The scary vampires are back

I read The Strain and now I am watching the TV series based on the books. The premise behind The Strain is that vampirism is more like a virus that transforms the human body into some kind of creature or organism with no sense of humanity. All they want to do is feed and make more vampires. And the way they feed is really gross—they have these long tongue-like things that extend out of their mouth. It’s really freaky to imagine something like this could be real.

What I like about this vampire series is that there is nothing loveable about these vampires. They are frightening. And changing into one of these vampires is anything but sexy. I love being scared and the recent vampire books and movies are not scary at all. In fact, some are just silly. I grew up in the era of the non-sparkly vampires, and I welcome this new wave of vampires like the ones in 30 Days of Night that spent the whole movie wearing dried blood and Let Me In where childlike innocence is a disguise for a true predator. And now I look forward to watching the truly inhuman ones in The Strain.

Finally, vampires are scary again and there is nothing better than a good scare.

 

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author

Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly

http://www.kelleyheckart.com

http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/CelticChick

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

Two mortals are caught in the midst of the battle between the Titans and Olympian gods.

Buy links on author website: http://kelleyheckart.com/daughter_of_night.html

"A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity." Franz Kafka



In my May 30, 2013 post here at Nocturnal Nights, I wrote the following about my life settling down after my dad's passing in April: "...I've had more time to myself, which I haven't had in nearly two months. I want to have two of my unfinished manuscripts completed by the time I'd normally return to school in mid-August, and one of them somewhere in the publication process. Time and inspiration will tell, I suppose."

 

Yeah, well, my life hasn't settled down and mid-August is a mere memory. The light I saw at the end of the tunnel was the train coming, not the beckoning light of my computer screen, because last Saturday, my basement flooded. Total disaster. Total remodel. Totally time-consuming to deal with. All my precious writing time has been taken up with sorting the salvageable from the destroyed and damaged. It's a good thing my material possessions don't own me, because I've had to throw away a lot. And I do mean a lot. :-( No news from the insurance adjuster yet.

 

My basement was my writing hovel. So now my writing space is on a five-foot long rectangular utility table in my way too small living room with boxes, totes, and stacks of 'stuff' piled all around with my husband sharing half of the table because his office was also in the basement. The furniture we could keep is in storage as are closets of clothing, coats, etc. It will be another several months before this arrangement changes.

 

A few hours ago, I reached the Kafka stage of my writing endeavors. I am now a monster courting insanity.

 

<shrugging> I guess life has handed me a basket of lemons, so I'm going to make the best of it and make lemonade...or margaritas. :-)

 

Until next time (when I hope to have something positive to report about my writing),

 

Kaye

 

Fall in love...faster, harder, deeper with Kaye Spencer romances
www.kayespencer.com

 

 

A Three-Legged Wonder

Various Halloween scenes flee flood the remembrance of my childhood past. There were years that were scary and others scream-laugh funny.

As an adult, I can still gag smile at the antics of my friends and family.

My mother is a clothing designer by trade. So Halloween in our house consisted of home-made costumes. In my recollection, there was only one year in which I wore a costume my mother didn’t entirely make for me.

Nothing against my in-house designer's imagination—all her guises were works of art—but forcing helping to create my own costume made it the best Halloween ever.

My best friend, Kelley, and I were eight years old. Her mom provided us with tempera paints and thick brushes, along with two paper grocery sacks.

We decided to be a two-headed monster. This consisted of painting our "heads" on the sacks and having my mother sew a shirt and three-legged pants large enough to house two kids.

It took us almost a whole week of practice, walking side by side with our inside legs tied together, to find our cadence beat. And then…the big night. Halloween.

We dressed at my house and preened for pictures. Hobbled to her house for more pictures. With plastic pumpkin buckets in hand, we set off.

And promptly fell down her front stairs, ripping the shirt and tearing the pant seam. How the paper sacks stayed intact, I'll never know. I was crying, Kelley was screaming, her mom was laughing, and their damn dog attacked my pumpkin bucket.

We made our rounds through the neighborhood that night, a two headed, three-legged, limping monster.

I haven't seen Kelley since 1989, but I keep in touch with her mother. She and I have groaned laughed over my favorite Halloween many times over the years.

Everyone has a Halloween story. What's yours?