The Curse of Dracula

Grummuglefix.

That’s what I say when I’m angry like when some smart alec stakes my heart while I’m dead. But you didn’t stop by to hear me curse. I am Dracula, Count of Transylvania. My people hate me because I charge high taxes. The town councils complain.

“What do you think?” they ask. “Do you expect blood from a stone?”

But I say, “Of course not. I have you for that. I don’t take all of your blood, just a little to pay for my many services to you like keeping out barbarian invaders from the north and civilized invaders from the south. And west? Don’t even ask about the west.”

Things run great in my country. People are happy once their bite marks heal up. I only take a little bit. It’s good for them. They make new, healthy blood.

Things went bad for a while when the Communists took over, and I was no longer Count Dracula. Instead, I became Comrade Dracula, Commissar of Transylvania.

But the people hated me because I charged high taxes. Comrades from Moscow said I had to share my castle with the workers. “It’s too big for one man with only three living dead wives,” they said.

I offered the villagers the opportunity to spend their nights in Dracula’s castle. Villagers all said, “No thank you. Your castle is too far from the factory.”

So the Communists fell after only 75 years in power. That’s like a long lunch break for me. I went into exile like all good former commissars. By the way, there’s no such thing as a “good” commissar. This explains why communism failed.

I moved to England and married the daughter of an earl. We were happy until she wanted a baby. I found a teenage baby for her. She became a nice daughter for Dracula and his lovely bride.

Grummuglefix.

She found out about boys.

Maybe you have seen her at the high school dance. She’s the one with the two big teeth up front. No braces.

My wife likes our teenager but wishes for a real baby still. I explained how vampires can’t have babies. You have to be human. Instead, please enjoy our teenage daughter. See she’s having nice romances with teenage boys and werewolves.

Our daughter is a nice girl. She brings her girlfriends home for a pajama party. We serve them snacks, sodas, booze and drugs. Then we suck their blood.

Before dawn, we send our daughter’s friends home happy. Later they make their mothers and fathers happy. Unfortunately, the authorities don’t like too much happiness, especially amongst their vampire neighbors. So as the police pound stakes during the day, I move the family back home to Transylvania.

Grummuglefix.

My three old wives do not like my new family, but I tell them we are one big happy family whether they like it or not. I remind them that Count Dracula can pound a few stakes just like Englishmen.

My teenage daughter adapts quickly to Transylvania. She loves dating the local boys at night.

Meanwhile, I am no longer Commissar as I said. Instead, I am Count Dracula again except now we have democracy. I am a very democratic count. I tax everyone equally. It’s only fair. Oh wait. I am progressive democrat. I tax rich people more equally than poor people. And I support health care plan because we need a nice hospital with a big blood bank.

***

Speaking of vampires…
Did you know that my new novel, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, is chock full of vampires? It’s loaded with trolls and a wide range of other strange monsters. It’s a horror story blended into a time travel journey. Snpgrdxz is pronounced as if spelled snip-grid-ix. Begin by reading the free chunk you can access by clicking on the book cover on Amazon by clicking here.

Snpgrdxz and the Discount Offer

Purchase Snpgrdxz for just 99 cents today.

The modern novel is about two things: action and emotion. Action moves the story along so that you can’t put it down because of the nonstop forward motion. Emotion is about laughter, joy, excitement. It’s about anger, fear and angst. It’s about the exhilaration of needing to know what will happen next. Above all, it’s about falling in love with one person in one place, and with one book, one author. For love conquers everything including the monsters who’d love to kill us, eat us, or transform us into something unspeakable in the world of Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters.

What if one night that teenage girl you have a crush on appears at the foot of your bed, pistol in hand, and threatens to shoot you? But your best friend and a terrorist burst into your bedroom and kill her in the nick of time? But the next night this same girl shows up in your bed again? This time she’s ready for love. When did your dead crush become your girlfriend? Wild dreams? Since when did your nightmares leave actual bullet holes and blood stains behind?

Join the crazy journey of Bryan Ganarski, Jennifer Hawkins, Gilbert Armstrong, and of course, Snpgrdxz, the teenaged space alien shape shifter who can be either a boy or girl depending on his or her mood. Hormones fly, earther and other, in this madcap misadventure.

Is Bryan totally insane or is there a part of him that can still fall in love with one of the many versions of his time-traveling girlfriend? And will Bryan work up the gumption to kiss Jennifer in front of the whole sophomore class like she asked him to? She did ask him, didn’t she?

This love-crazed tale of time travel features a group of friends who become stuck between the wrong time on earth and a troll world filled with monsters far worse than those pesky tiny bridge trolls and the really tall, hairy mountain trolls. An evil daemon, werewolves, nosferatu, and a few ghosts are among the many monsters waiting for you in Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters. It’s the first novel in my new sci-fi/fantasy horror series.

Enjoying a great read begins with action and emotion. Act now to purchase Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters on Kindle today for only $0.99 US. Save $2 US and pay less than a buck. Such a deal! Don’t miss out on it. Click here now.

You can get all emotional later as you read Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters.

In case you missed it, here’s the link to my new novel on Amazon: Click here.

A Modern Warrior Woman

Jennifer Hawkins discovers her role as the warrior attracted to a cowardly boyfriend in Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters. Jennifer protects and lifts up her boyfriend while displaying the courage to become the only female member of the time travelling team searching for the lost Maria Gonzalez. She serves as the conscience of the group while retaining her nickname of Wild Thing. It’s Jennifer who dispatches two of the mobsters who attack in 1923, and she is the one who serves as nurse to a wounded Bryan Ganarski. (BTW, you’ll want to check out this scene as described in a first-person point of view by Bryan after he is wounded in the head. It makes for an interesting Tour de Force.)

Jennifer meets herself on her time journey and the two Jennifers travel together without having the time-space continuum collapse. Apparently the universe can abide a paradox. 

One of the things to watch for as you read my Snpgrdxz (pronounced like it's spelled Snip-grid-ix) series of novels is the way the two main Jennifers (there are others that pop in from time to time) grow in two different directions with one becoming a strong female warrior while the other descends into evil.

By having two versions of the same strong female character, I’m able to explore the way any of us can choose evil or good actions. Snpgrdxz also provides a humorous way to examine the theme of good and evil in our modern culture which dismisses this kind of contrast as primitive Bronze Age thinking. In a world that approves of our actions as “lifestyle choices,” the Snpgrdxz novels show that not all choices are for the good and not all actions give life.

Read the free portion of the first novel in the Snpgrdxz series, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, by clicking here for the book on Amazon.

And while you’re on Amazon, be sure to download the Kindle version of my most downloaded short story Little Miss Forgotten. It reached number 33 on Amazon this morning and today is the last day it's free.

Today’s Nostalgia Post: How can a Christian write a story where a character commits a murder? Take a deep dive into a philosophical issue. Click here.

Death Takes a Vacation

We often think of death as an angel sent to take away your soul to judgment, leaving your body as an empty shell for the fire pit or burial ground. But the world is so overrun by people that one angel simply can’t snatch all the souls fast enough, especially in a war zone. So what’s Death to do?

It turns out the Death Department operates a whole cadre of death angels, each assigned to its own territory and given a quota to  meet. Death angels, known in the Vatican archives as Deathabus, circle about their area of responsibility to snag those souls ready for the great beyond.

On occasion, the Deathabus is authorized to take a vacation. Now, you may be picturing the agent of Death as this mysterious skeletal creature wrapped inside a floor length hoodie, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The angels of death, all of them, are either handsome young men in appearance or attractive, well-figured females. The one who kisses you depends on your preference. Death knows your secret desires to be sure.

Learn more about the deathly kiss of greeting by reading Little Miss Forgotten. It’s available today free on Amazon. Download your free copy by clicking here.

Today’s nostalgia post: Day 1 describes the first day of a road trip taken by my adult son Joseph and me back in 2009. In this post, I channel Robert M. Pirsig despite my then desire to wax Hemingway-esque. Click here to read.

Little Miss Forgotten

My writing style has evolved over time as has reader tastes. Novels I write today begin with a strong hook. For example, my new novel Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, begins with this line:

From where she stood at the foot of my bed, fifteen-year-old Jennifer Hawkins couldn’t miss, but would this sweet girl shoot me?

The idea of the opening hook is to entice you into wanting to know what happens next. Will Jennifer Hawkins pull the trigger? There was a time when a story about a teenage girl and a gun would end up with the girl not firing. But this is a 21st century girl who has been raised in an era of high violence, often meaningless, involving teen-on-teen crime.

So does Jennifer pull the trigger? The odds are very high that she does, but I’ll let you find out for yourself when you read the free portion by clicking the book cover on Amazon. Click here to visit Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters on Amazon. BTW, Snpgrdxz is pronounced as if spelled Snip-grid-ix. It’s all explained in the novel.

This brings us back to Little Miss Forgotten, a strong female character who appears in my short story of the same name. This is an older story of mine, and it features a more languid opening style of stories written decades ago when readers preferred a little more setup before the action blazed hot.

Here is the opening:

"Do you wanna dance?" Okay, it was the name of a top ten hit, and today's kids would sneer if they heard me, but in 1967 it worked.

She hesitated. She frowned. She stared for what seemed an eternity, (about three seconds). "Sure, why not?"

I don't remember the song. The band was on break, and the young kids who worked as house deejays were playing records. It was a fast one. You just didn't ask a girl to dance a slow one the first time. You had to dance a couple of fast ones first. At a nice suburban Catholic church hall like Holy Cross, a girl accepting a slow dance was giving you an invitation to climb all over her.

We danced that first one, and then a few more fast dances. They were the usual Mashed Potato, Watusi and Stomp. Then a slow one came on, my all-time favorite: "Angel Baby" by Rosie and the Originals. (High falsetto, andante: "It's just like heav-en, be-ing here with yo-oo, 'cause you're like an an-gel, too good to be true-oo, but after-ah-all, I love you, I do-oo, An-gel Ba-by, my An-gel Ba-by," etc.) These lyrics won’t mean much to you unless you already know the song, but trust me, the tune was great for slow dancing.

***

Set during the Vietnam war era, the rest of this short horror fiction is yours free for your Kindle by clicking here today. Beware the kiss of death and as always, stay away from those pretty little blondes.

Okay, you don’t have to avoid the blondes, but you still have to watch out for that one kiss from Little Miss Forgotten that will change your life forever. Click here for the free download.

Today’s nostalgia blog post is from May 22, 2009. Click here for a sweet yarn on yet another strong young lady and my take on wisdom.

Celebrating the Fifth

I’m celebrating the fifth year of this blog with a series of special offers beginning this week with my short story Little Miss Forgotten, which is a free download all this week on Amazon. Usually my short stories sell for $0.99 so this represents a stupendous savings of nearly a buck.

I’ll tell you more about Little Miss Forgotten as the week goes on. In the meantime, you can download your free copy by clicking here.

Other special offers to look for include the Kindle version of Book 1 of my new Snpgrdxz (say “Snip-grid-ix” series) which you can purchase for only $0.99 next week, marked down from the usual $2.99 on Kindle. If you can’t wait, you may purchase it now by clicking here. 

I’ll be giving away more short stories in the coming months. And look for some of my novels at a discount. I’ll also launch two more novels in the Snpgrdxz series in time for the holidays.

Enjoy. Don’t forget to click here for your free download of Little Miss Forgotten for your Kindle.

Today’s Nostalgia Post: As part of this week’s celebration of five years of blogging, I’ll link you to some of my favorite oldie but goodie posts. My first blog post appeared on April 17, 2009. In that one, I ask “Am I There Yet?” which is a lighthearted look at the art of blog posting and my entry into the realm.  You can read post number one by clicking here.

Strong Women Make Strong Stories

In Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, Bryan Ganarski kisses Jennifer Hawkins in front of the entire sophomore class. The next thing you know, Bryan is flat on his back on the floor.

Jennifer has slugged him on the jaw.

Women don’t have to bash a guy to prove they are strong, but it helps. More often in fiction a strong woman grows out of a scared young lady facing danger beyond her comprehension. The strong woman has the strength to face her circumstances, no matter what. And she grows by her experiences.

With four novels under my belt, I can see a trend of strong female characters. These include Mary of Nazareth in Fulfillment, Peevy O’Malley in Hags, Penny Durkin in Steel Pennies and Jennifer Hawkins in my latest novel Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters. They each display strength of character and a will to survive that serves them well in their stories.

Fulfillment: Mary
In Fulfillment I try to bring the Christmas story to life for modern readers. The real story of Mary is one of the most fascinating plot lines in history as she travels from innocence to the experience of motherhood while retaining her virgin status.

As the main character of Fulfillment, Mary of Nazareth faces down Satan while pregnant with the future Messiah. Mary starts as a very young girl with no experience dealing with evil, but evil shows up just the same. From the novel’s opening scene onward, demons seek to destroy the woman who would mother a savior. Mary matures in strength and character as she accepts an angel’s invitation to become the mother of Jesus. She deals with an initial rejection when her parents learn that she is pregnant by someone other than her fiancé. Her fiancé rejects her only to change his mind later. By standing her ground against the evil that attacks her, she brings an odd assortment of characters to her side as her defenders.

I’ll write more about my female characters in future posts. For now, you can read a large chunk of Fulfillment for free by clicking on the book cover on Amazon. Click here.

If you’re ready to check out the free portion of my latest novel, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, click here for the book on Amazon.

Words That Bite

Did you know that robots scour the Internet with nothing better to do than seek out and copy words and reveal those words to their mad scientist bosses? These mechanical beasts look like tiny metal spiders bearing little resemblance to the spider bots in Minority Report, the eye-popping film featuring Tom Cruise.

Here is one of the words you must avoid: “at” or as it is more popularly known online “@.”

You would think “at” would be a simple enough word as to be innocuous, but innocuous is too big of a word to describe a little word. Matters become worse if you happen to forget to leave spaces between your words like the automatic random space skipping feature built into Windows 8.

For example, if you type a simple sentence like eat@joes.com, you not only will lose your spaces, but you also will flunk that English test you’re taking at this moment for using “@” instead of “at.” While checking out the "@,"you’re bound to notice the dot (also known as a period or end stop depending on whether you are writing in English or American). You may be wondering about the reason I asked you to notice the dot in the first place in the previous sentence. No reason except I want you to notice it. Dot itself is a transliteration from the original Geek and just goes to show what can happen if you don’t have any English majors on your team. Always hire an English major if only to keep your words honest.

And never place words ending in “por” next to the word “no” as in “Bob came home last night in a drunken stupor. No!” The bots, being horny little devils, will inevitably fix your grammar, spelling and punctuation as they assume you typed your stuff in Windows 8 and hadn’t got around to the editing yet. As a result, the bots will translate your simple story bit into “Drunken Stu’s porno.” You’ll notice most of the letters match, but the spacing and such have all gone different. And of course Bob changed his name to Stu.

Putting this advice together in a more or less typical story line, we read “Don’t eat at Joes or dot calm girls because someone may mistake you for a porno star named Stu of Bob." BTW, the bots, I’m quite sure, have rendered “more or less” as “moralless” by now, which is not an actual word, but that has never stopped people from using it as in “Helen is a moralless bioche for running off with that dude (dewd) from Troy.” The other possibility is the bots will interpret “more or less” as “moralist” as in “That Helen is some moralist. Did you see the way she fought off that dude (dewd?) from Troy?”

How do you fix those pesky bots invading your online presence? Here I do not mean “repair” when I write “fix.” I am, of course, referring to the concept of total destruction of the bots. It’s the only way.

How do you fix the dreaded Internet spider bots, you ask? Give them something they can’t read, but you can like…

Snpgrdxz

and the Time Monsters

Click here.

News Flash: Bad Decisions

Guest Post by Susan Price

Who doesn't enjoy complaining about Fools responding to Crises with Bad Decisions? News Flash: Bad Decisions, a party game currently under development by Diamond Dust Dreams, encourages you to enjoy doing that. This card game involves combining news-lead or headline sentence “teleprompt” cards with cards listing generic categories of famous (or infamous) people as the fools, crises ranging from mundane to outrageous, and flagrantly Bad Decisions for you to combine into amusing mini-stories.

News Flash: Bad Decisions plays like a cross between Apples to Apples® and Mad Libs®, with each prompt card playing differently every time because the News Anchor (judge) gets to set up every story. The finished game will have 200 cards each in the Fool, Crisis and Bad Decision decks - and 60 teleprompter cards. With a PG13 approach for selecting crises and bad decisions (from actual news stories), Diamond Dust Dreams expects its newest game will give the much racier Cards Against Humanity strong competition as the next must-have party game.

Diamond Dust Dreams is still in its startup phase. With substantial capital already tied up in printing its first game, Kitsune: of Foxes and Fools, the company has turned to Kickstarter to get News Flash: Bad Decisions off the ground. By contributing as little as $10 to the Kickstarter project, you’ll qualify for reward levels with direct input into the creation of additional Fool, Crisis, Bad Decision and Teleprompter cards. All supporters giving $10 or more may suggest topics for future Bad Decisions games, such as: horror movies (“went into the woods alone - at night”), thriller/scifi (“pressed the red button”), modern European history (“invaded Russia in winter”), and biotech (“cloned what?”).

The Kickstarter goal is $20,000, enough to cover the down-payment on a full production print run, so News Flash: Bad Decisions can go on press as soon as the team finishes proofing the final prompt and play decks, including cards suggested by Kickstarter supporters. Game stores are already expressing interest in News Flash: Bad Decisions, although even with the Kickstarter, the company cannot guarantee the game being delivered by Christmas 2014. That said, it could be printed in time to become the hot new Valentine’s Day gift in 2015.

Join our supporters and learn more by checking out the Kickstarter for News Flash: Bad Decisions. This Kickstarter ends September 21, 2014 so please click now. Send comments to Susan Price. 

***

About the Guest Author
Susan Price is a long-time editor and writer. She has edited both fiction and nonfiction books, including Brian Basilico’s book, It’s Not About You, It’s about Bacon, which was named the 2014 Small Business Book Awards Community Choice Winner in the category of Social Media. Her own fiction and poetry is as yet unpublished, although she did win a short story contest run through the Bloomingdale Public Library in 2000. Most of her writing and editing skills now focus on developing and promoting games for Diamond Dust Dreams Inc.


Snpgrdxz
Meanwhile, for a timely return to my world, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters is ready to read. Visit Amazon and enjoy.

What Makes a Good Character Good?

Writing style and a good story arc keep you reading a novel, but what really holds your interest is a compelling main character. You relate to the main character as a new found friend with a story to tell, one that is well worth hearing. What is it about the main character that makes him or her so interesting?

The main character of a novel has a personality that you can relate to, whether he’s a hard-boiled private eye or she’s a sweet teenager falling in love for the first time. The main character has a certain look that attracts you. She may be a pretty brunette. Or he may be a hawk-nosed, scar-faced battler.

Beyond personality and looks, the main character has a huge problem which makes the story interesting. And the problem has two facets to it like two sides of a coin. Side one is the problem you see right away as a reader. Will that skinny teenage girl pull the trigger and end the main character’s life on page one? With one wild event after another, is he going crazy?

Side two is the hidden or secret problem you don’t know about until later in the story. Is he a coward? What does he do about his cowardice? How does he learn to become brave or does he?

What do you find compelling about the main characters in the stories you read or write?

Speaking of characters…

Snpgrdxz!