Blake - No worries about being behind. Take as long as you need with American Genocide. Because we’ve replaced you with Brian Keene.
Joe
• • •
Joe, you’re a treasure.
Blake
• • •
So let’s bury him!
Jeff
• • •
Free sample is live…
http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Chapters-Upcoming-Release-ebook/dp/B0042ANZBU
Joe
• • •
Sweet!
When I tried to download the sampler, my Kindle went dead. 100% blank screen, flipping the power switch did nothing—dead.
Fortunately, a manual reset worked, but clearly DRACULAS is a book of evil.
Jeff
• • •
Honestly, no shit, it crashed my Kindle PC too. WTF?
Blake
• • •
http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Novel-Terror-ebook/dp/B0042AMD2M
Go ahead and tell the world. We’re going into full-on promo mode.
Joe
September 11, 2010
My Jenny/Lanz scene is almost finished, then I’ll be caught up to Paul. Jeff has one more scene to get him up to the point where he can meet with Clay.
Blake—you’ve got some catching up to do. If you haven’t started it yet, let me do the Wolkenstein explanation, and you concentrate on Stacie and Adam and Oasis.
Or if you’re really gung-ho about Wolkenstein, go for it. We can work around you until you’re ready.
I’m thinking this whole thing will max out around 70k words. Then we’ll each have a shot at editing it.
My wife has read what we have so far, and she couldn’t tell who wrote what section. Which is pretty impressive, since she’s read all of us. This reads seamlessly.
She loved it, BTW. But the one thing she says is lacking is suspense. She thinks it’s a lot of fun, but could be scarier.
We’re all in a dark hospital right now, so we might want to use this setting to stretch out the tension a bit. I also anticipate going back into the manuscript and adding a bit more atmosphere and creepiness.
That said, this is obviously a lot more like ALIENS than ALIEN, and I’m fine with that. I think readers will dig it.
Joe
• • •
I’ve lost track of time. What time of day is it?
Paul
• • •
In the book, or in your personal life?
In the book, I believe it’s around 9pm.
In your life, it’s 11:18, right about time for your first nap of the day. Your name is Dr. Wilson, and you also write books.
Joe
• • •
I made way more progress last night than I thought I would, and will be finished with my edits by tonight, which means I’m back on Draculas tomorrow and should catch up pretty quickly. I’m happy to do the Shanna scene, and I’ll do it first, but if it’s slowing anything down, feel free.
Blake
• • •
I left the end of Clay 3.0 open for that. It can then be connected to Clay & Randall.
Paul
• • •
A non-gory scene with our lovable clown.
Jeff
• • •
Nice, Jeff. Though, in total candor, I’m not sure if we want to step away from the story for a full-fledged flashback. What do you guys think?
I just wrote a scene with Lanz that actually made me a bit nauseous. I tried to keep it clinical, because he is a doctor, but it ranks up there with the grossest things I’ve ever written…
Joe
• • •
I thought about that, but I think we have to embrace the sheer absurdity of the “clown gasses up chainsaw with rubbing alcohol” concept. It’s a quick enough scene that it doesn’t really disrupt the pacing, and it provides a “quiet” moment in a book that has few, and Benny-in-flashback gets to speak for the reader who is saying “C’mon, gimme a break!”
Jeff
• • •
I revised this to a night scene.
If Maria wants suspense, I’ll try to give her some. I’m sending Clay back up to the 4th floor (that’s where Randall and pediatrics are, right?) Any problem if the emergency lights in this hall are knocked out so it’s DARK — I mean, pitch black?
Paul
• • •
I might be wrong—I think pediatrics is on the third floor. I went off the idea that Clay found Benny on the third floor. So now Randall is going up to the fourth floor to find a different route back to pediatrics, where he’ll meet Clay and link to your chapter, and then he’ll continue back down to the third floor to reunite with Jenny.
Jeff
• • •
@ Jeff - I like the Benny flashback, and see your point. We’ll pop it into the manuscript and see how it reads when everything is put together. A brief respite is fine. But if it throws off the pace, it may have to be done as interior monologue. What do you other guys think?
@ Paul - Pitch black is cool. The draculas could have knocked out lights. Clay would have a Maglite, no doubt. He’d probably have those spot lights that mount on gun barrels. Laser sights too. Though Clay might think laser sights are cheating…
Joe
• • •
Okay, I’ll have Clay go to the 4th floor, do some suspense in the dark, then realize peds is on the 3rd and go down.
Where’s Obstetrics? Eventually Clay has to meet up with the minister so he can show him how to off himself and take a load of draculas with him.
Paul
• • •
Okay, this one’s done, and links directly to Paul’s chapter where Randall and Clay meet.
Jeff
• • •
Great chapter, Jeff. Love the political correctness Randall grapples with.
Here’s what I’m thinking as historical context:
Oswald von Wolkenstein was a member of the Order of the Dragon in the early 1400s. The Order was supposedly formed to fight the Turks and the Ottoman Empire.
But what if it was formed to fight draculas? Members of the order were called Draconists.
The black death raged throughout the 1400s, Today, historians and scholars believe it was the bubonic and pneumonic plague that caused it, but there has been no absolute evidence to support this hypothesis, only educated guesses.
So what if the black death caused dracula-like symptoms in some of its hosts?
Black death ravages the world, but when people with certain genetic precursors are exposed to it (like certain royal bloodlines) it mutates its victims into draculas. The Draconists had family members affected in this way, including Oswald.
The Draconists, out of self-preservation, manage to kill all of the mutations and keep it under wraps, even though it became the source for vampire and werewolf legends. But Oswald, rather than kill his diseased son, kept him chained up in the cellar.
The son escapes, goes on a killing spree, ending up in Transylvania and causing a dracula epidemic.
Vlad III of Wallachia (Vlad the Imapaler), to save his country in the 1450s, realizes the easiest, fastest, and safest hands-off way to kill draculas is to impale them on large stakes, where they’ll eventually starve to death, unable to climb off.
Oswald’s son is caught by Vlad, who beheaded him. It was Oswald’s son’s head found in the field by the farmer in present day.
Mortimer is a direct line from Wolkenstein. He’s got the bloodline, and the genetic precursor. At the beginning, we can put a draconis ouroborus on his robe as a lapel insignia.