Vampires in Fells Point

It's up on Amazon for Kindle! 
Warning: this is not your typical vampire story.

www.amazon.com/Dead-Dreams-ebook/dp/B008O64HC4/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343072337&sr=1-11&keywords=Dead+Dreams

Coming soon!

My venture into the world of novellas for ninety nine cents has almost completed.  The story has been sent to Amazon for Kindle and we're waiting for it to go up.

Let me tell you, this story has taken a long time to get up. Thanks to my friend and fellow writer Aggie in Massachusetts, it is formatted beautifully.  (We still haven't been able to help Dancin' in the Dark that way.)  Thanks to Karyn my wonderful artist/opera singing daughter for a lovely changed cover on which she spent hours and hours.  Thanks to Elyse, the computer whiz and geoscientist for getting the version submitted to Amazon.

Now...it has to be changed.  The initial price has to be changed immediately and the author, who is decidedly NOT my lovely daughter Karyn, has got to be changed.  She does write, but she didn't write this.

See if you can spot what was changed in the cover from here.

Of course my name is on it!  But the picture won't show it.  The change does appear.

Fact vs. Fantasy

We writers dream of danger and put it into our works.  We murder innocent fictional victims left and right, sometimes for a reason, sometimes for no reason at all
Last night in Aurora, Colorado, someone walked into a movie theater, tossed a smoke grenade and drew a machine type weapon and sprayed the audience during the midnight showing of a Batman movie.

According to this morning's news, at least 12 people are dead and some 50 wounded, though these figures are probably not accurate.

Makes you, as a writer, wonder--do I have too much violence in my stories?  Are the movie scripts we create full of unnecessary blood and gore?  How would what I write or create possibly affect the reader or viewer?

My heart goes out to the innocents in Aurora, the young people, the few children who were there and the adults who will have this memory for the rest of their lives. 
My advice--perhaps, to those in Aurora and its surroundings--think twice before you blithely send your kids off to the movies that are full of violence.  To those who were there...seek counseling.
God bless you all.

DEAD DREAMS cover!

The story isn't like the usual paranormal story.  The hero is a real flesh and blood man and the heroine is a flesh and blood woman. It's what comes between them that might be just a little ripe....

More later.  I hope to have this up by the end of the month, but I could not resist posting Karyn's fantastic cover!  The kid is a genius.

Independence Day

There may be a tendency to think of our forefathers as rich white landowners who didn't really believe in equality for both sexes and races, who were pretty radical when it came to bringing down the monarchy in our bit of land.  They didn't like to pay taxes for things they thought we deserved for free, or at least, that we had a hand in what those rulers overseas decided for us.  They didn't think we were all stupid, just most of us.
This is real.  This is history.
Most of them didn't believe in the Christian god as anything more than the Creator, if that.
They liked owning land.  They might not have been able to had they lived in the Mother Country.

But you have to hand it to them, those forefathers of ours.
They sure did come up with some nifty ideas about government in 1776 that still make sense and hold true today.  They did it again in 1789 with their Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Can you name another country that has been this stable, has realized such great potential and kept pretty much to their laws without violent revolution in all this time?

I'm sure there may be some, but I happen to like the one I live in.
All the above statements about our forefathers is historically accurate.  They were not saints--oh, Ben Franklin was a poster child for wild living--but he was a brilliant mind and outside of the turkey thing, he did all right for us.  Tom Jefferson was a genius but a bit of an introvert.  George Washington was brash and full of himself but turned out to do the right thing most of the time.  Anybody else?  Hamilton was a pirate.  Adams had trouble getting along with his playmates.  But they overcame these foibles to leave us with a pretty great country.

~~Waving flag here~~

History is behind us.  We live for today, but are mindful of the past with its triumphs and mistakes, in order to keep on keepin' on.

You must know that I absolutely dote on Godzilla.  I have no idea where this weather forecaster came from, but I think I'm in love.

Please watch all the way through!

The truth about vampires

Dead Dreams, my novella, is going up on Amazon soon.  I am basing all my vampire knowledge on the following, after much research.

~~~~~~~#~~~~~~~

Let’s not quibble here.  I'm not going to debunk anything, I'm not going to complain about modern writers wreaking havoc with the mythos of vampires.  What I will do is tell you all how to dispatch a vampire, so that if you should ever come into contact with one, you know how to deal with it.

Yes, there are ways to get rid of a vampire.

First of all, a vampire cannot cross your threshold without first getting your permission to do so.  Though, if the vampire is particularly sly, it can coerce you or trick you into saying something that will sound like permission, and that’s all it needs.

“Are you going to stand there all night?” is tacit permission.  You gotta be really careful because they are expert at twisting your words around.

Wearing garlic chains around your person will certainly chase away the vampires, however, you’re gonna look a little strange.  Might I suggest those garlic pills that are supposed to help with cholesterol?   They work.  It is the sulfur and sulfites in the garlic, both plant and processed, that vampires cannot stand.  Back in the old days in Transylvania, the folks grew garlic and ate it regularly.  They knew it worked, so always try to keep some on hand, or at least eat Italian frequently.

Salt will also repel a vampire.  Should you spread salt (it doesn’t have to be iodized necessarily) in a two inch thick path around yourself, no vampire can cross through that.

Face it: they’re rotting away slowly.  You all know what salt can do to a garden slug…it works on vampires just as easily.  In a pinch, just spilling enough salt on your porch will work, but at the least sign of humidity, the salt will dissolve and salt water doesn’t work nearly as well.

Religious artifacts such as crosses, saint medallions, Bibles, holy water…yes, they will work to repel and even shock vampires, but there’s a proviso here.  One must truly believe in the power of the word, or the symbol of the cross or even Star of David.  If you just carry a crucifix on your person but do not believe, well, it means the same to the vampire who is after you and you’ll be steak tartare shortly. 

Killing a vampire involves a bit more effort on your part.  The time honored method of dispatch is simply driving a stake from hawthorn, aspen, ash or white thorn directly through the vampire’s heart will stop them.  There is a stage two to this, however, that is far too often neglected.  The head must then be separated from the body and buried separately.  They do not disappear in a puff of smoke or shower of sparkles.  The body will remain, so you have to get rid of that, too.  If buried, the body and head must be buried separately lest with the power remaining in the head, the vampire reattach itself.  Make sure the body is positioned chest down in the grave.  Burying the body under a waterfall, since vampires cannot cross running water, will do the job nicely.  Burying the head at a crossroads works well.  Setting both body and head on fire and making sure it is totally turned to ash works sufficiently.

Oh, yeah.  Vampires are incredibly strong.  They can travel on moonbeams, though that is questionable in this day with the pollution in the air. They have the strength of twenty mortal men and can change into canine shape or big bat-creatures.    Using these powers, they can cross running water, but it takes a lot out of them.  They do not reflect in mirrors but you can get a good snapshot of one using a digital camera as it does not involve a glass mirror.  They do not cast shadows, either.  They do not breathe.  They have no loyalty to anyone, not even those that sire them.  They need human blood to sustain them, no other kind, as the particular hemoglobin is what they need to exist.  While they can merely drink without siring another vampire, they can drain the individual of all blood with their lust for nourishment.  They must drink regularly…no dieting.  They do not eat flesh nor can they ingest any type of food or drink.

Vampires are not necessarily good-looking.  Their supposed hypnotic influence over victims is pure Hollywood since back when most vampire movies were being made, the sexual allure they reputedly have over weaker mortals could not be portrayed.

Stay safe.  Eat garlic, carry salt in your pockets at all times, avoid talking to strangers, don’t go out alone at night and never, ever invite a vampire into your house.

copyright 2012 Irene Peterson