I’ve had a blast these past two weeks finally writing Masquerade, the tenth book in my popular Vampires Realm series. It was hard going because so many characters from previous stories in the series make appearances or play a role in this one due to the fact that it’s set around a Creator Day masquerade, but it was also fun because I got to catch up with them all and write them again.
Sophis and Vivek are the heroine and hero, both Venia bloodline guards, but Tynan is back as he’s now the commander of the guard. We learn more about the Venia bloodline and the current affairs of the vampires, including contraversial happenings with the werewolves and some of the bloodlines. Marise and Jascha also make a return, along with three other Law Keepers. Among the main cast are Hyperion and Winter of the Validus bloodline, along with Valentine, Venturi and Prophecy, and also Lilith and Lincoln. There’s lots happening in this book. It was hard to write so many vampires from the series so I just went with getting it all down on paper and I’ll tackle things like adding in more description and stuff in the second draft.
I managed to get the book finished in first draft last Wednesday, and it’s currently 83000 words but I think it will end up around 90000 when I’m done with it. I do need to beef up some of the fight scenes and layer in the description to bring it to life. It’s all stuff that requires me to think hard about stuff and I didn’t want to slow down my writing during the first draft so I was happy to get in as much as possible and leave the fine details for the edits.
I hope Vampires Realm readers will be excited by the fact that we’re back at a Creator Day ball again and that so many old faces are going to be there. There will be some new faces too, and some monumental changes for some of characters. It’s also setting up the vampire hunters side of things in the series a little more and that’s something I’ll be exploring more in later stories.
I did spend most of the week writing, but I also managed to get sketches done for the Her Angel series trading cards that I want to produce. To give them a unique angle, I’ve decided to do my own original art for them and also a very special design style for the cards that I think everyone will like.
I’ve done the cover of Apollyon’s card so far and I’m working on Serenity’s. To put things into perspective for everyone, the original pencil sketch for each character takes around 1 hour, and then colouring them in Photoshop takes around 7 hours, so each card is a lot of work for me, but I really love drawing and this is a great excuse for me to do more of it.
I’m proofing Heart of Darkness this week, which is a stand alone vampire romance book. Heart of Darkness is out on October 22nd 2011, so there isn’t long to wait for this one now. I think you’ll all love it! Once I’ve proofed the book, I’ll be writing the first book in my new Vampire Erotic Theatre series which will come out next year.
It’s going to be another busy week!
