so much I had to write another book about them. I love this job.

Serena, if you’re here, I haven’t forgotten about Preacher’s story. I’ll get to it eventually, I swear. Right now, though, something from Legacy’s last chapter sparked another idea, and I’m currently fiddling with that. If anything comes of it, you’ll hear about it here.

Legacy is available in print here: www.amazon.com/Legacy-Sequel-Belonging-Publishing-Menage/dp/1622411390/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_2e and here: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-legacy-jere-cunningham/1001059507?ean=9781622411399&itm=1&usri=pat+cunningham

You can also get Belonging in print from Amazon and B&N. If you prefer to live in the 21st century, both are available as e-books from Amazon, B&N, and at www.bookstrand.com/pat-cunningham

EXCERPT

“Oh. Oh God.” Jeremy clutched at Wallace’s arms to maintain his balance. He glanced at the clock on the wall and swore afresh. “Gus will be here any minute, and I don’t even have dinner started.”

“Gus will run late like he always does, and you know he’s not staying for dinner. I’ll bet you’ve got time for a shower.” He slapped Jeremy’s naked ass. “Go on, go make yourself pretty. We’ll hold down the fort.”

“You’re monsters. Both of you.”

“Just the way you want us, you bat-loving slut. We’re always happy to oblige. Right, sweetheart?”

Colleen wiped her mouth to buy time. “I’ll make dinner. I was planning to anyway.”

“You heard the lady. Go get yourself cleaned up.” Wallace smacked a wet kiss on Jeremy’s cheek. “Better hurry, before we muss you up again.”

“I hate you both,” Jeremy said, though with a sated smile that proclaimed just the opposite. He paused to brush Colleen’s tousled hair away from her face before he tugged his briefs and slacks back up over his hips. He stumbled from the kitchen without bothering to zip up. At the doorway he paused. “Nobody touches anything until you wash your hands.”

“Yes, Mom,” Wallace said. Jeremy made a face at him and headed for the stairs.

“I should clean up, too.” Colleen started to scramble off the floor. Wallace caught her arms and lifted her easily and set her on her feet. “Thanks,” she said, with a little too much heartiness. “I left groceries by the front door. I hope you guys like Swedish meatballs.”

“I’ll tell you what I like.”

His mouth attacked hers like a predator. Colleen stiffened involuntarily, instinctively. Wallace didn’t seem to care. He took his time, fully exploring her mouth, all the places Jeremy’s dick had been only minutes ago. He withdrew at last with a half growl, half chuckle.

“You and Scarecrow,” he rumbled. “Two great tastes that taste great together.”

Taste. She had the taste of Jeremy’s blood on her tongue now, stolen from Wallace’s mouth. “I saw what you did,” she said. “You made him drink your blood.”

“I can’t make him do anything. You should know that by now. He only took a gulp or two, same as I did. We do it all the time.”

“You’re turning him into a vampire.”

“No way. I’d have to drain him for that to happen. A sip every now and then won’t hurt him, and he knows it.” He leered at her wickedly. “In fact, it gets him horny. Want to go surprise him in the shower?”

“Don’t you ever quit?”

“Never. When you quit, you die. I’ve been fighting dead for way too long.” He pulled her more tightly against him. His lips teased a line down her cheek to her neck. He made no attempt to bite down. His hand crept under her blouse and found her nipple through the thin barrier of her bra. Colleen gasped and pressed into his caress.

“This is why I keep going back to chicks,” he murmured. “Dicks are a blast, but sometimes I just miss tits.”

“You’re so deep.”

“Don’t get all self-righteous with me, sweetheart. You’re not any different.” He scraped his teeth along her throat while his hand continued to torment her breast.

Colleen knew she ought to be terrified. She’d just seen him bite and drink from Jeremy. Right now, though, terror of him was the furthest thing from her mind. She made no effort to escape, even when he released her breast and transferred his hand to her thigh. His palm slid brazenly inward and upward, stopping just short of the spot that ached the most for his touch.
She tightened her legs to trap his hand. Without meaning to, she growled aloud.

Wallace answered in kind. His finger pressed against her panty-shielded slit. “I know you, sweetheart,” he rumbled against the pulse in her throat. “I’ve been in your head. There’s a predator inside you. She likes to play with fire. You’re as close to a bat as a breather can get. No wonder Scarecrow’s so hot for you.”

The reference to vampires doused the fire Wallace was playing with. She pushed at his chest. “I should get dinner started.”

He caught her arms. “Stay.”

“Gus is coming over. We need to get ready.”

“I meant when this is over. Stay with us—him. Will you stay with him?”

Taken aback by his intensity, Colleen stumbled over her answer. “You mean live here? With both of you?”

“Forget about me for a minute. Think about him. You care about him, right?”

Care sounded so inadequate when she considered her feelings. “It hardly matters, does it? He belongs to you. He loves you.”

“That’s because he’s an asshole. A stupid, stubborn, human son of a bitch.” He looked away from her to the corner where he’d tossed Jeremy’s shirt. “He’s going to die.”

By the Numbers

Every so often I get the urge to punish myself. The other day, out of morbid curiosity, I decided to haul my royalty statements out of the filing cabinet and check my status to date. Maybe the statistics gleaned can help me up my production and maybe put a couple more bucks in my bank account.

I’ll end the suspense right now: I’m not one of the writers earning the Big Bucks. I do not get five- or six-figure royalties. I’ve yet to hit four figures. My sales remain unnervingly comfortable in the three-figure-per-quarter range. In the quarters where I don’t have a new release, that’s low three figures. You might want to consider that before you quit your day job.

Beginning with my first release in 2009, and including numbers from Siren and all listed distributors, here’s how the sales stack up through March 2012:

Coyote Moon (2009, M/F, novella) – 310

Best of Breed (2010, M/F, novella) – 117

A London Werewolf in America (2010, M/F, novel) – 223 (includes print copies)

Bad Boys (2010, M/M, novella) – 374

Belonging (2011, M/M, novella) – 522 (includes print copies)

Legacy – (2012, M/M/F, novel) – 111

Love on the Wild Side (2011, compilation print volume, includes Coyote Moon and Best of Breed) – 8

What can we learn from these numbers? For starters, I don’t write very fast. Unless and until I pick up the pace, I won’t be making a living through writing any time soon. When I do, it had better be M/M. The numbers shout out the story rather loudly: my M/M sells far better than my M/F, both on the Siren site and through secondary markets. Coyote Moon has been out since 2009, and Belonging handily passed it in sales in less than a year. I’m not sure where the ménage stands yet. Legacy’s only been out since March, and I won’t have the numbers from Amazon and elsewhere until I get my next statement.

I’m not sure if having a backlist has increased my sales. I threw everybody off by switching genre horses in midstream. Is there any crossover between the M/F and M/M? Not that I can tell. Legacy might spark additional sales of Belonging, since Legacy’s the sequel. Will those readers then try Bad Boys? You got me. Will they try any of the M/Fs? Probably not.

I must admit, I was surprised Love on the Wild Side sold anything other than the single copy I bought. To the other seven people, thank you and bless you. And the M/Fs may not sell as well as the M/Ms, but they’re steady. Coyote Moon still sells a couple of copies every month. Gas and grocery money. I’ll take it. I’m not proud.

I’ve made several mistakes in my three-year career that I’ll have to fix. There’s the aforementioned genre switch, for starters. People got used to seeing M/F from me, and then I threw man love at them. With my next couple books I’m going to do what I should have in the beginning and write the genres under separate names. At this point I’ll probably have to stick to my real name for M/M and start over in M/F under another name. The ménage was an accident and probably won’t be repeated. Now you know what happens when pantsers try to have careers. Don’t let this happen to you!

I also lost any momentum I’d been building when I took a year between books. Like I said, I’m a slow writer, and Legacy ran far longer than I thought it was going to. Writing shorter stories should help with productivity, and might boost sales: shorter works have lower prices. It’s been recommended you should try to have a new release every quarter. Yeah, good luck with that.

I should probably do more promotion. At the moment I do next to zilch. I announce my new releases, post a few excerpts, then abandon them and move on to the next book. I have this blog, and I’m part of the group over at Shapeshifter Seductions (www.shapeshifterseductions.blogspot.com). I’ve done a couple interviews on others’ blogs. I don’t have a web page, a Facebook account, or Twitter. I have an author’s page on Amazon, which I never update. I’m signed up on a writers’ site but don’t comment in the forums too often. My signature is “professional lurker,” which pretty much explains that. I’m not very social, in media or elsewhere.

Possibly the best thing I could do for my budding career is to get back to the keyboard and turn out more and better books. Let quality speak for itself. Judging by the numbers, I should probably write more M/M novellas about gay vampires. Maybe even a series. Back to caffeine and cable TV …

Release Day!

It’s release day! Legacy officially goes on sale today. This is my fifth book with Siren/BookStrand and I’m still jumping up and down like I did with the first one. Like eating chocolate or falling in love, it’s a feeling that never gets old.

I’ve already blogged about several aspects of this one, so here’s the recap: Legacy was a happy accident. I was writing what I thought would be a standalone, Belonging, when I got an idea for a sequel. This book made me stretch my writing muscles, because I’ve never written a ménage before. I got to flex my length muscles and mystery-writing muscles while I was at it as well. A London Werewolf in America was a mystery too, but it wasn’t as long as this one. Plus I got to hang out with Wallace and Jeremy some more, and give them an extra-happy ending in addition to the first one. Given what I put them through, I suppose they had it coming.

I think this is it for the boys, though. Their little flock has been through enough. Time to settle down and raise those kids Colleen always wanted. This isn’t quite the end of this “universe,” however. I’ve got a couple other things I’m working on, but eventually there should be one more story to round out the trilogy. After all, the victims of the vampire conspiracy are still running around out there, and the Preacher isn’t the type of man to let loose ends dangle for long.

And now, the commercial portion of our blog.

Legacy
Available through www.bookstrand.com/legacy

BLURB

Colleen Brenner doesn’t believe in vampires, until she’s attacked by one. Two men come to her aid: Wallace Hamilton, a slayer, and his lover, Jeremy Teach. The pair take her into their home and under their protection. It turns out vampires have targeted not only Colleen, but all the children from the commune she grew up in. What are the monsters after?

As the three delve into Colleen’s repressed memories, she finds herself drawn to both of the men guarding her. Jeremy is human, but Wallace is a vampire himself, and Colleen’s growing attraction to him is countered by her mistrust of what he is. Then their investigation uncovers a decades-old evil tied to Colleen’s shrouded past. She herself may not be as human as she’s been led to believe. Can their newfound love survive the truth of Colleen’s inhuman legacy, or is it—and Colleen’s soul—doomed?

EXCERPT

Balancing the grocery bags, she fumbled the door open. Her psychic prickle clamped down on the greeting she’d been about to call out. Colleen sensed Wallace in the kitchen. If she strained, she could hear faint noises that had nothing to do with pre-dinner prep.

Jeremy’s kitchen, Wallace awake. Easy to add two and two.

Courtesy demanded she leave them alone. She could go upstairs, linger in the shower, and make a ton of noise coming back down. Then she caught Wallace’s growl and decided, screw courtesy. She wouldn’t deny she enjoyed watching them together. Wallace encouraged it, in fact. Freaking undead exhibitionist. With a mischievous smile lighting her face, Colleen set her grocery bags on the floor and crept to the kitchen doorway.

Two pots, a knife, and a bag of carrots lay abandoned on the counter. Colleen’s imagination set the scene—Jeremy at the counter, his back to the doorway, Wallace stalking his unsuspecting prey with his uncanny silent tread. Perhaps Jeremy had a moment of warning before his capture—a hint of scent, a whisper of lips against his neck. Or perhaps he was as attuned to the vampire’s presence as she was and always knew when his lover was near.

They’d ended up beside the kitchen table. Wallace stood behind Jeremy with his arms clasped tight around the human’s waist. His lips nuzzled Jeremy’s neck. Jeremy leaned into the embrace, his eyes shut, humming that low, throaty purr of his that always turned her on. No doubt Jeremy had loosened his shirt collar himself. His enjoyment of the vampire’s attentions made itself boldly known against the fabric of his slacks. Colleen stared at that tantalizing bulge, right up until the moment Wallace bit into Jeremy’s neck.

It wasn’t anything like the violent, melodramatic attacks depicted in vampire movies. His fangs sank into Jeremy’s flesh right over the mark on his neck in a smooth, unhurried movement that was gentle as a kiss. Perhaps this was a kiss to Wallace. His throat rippled with a single swallow before he lifted his mouth. He laved his tongue across the bite, as tender as a mother cat with her kitten. Not so much as a drop of blood escaped it. Jeremy melted against him with a whimper of pure bliss.

Colleen’s gut dropped. This was so wrong in so many ways. Yet everything about Wallace’s actions, even the bite, said love.

Too late, she remembered Wallace could hear her heartbeat.

Up and Coming

Like the cover up there? I do. That’s Legacy, the long-awaited (by me; damn thing took forever to write) sequel to Belonging. I’ve blogged about both books enough already, so let’s just sit back and admire Jinger Heaston’s Twilightesque cover for a minute. The vampire, the human, and the woman who’s a bit of both and unites the group. I don’t know if Jinger read any of the manuscript or if that was accidental, but her layout certainly works out symbolically as well as artistically. You can’t ask for more from a cover artist.

I love it when one of my books comes out. Then I can post cover pics and excerpts and not have to worry about coming up with a blog topic. It’s too soon for excerpts since I haven’t gotten final edits on the book yet. That’ll be next month. It’s tentatively due for release on February 16. About six to eight weeks after that I can expect to find the print version on Amazon. Next to holding your newborn child, holding a physical copy of your finished book is the best damn feeling in the world. This is why I haven’t switched over to Kindle yet.

That could change by the end of the year, maybe sooner. Now that Legacy is off my to-do list, it’s back to work as a writer, which includes my new sidebar career as a writer of M/M, under a brand-new pseudonym. This means reading more M/M … just to see what’s being done in the genre, of course. There’s a ton more M/M romance being e-pubbed than I can find in print, so at some point I’ll have to invest in a Kindle or Nook so I can read more dirty books—I mean, do research. Yeah, that’s what we’re calling it these days. Damn, I love this job.

Yesterday I uploaded my entry to Amazon’s Breakout Novel contest. That was another project that messed up my schedule for awhile, as it was yet another long book (94K words), this time in the fantasy genre. No romance, just a lot of action, smart remarks, and the possible end of the world. It hasn’t a hope of winning, it being genre and all, but I’m hoping it advances far enough along that I get to the editorial critique stage. If nothing else, having a set deadline forced me to finish the thing. I now have a completed manuscript I can either sub to a fantasy publisher or consider publishing on my own. Self-publishing is something else I have to look into this year.

Back to work. I have the M/M shapeshifter story I was working on when the Legacy edits came in, and the other M/M story that blindsided me while I was working on the first one. Then I think I’ll take a break and do M/F for a while. It pays to keep busy. And how’s your week going?

Seeds

I just wrapped up a major editorial wrestling match with my latest manuscript. The story’s now 1000 words longer, with a couple scenes added to flesh out relationships and another sex scene just ‘cause. I hope I’ve plugged up all the plot holes now. I’m betting it’ll have to go through another pass before it’s ready for the readers’ eyes. That little extra polish never hurt.

A lot of the plot problems came about because this was an unexpected sequel. That’s both the excitement and the drawback to being a pantser. Nothing’s planned. I created a book that demanded I write it, then had to make sure everything jived with the previous book. It’s called continuity, and it’s a bear to deal with if you’re writing comic books or episodic television. Or, as I just found out, unexpected sequels.

One of the questions I wanted to answer when I wrote Belonging was, “If vampires are technically dead, how can they have sex?” Partway through writing that one, another question arose: “Can the undead reproduce?” I know vampire Darla managed it on Angel, but I was never a regular viewer of Angel so I don’t know how she pulled it off. I’d have to come up with my own explanation.

Let’s assume you need a living womb to produce a child. That means human mother, vampire father. I’d already established how the undead can have sex. But are the undead fertile? Can they even procreate with humans if they’re another species? Is there any way I can explain all this without contradicting the first book?

Yes, I could. In Belonging I’d established that a diet of vampire blood made a vampire different from the norm: warmer body temperature, able to eat real food, capable of having sex without a blood infusion. Supposedly it could restore fertility as well. As for the compatibility question, maybe vampire blood fed to the human mom would fix that problem too. We are what we eat, after all.

Now stir in an evil vampire who’s figured all this out, and wants to create a race of vampire/human hybrid slaves, and voila, you’ve got a sequel.

How to get my heroes involved? Back to the first book. Toward the end of Belonging Wallace the vampire rescues a little girl from a flock attack. His friends the Stantons adopt her. The kid’s gotta go to school somewhere. By putting her in a local preschool she became a perfect plot device, allowing Wallace’s boyfriend Jeremy and preschool teacher Colleen to meet and get the story rolling. I love it when an unplanned plan comes together.

But wait, there’s more. How about giving the boys an even more personal stake in the story than simply protecting the heroine? In the previous episode, we revealed Wallace became a slayer when vampires kidnapped his girlfriend and murdered their infant son. Suppose there was more to it than that? What if Wallace’s woman was taken on the evil vampire’s orders, to serve as a broodmare for his hybrid army? Wallace doesn’t find this out until they begin investigating kidnap attempts on the heroine. His whole life was changed by this incident. Now it’s come back to bite him again. Think he’s pissed? You betcha. This is why on TV shows old friends of the cop/detective hero are always getting iced. I didn’t even have to create a new character. It was all there in the first book. Damn, I’m good.

Same for the subplot involving the slayer. Years ago the Preacher killed Jeremy’s vampire family, in a cameo appearance in the first book. Wallace would want him to suffer for that, even if Jeremy doesn’t. Guess which slayer holds vital information regarding their case? What will Wallace do when he finds out?

This is how you write a sequel where no sequel was planned. You work with what you’ve got. You go through the first story looking for seeds that can be cultivated into plots and characters. Everything grows out of what’s already there. Whether it’s planned out before the first word hits paper or thrown on after the fact, it’s the end result that matters. Do it right and the reader will never know the difference.

And yes, eventually there will be a third book. Again, an idea in the second book begat another plot. Now I’ll have to go through two previous books to make sure everything matches up. There has to be an easier way to make a living.

Doing the Twist

"I see plot twists. They're everywhere."

When done correctly, plot twists can be the deadliest tool in a writer’s arsenal. Your reader’s skimming along, maybe getting bored, when all of a sudden the plot takes a lurch and the smooth sailing of the last fifty pages hits a major tsunami. There goes any chance of flinging that book across the room. Unless the twist is just thrown in with no setup. In that case, kiss the drywall good-bye.

Some twists are used simply for shock value. Characters die without warning, the ex shows up at the wedding, two men burst through the door with guns in their hands (I think Raymond Chandler may have suggested that one). Others may look like they come out of nowhere, but are actually the result of clues judiciously sprinkled throughout the narrative.

Think about The Sixth Sense and its famous tail-end twist. Watch it again to see how expertly M. Night set it up. You may not think so on first viewing, but he plays fair all the way through. J. K. Rowling does it in the Harry Potter books. I mean, c’mon. Remus Lupin? Three guesses what he is. His suggestive name is staring you right in the face. Snape was onto him from the get-go – why else teach his students how to ID a werewolf? Mystery writers do this stuff all the time. The ones who are good at it are famous. The others – well, see those dents in the wall … ?

I’m going to use my novel Belonging again, so I don’t get some other writer mad at me for wrecking their surprise. I can wreck my own surprises, thank you very much. I had a major twist in mind, and made sure I set it up early on to avoid wall damage. Here’s a description of Wallace the vampire from Chapter 1:

Though tall, he had a pumped-up build and thick bull neck. He must have been into serious weight training at the time of his turn. Numerous scars marred his pallid skin, some of them ragged and nasty. Jeremy had always assumed he’d been a soldier of some sort, probably a Marine. The stiff bronze spikes of his close-cropped haircut fit that assessment. Not the tattoo, though. The ink on the vamp’s left bicep depicted a woodsman’s axe. No branch of the service had a lumberjack division, so far as Jeremy knew.

At this point in the story Wallace is going by an alias, Frank Baum. “Don’t sweat it if you don’t get the reference,” he says. His pet name for Jeremy is “scarecrow.” Jeremy assumes it’s because he’s tall and gangly. Though The Wizard of Oz is never mentioned directly, there’s a theme growing here, and discerning readers may pick up on it.

In Chapter 3 the boys go on a date. A vampire recognizes Jeremy from his job at the brothel. He also recognizes Wallace: “Didn’t you used to run down in LA?” One look at Wallace’s tattoo and the vampire panics and takes off. That’s the last clue we get until Chapter 7, the flashback chapter, when this bit of narration occurs:

Death strikes the deathless more than once during Jeremy’s time with the family. Rory. Jordan. Annalee. A litany of comrades and friends, brothers and sisters who went out and never returned. Whispered tales of slayers are passed around like ghost stories at Halloween. Stakin’ Stella, who made unlife hell for the vamps in New Orleans. The Avenging Angel, who stalked the streets of 1960s New York. The notorious Oz Squad, who terrorized Los Angeles for nearly a decade. “I remember them,” Ralph says. “They killed some good friends of mine. The Tin Man was the worst. His eyes—talk about dead.” Ralph shudders. “They’re the reason I left LA. It’s safer here. No slayers. Not so much sunshine, either. Gotta love that.”

Two chapters later Jeremy, who hates slayers with a passion, will find out in the worst possible way just who he’s been sleeping with all this time. See, he wasn’t paying attention. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Plot twists work just as well in a romance as they do in the action, suspense or mystery genres. We’ve got to keep the lovers apart until the last chapter somehow, don’t we? Maybe he turns into a jaguar when exposed to the scent of a certain tropical plant, and she can’t understand why he won’t visit her at the flower shop. Maybe she’s a vampire, and he can’t figure out why she won’t stick around for breakfast. If set up correctly, a well-timed twist will keep those readers reading, and those books from wrecking the wallpaper. That’s what we all want, isn’t it?

How to Grow a Series

Let me rephrase that: this is how I grow a series. In general. I’m a pantser, so my approach to any novel, let alone a series, tends to be haphazard. I don’t sit down and plot out a nine-book epic with every single twist and plot point outlined and described. God bless those who can. It’d be a lot easier if I could, but my mind doesn’t work that way.

Tip one: don’t wait for inspiration. You can’t expect your muse to drop in on a regular basis. She may go on strike or get caught up in a CSI marathon or something and leave you holding the keyboard with a blank screen to fill. Forget about her. Sit down and write. You may find your best inspirations happen when you’re in the middle of working. As your fingers fly, so do your thoughts. It’s like dominos. One idea knocks over others, and so on down the line.

Tip two: Ask questions. Answering them results in more ideas. Before you know it, you’ve got the background for a series.

For example, suppose you’re writing about Billy and Susie – or, because this is romance, Blake and Cameron. (Or Blake and Trevor, if you’re writing M/M.) Right in the middle of a tense scene, Cameron suddenly blurts out that her sister has been arrested. Huh? Cameron has a sister? Since when? Never mind. She’s got one now. Three brothers, too, and every one of them is involved in some cause or other. That’s why Cameron never talks about them. The whole family has stories to tell and people to fall in love with. Or maybe Blake lets slip that he comes from a dynasty of assassins, but he left the business because he faints at the sight of blood. What about the rest of his family? What if one of them falls in love with their target? What if one is competing with another assassin for a lucrative government contract? Or is being hunted him/herself? There’s a trilogy right there.

If you’re writing paranormal, as I do, it gets even better. Like werewolves? In a wolf pack, only the alphas mate and breed. Depending on the size of the pack, you could have up to a dozen stories about desperate, sex-starved low-rankers trying to find love behind their alpha’s back. Would they try for other wolves, or go after humans because there’s less competition? Or try to seduce the alpha? All sorts of possibilities abound.

Moving into personal territory, here’s how a single book of mine ended up as a trilogy. I wrote Belonging, my M/M vampire story, to deal with two ideas: the concept of a person raised by vampires, and how the undead can have sex. Plus because I wanted to write Supernatural fan fiction, which is how it ended up M/M. But never mind. While answering these questions, others arose. If vampires can have sex (I figured out a way around the undead problem), can they also reproduce? Can an undead woman get pregnant, or would they have to use a human surrogate? What kind of abilities would the resulting child have?

Right in the middle of writing one book, I suddenly found the plot for another. My M/M couple becomes M/M/F when they come to the aid of a woman who has vampires chasing her. My vampire lead discovers her past and his intersect, as an incident from his human life (mentioned in the first book) comes back to haunt him. Answering the initial question – can vampires have sex? – led to the second – can vampires have children? – which led to a second book. I even got to re-use the main characters, who I really liked. Yay, less work for me.

It didn’t end there. I decided to tie off a loose end from the first book by bringing back a cameo character for a subplot. The slayer who destroyed Jeremy’s vampire family only appeared for half a page, but he left a lot of unresolved issues in his wake. He ended up playing a larger part in the sequel than I’d expected. His backstory hit me while I was writing the flashback chapter in Belonging – remember what I said about inspiration while writing? – so I already knew his whos, whats and whys. I just needed a where for him.

And I found it. My muse waylaid me as I was walking across the library parking lot. The sequel had left its own set of loose ends, in particular the other female victims of the book’s vampire conspiracy. One of them meets up with the slayer. Sparks fly and conflicts ensue. I’m currently sweating over the first draft of yet another sequel to what initially started out as a standalone book. Ta-da! My first series.

Tip Three: when an idea hits you, run with it. At one point in the third book, the heroine researches vampire slayers on the Internet. She comes across a reference to the Colt brothers, a family of slayers living in Texas. This was my little shout-out to the Winchesters for starting it all, and to Jared and Jensen, both Texas boys. Then I remembered: Annie Stanton, my retired slayer from the first book, hails from Texas, and she comes from a large family. Was her maiden name Colt? That mob down there could be her nephews, with a few nieces thrown in. Maybe she helped train them, and still sends them leads. Holy Joe, it’s a spinoff!

Tip four: know when to quit. I’m going to leave those ideas on the back burner while I concentrate on getting the other two books into (hopefully) sellable shape. In the meantime, I can always jot notes and ideas as they occur to me. If you’re looking to start your own series and don’t know what to write about, look no further than your current WIP, or maybe a previous book. Odds are the seeds of a series are sitting right in front of you in the form of a character, idea or line of dialogue, just waiting for some inspiration to help them sprout. Happy growing!