Good news if you like to listen to your books! Dreadful Penny is now available on audio! Follow the link to get it today.
How Much Research Should You Do For Your Book?
Much has been written about the enormous importance of looking things up before you write about them so as to avoid ranking too high on the Dan Brown Scale of Did Not Do The Research—but there’s another side to this particular coin. As someone who spends a hell of a lot of time looking stuff up on the internet, I can affirm that it is, in fact, possible to do more research than you can actually use.
Courtesy of Tor.com
Vampire’s rebirth: from monstrous undead creature to sexy and romantic Byronic seducer in one ghost story
Victorian physician John Polidori took the vampire out of the forests of eastern Europe, gave him an aristocratic lineage and placed him into the drawing rooms of Romantic-era England. His tale The Vampyre, published 200 years ago – on April 1 1819, was the first sustained fictional treatment of the vampire and completely recast the folklore and mythology on which it drew. The vampire figure abandoned its peasant roots and left its calling card in polite society in London.
Courtesy of The Conversation.
The Blood is Life: A Brief History of Vampires in Film
Since the advent of film, the vampire has been a mainstay of movie monsters. The word itself hails back to 1734, but the concept of vampirism has existed in folklore across many cultures for much longer. Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, which drew on written works like Camilla or The Vampyre, definitively changed the way vampires were perceived in pop culture, creating a highly influential take on the folkloric blood-sucker that still resonates today.
Courtesy of Bloody Disgusting.
10 Iconic TV Vampires, From Angel to The X-Files
We are very excited to see awkward vampires take NYC on What We Do in the Shadows, which debuts tonight on FX. But the show is merely the latest union of TV and vampires, a pairing that has yielded some of pop culture’s most memorable bloodsuckers. From a huge field of undead contenders, here are our 10 favorites.
Courtesy of io9.
Music I Write To – “Change on the Rise”
Southern Gothic as …
Happy Spring!
SC Comicon – March 9-10, 2019
I’ll be at the SC Comicon in Greenville, SC this March 9-10. As always, there will be books! Come find me!
Music I Write To – “Move”
This isn’t a band from the ’70s, but Saint Motel has a definite ’70s vibe, as evidenced by this video, and they’re fun to listen to when I’m writing the Dreadful Penny novellas.
44 Fun Facts About the Number 44
In honor of my 44th birthday, here are 44 fun facts about the number 44:
- 44 is the natural number following 43 and preceding 45.
- 44 is an even number.
- 44 is a tribonacci number.
- 44 is an octahedral number.
- 44 is the number of derangements of 5 items.
- 44 is a Størmer number.
- 44 is a repdigit.
- 44 is a palindromic number.
- 44 is a happy number.
- In geometry, a 44-sided polygon is tetracontakaitetragon.
- Interstate 44 is the freeway that runs from Texas to Missouri.
- 44 was the jersey number for football player Floyd Little.
- 44 is a deficient number.
- 44 is an odious number.
- “44 Minutes” is a song by Megadeath.
- .44 Magnum is a cartridge for revolvers.
- 44 is a type of poker game.
- +44 was an American rock band.
- Vicks Formula 44 is a cough suppressant.
- 44 is the number of the French Department Loire-Atlantique.
- “44 Blues” is a blues song.
- 44 is the name of Satan’s nephew in works by Mark Twain.
- 44 is the number of candles in a box of Hanukkah candles.
- Agent 44 is a character on the television show Get Smart.
- Child 44 is an American-British mystery film.
- Julius Caesar was assassinated on the floor of the Roman Senate in the year 44 BC.
- 44 is the atomic number for ruthenium.
- The Messier object M44 is magnitude 4.0 open cluster in the constellation Cancer, also known as the Beehive Cluster.
- The New General Catalogue object NGC 44 is a double star in the constellation Andromeda.
- 44 is the name of a mysterious savior of Poland prophesied by the Polish national poet Adam Mickiewicz in his masterpiece dramatic poem Dziady.
- 44 is the number used by British Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton.
- The Roman numeral for 44 is XLIV.
- Barack Obama was the 44th president.
- “44 Fours” is a song by Jay Z.
- “44 Bars” is a song by Logic.
- The Forty-Fours is a group of Islands in the Chatham Archipelago.
- Pope Sixtus III was the 44th pope.
- Wyoming was the 44th state to be admitted to the Union.
- 44 is the calling code assigned to the United Kingdom.
- Forty Four is an unincorporated community in Izard County, Arkansas.
- US Route 44 runs through New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island & Massachusetts.
- 44 is the jersey number for both baseball players Reggie Jackson and Hank Aaron.
- 44 in binary is 101100.
- In the game of Bingo, the ball 44 is known as “Droopy Drawers, All The Fours.”
