Dracula

Bela Lugosi as "Dracula" in the
film adaptation from Bram Stoker's
book "Dracula"

Dracula
synonymous with "vampires".

Have you ever wondered why?

I did. When I was a teenager, and left to be able to stay up late to watch movies that possibly might be disturbing, I found myself fascinated by the movies about Dracula. No matter when they were made, I had to watch them, as I was fasctinated by the whole idea of vampires and vampirism.

The thought in the back of my mind was that it would be cool if there were such things.  But I knew the reality. But then again, there were things that I experienced in my pre-teen and teenage life that sort of went beyond what we consider "normal". But I wont go into that here.

In the next several days I would like to examine the myth, legends and reality of who and what Dracula is. I will, from time to time offer up suggested reading for you, if you are so inclined. I will talk about Vlad Tepes--the real "Drakulya" (which means son of Dragon or, in some languages "devil"), and how I had always wanted to write stories with vampires in them. 

I had wanted to write the historical Dracula into one of my books, and Vampire Nocturne was the perfect book in which to fit him in. I'll have excerpts of this as well as these next few days up to Halloween. Keep watching as I will be dropping prices of my three Sabrina Strong books.

See you then!

Teaser Tuesday ~ Vampire's Trill - "Leif"

Since I've gone Indie I'm finding older posts which had my ex-publisher's link to the book, and now no longer available through them. Thus I'm republishing this post from "Vampire's Trill". Possibly you may remember it. If not, happy reading.

I turned to find Leif had draped himself in his usual bad-boy pose in the narrow doorway. He had that hungry look in his eyes, and with Leif, you couldn't tell which thing he needed the most—blood or sex. I didn't know where Heath had gone. Then I heard his voice from the other room. He was on the phone.

“Luv, you look absolutely delicious. Give us some.”

“Screw you,” I shot back, having gotten used to his terrible ribbing. Smiling, I turned to open the microwave. I turned back around to find a big, bad vampire invading my space. Gasping with a start, I stopped abruptly nearly losing my grip on the very warm bottles. A thread of fear slid through me as I felt a spike of adrenaline jump-start my heart. The light brown rings of his irises were growing thinner, and the black pupils were growing larger. Crap. He was vamping out on me, big time.

“Only if you participate, luv,” he said. His comeback was the usual raunchiness, and dammed if it didn't pull on my libido.

I made a scathing sound, trying to make believe I wasn't frightened, or suddenly turned-on. I tried to sell it with a roll of the eyes. I didn't want to trip off his pheromones — more than they were already,that is. Leif and I had never been alone together — until last night, of course. I was glad that his brother had come to his aid last night. Him being under this roof alone with me, a vulnerable warm-blooded woman, wasn't in my best interest.

“Was he good, luv?”

“Huh?” I blinked at him in surprise.

“Vasyl. Was he good to you? He make you scream?”

Frowning, I backed away from him, and into the little microwave table. He snagged one of the bottles from my hand and took a long pull from it. Licking his lips in what seemed to me an elaborate display of bloodied fangs, he smiled back at me. He put the free hand on the refrigerator, corralling me in the corner between the microwave, the small breakfast table, and the refrigerator.

Vampire's Trill by Lorelei Bell

Finally I've got a new browser!

Well, my pretties, I'm in a better mood now...
I have been suffering a while with a slow browser (slow as in defunct, and constipated. In other words I could do nothing much. Especially when it came to posting. I couldn't post pictures. I had to paste files from a document, which got to be a big headache!

But look! I've successfully installed Chrome. You have no idea how depressing it was, and hard it was for me to deal with this--it's been months since I could really post here, like I want to.

Here I have posted a nice little picture of a pumpkin with a sleeping kitty inside. Cute, yes?

And I'm able to write/compose in the space provided me.

HAPPY DANCE!!!!

I'm back in business! Yay!!!!

I'm now able to do a few things here and at facebook, which I was no longer able to do. I hope that I can do a few other things at my blog that need to be done.

So, I will be posting things more often, now. At least that's the plan. Stay tuned for more up-dates!

Have a good day!

Welcome to The Inside of My Head (reposted)

The full moon rises, I've just watched two episodes of Moonlight... Gotta love that Mick St. John. Yum...

Okay, we won't go that far into my head tonight.

So, I was thinking how we writers are like vampires. Yeah. We are. Not that we drink blood or anything like that, or are going to live forever (but when you think about it, our words will live forever), but we're in this private club. We understand one another, what makes us tick and if I say something like I killed off a character, you all get what I mean. Right?

The voice inside our heads is okay, because we put it down on the page. So that makes us only slightly psychotic, and when we do kill someone off, it's only on paper. Er... yeah.

I've been working on edits—which make me more psychotic than usual. And making notes for the next book (WIP) that I'm sort of allowing to unfurl like a rose. No sense in letting this one hammer me to death. Hey, I wrote the 4^th one in 3 months—never before or since could I have written something that came so easily to me. Every book has usually taken me about 6 months to a year to complete. No telling how long I'll have to monkey with this one. Things are coming, but not fast and furious like the last 4. I think Sabrina wants to relax in a hammock and float like a dream. I have to wake her up once in a while to remind her I'm watching her and that she'd better get cranking something out.

Well, you all know how you get a book down. You got the ideas and they either work or they don't. When they don't you shouldn't pound your head on the wall or desk or whatever. No. Don't do that. First of all it's very painful and you might ruin the finish or the paint, or something. And your significant other/children might begin to worry about you. Not to mention the neighbors who might be able to hear you screaming: “What? I have to re-write this whole effing chapter!!! Arrrrrg!”

Or something to that effect.

Speaking of which, getting ideas is something you have to do your own way. I do it my way. Which is to keep my eyes and ears open. When I see something that speaks to me, I know. I was about to use some characters from a previous book (you wouldn't know, since you haven't read these books, since I've not published them, but sorry that I write way ahead of myself, but that's just how it is). But these characters were somewhat ho-hum for this book. I needed something better. Something more dynamic and by golly when I saw the characters renderings it just was a drawing in black and white, on someone's blog. I thought “They look sort of cool”, and I had to abscond with the pic because I just knew I wanted to ponder it a while. There was this odd blinking above my head, but it might have been the full moon, but I'm not really sure.

The renderings are done by an artist and I'm not sure who, but I've seen such pictures of character's before, but it makes no difference. It was two guys dressed as butlers. Sabrina seems to have more than her share of men in her life, and so I didn't want these guys to be straight. They had to be gay. I needed this because they were going to be her house help in this book because she actually has a broken leg. And she needed someone to cook and clean for her and maybe do a few other things. But I had to have a pair of them so that they'd volley some interesting dialogue between them that would be entertaining. At least that's the whole idea.

Back in the first few books, I had the twin vampires, Heath and Leif, but by this book they aren't around, so I needed this playful bantering between two guys... it just might work.

So, the moon is rising a little higher out there and there's this fog too. Oh, and the moon is very close to the earth, so much so that it's playing havoc with the tides and flooding places. My husband had no idea that the moon's gravitational pull could do that. He just thought it merely hung around up there in the sky. Ho-ho. Sort of like my brain, it's not just laying around in a heap of gray matter. It's working. Always at work. So much I may just have to take me a sleeping pill. Of course I'll blame my wakefulness on the full moon. It has that effect of me. Odd, but I felt drained earlier in the day and now I'm just unable to go to sleep right now.

OoowwOooooo!

Stop that.

Okay, I'm back.

Oh, and that afghan I began a few weeks back is going fine. It's an interesting pattern. I only had to rip out a line or two a few times. My husband rolled his eyes like I was mad. “You have to get it right or it won't look right in the end.”

Sort of like writing a book. All the rows, stitches matter. Every little bit you put in there is for a reason, even if the reader hasn't a clue. Sort of like the moon's magical pull on things.

Did any of this make sense? I hope so. And it's not even that late, as it's only 9pm. But I've been up since 4 am, so, maybe I'm a raving lunatic by now.

Well, thanks for visiting my brain tonight. Do me a favor, if you're still up and look outside at the moon. Wave. I'm seeing the same moon here in Illinois.

Good night!

A New Thing

It's been a little while since I posted, so thought I'd slap something down for you all.

Been busy with edits on Vampire Caprice (4^th book), and working on something a bit different. My non-fiction work called “The Cat Whisperer”, is coming along, and I hope to publish it this fall.

My dear friend, Carole Gill, happily read through this to catch my mistakes and type-o's. I told her no rush, I knew she was busy. But she went right to work on it, and I got it back today.

She reports, “I LOVED IT!”

I was a little worried about some of it, as I didn't leave much out. This is non-fiction, taken from my journal about the feral mother cat, and the kittens she had, and their growing up and every little emotional blow I had over the things that happened to them.

I worked on it all summer long, on and off, trying to get it to sound natural, and yet not too rag-tag [because it came from my journal, I tend to write w/o worry about tense, punctuation and even spelling].

I've always written in a journal. Since high school (and no, I'm not telling you how long, as it doesn't matter, but it's decades!). Although the majority of my journals are paper, I've now begun writing them into my computer—I've got bins filled with my paper ones. What I'll do with them I have no idea. But there are stories in there, believe me. Some that are embarrassing—for me and maybe other people. This is where you get the memoir, of course. Usually it's about some emotionally-packed incident in a person's life. Well, you know, maybe those people always got on Opra, but I'm not after that. So I went with something safe—no cat will sue me, I don't think. And one would think “how can a story about feral cats be interesting?” You have no idea.

My husband is one of the stars in this book—him being the “cat whisperer”. He's actually always had this attachment toward animals, and a kind heart, and for some reason the animals sense this. However, his starring roll is taken over by one of the off-springs, Half Pint. A tiger-striped cat with (as my husband describes him), Jack Nicolson's eyes. Yeah, they're like half-lidded.

Half Pint was the runt, and yet he was the boldest. Since he grew older, has been the cat in charge, has been able to bring back (to the house), the other two cats after the mother took them out into the wilds. When you meet him, and see how friendly he is, you simply think he's a darling. For being born from a feral cat, this is astonishing enough. It's said you have to make human contact with feral kittens early on, or they won't trust you. They're wild. The first thing I offered Half Pint (the runt) when he was a kitten, was my bare toe, which he proceeded to lick and chew on. Since then he has always liked my bare toes, and I offer them to him on occasion still, careful of his claws.

So, that's what's up next for me, once I get something figured out for the cover. I have no idea how I'll get this done, or what I can do with it. I was thinking of using one of the pictures, but I'm not sure it will work (wish I could share the pictures here, but can't).

I'll let the mss. rest for a few weeks, and read through it for anything else that I might have missed.

In any case, I think cat lovers will adore this story. I'll let you all know when it comes out.

Until then, see you around the usual haunts!

I'm a Tease

Okay, I meant, I'm teasing you with a bit of the fourth novel. Mean, but yeah. The following is from the fourth book of the Sabrina Strong series, Vampire Caprice. Hoping to get this one out by the end of the year.

Enjoy!

~*~

The music became a little more sultry. The low, slow notes of the saxophone vibrated down my spine, emptying into my tail bone and then a heat radiated and settled in my groin. An odd relaxation overwhelmed me, too. The heady mix of spicy vampire pheromones and warm candlelight, intoxicating music was a bit more than I could handle—and yet I wanted more. Tremayne was nothing but extremely talented when it came to seducing his intended. I had been his intended for a long while.

“When a vampire mates he takes his time,” Tremayne said low, his eyes claiming mine.

“Mate?” I said, and the heat between my legs became a delicious throb keeping beat with the swanky music.

That's when the dagger decided to wrestle in it's confines at my side. Startled, I looked down at it.

“Perhaps you should take that off and put it somewhere safe?” he suggested.

“It might be a good idea.” Without hesitating, I stood and undid my belt. I wound the leather up, but I had no idea where to put the thing so that it didn't go after him.

“Here,” he said, hand out to me. I placed it carefully, almost reluctantly in his large hand. He took it, ducked low, and the sound of a drawer sliding open, and then close came. He straightened. “That should keep me safe.” He reached and took my hand again, lacing his fingers through mine, then held it aloft as though he were about to take me out onto the dance floor. He stepped around the bar to join me, and turned the chair I sat in so that I now faced him. His eyes roved my face and then he dropped his eyes to my lap. He made a strange little growl, as his hands went to my thighs and parted them so that he could fill the gap with his narrow hips. The motion, and his nearness sent shock waves through me and my libido spiraled out of control.

“That's better. Where were we?” he asked, his large hands slipping around my back. He laced his fingers there, pulling me closer to him. “Oh, yes. You were asking permission to go out with Chris tomorrow.”

“I wasn't asking you if I could 'go out' with him,” I said, my aggravation making my voice go low. “I only asked if it was alright that I go to town with him. Tomorrow. I don't even know why I'm asking you. I should just do it without your permission. It's not like I'm your damned slave.” Why was he making this such a big deal? Why was he coming on to me? And why did this feel natural—again? I knew it was the pheromones, but it was as though the whole idea of sleeping with him had been more my idea than his—and I knew it wasn't.

He chuckled, head low to come even with mine. “Do you think you're my slave, Sabrina?”

I looked away. What was my problem with him? Was he like my surrogate father? Father figure maybe? Not in this position he wasn't. God, I'm messed up. I let go a defeated sigh.

His fingers found my chin and turned it in order to angle it up to face him. Being this close to Tremayne was not in any girl's best interest if she was trying to keep the blood in her veins, or her clothes on her body. This was as uncomfortable as I'd felt with him—since that night in his secret abode where he got me stripped and in his bed in ten seconds flat. But tonight, this was different. He was being purposefully slow, sly and knew all the moves, where I was inexperienced as far as men and such things.

“Sounds very safe. Very innocent. If you want to go with Chris tomorrow, go ahead.”

“You don't trust me?” I accused. “And by the way, since when do you tell me who I can or can't see?”

“You're forgetting one thing,” he said, sounding trite.

“What's that?”

“Tonight I've got you all to myself.” His hands came up and cupped my face and his lips covered mine. A warmth began at the base of my neck and went south and settled in my groin. I tried to reach for my glove to get it off my right hand so that he couldn't thrall me. I couldn't reach my glove from around his wide shoulders. I moved my hands downward, between us and began to tug at the glove. It was as though it were glued on.

Realizing what I was doing, he grasped both my wrists and placed them at his sides, and then filled the gap between us with his body, preventing me from doing something—I forget what I had been about to do.

“Now, ask me again. What was it you wanted to do tomorrow?” he said, smile broad.

“I-I don't remember,” I said looking up into his handsome face. The soft light in the room threw shadows across the contours of his face, making it look somewhat like a fine piece of artwork. I realized I had not had the opportunity to really take in the details of his high cheekbones, the curve of his lips, almost-straight nose, the arch of his brows.

“I like that answer,” he said. His lips captured mine once more, then his kisses traveled down my neck. Naturally, I arched my neck and my back, his arms holding me to him. I waited for him to sink his teeth into m, super aware of the throb at my womanhood. This was becoming maddening. There was only so much I could take. Teasing me into a whirlwind of desire, his hands went down, grabbed my shirt and it was off before I knew what had happened.

“There,” he said, his eyes crawling over my exposed flesh. “Much better. My turn.”

Having Gone Mad--er, I mean Indie

VAMPIRE NOCTURNE

I had no warning. No warning at all. But I did have an inkling that something was up with my publisher (since he spent so little time on my third book that the edits—WHAT EDITS?--sucked), and I'd be going Indie pretty soon. And I did!

Yes. I had three books that had been with my ex-publisher, relinquished into my hands (I would have said “capable”, but I'm not so sure about that), and the whole ordeal of reading through and editing them—not once but twice—took me all summer. Up until this week, in fact.

I'm done!

Yep. I've just uploaded the third and last of them, Vampire Nocturne, this afternoon, meanwhile doing some decorating for Halloween (because I have to wait for the uploading process). So, I wasn't exactly sitting around all afternoon waiting for things to go through. (I'm partial to pumpkins, witches and skulls), and these now decorate various rooms in the house.

Now I can continue on with the other books. (I'm on number eight, if you're counting.)

Vampire Caprice, the fourth book in the Sabrina Strong series, I hope to get finished maybe by December, but I'm sort of teetering on that part, it might be in January. But people will wait. I want it to be good and ready before I release it.

I am also able to now turn my attentions toward the 8^th book, which has a working title of “Six Shades of Hell”. I sort of like this title and may leave it, as I'm running out of musical attributes to these books. I still have not used “Fantasia”, “Sonata”, “Rhapsody”, “Calypso”, “Cannon”, or “Opus”. Some of these I'm not crazy about.

I'm not certain if anyone has even noticed this is what these titles are from—a musical work/composition. If you did, you get an “A”. If you wonder how I arrived at the titles “Vampire Ascending” and “Vampire's Trill” they are the titles borrowed from works of music. In “Vampire's Trill” it is explained during the moments with Nicolas who has just played “Devil's Trill” on the violin. “Vampire Ascending” comes from a beautiful work called “Lark Ascending” which was taken from a poem of the same name—which I absolutely love, and my husband began listening to classical music from this one piece one day in the park.

But I digress.

The next four book titles are as follows:

“Vampire Caprice”

“Vampire Crescendo”

“Vampire Requiem”

“Vampire Interlude”

The next book/#4 “Vampire Caprice” is as the title indicates—a number of things happening with suddenness, and sometimes seemingly out of impulsiveness. I've also gone into other character's heads, not just Sabrina.

In this fourth book, Sabrina winds up in Colorado, abducted (although she doesn't realize it) by Tremayne. All your favorite characters are in this one, including Rick, Bill Gannon, Vasyl, and a few brand new ones. It's a bit on the wild side, as I felt that Sabrina and Tremayne had to come to terms with their love/hate relationship. Or is it love/terrify relationship?

Back to Vampire Nocturne, this has been out before under my ex-publisher, but now it's totally under my control, and hopefully I've caught all the mistakes—really there were a number of them in the original that was released by my ex-publisher, and I'm embarrassed by them. Thankfully this one has not been out that long, so I hope not too much damage has been accrued in the 5 months it was out there.

And at the moment I'm needing some nice days of R&R, but I'll be around working on things, when the moment strikes. My husband and I want to visit some apple farms, do a little antiquing, and I'm going to try and find the 5^th and 6^th Harry Potter movies on DVD, so I can watch them. And we'll begin watching all the horror flicks we enjoy so much this time of year.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my mind-babble. I hope to announce when this third book is out by tomorrow on my facebook pages and the usual areas. Or, I might come back and just add it to this silly little post.