Blake
• • •
Adam started running, made it out of the laboratory and halfway through reception, when his XXXXXX finally faded to black.
He froze, waited a moment, thinking his eyes would adjust, that he would be able to see something, but it never happened.
His first instinct was primal, animal panic, a sense of the walls both closing in and spinning until he’d completely lost his bearing.
XXXXXX. It leaves you in the dark to be eaten by vampires. $29.99.
Jeff
• • •
XXXXXX…it’s not going to help you when the lights go out during a vampire outbreak.
Blake
• • •
Our emails crossed and yours is much funnier…LOL
Blake
• • •
Clay stopped at the Pepsi machine and got a refreshingly tasty Mountain Dew. Halfway into sipping the delicious beverage, he heard a noise on his left. Reaching into his Levis 517 Boot Cut jeans, he removed his Benchmade Griptilian folder, flicking open the blade.
But it wasn’t a dracula. It was Jenny, riding a brand new Schwinn Seneca 700cc, her L.A. Gear Walk N Tone shoes furious on the pedals.
“They’re coming!” she yelled while screeching the brakes. “But before we run, I need to apply some L’Oreal True Match Concealer! I don’t fight monsters without looking my best!”
Guys, we’re gonna be rich…
Joe
• • •
Okay, I’d never heard an XXXXXX, but now I really want one.
Paul
• • •
No, I completely agree with Paul. It’s a good self-contained scene, but it feels less like “enhancing the irony” than “overexplaining a plot point.” Readers don’t want six pages of a new character right at the finale.
Jeff
• • •
I’ve gotta say, this book flows incredibly well for a four-author project! I’d expected to find a lot of awkward pacing, but no, it’s smoooooooth. Huge kudos to Blake for managing to figure out where everything should be pasted together.
For a book with so many characters, they’re all distinct, and I don’t think readers will have any difficulty following the action.
I fixed a few typos, some redundant description, and the occasional continuity error. I changed the iPad to a Kindle with a light. Cut a line here and there.
I have a couple more changes to make (there’s a paragraph about Clay/Shanna’s relationship that’s too much like Randall/Jenny’s relationship, and Randall gives Jenny a hatchet that’s never used), and then I’m going to go through the special features.
Jeff
• • •
There’s another deleted scene for the fire.
Joe
• • •
Okay, I’m ready to hand this thing off to Joe.
The Clay epilogue is fantastic. Feels like it was planned out from the beginning.
Jeff
• • •
Don’t know about rich, but I think the least the Taurus folks can do is send me a Raging Bull.
Paul
• • •
If Taurus contacts you, asking if you received the firearm they sent your way via my address, they’re liars and never sent me anything.
Also, remind them I wanted extra clips.
Joe
• • •
And somebody is bound to send Blake some red candy!
Jeff
• • •
Okay, I’m just getting started, and have only made some small changes.
I switched Clay’s profession from cop to high school guidance counselor. Now, instead of all the shooting, he encourages the draculas to talk about their feelings.
Stacie is now a man.
I cut all the stuff Jeff wrote.
In my scenes, I added two commas, and fixed a typo.
I also made one minor addition. Dr. Lanz is now a minor. Sort of like Doogie Howser. Because of this, he is now being played by Neil Patrick Harris, who has turned the role into a singing part. Not quite sure how that will work in an ebook, but this is all such a fabulous new technology I’m sure there’s a way.
Oh, almost forgot. I also changed every noun in the book to “wiener.”
“Wiener jerked against his wieners, making the wiener rattle. The wieners had pumped enough wieners into him to kill a wiener, but the wieners hadn’t abated. Wiener wiped away another wiener, wondering if wiener should have seen wiener coming.”
You can see how the story is vastly improved.
Also, I cut all the stuff Blake wrote.
Joe
• • •
Interesting changes, Joe.
BTW, could you please cut all the stuff I wrote too?
Paul
• • •
As long as I still get my 25% of the royalties…
Jeff
• • •
And for real now…
I made the formatting globally uniform in terms of punctuation and spacing (Kindle hates it when the return key is pressed more than once.)
Put the Sgt. Rogers scene in the deleted scenes.
Changed the order of some of the special features.
Added the emails that were in the dropbox.
Jeff and Paul, you didn’t put in your acknowledgments. If you don’t have anyone specific to thank, we can just use “The Authors Wish to Thank” and then list all the folks that helped us.
I’m getting started on reading it, and should finish by tomorrow.
Joe
• • •
BTW, could you please cut all the stuff I wrote too?
I can’t find the scenes you wrote, Paul. Was it the scene with the wieners?
Joe
September 29, 2010
While I was editing, I got sidetracked on the email extras, and just spent two hours making that all nice and uniform and clear, fixing some typos and formatting.
I also added the “half-assed” joke Jeff cut to the Deleted Scenes collection. I’m sad to see it go from the manuscript, but at least it lives on as a bonus extra…
Joe
• • •
I just skimmed through the emails. 40k words of email. 40k!
Paul
• • •
“40k words of email”
And that’s after cutting out all of the pointless emails that Strand sent. Did you get the eleven pages of cross-stitch patterns he sent, under the heading, “Super Important Draculas Notes”?
Blake had his moments as well, like when he cut and pasted the entire Wikipedia article on the line of succession to the British Throne. I finally gave up reading that one at #1491 - Baron Godfrey of Fürstenberg-Herdringen, second son of Baron Sylvester.
The only one not abusing our email protocol with pointless messages that have nothing to do with the project is me. I have several theories on why that is, and will be sending them to you, in groups of threes, over the next eight days.
Joe
October 1, 2010
Love you guys. It’s been an honor, and a great deal of fun, working with you on this project. I couldn’t have picked three better writers.
Let’s consider doing this again in 2011, schedules permitting.
Joe
• • •
You too, brother. Feeling honestly a little emotional writing this. It has been nothing but a total joy and a true privilege working with all of you. Everyone brought their A-game, everyone gave 100%, we didn’t always agree, but I’m really proud of how we worked through those times when we didn’t see eye-to-eye. Truly one of the best writing experiences I’ve had, and I know I’m a better writer having worked with each of you. I really couldn’t be more thrilled with how this book and collaboration turned out.