Draculas: A Novel of Terror - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Konrath (ч. 5)

Joe

• • •

Joe - I think as soon as

-you write Jenny’s scene

-wrap up the Morgue scene

-write Oasis into 7

-Jeff writes Benny the Clown into 7

-Paul addresses Shanna in chapter 4

we can put all of that into the main manuscript document and we will truly be set up. Then we’ll be crossing over much less than these opening chapters. Also I’m all for getting rid of chapters at the end, but I think it’s been helpful up to this point.

Blake

• • •

Great chapter, Jeff.

Are you sure you want the chainsaw gone so quickly? I’d sorta like Randall to have it for a while. He could siphon gas out of his truck.

I’ll write a scene where Jenny finds Randall and they go to pediatrics. But before I do, let’s decide if the chainsaw is in play or broken. I like it running out of gas, but I also want him to be able to cut some draculas up.

Joe

• • •

Morgue scene done. Have at it.

Had to change the last line, because I introduced Benny earlier, but I think it works.

Joe

• • •

Ditto great chapter, love how you’re bringing out Randall’s stubbornness. I laughed out loud at the wrong church line—absolutely perfectly says who this guy is.

But have to admit, I was sad when he broke the chainsaw. I also hadn’t imagined he would get into it with Mortimer right away. I thought maybe Mortimer’s already gone by the time he gets back. I don’t know. What do you think? You know everyone can’t wait to see Randall fuck some draculas up with a chainsaw so maybe tease it out a bit?

Also, I have a friend who’s essentially a lumberjack, but he gets real upset if you call him that. “He’s an arborist. He doesn’t just cut trees down. It’s art.” Maybe there’s some comic gold there.

Blake

• • •

I love having the chainsaw taken out of the equation so quickly after all the buildup and never used for its intended purpose. Horror fans have already had their share of chainsaw mayhem. We’ve got a whole hospital full of ways to kill draculas!

Jeff

• • •

Oh, that wasn’t supposed to be Mortimer. Just a random dracula. I’ll add some sort of distinguishing characteristic to make that clear.

Jeff

• • •

In theory, the hospital could have some landscaping supplies in the basement. After being robbed of his chainsaw moment early on, Randall could find one near the end of the book and finally get his chance to go wild.

Jeff

• • •

Blake and I thought up the idea of a lumberjack so he’d have a truck full of toys to play with. Or else, why use him as a character?

Just spoke to Blake. We like it running out of gas. But it probably wouldn’t break, even if used to bash in a skull. Those saws are made really tough.

How about Randall holds onto it, refusing to let it go, even though it is out of gas? Then he could finally find some gas and let loose. It would be funny, stubborn, and oddly poignant that he won’t give up something he’s attached to—a metaphor for his relationship with Jenny.

Or else he has more saws and axes in his truck.

Either way, we’d really like this guy to be armed with the tools of his trade, even if he can’t use them until later.

Joe

• • •

Here’s the morgue scene.

Joe

• • •

Standing ovation…fucking killer scene.

Blake

• • •

On reflection, I think you should write something in Oasis’ POV. Equate blood to candy for her. Could even show her throwing a tantrum b/c she wants it and she doesn’t have it. Maybe it doesn’t occur to her right away that she might be able to kill people to get it. They’re adults and on some level she still thinks of them like that. Maybe she attacks someone and gets the shit beat out of her. Then realizes she needs to go where the kiddies and the babies are.

Blake

• • •

Nice. Maybe u should write the scene.

Joe

• • •

I will, but you have to help me with Mortimer later on. So now, just write the Jenny scene, and we should have it ready to go.

Blake

• • •

I’ve added a very quick scene with Benny the Clown to the end of Chapter 7. But I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to mess with Blake’s file, so I’ve saved the chapter in my own folder as BENNY 1.0.

Jeff

• • •

You totally could have put in that file, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll merge everything into the main file soon. We’re closing in on 15K words, boys!

Blake

• • •

Brilliant…favorite moment: he hopes the security camera catches him wiping the gore off his face. Also love the utility belt. I love this guy.

Blake

• • •

Pitch-perfect

Blake

• • •

It’s in the dropbox now, and is the complete manuscript with all our work to present. I need to write an Oasis scene, Joe needs to write a Jenny scene, and Paul needs to write a Shanna scene, and then we really have the 1st 1/4 of the book done. If anyone wants to revamp any of their stuff, please do it in the Draculas 1.4 full manuscript I’d like to get that finalized, and then we can turn our attention to our individual character arcs.

Goodnight!

Blake

August 21, 2010

I’m actually working on DRACULAS 1.5, adding the Jenny scene. No one touch it until it’s live in about an hour, then we can take turns doing rewrites. Jeff first, then Paul, then Blake. Each rewrite, make a new number: 1.6, 1.7, etc.

I took out the chapter numbers, as Blake and I originally intended—this thing is meant to read without stops. Also, HOUR 1 was replaced with HOUR ZERO and we go from there, but I’m not sure these headings are needed either. We’ll keep them for the moment.

Joe

• • •

But we’re going to keep chapter numbers while we’re working, right? Just to keep straight the order of events.

Paul

• • •

Sure, we can keep chapters in out individual scenes. I just removed them in the main compiled document. As a result, it reads quicker, more unrelenting.

But as we write them in our folders, chapters are fine.

Joe

• • •

Yeah, let’s keep the hours and character headings for now. I certainly need them to help keep my story straight and it’s a good way to scan. Maybe the last thing we’ll do is remove them, but we should probably think hard before doing that.

Blake

• • •

When we’ve all finished our main character arcs, we’ll have to decide how and if to splice them together in the main document. My initial thought would be to interweave them, breaking at cliffhanging moments. What will be really cool, is we can release an alternate version of the novel (an extra) where POVs are held together through the end. So you can read Moorecook straight through, then Lanz, then Randall, then Jenny, etc.

Blake

• • •

Okay, we’ve got 1.5 in the Dropbox.

Paul, we need a Shanna scene from you. Blake is doing an Oasis scene. Then we’re done with the first quarter of the book, and can start Hour Two.

Jeff, your first scene is Randall’s POV, going with Jenny to pediatrics, then leaving her to go after Moorecook. Randall will also be looking for gasoline for his chainsaw, and to turn on the generator when the electricity goes out. Enemies will be random draculas and Moorecook in particular.

Paul, your first scene is Clayton arriving, looking for Shanna. They’ll be seeking each other out, and Clayton will be trying to control the situation and get outside reinforcements, while they work out their relationship problems. Their main antagonist will be Lanz in particular.

My story arc will start with Jenny defending pediatrics against the draculas, Benny in particular.

Blake’s story arc will be his pregnant couple, defending against Oasis in particular, while going through labor.

If we can each do about 7,000 words within our arcs, then we can bring them all together for the final showdown during the last quarter of the book.

After the Shanna and Oasis scenes, we’ll all go back to our separate folders.

Does this work for everyone?

Joe

• • •

We should probably each have a specific number of chapters to write in our separate arcs (4?) so that when the story is pieced together we can just go A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D.

Jeff

• • •

That depends on the length of each arc, and what’s happening in the rest of the story. It doesn’t have to be so strict with trading POVs.

As long as we all write fast-paced, short sections (a few pages each) with cliffhanger-type endings, we can pretty much cut and paste and make it work in a number of different ways. This really won’t be hard to put together. We got 15k words already, and they meshed seamlessly without too much forethought.

Joe

• • •

I’m having a hard time getting to the keyboard today (not home). I’m gonna add Shanna after Randall’s “sumbich” line. She’s going to wander into the hospital proper to the snack bar, then outside in front of the lobby. She’ll try to tell Clay over the phone but won’t. She owes him a face-to-face. I like the irony of Clay thinking this girl is crazy about him - he knows it’s the guns.

Paul

August 22, 2010

All - Draculas 1.6 is now up with Paul’s excellent new Shanna section. I’ve moved the 1.5 and Paul’s conflicted 1.5 over (saving it in case Paul did anything else beyond the Shanna section). Let’s all stay out of 1.6 for now and go nuts on our separate sections. Great job, all. These 1st 17,000 words really sing.

Blake

• • •

JEFF 2.0, wherein Randall and Jenny make it to pediatrics, is up on Dropbox.

Jeff

• • •

Nicely done. I laughed twice, and great action.

Two suggestions:

“Jenny pushed open a door marked “Pediatrics.” So that’s how it’s spelled, Randall thought.”

Also, Jenny shouldn’t want him to go after Mortimer, and should say so. First, she doesn’t want him to leave her. Second, she doesn’t want him to put himself in danger. This scene could be drawn out for some drama, and perhaps they should come very close to kissing. We want to feel that their love, which has always been there, is still strong. They should both feel reluctant, and nervous, and confused, and frightened at the thought of losing each other. After all, they won’t see each other again for a few thousand words.

This is a perfect time to actually make the reader feel about the characters, and it should only take a paragraph. If you’re sick of writing the scene, lemme know and I’ll take a shot at it.

Joe

• • •

I dunno…I feel like the whole “Randall goes after Mortimer” is already stretching suspension of disbelief almost to the breaking point. Randall is dumb and ridiculously impulsive, but leaving the woman he loves behind along with a bunch of innocent children so he can chase after Mortimer is really pushing it. If she’s confused and disoriented and it happens quickly, I can see Randall thinking later “Wow, I really shouldn’t have done that,” but if she’s begging him to stay, I feel like Randall is becoming borderline retarded.

There are plenty of other ways I can handle the scene (Mortimer could be chasing after a kid), but I don’t think the reader will stick with Randall if Jenny asks him not to abandon her.

Jeff

• • •

Just read the scene, have to agree with Jeff. It’s a stupid thing to do to leave those kids, even for Randall. figure out some way to MAKE Randall have to leave, and I think having a child freaked out, and run out of pediatrics and Randall have to go get him might be the way. Then Randall can get stuck, trapped, lost, whatever. Okay, I can’t even spell pediatrics.

Blake

• • •

You guys are right.

How about he doesn’t go after anyone? Let me write a scene where they’re together, barricading pediatrics, and then have a kid run off.

Joe

• • •

That works. I think we were trying to separate the characters too early to get us on our separate arcs. Having a kid run off during the barricading process works much better than a random Mortimer sighting. When Joe is done, I’ll rework the end of my scene to match the beginning of his scene.

Jeff

• • •

Yeah, Jeff, I think you can probably go ahead and start into Randall going after the kid. This sounds great. Loved the scene you just wrote by the way, other than the motivation issues. Excellent dracula head-lopping off action.

Blake

• • •

Okay. I’m back. Just spent 4 hours on the goddamn road.

No, I did nothing to the Dracula 1.5 file.

I’m readying to bring Clay into the picture. Here’s the way I see Clay: Randall thinks that without his badge and gun Clay is nothing, but he’s wrong. He’s one of the good guys. He believes in loyalty and honor and will not back down from a commitment. I see him bitten by a dracula toward the end. He will not allow himself to become one of them. So I see him luring a bunch of them into one of the sun rooms or a large staff meeting room, and setting off one (or maybe a couple) of his high-explosive 40mm grenades, taking them all with him.

Is this okay with everybody?

Paul

• • •

Sounds good, Paul. Lanz will be your main antag, right?

Joe

• • •

Haven’t thought of a main antag for Clay. Randall should hate Lanz’s guts since he got Jenny fired. And Lanz hates Jenny.

Clay hates them all. They’re vermin. He’s the Order half of Law & Order and these draculas are radically offensive.

Paul

• • •

Totally down with it. Can’t wait to read!

Blake

• • •

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_bat

Just thinking here on ways to continue to make our monsters interesting…since we’re basing our draculas more on biology than supernature (word?), what if our draculas exhibit a few creepy characteristics of the real vampire bats…they don’t suck blood, their saliva contains an anticoagulant which stops blood from clotting and prolongs bleeding and they lap up the flow (I already made Oasis’ tongue a sponge). Maybe this doesn’t matter if our draculas are ripping heads off and disemboweling their prey. Also, what if our draculas, along with their keen sense of smell, hunt by sonar, emitting a low-energy sound pulse…they could make some disturbing sound and our characters (maybe my biology-teacher pregnant mother) could speculate on what’s going on, and find ways to combat it.

Blake

• • •

When are we losing it? And is Lanz going to cut it? Obviously there’s going to be some backup system, but can that be taken out too? Are we going completely dark, limited lighting?

Blake

August 24, 2010

I’m only attaching this because I won’t have access to Dropbox until late tonight, and I’m not sure how it will impact what Joe is writing.

Jeff

• • •

Just added a thousand or so words of Clay’s first appearance. I’m assuming most of the draculas have left the ER by now in search of fresh blood, leaving the ones they’ve killed behind…who are now turning.

Paul

August 25, 2010

I think that assumption is a good one. Can’t wait to read this, Paul.

FYI - I’ll be out of pocket in the mountains on a backpacking trip for a few days starting tomorrow and back into civilization on Saturday.

Blake

• • •

I’m having problems thinking Clay wouldn’t call in the cavalry after one look in the ER — then go in after Shanna.

I think we need more premeditation by Morty. He’s been planning this all along. He hired a demolition guy to wire the cell towers to explode, disable land lines, derail the train.

After he receives the skull he makes a call and simply says: “It’s here. Go.”

Clay can come out of the ER, try to call the sheriff and get no service. He looks up at the hilltop and sees the cell tower lying on its side. “WTF?”

Paul

• • •

Cell phones don’t work in the hospital—they have jammers, like the do on airplanes. When Shanna calls Clay, she’ll have to use a payphone.

Clay can, and should, radio for help. But there’s really not a lot of help. Durango’s police force is only about a dozen cops, and half of them are at the train derailing. And even if a dozen cops do come, most will quickly get slaughtered. Then they’ll form a perimeter around the hospital and wait for the military to assist. But between Clay arriving and the military coming can be a good two hours. Once the military does arrive, the CDC won’t let them in right away, having quarantined the hospital—meaning Clay is stuck in there. They’d need P-4 containment suits, and there probably aren’t many in Colorado.

Having Mort premeditate a trap would mean he knew he would go into convulsions when he bit himself with the skull, and then be taken to the hospital. While that could happen, I’m not sure it’s necessary. Through simple chain of command and politics it could take five hours before the army finally storms through the hospital, and by that time our book is over.

Joe

• • •

But wouldn’t it be kind of cool if Mortimer does have an idea of what will happen? What if he tried the skull on a mouse first? What if that’s the opening scene? A cute little mouse getting punctured by a fang and going apeshit and turning into this ravenous little monster. Mort needs lots of blood to pull off his plan, what he really wants, which is to be forever young. What better place to go than a hospital with sick, dying people, and A BLOOD BANK? I think what Paul is getting at is giving Mort a little more forethought. We know we want Mort to walk out a young, healthy 28-year old looking man at the end (reverse night of the living dead end), so what if he has done some orchestration here? He certainly has the means. What would need to be finessed though, is how additional draculas help Mort’s goal. Don’t they just gobble up more blood he could have? Maybe he intends to fully kill everyone he attacks so they can’t regenerate, but that doesn’t happen. Or he wants an army of draculas for some other purpose, possibly he has some control over them…maybe he needs them for a diversion so he can walk out unnoticed at the end…

Blake

• • •

Blake and I were just on the phone, and we decided to go with quarantining the hospital, and having the army and CDC come in.

Mort should have some more backstory, but not to the point where he booby-trapped the hospital.

Clay can call it in, go look for Shanna, and the Calvary will come and get wiped out. Then the second tier can set up a perimeter around the hospital, to prevent the infection from spreading, but they won’t go in right away.

Joe

• • •

Okay. Either way, Clay gets to make the call, which was my concern.

Paul

• • •

I’m with Joe on this one…I think it’s better to keep it an out-of-control outbreak rather than something that Mortimer had planned. There are a shitload of logic issues we’d have to address is this is all part of some grand scheme.

Jeff

August 26, 2010

Have fun, Blake! I’ll be heading off to a cabin in the Wisconsin woods the day after you get back.

Jeff

August 27, 2010

I’m planning a scene with Shanna in the chapel where she learns the hard way that crosses are ineffective against the draculas. Anyone else have something like this going? Don’t want to duplicate…

Paul

• • •

I believe Blake has written a scene along those lines.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t do one as well. Or that Shanna can’t also be in the chapel at the same time Blake’s character is.

When he gets back from his drunken camping weekend, you two can merge the scenes.

Joe

August 28, 2010

I ended my last section with the power going out…but it seems like it’ll be insanely difficult for all of us to work this element into our individual sections and keep the timeline consistent. Perhaps we should save that for the finale, where the characters all come together?

Jeff

August 29, 2010

Read your sections, Jeff. Awesome. I’m fine with the lights going out then. I can time it to coincide with you. Make sure Randall has a flashlight on his belt.

I’m almost finished with the section where Randall takes off after the girl. She went to look for her mommy. You might want to fix the ending of JEFF 2.0. Randall can still see Mort run past, and maybe even want to go after him, thinking that he’ll kill him and all the others will die, just like you’ve written it. Except have Jenny stop him and say she needs him with her. End it that way.

Then, when the lights go out, Randall can figure it’s Mort who did it. And he’s right—Blake and I will write a Mort POV scene where he takes out the generator. So Randall will go looking for the generator to get it started again.

Does that work for you?

Joe

• • •

“Is that…a flamingo?” asked the old woman.

You are a sick, sick man, Joe Konrath.

Paul

• • •

This had a gun show beat to shit.

Just read your scenes, Paul. Awesome. Laughed at the Dirty Harry line. Clay kicks ass.

I fixed a few small typos. At the end of the Shanna chapel scene (or maybe during it) have the electricity cut out. Then we’ll all be in the dark for a few scenes until Randall gets the lights working again.

Your Sheriff $$—why not name him after one of your other characters from the RJ series? Maybe a brother or father of someone who died. Be cool if this tied in to your other books in a minor way.

Joe

• • •

A few quickie notes.

We’re at 30k words already, and everyone is writing standout scenes. I’m happy to be working with you guys.

We’re at a point where global things are happening that we all need to address in our scenes.

1. There’s gunfire, thanks to Clay. It will be heard throughout the hospital, so make sure your POV characters address it.

2. Clay used the intercom. This is something that can also be addressed. I’m going to have Jenny do the same thing to contact Randall.

3. The electricity goes out, and will remain out until Randall fixes it. Dr. Lanz is the one who did it. We should all be in the dark while writing our 4.0 scenes.

Paul, your Shanna scene you labeled 1.1 is actually 3.1. So during the current scene, or the next scene, lights out.

Blake, you can go dark right about where your scene left off.

I believe overlapping timeframes is the best way to do this. Readers will be able to pick up that this is all happening at once, and by using cues such as the gunshots and the intercom announcements, they’ll be able to keep track of what is happening when.

So far, I see zero difficulty in piecing this together seamlessly. We might need to juggle a scene or two, but it’s going to mesh very well.

Joe

• • •

Shanna’s conversion at the end of her big scene might be a little over the top, but god it was fun.

Lanz kills the power…anyone know how to make that work? There’s gotta be a backup generator. He could destroy that first, then go after the main. But total darkness — uh-uh. All hospitals have battery-operated emergency lights in all the hallways. I don’t see how we can have total darkness, folks, but we can have loooong, deeeeep shadows from which friends and foes can spring.

Randall and Clay need to bump skulls at some point.

Lanz has to go after Jenny. I’d love to do that from alternating POVs with Jenny finally outwitting and killing him — and he can’t believe that he’s fallen victim to a lesser mind.

This is proving to be fun.

BTW, I’ve passed the 10k mark and have miles to go before I sleep.

Paul

• • •

I like Shanna’s conversion. It may need to be described in a bit more detail, but it’s totally plausible and you did it well.

The lights out will mean the generator will kick on, which will supply power to essential hospital equipment and utilities, but the lights will be dimmer (emergency boxes only above doorways) and the intercom will be out.

I dug the Jenny/Lanz dynamic. He’s currently after her in Pediatrics. If you’d like to do his POV scenes, we can work it out.

Joe

• • •

We can tag-team it. Fun.

Paul

• • •

All - I’m back in civilization, and can’t wait to read everyone’s parts…Paul - feel free to do the chapel scene, I wasn’t seeing a way to work it out in my scene…a question about the hospital power going out…are we going completely dark? No backup lights…having to use flashlights or glo-sticks only? Let me know.

Blake

• • •

Also, I’m writing a Lanz POV scene to take him up to pediatrics, and show he seems to be smarter than the rest of the draculas. Possibly because he ingested the infection rather than got bitten.

Paul, aren’t there some diseases that can be more severe based on the method of infection? My mind is blanking. But I’m pretty sure there are some bugs that are worse if you ingest them, as oppose to inhale them, or something…

Joe

• • •

Up to speed finally on everyone’s sections, and damn, boys! Really happy with how this is shaping up. Love Randall and Tina dynamic. Clay going through the hospital with his big guns is just plain badass, and Joe, we knew this already, but something is seriously wrong with you…”is that a flamingo?” OMG. Bravo, gents!

Blake

August 30, 2010

I wasn’t happy with her immediate gonzetta transformation, so I toned it down.

Paul

August 31, 2010

JCPL had a fire somewhere yesterday afternoon that left much of this area of the Shore without power. (I was reading by flashlight last night.) But we’re back now.

Paul

• • •

Doesn’t sound too hard…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100827/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_snake_hospital_outage

Paul

• • •

I’ve made it so Lanz has more of his mental faculties than most of the draculas, due to ingesting the blood rather than being bitten. It’s in the JOE folder, LANZ_2.0.

But it occurred to me that Benny also seems higher-functioning and calmer than the others. I was thinking that because Benny is severely depressed, he’d take SSRIs (Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft) which might negate some of the “wildness” that being a dracula causes.

When Randall tussles with Benny, a half empty bottle of sertraline can fall out of his clown suit, and I’m thinking he can tell Jenny the nurse, and she can arm herself with bottles of pills and start throwing them in draculas’ mouths. They’ll still be hostile, but not as frantic. Could be cool to have her walk past a bunch of docile draculas, standing there watching her without coming after her.

Or not. Just spitballing. But hospitals are filled with drugs, and Jenny is the obvious one to use drugs against them.

Joe

• • •

The Benny/Zoloft thing is clever. Use it. But…

SSRIs take weeks to work, while benzodiazepines (Valium, ativan, xanax) can kick in in 20-30 minutes — quicker if injected. Could have some mellow draculas.

Jenny vs Lanz — how about Jenny gets a long intracardiac needle, attaches it to a syringe filled with potassium chloride (KCl) and rams it into Lanz’s heart as he grapples with her? It will cause cardiac arrest in a human. Maybe it just slows him down enough for her to run the upper part of an IV pole through each of his eyes into his brain.

Paul

• • •

JEFF 4.0 is done. I wasn’t specific about Benny’s medication, but my section acknowledges that drugged-up draculas could be more docile.

On other note, only Randall should call them “draculas,” unless Jenny or somebody thinks “That’s what Randall called them” first.

Jeff

• • •

Jenny calls them that because she heard Randall say it. I’ll have her use the intercom to talk to Randall, then she’ll use the word so everyone else in the hospital hears it.

Joe

• • •

Whatever Jenny says to Randall I’ll incorporate into JEFF 5.0.

Jeff

• • •

When does the power go out in the timeline?

I have it going out at the end of my Shanna/Chapel scene but I can move it later.

Lanz realizes there’s a heavily armed Rambo type coming through the hospital and needs to turn things to his advantage. Ah-ha! Power failure.

I can have Lanz disable the On/Off switch of the backup generator, then destroy the main power breakers. This will leave only battery-powered emergency hall lights until Randall hotwires the backup generator to start up.

Should we do this before Lanz finds Jenny?

Paul

• • •

Lanz already confronted Jenny in the last scene I wrote, and Jenny set him on fire, which he extinguished before he ran off.

Paul, you can then have him run downstairs, past gun-toting Clay, and figure out the best way to get both Clay and Jenny is in darkness, because draculas have a tapetum lucidum and can see well in low light.

Joe

• • •

I read that scene.

Okay. I’ll tackle that next.

Paul

September 4, 2010

I was just finally catching up with everyone’s sections, and it looks great. I think we’re at about 38,000 words right now. Jeff and Paul, I noticed that some of the files in your folders were already in the Draculas 1.6 manuscript, so Paul I moved “Paul 1.3” them into your “Old” folder, and Jeff, I moved “Benny 1.0, Jeff 1.0, and Jeff 1.1” into your old folder. It’ll make it easier to add things to the manuscript if only new sections are there.

Have a great weekend, all!

Blake

September 5, 2010

Paul and I got a lot of work done in New Orleans.

Just kidding. All we did was drink.

Joe

• • •

Shocker

Blake

September 6, 2010

Anyone adverse to me putting together what we’ve got so far and doing a light edit (fixing errors, seeding consistencies, etc.)?

Joe

• • •

Okay, I put together just about everything we’ve done so far. I also added a scene with Lanz turning off the circuit breaker, and changed Shanna’s cell phone message to Clay into a payphone message, and kept Randall with Jenny in pediatrics instead of running after Mortimer.

It’s in DRACULAS_2.0. It reads really well. Feel free to check it out. But let’s avoid going back and editing this for the moment—if we all go in and start changing things we might begin to overlap each other. There will be time to tweak our sections, and the overall manuscript, when we’re finished. We’ll all have a shot at fixing stuff.

Also, don’t tweak your old scenes, as those have already been incorporated in the manuscript and you’d have to make the same changes twice.

What’s happening next:

Jenny’s stuck in pediatrics. Lanz is coming for her.

Blake and I want Benny to take Randall’s chainsaw, but we’ll leave that up to Jeff.

Randall needs to keep the girl safe, and get down to the basement and flip on the circuit breaker so he can use the intercom like Clay did, to get a message to Jenny.

Stacie and Adam have to deal with birth, and Oasis. Blake, I dunno where your Grammie Ann scene fits in (nice scene!) Stick it into 2.0 where it goes.

Clay and Shanna are heading to the parking lot, but they’ll find Mortimer there, tearing cars and tires and radios to shreds. Should have a Mort POV scene here, doing it. He’s also stronger than the other draculas, so Clay may take it as a personal challenge to try to bring him down.

Also, Shanna is going to either tell Clay, or use internal monologue, to recap how this outbreak might have happened, going back in history to recall Baron Von Wolkenstein. This will give the reader a bit more of where the vampires came from, how they spread and helped to form the vampire legend that we all know. Blake and I have a lot of this figured out, so if you can set it up, Paul, we can just plug it in.

The police will be coming soon. We all have our villains to deal with (Clay and Shanna vs. Mort and a lot of draculas, Randall vs. Benny, Jenny vs. Lanz, Stacie and Adam vs. Oasis.)

I think we can take this up to the army surrounding the hospital. Then we can begin the final act.

Joe

September 8, 2010

I put up some new Clay and cut off at a spot where Joe and Blake can put in the myth/lore they’ve worked up. After that, I’ll have Clay give Shanna the ring (he thinks it’s possible he won’t see her again). They’ll make it to the parking lot to find the dead staties and the slashed tires.

Paul

• • •

I added Draculas 2.2, which includes a very short moment on page 113 where Randall loses his chainsaw.

Also Benny 2.0, in which the clown picks up the aforementioned chainsaw.

Jeff

September 9, 2010

BLOOD BLOODBLOODBLOODBLOODBLOOD…STOP! He released the girl he’d been slurping, even though she still had some blood left. Moorecook wanted them to turn. He wanted as many of his kind as possible.

This implies if victims die they don’t turn. But what about the morgue scene?

Paul

• • •

If they die, they come back, but they can die through exsanguination. A dracula needs a certain amount of blood left to transform. Which is why draining their blood kills draculas.

I’ll try to make that clearer in the text.

Joe

• • •

Okay, I’m going to have Clay and Shanna in the parking lot with the ruined tires and the dead state cops. They can’t escape but they’d be crazy to go back in…

…unless they see Jenny waving from an upper floor window. Clay will go back in to get her, Shanna will come along (because what if these dead staties turn into monsters?) and that’s when Clay and Randall meet.

As I said before, Clay will be wounded and will find a dramatic way to take himself out of the picture and take a whole buncha draculas with him.

Think it would be possible to have a conference call and do a little spitballing? I’m not comfortable with the complete isolation of the hospital. Every patient room has a land-line phone. Calls would be going out left and right. When the sheriff calls in the staties, the police beat reporters hear about it. Local TV stations would be sending camera crews. National cable TV news would be picking it up and sending helicopters for aerial views. You’ve seen it: I guy waving a gun and the whole world’s on it. People can suspend their disbelief only so far. If we’re going to keep them onboard, we need cell towers down, we need land-line junctions exploding, WE NEED A CONSPIRACY!

The series potential here is obvious and I think we need yet another layer.

Paul

• • •

Here’s what Blake and I have been thinking:

Jenny is trapped in a storage closet. Randall is going to fight his way back to her. I’d like him to confront Clay, and for them to have a physical tussle. (I think they should stop fighting when Randall quotes a line from the movie ALIENS, as I mentioned in a previous email.) Clay could agree to help Randall get Jenny, but first he needs to get Shanna safe.

Randall deals with Benny and his chainsaw. Jenny deals with Lanz. Adam and Stacie deal with Oasis.

Clay and Shanna get to the parking lot. Clay leaves Shanna with the media—they do arrive because they were called—but Clay is honor bound to go back in to help Randall. But first, he proposes to her.

Clay, on his way to Jenny and Randall, encounters Adam and Stacie. He helps to kill Oasis, and they join Randall to save Jenny.

They do save Jenny, but Randall gets bitten. Jenny refuses to let Clay kill him, and Clay agrees, but will be ready when Randall turns. They decide the way to survive is to get onto the roof and flag down the TV helicopter circling the hospital.

They’re chased to the roof. Clay is down to his last few rounds. Randall becomes a dracula. But his love for Jenny is so strong he doesn’t attack her—he attacks all the draculas coming after them. He wipes out a bunch in a killing frenzy, but is mortally wounded.

Clay can either die heroically, or else get off the roof and wind up with Shanna for a happy ending.

Adam dies heroically, but gets his wife and child into the TV helicopter, which lands on the helipad on the roof.

The army arrives. Jenny stays with a dying Randall on the roof. Just as they’re surrounded by draculas, the army blows up the hospital.

A young, bloody man survives. He’s Mortimer, who changed back into something resembling a human—the real Count Dracula who is now going to turn the world. This is a reverse Night of the Living Dead ending. Rather than the rescuers killing the hero, the rescuers save the villain.

I want the media and the army to come. There’s no need to keep them at bay. The secluded area, and the local cops dead, mean it will take some time for the army to show up.

We’ve only got about 3000 words each to write with our characters, then the slam bang ending where we can divvy up the final scenes.

How does that sound?

Joe

• • •

I’m okay with this, and I do like the finale happening on the hospital roof…Paul does this address your concerns with the isolation, which I also had from the beginning? I’m up for a conference call if we need to flesh this out some more.

Blake

• • •

Here’s what Blake and I have been thinking:

Okay, I’ll have to rewrite the stairwell scene. I can have C & S forced upstairs by the draculas and bump into Randall and the kid. (Speaking of the kid, it would be cool to have her transform into a dracula while she’s on Randall’s back. He notices these little teeth dropping on his shoulder…)

Randall deals with Benny and his chainsaw. Jenny deals with Lanz. Adam and Stacie deal with Oasis.

Okay. I’ll have him pull out his MM-1 semi-auto grenade launcher (a la Dogs of War) loaded with 40mm buckshot rounds instead of grenades, and go back in.

Clay, on his way to Jenny and Randall, encounters Adam and Stacie. He helps to kill Oasis, and they join Randall to save Jenny.

Okay.

They’re chased to the roof. (Can we put this off?)

Clay is down to his last few rounds. Randall becomes a dracula. But his love for Jenny is so strong he doesn’t attack her—he attacks all the draculas coming after them. He wipes out a bunch in a killing frenzy, but is mortally wounded. (Have this happen in the hospital?)

Clay can either die heroically, or else get off the roof and wind up with Shanna

for a happy ending.

We don’t need no stinking happy ending. A wounded Clay will die creating an explosive diversion for Jenny’s escape to the roof.

Adam dies heroically, but gets his wife and child into the TV helicopter, which lands on the helipad on the roof.

The army arrives. Jenny stays with a dying Randall on the roof. Just as they’re surrounded by draculas, the army blows up the hospital.

I want the media and the army to come. There’s no need to keep them at bay. The secluded area, and the local cops dead, mean it will take some time for the army to show up.

Paul

• • •

The media, etc. showing up is what I’d expect, so that alleviates my believability concerns.

Looks like Shanna is the only survivor. She can lead the charge into the next book. I’m already visualizing her visiting Clay’s father, him teaching her to shoot…

Paul

• • •

Nice! I love it…just a thought, What if both Stacie and Adam die, but a young man offers to save their baby at the end, and they let him. We of course, are interested and instantly sympathetic with this guy, and only in the last sentence/paragraph of the book, do we realize the young man is Mort, walking out of the hospital with a baby in his arms, a protégé who will help him conquer the world.

Blake

• • •

If you need to kill Clay, I understand. But he’s probably the most fun character in the book. I wouldn’t be adverse to having him live. Or maybe doing the classic: He’s probably dead, Shanna cries, then she sees him tangled up in the fire escape when he jumped off the roof.

Jeff and I have already discussed Jenny and Randall dying. Stacie should survive, with her baby, but Blake and I discussed killing Adam.

I love the idea of the kid becoming a dracula on Randall’s back.

Joe

• • •

I’m not adverse to Clay living, but I had such a neat death idea: He’s got 2 high explosive 40mm grenades. They’re designed not to explode within 90 feet of the launcher. He can modify that. I see him wounded, bleeding, luring a whole bunch of draculas into some sort of enclosed area and detonating both, turning himself and them into meat confetti.

Paul

• • •

First of all, “Meat Confetti” needs to be the name of a thrash metal band.

If Adam is mortally wounded, Clay could teach Adam how to set them off. Being a man of God, Adam would rather die than become an unholy abomination like Randall had become. And let’s say his wife also died. So Clay could give him a lesson, then do a dramatic escape with the baby.

Then when Clay makes it to safety, he (inadvertently) hands the baby off to Mortimer, who is now a young man (and flirting with Shanna, as he’d wanted to in the beginning.)

Joe

• • •

I LIKE IT!

Paul

• • •

For Jeff: I put up a first draft of the Clay and Randall scene. Hit that sucker and do what you want with Randall’s dialogue or whatever.

Oddly, I couldn’t get them to fight. Maybe you can. They just trashed talked for me. Might’ve got to fighting if the Aliens references hadn’t come up. (I found a couple of colorful ones.)

Paul

• • •

I won’t be able to read it until this evening, but Randall is in such lousy physical shape by that point that it would completely make sense that he’d resort to trash talk over violence when dealing with Clay. Especially since Clay has guns.

Jeff

• • •

Loved the Clay and Randall scene, Paul.

Jeff, to get Randall to that point, he’s gotta ditch the wheelchair dracula, and get the circuit breaker back up.

Joe

• • •

Did I miss the “Jenny on the intercom” scene? I’m going to use that during the Randall vs. Wheelchair Dracula scene.

Jeff

• • •

I’m doing the “Jenny uses the intercom scene” right now. Her message is:

“Randall, I’m still in pediatrics with the children. I need you to…oh my God!”

This will be while the lights are still out.

Joe

September 10, 2010

Since Jenny is using the Intercom with the electricity still off, I see no reason for Randall to put the lights back on. We can finish the novel in the dark. Scarier, more suspenseful.

Get your flashlights, lighters, and torches…

Joe

• • •

I’ve added Clay and Randall 3.3 to Paul’s folder.

Jeff

• • •

A new file up — Just shy of 3k in length. Clay gets Shanna to safety, meets a TV crew there, offs the dead staties as they become draculas, gives Shanna the ring, hauls out his MM-1, and heads back inside.

Paul

• • •

Sorry, that was just shy of 2.3k

Paul

• • •

Fuckin’ A Paul Wilson. Awesome scene.

I’ve got a Jenny/Lanz back and forth going on that will probably be the grossest scene in the book, then she’ll be all ready to be rescued. She also has four kids with her, who should also be rescued.

Clay’s gonna have his hands full.

Joe

• • •

Jeff 5.0…is done.

I’m going to do another short Randall chapter where he’s stumbling through the hospital, really out of it (which lets us “cheat” the timeframe a bit because it’s not specific about how long he’s wandering around) and then I’ll link it up to the Randall Meets Clay scene.

Jeff

• • •

All - can’t wait to read the new pages…I’ve been quiet this week b/c I’ve been trying to wrap up edits on AMERICAN GENOCIDE but I should be back into DRACULAS Saturday or Sunday.

Blake

• • •

Awesome scene, Jeff.

I’m guessing Randall will get stuck at the stairs because of his injury, and have to crawl, and the legless dracula will be right behind him in a death race. Won’t be so funny anymore when the dracula is closing the gap.

You also need to do a Benny scene where he finds gas. I did some research, and a two cycle engine like a chainsaw should be able to run on isopropyl alcohol. In other words, rubbing alcohol, which is everywhere.

Benny would know this because his chainsaw juggling buddy used to also spit fire, and used rubbing alcohol to both blow flames and power his saws.

Blake - No worries about being behind. Take as long as you need with American Genocide. Because we’ve replaced you with Brian Keene.

Joe

• • •

Joe, you’re a treasure.

Blake

• • •

So let’s bury him!

Jeff

• • •

Free sample is live…

http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Chapters-Upcoming-Release-ebook/dp/B0042ANZBU

Joe

• • •

Sweet!

When I tried to download the sampler, my Kindle went dead. 100% blank screen, flipping the power switch did nothing—dead.

Fortunately, a manual reset worked, but clearly DRACULAS is a book of evil.

Jeff

• • •

Honestly, no shit, it crashed my Kindle PC too. WTF?

Blake

• • •

http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Novel-Terror-ebook/dp/B0042AMD2M

Go ahead and tell the world. We’re going into full-on promo mode.

Joe

September 11, 2010

My Jenny/Lanz scene is almost finished, then I’ll be caught up to Paul. Jeff has one more scene to get him up to the point where he can meet with Clay.

Blake—you’ve got some catching up to do. If you haven’t started it yet, let me do the Wolkenstein explanation, and you concentrate on Stacie and Adam and Oasis.

Or if you’re really gung-ho about Wolkenstein, go for it. We can work around you until you’re ready.

I’m thinking this whole thing will max out around 70k words. Then we’ll each have a shot at editing it.

My wife has read what we have so far, and she couldn’t tell who wrote what section. Which is pretty impressive, since she’s read all of us. This reads seamlessly.

She loved it, BTW. But the one thing she says is lacking is suspense. She thinks it’s a lot of fun, but could be scarier.

We’re all in a dark hospital right now, so we might want to use this setting to stretch out the tension a bit. I also anticipate going back into the manuscript and adding a bit more atmosphere and creepiness.

That said, this is obviously a lot more like ALIENS than ALIEN, and I’m fine with that. I think readers will dig it.

Joe

• • •

I’ve lost track of time. What time of day is it?

Paul

• • •

In the book, or in your personal life?

In the book, I believe it’s around 9pm.

In your life, it’s 11:18, right about time for your first nap of the day. Your name is Dr. Wilson, and you also write books.

Joe

• • •

I made way more progress last night than I thought I would, and will be finished with my edits by tonight, which means I’m back on Draculas tomorrow and should catch up pretty quickly. I’m happy to do the Shanna scene, and I’ll do it first, but if it’s slowing anything down, feel free.

Blake

• • •

I left the end of Clay 3.0 open for that. It can then be connected to Clay & Randall.

Paul

• • •

A non-gory scene with our lovable clown.

Jeff

• • •

Nice, Jeff. Though, in total candor, I’m not sure if we want to step away from the story for a full-fledged flashback. What do you guys think?

I just wrote a scene with Lanz that actually made me a bit nauseous. I tried to keep it clinical, because he is a doctor, but it ranks up there with the grossest things I’ve ever written…

Joe

• • •

I thought about that, but I think we have to embrace the sheer absurdity of the “clown gasses up chainsaw with rubbing alcohol” concept. It’s a quick enough scene that it doesn’t really disrupt the pacing, and it provides a “quiet” moment in a book that has few, and Benny-in-flashback gets to speak for the reader who is saying “C’mon, gimme a break!”

Jeff

• • •

I revised this to a night scene.

If Maria wants suspense, I’ll try to give her some. I’m sending Clay back up to the 4th floor (that’s where Randall and pediatrics are, right?) Any problem if the emergency lights in this hall are knocked out so it’s DARK — I mean, pitch black?

Paul

• • •

I might be wrong—I think pediatrics is on the third floor. I went off the idea that Clay found Benny on the third floor. So now Randall is going up to the fourth floor to find a different route back to pediatrics, where he’ll meet Clay and link to your chapter, and then he’ll continue back down to the third floor to reunite with Jenny.

Jeff

• • •

@ Jeff - I like the Benny flashback, and see your point. We’ll pop it into the manuscript and see how it reads when everything is put together. A brief respite is fine. But if it throws off the pace, it may have to be done as interior monologue. What do you other guys think?

@ Paul - Pitch black is cool. The draculas could have knocked out lights. Clay would have a Maglite, no doubt. He’d probably have those spot lights that mount on gun barrels. Laser sights too. Though Clay might think laser sights are cheating…

Joe

• • •

Okay, I’ll have Clay go to the 4th floor, do some suspense in the dark, then realize peds is on the 3rd and go down.

Where’s Obstetrics? Eventually Clay has to meet up with the minister so he can show him how to off himself and take a load of draculas with him.

Paul

• • •

Okay, this one’s done, and links directly to Paul’s chapter where Randall and Clay meet.

Jeff

• • •

Great chapter, Jeff. Love the political correctness Randall grapples with.

Here’s what I’m thinking as historical context:

Oswald von Wolkenstein was a member of the Order of the Dragon in the early 1400s. The Order was supposedly formed to fight the Turks and the Ottoman Empire.

But what if it was formed to fight draculas? Members of the order were called Draconists.

The black death raged throughout the 1400s, Today, historians and scholars believe it was the bubonic and pneumonic plague that caused it, but there has been no absolute evidence to support this hypothesis, only educated guesses.

So what if the black death caused dracula-like symptoms in some of its hosts?

Black death ravages the world, but when people with certain genetic precursors are exposed to it (like certain royal bloodlines) it mutates its victims into draculas. The Draconists had family members affected in this way, including Oswald.

The Draconists, out of self-preservation, manage to kill all of the mutations and keep it under wraps, even though it became the source for vampire and werewolf legends. But Oswald, rather than kill his diseased son, kept him chained up in the cellar.

The son escapes, goes on a killing spree, ending up in Transylvania and causing a dracula epidemic.

Vlad III of Wallachia (Vlad the Imapaler), to save his country in the 1450s, realizes the easiest, fastest, and safest hands-off way to kill draculas is to impale them on large stakes, where they’ll eventually starve to death, unable to climb off.

Oswald’s son is caught by Vlad, who beheaded him. It was Oswald’s son’s head found in the field by the farmer in present day.

Mortimer is a direct line from Wolkenstein. He’s got the bloodline, and the genetic precursor. At the beginning, we can put a draconis ouroborus on his robe as a lapel insignia.

This ties in Stoker’s Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, the Draconist order, the black death, and the source of monster legends, and wraps it all up in a neat little historically possible package.

Joe

• • •

BTW- the Draconis ouroboros symbol is a dragon creature eating its own tail. Much like our draculas eat themselves.

Joe

• • •

Verrrrrrrrry cool.

Where does it work into the story? Are we going to weave in bits and pieces throughout?

Jeff

• • •

Blake is putting it in, when Shanna is explaining to Clay what possibly caused this.

Joe

• • •

To make the timeframe work, I think Clay needs to reunite with Randall =after= Randall has saved Jenny. Randall has had enough solo adventures, so I’m going to take him straight to pediatrics, and his final battle with Benny should be when Jenny (and the kids!) are there. She has a grudge against the clown, too, so they can fight him together. They kill Benny, but right before that, Randall gets bitten, so Clay reaches pediatrics just as they’re dealing with that unfortunate fact.

Joe, are you working on any new Jenny stuff? I can pick up where you left off, but I don’t want to step on your toes (since everybody knows you type with your toes—the pictures Blake sent me are frickin’ disgusting!).

Jeff

• • •

Cool. If a point comes up where it makes sense to do this, I’ll have somebody try to explain the backstory to Randall, who has trouble following the details and says “You know what, this late in the game I really don’t give a shit where these things came from!”

Jeff

• • •

Right now, Jenny is killing Lanz. When she’s done, Benny can show up and Randall can burst in and save her.

Joe

• • •

Okay, how about this:

Jenny is fighting Lanz. Kills him. Benny shows up and chainsaws through the door.

Randall rescues her. Tearful reunion. Then they’re surrounded by draculas. Randall fights off a bunch with his saw, but he’s outnumbered. Gets bitten.

Clay comes in with the boom boom, clears the path. Threatens to kill Randall. Jenny won’t let him. They go, with the kids, to the roof because Clay thinks he can flag down the tv helicopter.

Along the way they meet up with Adam, Stacie, and the baby.

Army shows up. Begins to massacre draculas, causing all of them to flee—running up the stairs. Everyone on the roof.

Randall begins to change. He and Jenny express love. Randall becomes a dracula and starts kicking ass.

Clay gets the kids on the helicopter, the baby, and then Stacie is killed and Adam wounded.

Randall is wounded and dying. Jenny stays with him.

Clay gives Adam the grenades, leaps onto the skids as the helicopter takes off (Yippe ki-yaa, mother fucker), and loses his grip and falls off the building.

Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she’s surrounded, the army drops a bomb.

Shanna sees the explosion. Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn’t on it. She weeps. Meets another survivor. Young guy. He’s calm and a bit flirtatious.

Clay climbs out of a tree, his arm and several ribs broken. “Jumping onto a helicopter is a fuckall lot harder than it is in the movies.” Reunites with Jenny.

Survivor gets baby. It’s Mort.

What say you all?

Joe

• • •

Also, my Jenny/Lanz section topped 5000 words. Which means that we’ve written about 50k words so far. I’m figuring it’ll go 15k more, maybe 20k when we go back and add a bit more setting and atmosphere. 70k is a respectable word count for a book like this.

Joe

• • •

Who is this guy on your blog saying that hospitals don’t use cell phone jammers? He isn’t right is he?

Blake

• • •

Upon further study, he may be right. But that’s a quick fix. We used that device because we didn’t want people calling for help, but now it doesn’t matter because help is coming anyway.

I’ll kill it in the sample and reupload the file.

Joe

• • •

Just changed the jammer in the sample and the main manuscript, and uploaded it to Kindle. At the beginning of the sample I had a disclaimer saying it was uncorrected proofs, so it won’t matter. We owe that guy a beer.

Joe

• • •

Apparently I was misinformed, and hospitals don’t use cell phone jammers. I changed it in the sample and the final manuscript.

This is actually a good development. Now Shanna can call Clay when he goes back into the hospital to help Randall, so they can have a tense goodbye scene on the phone. Randall can also call the TV station and tell them to bring the helicopter to the roof.

The point of not wanting cell phones is because we didn’t want the cops to come early. But they came early anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Joe

• • •

I researched cell jammers for Cherry Bomb and could swear they were used on airplanes. But apparently I was wrong, because if they were used it would crash the plane. My bad.

The measure of a man is not only being able to admit when he’s wrong, but being grateful to those who point it out.

BTW, I think all of you are consistently wrong about everything.

Joe

• • •

You spelled “Killborn” wrong on all of your books.

Jeff

• • •

You smell like cheese.

Joe

• • •

The Jenny/Lanz section is done. Now Randall needs to save her, and quick.

Joe

• • •

American Genocide is off to my agent…it’s draculas time!

Blake

September 12, 2010

I think I’m all right with this…question tho…need to iron out the whole helicopter helping out thing. If the Army is going to blow the place, would they even allow a helicopter to go near a contaminated site. Not saying it can’t happen, we just need to establish how it does.

Blake

• • •

Joe and I have been thinking that the only thing Draculas is missing are Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew-style illustrations. 5 of them, and the scenes we want to do are:

Benny the Clown being attack in the ER over the caption: “Oh no, I’m getting bitten…again!”

Oh God. Is that a…flamingo?

the wheelchair dracula chasing Randall

Oasis getting ready to munch on Grammy Ann and asking for her red candy

Clayton Theel and Shanna, heavily armed, kicking ass and taking names.

The artist, Carl (who did the killer cover) would do these for $XXXX apparently. Any objections, suggestions?

This would be the style:

http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/.a/6a00d8345169e469e20120a7544a31970b-pi

Blake

• • •

Dunno how I missed the birth scene, Blake. Beautifully done.

Joe

• • •

Thanks. Just finished reading Jenny v. Lanz…truly vile, brother. I must have grimaced at least a dozen times. Self amputation…eeewwww. Great scene. I’m not sure if it should be cut up or presented as one long sequence.

Jeff and Paul - read your new stuff too. bravo. Excellent work. We’re hitting a really nice balance of horror and laughs. I think if we can tease out a little more suspense in the final polish this thing will be firing on all cylinders. Something truly horrific, truly scary, and truly funny. A tall order, but we’re getting there.

Blake

• • •

I like the scene. I think it’s necessary to establish how Benny knows to use alcohol (also rounds out his backstory a little bit). It is jarring tho. I think we’ll have to see how it hangs with the other scenes on a final review.

Blake

• • •

It’s almost 6k words, plus it’s really intense, so I think we should divide the scene up. There’s so much going on at once, readers will want to check in with other characters.

• • •

Still up? I’m almost done with a 1st pass at Shanna’s explanation.

Blake

• • •

Shanna dracula backstory Paul 4.0 is up…still needs a little polishing but it’s getting there. I love how all these draculas myths are rolled into one package that kind of makes sense if you don’t stare at it too hard. Paul, I renamed your new files just to make it clear what’s what in advance of putting everything into the big manuscript documents at the end of the week.

Blake

• • •

Jeff 6.1 — great scene — absurd and terrifying — and smooth segue into Clay vs Randall. I added that Randall spots Clay with a frightened looking woman, since Shanna’s in the next scene. Hope I didn’t throw you a curve by giving Randall a gun. It’s got only 4 shots, but if it messes your plans, I can go back and have him refuse it.

Jenny 1.0 this is one intense piece. In a way it’s already broken up by shifts in POV.

brain defibrillation — resetting Lanz’s thought processes like ECT — very clever.

A couple of quibbles:

Randall was a rock. He was also one of the most reassuring, nurturing people she’d ever known — this doesn’t jibe with his history of drunken rampages — doesn’t sound like a guy she’d divorce. Maybe now that he’s stopped drinking, she realizes he’s once again the guy she fell in love with.

and the Tea Party was populated by morons. — gratuitous and political, no? Definitely has its share of morons, but I’ve got some loyal readers involved in the movement (my Ron Paul contingent) and they’re anything but.

Stacie 4.0 — very moving; the turn at the end is unsettling. (I changed vernex to vernix)

Paul

• • •

Nice. A painless, concise explanation, but is it done?

“He carries the virus that makes the vaccine.”

I hear Clay saying. “Vaccine? You mean like a shot?”

Paul

• • •

Re: draculas illustrations: No objections whatsoever. That sounds like a fantastic idea.

Jeff

• • •

You’re right, Paul, it was political and gratuitous. I thought it spoke to her character. But I’ll cut it. What’s another group of people I can call stupid that won’t annoy fans that Jenny would dislike?

As for the Randall drinking thing, good catch. I think we can compromise. I want Jenny to leave him because he’s not the brightest bulb, and she wants more. That could include him hitting the bars and getting arrested for fighting and drunk and disorderly. But I don’t see him as the type who would ever be violent toward her, even if he has a violent streak.

So we can have Clay arrest him at various bars around town, and have him know Jenny because she kept bailing his dumb ass out. That means I’ll add his drinking problem to Jenny’s list of things she can’t stand about him, and Clay can feel sorry for her that she has had to put up with such a loser.

Joe

• • •

Nice job on the infodump scene, Blake. I agree it needs to be smoothed out—it’s too on the nose.

Can I take a crack at it?

Joe

• • •

The Klan? The Taliban?

As for the Randall drinking thing, good catch. I think we can compromise. I want Jenny to leave him because he’s not the brightest bulb, and she wants more.

Shanna’s problem with Clay is she wants more too. Too similar?

That could include him hitting the bars and getting arrested for fighting and drunk and disorderly. But I don’t see him as the type who would ever be violent toward her, even if he has a violent streak.

Well, I never saw him being violent to her, just breaking stuff.

How about he was a sweet guy when they married; the drink got control and brought out his dark side. She couldn’t take it anymore and dumped him. It’s a nice arc for her to go from thinking he’s still the jerk she divorced when they meet in the ER, to slowly realize that he’s been serious about sobering up and that he’s back to the sweet guy she married. (Yeah, I split an infinitive - sue me.)

Paul

• • •

Yeah, that’s stronger. Jeff and I can tweak his drinking problem in the rewrite, make it more of a main issue between them.

Then the fact that he cut the back of his leg could be Jenny believing he was drinking on the job, when it really was just stupidity.

And the reason he could have begun drinking is because he felt inferior to his smarter wife.

Jeff? Work for you?

Joe

• • •

Yep, that completely works.

Are we going to add a disclaimer to the book saying that people who read the free sample are required to start over from the beginning? :)

Jeff

• • •

Please, take a crack at sanding out the rough edges. What I really love (and maybe you work on) is the idea that because Mort is from this bloodline, and because he essentially infected himself with the same strand that hit Oswald, the virus can manifest differently in him. He contains the cure within himself, only it’s a cure that makes him a functioning (and infinitely more terrifying dracula). This is getting above my medical expertise pay grade, so hopefully Paul can make sure I haven’t completely fucked up my basic understanding of virus and antibody. And yes, Paul, I think the scene definitely goes on with Clay saying “You mean a shot?” Please feel free to tweak any of the dialogue I assigned to him.

Blake

• • •

I uploaded a couple of pages of Clay 5.0 — a scene done purely for visual impact — but I don’t know where to go from there. Does Clay reconnect with Randall next or does he blunder into the Adam-Stacie story? Eventually he has to help Adam end it all.

Maybe I’ll write him setting up Adam’s farewell scene and work on the timing and connections later. I’m on a roll here and don’t want to lose momentum.

Paul

• • •

Paul - I’m writing my Adam scene right now. Not sure if he connects with Randall first (I’m thinking not), but Clayton does blunder into my story. He can be on the third floor, near the birthplace, (trying to find a way to the roof?) and hear screams coming from the maternity ward. He busts in and sees my minister out in the hallway fighting with Oasis (and losing). saves the day. Stacie by this point will be in bed, hooked up to a blood transfusion, and he can help them get out of there. Nurse Herrick will be turning into a draculas by this point too (Oasis bit her) so maybe he can put her down as well. There’s also a single mother on the wing who just gave birth to a baby dracula (oasis has been on a tear). If you want to work that scene up, I’ll work on Adam going to get blood for his wife, and lay the groundwork of Oasis running rampant through the birthplace while he’s away. Sound good?

Blake

• • •

Let me see what you do and I’ll jump in. But you do plan to have Adam bitten, right?

Paul

• • •

For sure.

And here’s my outline plan…

Adam 4.0 (almost done) will end with him leaving the mat ward to go get blood.

Herrick 1.0 will be her beginning to treat Stacie, and then oasis shows up and wreaks havoc, she gets bitten but scares O off.

Adam 5.0 - will be Adam goes down to the blood bank with only a scalpel to retrieve blood bags for Stacie, is chased, almost killed, but makes it back to the ER.

Oasis 4.0 - short, Oasis pissed, trying to figure out how to kill an adult.

Adam 6.0 - Adam returns to the ward with the blood and Herrick gets Stacie hooked up, but she starts to feel bad and leaves (they haven’t seen these things turn so they don’t know what the symptoms mean. Adam starts to comfort his wife and take care of his newborn daughter when Oasis shows up. Minister vs. 8-year-old dracula girl…can’t wait to write this scene. Just as O is getting ready to overpower him, Clay arrives. (but Adam is bitten). I think Herrick can show back up after this at some point after clay arrives for a big scare.

Blake

• • •

Very cool. Is Stacy going to make it? If not, I have uses for that blood.

Paul

• • •

Not sure yet…my thought is she’s touch-and-go as Clay and Adam roll her and the baby out of the maternity ward and they go in search of a way to get on the roof. But Adam is bringing back tons of blood bags. He’s going to use them like grenades.

Blake

• • •

Sounds awesome. But don’t have Adam bitten until he’s on the roof.

Joe

• • •

Are elevators working?

Blake

• • •

No elevators. Are you thinking Adam has a cart for the blood?

Joe

• • •

How about this for Randall, since the outlines thus far don’t really address what’s going to happen with the kids in pediatrics.

He reaches pediatrics just as Benny is attacking. Randall is absolutely pissed beyond belief that the clown has his chainsaw. Benny loses the fight, and Randall gets his beloved chainsaw back.

They need to get the kids out. With Randall in the front, carving up every dracula that comes at them, and Jenny in the back, they move through the hospital as a group. The noise attracts more draculas, but that’s fine, because Randall is ready to saw up as many of those things as will come at him. He’s feeling alive.

They make it outside the hospital. There’s a news van out there. Randall gets the kids into the back of the van…but Jenny isn’t with them anymore. A dracula grabbed her. The van drives off with the kids, but Randall has to go back into the hospital. He saves Jenny again, but his chainsaw dies, and now there are too many creatures in the lobby, feasting on the dismembered corpses of their fellow draculas. They need another way out. Which connects us back to the idea of going to the roof…

Jeff

• • •

No, just wanted to know what options he’s got. Nurse Herrick just gave him the most convoluted directions to the blood bank in history. Of course, it’s in the basement. I’m actually afraid for him.

Blake

• • •

@ Jeff - That works for me. Or they can meet with Clay and Adam in the hall and all go up together. If Jenny dies get separated, I need a lead dracula to terrorize her.

@ Blake - Is Adam going to kill Oasis? Or will he balk at killing a child? Also, Adam will have an overnight bag for the hospital stay. He can fill a wheeled suitcase with blood packs.

Joe

• • •

Adam 4.0 up…may need to do an accuracy polish later on what’s happening with Stacie medically.

Blake

• • •

You can give Adam an iPad, which he reads the bible on. That could be his light. Or just a regular book light, for late night gospel reading. He’ll need something in the basement.

Joe

• • •

Joe, cool. Jenny doesn’t need to be separated for long—basically, she’s not there when Randall gets outside with the kids, but he finds her again fairly quickly after he gets back inside. She’s had her big showdown with Lanz, so I think it’s fine to keep it all in Randall’s POV until they’re back together, heading upstairs.

Jeff

• • •

Herrick 1.0 is up…on to Adam’s journey into the basement.

Blake

• • •

I did a quick draft of this to get it out of my system.

When Adam pulls the trigger, it would be nice to have a POV character see the windows blow out from the parking lot.

Paul

• • •

I’ll read it right now. Oasis 4.0 is up…short scene in the maternity ward.

Blake

• • •

Paul, that’s beautiful. I can see this all coming together now. There will be a touching scene between Adam and Stacie right before Randall takes Stacie and the baby up to the roof. She’ll be back into consciousness, holding their daughter, blood flowing into her, and Adam is leaving them, infected, to go with Randall to kill these monsters. I fucking LOVE this.

Blake

• • •

I head Adam on the roof: “I can’t turn into one of these abominations. I won’t!”

Clay: “That can be arranged.”

Paul

• • •

That was I hear Adam…

Sheesh

Paul

• • •

I think this is the first time I’m really catching a glimpse of how this thing is going to wrap up, of seeing the sum of the parts, and it’s truly exciting. Gonna be a helluva book.

Blake

• • •

Adam 5.0 is up…which is halfway through his journey into hell.

Blake

• • •

Jeff 7.0 is up…wherein the lumberjack and the clown and set up for their final confrontation.

Jeff

• • •

Going way back to the beginning of the process, I was very happy to see Blake’s glorious “intestines stuck in the drawer” sequence. I thought “Sweet! We get to have FUN with this thing!”

Jeff

• • •

I’m reading this and laughing while I’m worrying about Randall. Together the 4 of us have created, I think, the paradigm of balancing horror and humor. I armed Randall with the ultimate hand weapon, and you, Jeff (you should add, btw, something about its awesome recoil) have used incidents from previous chapters to render it useless against Benny.

Paul

September 13, 2010

Paul, I’m redoing the infodump scene, trying to make it less on the nose. It begins with Clay and Shanna in the stairwell, and Shanna isn’t packing heat.

Did I miss something, or in the previous scene was Shanna gung-ho about carrying a weapon, and refused to give it back?

Joe

• • •

It didn’t ring true, so I’m going to change it when we go back for fix-ups.

Paul

• • •

It’s possible there’s so much info to dump that you should spread it over several Shanna/Clay scenes.

Blake

• • •

There’s a scene with Shanna alone in the chapel where she’s trying to reconcile some of what she knows with what she’s seen (ie, the monster wearing Mort’s pants/belt). You could start the exposition there, maybe have her interrupted by Clay’s calling her name through the intercom. Then finish the exposition on the stairwell.

Paul

• • •

Jeff 8.0 is up…The heartfelt reunion of a man and his chainsaw.

Jeff

September 14, 2010

I caught up on everyone’s new chapters last night. Good shit, guys. I also added a little something to the info dump scene. Still think it needs to be broken out into the chapel scene. Maybe I’ll look at that today if Joe can’t get to it.

I just have to write the Adam v. Oasis scene which will end with Clayton Theel killing some draculas on the verge of breaking into the maternity ward, saving Adam et al., and I think we’ll be ready to put the finale together.

My plan is to add all the new stuff to the existing manuscript once I write this last scene and have my folks meet up with Clayton. Then we can dive into the finale.

One more scene before we hit the finale, will have Randall, Jeff, Jenny and the kids meet up and decide to head for the roof because Clay can flag down a television helicopter. On the way, Clay can hear human screams in the maternity ward, and he can go and get Adam, Stacie, and their baby. Then all our characters are together heading for the roof, draculas chasing them because the army is storming the place, etc.

Who’s writing the next Jenny/Randall/Clayton scene?

Also, should we talk start talking about who writes what for the final scenes?

Blake

• • •

So can we get the pediatrics kids into a helicopter and off to safety? I’m all in favor of killing young children in my fiction (“With that scene in Pressure, you’ve just lost 35% of your audience.” — Joseph Konrath) but I think Randall needs to save these kids and a camera crew needs to see him doing it.

The plan was for him to get them out through the main entrance, but Randall has to go back because Jenny was grabbed by a dracula, and their own escape is cut off, forcing the roof plan. But if we can get the kids out with a helicopter on the roof (which then has no room for the others), I can still have Randall chainsawing draculas left and right as he leads the kids to safety, but get us closer to the finale quicker.

Jeff

• • •

Do it, and hells yes, save the kids. Have Randall put them on a helicopter…(so they can be sick and die in peace…love that line)…

Here’s the part of Joe’s outline that I agree with…

“Randall rescues her. Tearful reunion. Then they’re surrounded by draculas. Randall fights off a bunch with his saw, but he’s outnumbered. Gets bitten. Clay comes in with the boom boom, clears the path. Threatens to kill Randall. Jenny won’t let him. They go, with the kids, to the roof because Clay thinks he can flag down the TV helicopter. Along the way they meet up with Adam, Stacie, and the baby. Army shows up. Begins to massacre draculas, causing all of them to flee—running up the stairs. Everyone on the roof. Randall begins to change. He and Jenny express love. Randall becomes a dracula and starts kicking ass.”

After this, I think it changes a little. Let’s have Randall getting the kids on the chopper, along with Stacie’s baby, after she’s killed and Adam wounded (another heartbreaking, scene…Adam saying goodbye to his daughter).

While Randall gets the kids onto the chopper, Clay and Adam go down to the room with the grenades, and we have Adam’s death scene as he takes out a tons of draculas.

Back on the roof, Randall is wounded and dying. Jenny stays with him.

WHAT IS CLAY DOING? HOW DOES THIS END FOR HIM? I’M NOT SURE IF HE’S JUMPING ONTO THE HELICOPTER SKIDS ANYMORE WITH HE ADAM GOING BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.

Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she’s surrounded, the army drops a bomb.

Shanna sees the explosion. Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn’t on it. She weeps. Meets another survivor. Young guy. He’s calm and a bit flirtatious.

DOES CLAY SURVIVE? REUNION WITH SHANNA?

Survivor gets baby. It’s Mort.

Thoughts?

Blake

• • •

Sounds fantastic. And Randall’s chainsaw and screams of “Die, draculas, die!!!” could attract the other survivors, helping to bring our group together.

Jeff

• • •

Real suspense there, Blake — even though I knew he’d survive.

I’m gonna dive back in 1st thing tomorrow.

Paul

• • •

Thanks, Paul, glad it clicked for you…let’s shoot to have the finale set up by say Thursday, and I can then get working on assembling everything we’ve got so far into the manuscript. I think I know what I need to do…Jeff, Paul, can you guys have your characters (and Jenny) poised for the finale by then? I think I’ve got the biggest part to write, so we’re pretty close already.

Blake

• • •

Clay and Randall/Jenny need to hook up relatively quickly, since otherwise my characters would think to go down to the lobby, not up to the roof. (An intercom message might work, but Randall is holding a loud chainsaw, and Clay wouldn’t know that the draculas can’t understand his message.)

If Paul sets up the idea that Clay is going to the roof, and ends his bit with Clay on the third floor, seeing Randall put his chainsaw through a random dracula, I can take it to wherever Blake wants me to leave off.

As for POV after that, the actual “children in the helicopter” rescue needs to be Randall’s POV, since it’s his big moment of redemption. That scene will end with Clay pointing out that Randall has been bitten.

I think the scene with Clay threatening to shoot him should be Jenny’s POV.

Jeff

• • •

I think we need to bring in some of the characters perhaps seeing lights from the helicopter sweeping across the building, maybe the roadblock out in the parking lot a little earlier…I may try to work that in when I assemble everything.

Blake

• • •

Cell phones work. Clay could call the TV station, have them land the copter.

Joe

September 15, 2010

Sayonara, Adam.

I added a scene with Shanna in the parking lot with the army and a mysterious Dr. Driscoll. You may or may not like the implication I’m making toward the end of her scene. If not, we’ll cut it. It’s only a few lines.

Paul

• • •

I went in and changed Shanna’s sudden embrace of gunnydom to a refusal to carry one. She was too upset with killing Marge.

I carried some of that over to Adam’s final moments. He realizes none of the people these creatures came from chose to be this way, and so he forgives them before he blows them all to smithereens.

Paul

• • •

Can’t wait to catch up on this, guys. Working on another deadline. Sorry I’ve been out of the loop for a bit.

Blake is going to put this section together, then I’ll go in and add Jenny scenes when needed, including the “say goodbye to Randall” scene and the “don’t shoot Randall” scene, along with her death scene when the army drops the bomb on the hospital, assuming we’re still going that route.

Joe

• • •

nice, can’t wait to read…Paul, I think you can probably dive into your last scene before I merge all the most recent stuff…I’ll set it for you. Clayton and Randall are running up to the roof with Jenny and the kids, and as they pass one long corridor, they hear human screams. Clay says you go on ahead, I’ll meet you up there. Clay runs down the corridor, finds 4 draculas have just about broken through the barricade into the maternity ward (enough so he’ll be able to get in). He smokes them. Runs inside himself. this is what he sees…(where I’ll end the section I’m currently writing):

Adam on the floor of the corridor near the nurses’ station on the verge of being devoured by Oasis, another teen dracula is watching them. she just gave birth to a baby dracula, a huge hole in her stomach where the baby-dracula ate its way out.

Clayton kills those three draculas, saves Adam. Quick down beat, then Nurse Herrick dracula (nice out-of-nowhere scare) attacks and Clay wastes her. Then Clay leads and Adam wheels Stacie (still unconscious and mid-transfusion) out of the maternity ward, with his child (who was in the nursery) in his arm. sound good?

Blake

• • •

Which floor is pediatrics?

Which floor is OB?

Paul

• • •

I kind of like it, especially the idea the army has seen this before…what are you thinking? that this is the last we’ll see of Shanna?

Blake

• • •

OB - 3

Pediatrics - 2

Blake

• • •

Not necessarily. I’m thinking some government agency knows about this virus, and has either been tracking it down or working with their own strain of the thing. They know they can’t let it loose. That’s why they’re so quick to firebomb the building.

I don’t think we have to explain more. If we decide on a sequel, it’s a plot point we can expand or leave in the background. But it hints that this is bigger than we thought. Even Moorecook, who thinks he’s in charge, might be a minor player on this stage.

Paul

• • •

perfect.

I’ll just continue Clay 5.0. Clay is heading down the steps, sees Randall coming up with the kids and Jenny from 2. Takes the rear. I’ll get him onto the 3rd (OB) floor on the way up.

Paul

• • •

I’m all for it.

Blake

• • •

“perfect. I’ll just continue Clay 5.0. Clay is heading down the steps, sees Randall coming up with the kids and Jenny from 2. Takes the rear. I’ll get him onto the 3rd (OB) floor on the way up.”

So Jeff, just get Randall and Jenny and the kids heading up out of pediatrics, and they can run into Clayton.

Blake

• • •

Will do!

Jeff

• • •

Do you guys have scans of your signatures? I think it’d be a nice touch for the title page. If not, no worries.

Blake

• • •

No, but how much trouble can it be to scan one?

Paul

• • •

You’re right. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Jeff

• • •

I’m voting against signature scans.

While in Florida I saw a technology that allowed authors to actually sign ebooks. I expect it to be commonplace in a year or two. To have fake signatures is like those Nora Roberts autopen signed books—it doesn’t add value, plus it ruins the potential for a real signature when the technology arrives.

Joe

• • •

Joe, I’m enrolling you in OA — overthinkers anonymous.

Paul

• • •

I can’t accept that enrollment until I think about it for a while.

Paul

• • •

Okay so it’s 2 in favor of signature scans, 2 opposed.

Now each side submits one representative, and those two fight to death.

The victor will get to make the call.

Blake

• • •

Btw, Paul will be representing the pro-signature side in the death match.

Blake

• • •

I’m starting to add everything into Draculas 2.4 tonight, with the exception of Paul’s Clay and Adam 7.2 and Jeff’s 9.0. Jeff, you’ve got a tiny scene to write to meet up your crew with Clayton, and Paul is just about done as well with having Clayton bust into the maternity ward. I’ll add those final scenes when you guys finish. It’s looking great.

Blake

September 16, 2010

DRACULAS 2.4 is up…We’re over 63,000 words. I moved our old files into the old folder, and still kept Jeff’s 9.0 and Paul’s Clay, Adam, and Shanna 7.2. It took a little work to put everything together since certain characters cross each others’ paths, but I’m shocked at how well it came together. The rhythm of it seems right on to me. Please go into 2.4 and make sure I haven’t messed up any timelines or anything and that everyone digs the order of scenes.

Joe, maybe Maria wants to read the new stuff?

Here’s how I think it all plays out:

1. Jeff links Randall up with Clay (and Paul’s already written the scene when they meet up en route to the roof)…Jeff just extend from the last scene with Randall in 2.4…it’s like a couple paragraphs at most I think.

2. Joe needs to look at the Randall/Jenny reunion final scene in 2.4 and decide if he wants to add a scene from Jenny’s POV where she says she loves him, etc.

3. Clay goes into maternity ward per earlier email, kills everything, and leaves with my couple and their baby.

(I’ve made bolded notes in 2.4 where these scenes need to go…just use the search function and search for the asterisks in the manuscript*)

Let’s brainstorm in the next day or so about the order of scenes and from whose POV they’re written to wrap up the big finale.

Blake

• • •

It’s now 2.5. I gave it a quick read and corrected a few typos and corrected one of my movie quotes.

Blake — I fear you’ve done too much damage to Adam for him to be good for anything. A fractured humerus makes that arm good for nothing, and we need him helping get Stacie upstairs and stacking chairs and spilling blood later on.

Jeff — can we draw out Benny’s death just a tad more? He’s been such a great nemesis, I feel he needs little more drama - I’m talking maybe a dozen words or so. And maybe a drawn-out fart before he goes…I mean, making a clown a human whoopee cushion is kind of appropriate, yes?

BTW, how DO we get Stacie up to the roof?

WHAT IS CLAY DOING? HOW DOES THIS END FOR HIM? I’M NOT SURE IF HE’S JUMPING ONTO THE HELICOPTER SKIDS ANYMORE WITH HE ADAM GOING BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.

Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she’s surrounded, the army drops a bomb.

Shanna sees the explosion.

We cut away after that.

Back to Shanna later: Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn’t on it. She weeps.

Meets another survivor. Young guy. He’s calm and a bit flirtatious.

How about he’s dressed in scrubs? Looks vaguely familiar. (We need to set up that Mort’s changing back to human. He goes to doctors lounge for clean clothes - we don’t need to see him putting on scrubs)

Shanna’s in isolation in the trailer. She watches copter rescue and the hospital’s fiery demolition through the 1-inch glass window. The 4 kids are brought in. Dr. Driscoll hands her the baby (“I don’t do babies.”) Then a young guy shows up in scrubs. Says he’s Dr. Michaels, a pediatrician. He’ll take care of the squalling baby. When Driscoll returns, Shanna learns there is no Dr. Michaels.

DOES CLAY SURVIVE? REUNION WITH SHANNA?

I see Clay leaving Adam, rushing up to the roof and finding the stairwell clogged with draculas. Okay, he’ll find another way out. But as he’s passing the pediatrics floor, he’s compelled to detour and find his beloved Taurus Raging Bull (which Randall told him he left behind). He finds it, and as he’s cradling it, the hospital explodes around him. I like the contrast of him saving the human love of his life but dying while attempting to rescue a non-human love.

Paul

• • •

Nice job, everyone.

I did a global search-and-replace to unify all the punctuation, and saved it as 2.6. I’ll write the Jenny/Randall Reunion, then stick it in there.

I’ll also throw it on my wife’s Kindle and see if she digs it so far. So everyone please stay out of 2.6 for the time being while I work on it this morning. When I’m done I’ll save it as 2.7.

If Blake and Jeff want to add to their scenes as Paul suggested, you guys need to do it one at a time and coordinate so you don’t save different versions.

@Paul - I used the “my middle name is” joke with Clay during the infodump scene. I figure Clay’s daddy gave him the middle name “Rambo”, as a survivalist very well might. We could save that punch line until Clay does the “Careful” line at the end of your section, or we could kill it if you don’t like it.

Joe

• • •

Randall bit Benny…so he’s already infected.

Paul

• • •

Paul, Adam’s injury concerned me as well, and started to really get on my nerves because I had to mention it constantly…I’ll go back into 2.whatever it is later tonight, and dial that back to a bruise or something so he can be ready to help Clay…and re: getting Stacie up to the roof…it’s just one flight, so I think maybe they’ll have to struggle to carry her stretcher and the (blood-transfusion stand thingy - what do they call those?)

I like your thoughts on Clay’s journey to the end. I’m for it.

Re: Moorecook…here’s where we need some magic…I love what Joe did earlier, implying he was undergoing some change, but I don’t want to telegraph that he’s truly changing back to human…maybe we need an ambiguous Mort section, (Joe?) hinting that he’s undergoing a reverse metamorphoses, but nothing anyone would suspect might lead him back to full on external humanity.

So after this young pediatric doctor has taken the baby, perhaps we have a scene in his POV (I know exactly how to do it), and only in the last paragraph do we realize this is Mort, heading back out into the world.

Blake

• • •

works for me

Paul

• • •

I was planning on doing the exact Mort/change scene you describe, Blake, right after the Jenny scene I’m working on.

Will be done in a bit, and add it to the manuscript.

Joe

• • •

You could dunk a cross in a pool of urine while environmentalists burned the American flag and Randall would not have been more outraged than he was at the sight of Benny the Clown holding his precious chainsaw.

Awesome line, Jeff.

Joe

• • •

Funny how Jeff and I both have adult male characters in love with their toys.

Paul

• • •

And they’re also able to provide their women with the best sex they’ve ever had in their lives!

Jeff

• • •

In the dropbox. Added the Jenny scene and the Moorecook scene, extended the Randall saves Jenny scene for a bit more emotional impact, and made a few minor fixes.

Randall doesn’t get bitten. He’s going to change because he swallowed some of Benny. That’ll start to happen once they’re on the roof.

As for getting Shanna up the stairs, I’m thinking a piggy-back, which would be rough enough that she’d lose more blood than she’s getting from the IV. Pretty extreme stuff, having a woman on your back who is sluicing blood down her legs. That could be how she dies…

Joe

• • •

We know you mean Stacie — I’ll get them all to the roof (via Clay) and maybe Blake can take the switch to Adam’s POV when he realizes she’s gone.

Paul

• • •

Exactly, but don’t kill her quite yet…make her almost dead, but conscious. I want Stacie and Adam to have a nice last moment. I can’t believe we’re putting this nice couple through this.

Blake

• • •

LOL. Yeah, Stacie.

This is funny, because in your new section you just called Shanna “Jenny.”

I say we just call every character by the sexually ambiguous name “Chris” and let the readers sort it out…

Joe

• • •

Draculas 2.8 is up wherein Adam’s arm is no longer broken.

Blake

• • •

Just put up Clay 5.2 (cont) which picks up where Clay 5.2 cut off.

It ends with Clay, Stacie, Adam, and Daniella on the stairs, heading for the roof. I’m handing off to Blake to pick up as they emerge onto the roof.

Paul

• • •

Nice scenes, Paul.

Okay, here’s where we’re all at:

Jeff, you next scene is Randall going up the stairs, protecting the kids. They’re walking up four flights with Clay, Stacie, et all. Randall will take the rear, keeping the draculas back. When he gets to the roof, he and Clay barricade the door. Then Randall loses one of his teeth.

Blake, your next scene is Stacie dying of blood loss once she gets to the roof. Adam says goodbye to her.

My scene is Jenny seeing Randall’s missing tooth, and watching him lose another. As the draculas are breaking in, Clay wants to shoot Randall. Jenny won’t let him. Randall insists he’ll fight it.

Jeff, your scene is Randall’s transformation. As a full blooded dracula, with a chainsaw, he kills a few dozen.

While that’s happening, Paul, Clay is loading on the four boys onto the chopper. During the evac, Adam gets bitten.

Blake, Adam knows what being bitten means. He says goodbye to his daughter, gives them to the TV people. Asks Clay for his gun, wanting to kill as many of them as possible. Clay says, “I’ve got a better idea—why not kill them all?”

My scene: Randall is mortally wounded. Clay and Adam walk by, tell Jenny the chopper is ready. Jen says she’s staying. Chopper takes off.

Clay and Adam setting the bombs is already written. Paul, need a quick scene of Clay running like hell for a window just as the explosion happens.

My last scene with Jenny. Randall dies. Jenny looks up at the Army, which has arrived. Big old bomb drops on the hospital.

Wrap up.

Joe

• • •

Nicely done, Joe, this is super helpful…don’t forget Clay’s death scene…I think you have your work cut out for you convincing me Jenny stays on the roof to die with Randall, tho. There’s no way he’s going to let her do that.

So only Shanna, Mort, and baby Murray survive?

That’s kind of cool…I want to really hint strongly in the final scene that, even though Shanna is grieving for Clay, there’s this connection with this new doctor. She’s crying, he embraces her. Something familiar about him. How cool would it be if Mort gets the girl in the end, and she doesn’t know it’s him?

Blake

• • •

Paul’s dispatching of Oasis…I think we have a winner in the most disgusting disturbing, carve-your-eyes-out-with a grapefruit spoon moment in a book chockfull of them. Well done, sir. This scene kicked major ass.

Blake

• • •

Sounds good. I’ll be able to upload much chainsaw mayhem tomorrow.

Jeff

• • •

Don’t ask me where that came from…I don’t want to know. Really.

Paul

• • •

Here’s an expansion, plus some tweaks that take into account timelines, etc. of what Joe passed around earlier today. I also put this in the dropbox. Thoughts? We okay with this?

GUIDE TO WRITING THE END — a lot of these are short short scenes, and I’ve broken it out like this to help me assemble it all in the end.

PAUL: Kickass scene where Clay saves Adam, Stacie and baby and gets them heading up toward the roof — already written.

JEFF: Randall going up the stairs, protecting the kids. They’re walking up four flights. Randall will take the rear, keeping the draculas back. They approach the roof, but don’t get there yet in this scene…Randall loses one of his teeth.

BLAKE: Stacie, Adam, baby and Clay arrive on the roof. Randall and Jenny are already there. Clay goes off to help Randall bar the door, and then help Jenny with the kids and the copter. Stacie’s death scene. Adam says goodbye.

JOE: Jenny seeing Randall’s missing tooth, and watching him lose another. As the draculas are finally arriving at the barricaded door, beginning to beat on it, Clay wants to shoot Randall. Jenny won’t let him. Randall insists he’ll fight it.

JEFF: Randall’s transformation. Draculas break through, and as a full blooded dracula, with a chainsaw, he kills a few dozen.

BLAKE: Adam is attacked in the chaos while he’s mourning over Stacie, Adam gets bitten trying to protect her body, Randall chainsaws another dracula and saves Adam from being torn apart.

PAUL: While that’s happening, Clay is helping to load the four boys onto the chopper, still holding Adam’s daughter, Daniella. The first wave of Draculas have been killed, a moment of quiet on the roof.

BLAKE: Adam knows what being bitten means. He goes to Clay, takes his daughter, says goodbye, then gives them to the TV people. Asks Clay for his gun, wanting to kill as many of the draculas as possible, and then kill himself before he turns. Clay says, “Actually, that can be arranged.”

JOE: Randall is mortally wounded. Clay and Adam walk over, tell Jenny the chopper is ready. Jen says she’s staying until he’s gone (important: she isn’t saying I’m going to stay up here and die with you, she expects to be picked up when the chopper comes back and Randall’s gone). Chopper takes off. Set up that she expects to see the friendly TV chopper again…hahahha.

PAUL: Clay and Adam setting the bombs as already written and Adam’s death scene as it all goes up (from his detonation)

JOE: Last scene with Jenny. Randall dies. Draculas are running up the stairs again. Hears Adam’s explosion. Jenny thinks the TV helicopter has returns, looks up, but it’s an Army helicopter. BUT DON’T EXPLAIN WHAT THE CHOPPER IS DOING. Maybe she just sees the soldiers lug something out of the chopper, and it lands with a big thud on the helipad and cracks the cement and then the chopper pulls quickly away. - but no explosion yet.

PAUL: Scene with Shanna in the parking lot seeing the 1st (Adam) explosion and talking with creepy Dr. Driscoll. I’d like it to end with her seeing the helicopter going up to the hospital (as she’s being dragged toward quarantine — but are we sure about this because how will Mort reach her in quarantine? What if Driscoll gives her a choice: Quarantine for 24 hours or a painful test (I’ll let you figure out the details, Paul) which will tell instantly if she’s infected. I like the idea that this infection is already very much on the Army’s radar) and asking are they rescuing more people? One of the soldiers, or maybe Driscoll smirks and says, “Not exactly.”

JOE: Super short, like two or three sentence scene where Jenny approaches the big gray sphere of metal that has landed on the helipad.

PAUL: Clayton fuckin’ Theel’s death. Goes back down for his Tauras, instead of running out to safety when he could’ve made it) and big, big boom.

PAUL: We see the hospital blow from Shanna’s POV, and then…

six hours later - dawn

SHANNA: the hospital a smoking pile of rubble…Shanna still in shock. Clayton hasn’t come out. She knows. The army is done with her but she can’t make herself leave. Place is still crawling with media and army and law enforcement. She sees a young, attractive man (younger than she is) in scrubs, his face blackened, holding a little baby. This pulls her out of her heartbreak, briefly. She approaches him…I think we know where this is going…

Blake

• • •

Nice work, Blake.

I like everything, but I’m still not sure why Clay has to die. I still like a final scene where he crawls out of the rubble, his Taurus in his hand.

Or at least make it ambiguous if he died or not, so we could use him again if needed.

Everything else I’m 100% with.

Joe

• • •

I think you’ve got a point…Clayton might be my favorite character of the bunch. A helluvalotta fun. Paul, how strongly do you feel about killing him?

Blake

September 17, 2010

I like the symmetry of him dying with his beloved Taurus. But we can sort of have that cake and eat it too with a coda showing one of those search dogs sniffing out a survivor in the rubble who manages to say he’s deputy Clayton R. Theel.

Paul

• • •

As they start to pull the rubble off him, he hands them the Taurus. “Here. Take her first.”

Paul

• • •

That’s a problem we need to address. Even though we came at them independently, the couple dynamics of both relationships are too similar. We need to change that. The couple scenes strike me as repetitious.

Shanna and Clay have known each other only 6 weeks. It makes more sense for the physical part of their relationship to take a front seat. Clay is no dummy, but he has a very narrow range of interests. Shanna cares for Clay but doesn’t love him enough to marry him.

Randall and Jenny, OTOH, were married for years, and presumably had a courtship before the nuptials. They had a deeper relationship than sex before things went sour. Her cracks about his intelligence are a defense mechanism, a way to vent her anger at him for letting her down.

Jenny should be more focused on (and attracted/intrigued by) Randall’s return to the sweet guy she married. She loved him, he broke her heart by becoming a drunk, but now he’s pulled himself up by his bootstraps. At first she’s afraid to give into it, but she’s learning to love him even more. They had good sex, but that’s not what they were about, not what she misses — she misses the emotional attachment. She LOVES this guy.

So in other words, Randall and Jenny have a history and an arc. Clay and Shanna have neither.

Won’t take much - a little shading of the dialogue, a few extra lines of internal monologue here and there. I’m willing to go in and make the two couples more distinct.

Paul

• • •

Clay: “I might have a way to make it really count.”

Paul

• • •

I noticed that too, Paul. The funny thing was, we were writing similar dynamics independent of one another.

My original “fix” was to at once point have Jenny meet up with Shanna and explain that “Love means you gotta put up with them acting like cretins. All men are cretins. But if you can find one you love, you have to stick with it. I should have.”

That would’ve turned the Jenny/Randall relationship into an example/object lesson for Shanna. But Shanna and Jenny were separated too early and never reached that point.

If you want to go in and tweak it to make them more distinct, I’m all for it. But we should keep in mind that all relationships deal with issues like these.

As for Clay being found by rescue dogs, I really like that idea. Maria just read what we have so far, and expressed some strong opinions about who she wants to survive, which is pretty much “everybody.” Considering we’re killing off the majority of our main characters, having a few live might make this more palatable to the reading majority…

Joe

• • •

I think if you carry the Jenny/Randall dynamic I outlined into their final scene — she got the guy she loved back and now she’s losing him for good — it could tug at the heart strings.

While this is in my head, I’ll go into DRACULAS 2.8 now and turn it into 2.9

As for survivors, this is a horror novel - we’ve gotta have casualties. Lots of them.

Paul

• • •

Explain that to my wife when she cuts off the nookie. She’s a petty, vindictive reader who holds grudges against the artist.

I’m all for killing everybody, but I also want to have sex again.

Blake and I discussed your Dr. Driscoll, and we’re for it. It certainly sets up the sequel. But would Driscoll want the dracula bodies disposed of, or quickly packed in ice and whisked away to some undisclosed laboratory location?

I’m also fine with them putting Shanna into quarantine. Drag her off and experiment on her. Then, if Clay lives (perhaps now with an artificial leg where he stores ordnance) he can track her down and rescue her.

Joe

• • •

Driscoll would need only one body…and there’s the dead state cops right there in the parking lot.

Paul

• • •

If we’re talking full conspiracy theory here, they wouldn’t risk burning bodies and leaving either potential evidence or the chance for a foreign power to obtain DNA samples.

I’d think a team in full P4 containment suits, loading all biological matter into a refrigerated semi, a quick and dirty media blackout, a full sterilization of the area, and a quarantine of any survivors, and an instant cover story. Driscoll could even tell Shanna that she needs to be vaccinated against measles, as this was simply a measles outbreak and nothing more, against Shanna’s protestations.

If Driscoll knows about draculas, she’d know the danger of even leaving a cell of infected tissue on the scene, and flamethrowers don’t destroy teeth or bones.

Or not. Knowing our government, they might do a half-assed job cleaning this up. Then we could have some coyotes picking through the scraps, eating some infected flesh, and going werewolf Cujo on Durango…

Joe

• • •

This afternoon I added DRACULAS 2.10, which adds a few Randall paragraphs, and JEFF 9.0, the first “JEFF” scene described below.

Jeff

• • •

Fixed some typos. New version is 3.0.

I’m also doing an intervention for Jeff, to teach him how to count. Jeff is turning thirty-ten this month.

Joe

• • •

I didn’t think my changes warranted moving on to a new whole number, even though I added Paul’s requested fart joke.

And you got my birthday wrong, punk!

Jeff

• • •

You’re turning thirty-eleven?

Joe

• • •

Don’t feel bad. Blake is still in his mid teens.

Joe

• • •

Hey, I bought beer tonight and didn’t even get carded!

Blake

• • •

My birthday isn’t until December. So you’re all welcome to send me “It’s for your birthday AND Christmas!” presents.

Jeff

• • •

How about just some good wishes?

Blake

• • •

Just FYI, I have Adam emerging onto the pad and seeing Randall, Jenny, and the kids at the other end, standing at the edge and waving down toward a sea of flashing lights, yelling and trying to get someone’s attention. Since we’re all writing scenes that occur in the same place and time, we should probably keep apprised of what everyone else is doing.

Blake

• • •

How do we barricade the door to the helipad…any ideas? Big metal dumpster by the door? Some large piece of equipment they can use to briefly block the door?

Blake

September 18, 2010

With some swift kicks, the chainsaw, and some pushing and pulling, they could detach a few of the air conditioning units on the roof and stack those against the doors.

Joe

• • •

I’m adding to the end of this Clay section to make it consistent with the opening of Blake’s Adam 8.0 (to which I added one word from Clay: “Incoming!”)

Paul

September 19, 2010

Here’s how I see Clay’s roof scene. He’s got the kids and the baby. The TV copter is landing. The pilot sees a couple of draculas (attacking Adam maybe?) and suddenly decides landing is not such a good idea but Clay is there with the MM-1 and makes it very clear that the copter either lands or it flies off with a dead pilot at the stick. He puts the kids on board and Adam comes up to say good-bye to his daughter. We can switch to Adam’s POV here.

As for destroying the hospital, the army could drop a huge shaped charge onto the roof that will blast a plasma jet down through the floors (just like an antitank missile goes through layers of steel), frying everything within. Obviously, Clay won’t survive that.

Paul

• • •

Paul, this sounds great, and as always, your knowledge of ordnance, firearms, etc. is terrifying. Check out my Adam and Stacie scene first though, just to get a sense of what’s happening on the roof. The way it’s worked out, Adam will have his daughter in his arms when the draculas break through, get bitten, but then Randall saves him. At that point, Adam will walk over to Clayton and hand his baby over, knowing he’s been infected. It made sense for Adam, Stacie (and baby) to be together when she dies.

Blake

• • •

Adam and Stacie final scenes are up…Please check them out before you write your final scenes…I think it’ll make it easier to keep the timeline straight.

Blake

• • •

I’m putting Draculas 4.0 together…Joe thought it would help with figuring out where new scenes go, so I’m putting my new ones in, along with Paul’s and Jeff’s setting up what happens on the roof. We are super close, guys.

Blake

• • •

Hey, I see that you’ve got “The Sound of Blunder” listed as a bonus DRACULAS story. Make sure you double-check your contract—I think you’re a year away from being able to reprint it!

Jeff

• • •

Reprint? It’s an ebook. We’re not printing anything.

Joe

• • •

You’re gonna get in troooooooouble…

Jeff

• • •

Also, as one of the bonus extras, we’re including forty-six Harlan Ellison stories.

Joe

September 20, 2010

Thanks, Blake! You are owed an infinite number of chocolate chip cookies.

Jeff

• • •

Nice work, Blake!

I talked to the other guys. You did such a terrific job, we’re letting you finish all of our scenes too.

Hurry up. I’d like this done by Thursday.

Joe

• • •

Stacie’s death scene - very moving, Blake. I got a little verklempt.

Paul

September 21, 2010

Blake—I wound up with Adam’s last words. He’s your guy, so if there’s anything you want to change there, please feel free. If you think quoting Dickens is out of character, really, change whatever you want.

Paul

• • •

Finished the two big Jenny scenes. Get your hankies out.

They’re in the JOE folder. Blake, you can splice them into 4.2 when we’re sure no one else is editing it.

Joe

• • •

I thought you did a great job with him, and I liked that he wasn’t thinking bible-verses but rather Dickens at the end. He’s a minister, sure, but he’s not a tee-totaler, not a holier than thou type of guy, and I think that showed that. It was a very nice scene, Paul, so I’m happy to let that be the end of him.

Blake

• • •

but he’s not a tee-totaler, not a holier than thou type of guy

I’d gathered that from earlier passages and so I went with it. I think it’s refreshing (even for this devout agnostic) to see a Christian minister portrayed as a straight arrow rather than a hypocrite. I’m really sick of books with lech preachers.

Paul

• • •

Me too, I wound up liking the guy quite a bit…brave as hell in the face of fear despite nothing for the entire book (until the end) with which to defend himself.

Blake

• • •

Clay on the roof…is loaded. Very short, very Clay.

Paul

• • •

Just to keep you guys looped in on what’s happening marketing-wise, I emailed a big list of bloggers/media people I know and who Joe knows, forwarding the press release and a letter. Response has been solid so far, with about 25% requesting the manuscript to review. We also put out the word on Joe’s blog and offered people the chance to have a free review copy of Draculas on Oct. 1, if they promised to review it on their blogs, Facebook, Amazon, and tweet it. Joe also has a lot of Goodreads friends, like 1200 of them. I’ve given a friend of mine access and she’s emailing them one by one (it’s the only way) to solicit additional reviews and coverage since many of them have blogs.

Already, we have over 120 people promising reviews, all to launch on 10/18, the day before it releases, and then all those review go up on Amazon on the release date. We’re also adding an annex to my website which will be a dedicated draculas web page. I’ll shoot you all the link when that goes live. Plus, we’ve got some interview requests which I’ll share shortly, we’re doing Diabolical Radio 10/6, and hopefully Joe’s going to write a column in the HuffPo around the release date. If you’re interested, the email that’s been going out to the “troops” is at the end of this email. Jeff, Paul, if either of you have any big ideas, please share. Otherwise, I think we’re in excellent shape.

from J.A. Konrath: DRACULAS — Advance Reading Copies!

Dear_____:

If you haven’t been on my blog for the last few days, I’ve got a new ebook experiment going on.

Earlier this year, I asked three fellow writers if they wanted to collaborate on a horror novel. I’ve worked with each of them before (F. Paul Wilson, Jeff Strand, and Blake Crouch) and they’re all consummate professionals.

The result of our efforts, DRACULAS - A Novel of Terror, will be released on Kindle, October 19.

Now we’re attempting to generate some buzz prior to the launch, by treating this like a traditional release rather than an indie release. That means we’re looking for a few good reviewers.

Do you want a free advance reading copy of DRACULAS?

Here’s what you do…

Send an email to draculasthebook@gmail.com and confirm that:

1. You will post a review of DRACULAS by October 18 on Good Reads, your blog or website (if you have one), along with a link to Amazon’s pre-order page (which will be provided to you along with the book and press release.)

2. You will post that same review to Amazon’s DRACULAS page when the book is officially launched on October 19.

3. Make sure to include your name and the web-address of your website or blog (if any), which may be linked to from my blog when the book goes live in the Kindle store.

Your email address will of course be kept confidential, and anyone who writes a review, good or bad, will be thanked in the acknowledgments of a future edition of DRACULAS.

We anticipate having a final manuscript of the book ready to email on or before October 1.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE A BLOG OR WEBSITE…

No problem. We’re going to have a dedicated DRACULAS website page. Write a review, email it to draculasthebook@gmail.com, and we’ll post it there. Then you can link to your review via Twitter and Facebook, if you use them.

Thanks in advance for helping us spread the word! And please make sure to email draculasthebook@gmail.com, under the heading GOOD READS REQUEST. DO NOT EMAIL ME DIRECTLY - we want to make sure your email is read, not lost in my huge stack of unanswered emails.

Thanks in advance for helping us to spread the word!”

Blake

• • •

Great scenes. Paul, Joe, I’ve incorporated yours into Draculas 4.1. Joe, I tweaked yours just to sync up the helicopter leaving (it’s already flying away by the time Jenny reaches Randall). Here’s what’s left before we write the last two scenes (Shanna and Moorecook). I’m waiting to start those until I see what Paul does with Clayton, and I’d like us all to have input into the end.

Randall

[JEFF WRITES: Randall’s transformation. Draculas break through, and as a full blooded dracula, with a chainsaw, he kills a few dozen.]

Jenny

[JOE WRITES: Second to last scene with Jenny. Randall dead. She’s all alone. Draculas are running up the stairs again, will be there soon. A helicopter is coming. Jenny thinks the TV helicopter has returned, looks up, but it’s an Army helicopter. BUT DON’T EXPLAIN WHAT THE CHOPPER IS DOING YET.

Jenny

[JOE WRITES: She feels the building shake, hears Adam’s detonation. She looks up, sees the soldiers lug something out of the chopper, and it lands with a big thud on the helipad and cracks the cement and then the chopper pulls quickly away. - but no explosion yet.

Jenny

[JOE WRITES: Super short, like two or three sentence scene where Jenny approaches the huge shaped charge that has landed on the helipad.]

Clayton

[PAUL WRITES: After Adam’s detonation, Clayton Theel goes back down for his Tauras, instead of running out to safety when he could’ve made it) and big, big boom.]

Joe and I talked just now, and here’s what we’re thinking in terms of finishing, because the deadline for getting this book to reviewers is fast-approaching:

Wednesday, 9/22: Paul, Jeff, Joe write and finish above scenes

Thursday, 9/23: All complete the last two scenes and finish novel

Friday, 9/24: Finalize all bonus content, and off to Jeff for his final review.

Saturday, 9/25: Jeff goes through book, incorporating any changes

Sunday, 9/26: Jeff goes through book, incorporating any changes

Monday, 9/27: Paul goes through book, incorporating any changes

Tuesday, 9/28: Paul goes through book, incorporating any changes

Wednesday, 9/29: Joe goes through book, incorporating any changes

Thursday, 9/30: Blake goes through book, incorporating any changes

Friday, 10/1: Blake goes through book, incorporating any changes

Saturday, 10/2: Joe formats book first thing…off to my proofreader

Sunday, 10/3: Return of proofed book (hopefully not too late), update any bonus content, make absolute last changes, etc.

Monday, 10/4: Joe sends the book to Rob Siders for Kindle formatting, I send the book in 3 formats in an email blast to the troops.

Sound okay? In particular, let me know if the proposed 2-day review periods for you, Jeff and Paul, will work with your schedules.

Blake

September 22, 2010

That timeline works for me.

Jeff

• • •

Strand Has No Shame. “Part of the clown. He tasted funny.”

Paul

• • •

Heh heh. And if you look through all of my prior novels, most of which are horror/comedies, you will almost NEVER find that kind of joke. But it’s very much a Joe Konrath type of joke, so I figured, what the hell? :)

Jeff

• • •

Clay and Alice is up.

As for my comb-through of the ms, I can do any days but Monday and Tuesday. So please switch me with someone. I can do the weekend before or Wed-Thur after.

Paul

• • •

Don’t blame me for that one, Strand. It was all you. And I, for one, hang my head in sorrow at the depths you’ll plumb for a cheap laugh. Shame on you, Mr. Strand. Shame shame shame.

Joe

• • •

Are you STILL practicing medicine, Paul? Isn’t the board supposed to take your license away when you turn 90?

I kid because I love.

I can switch days with Paul.

Joe

• • •

I’m devastated. This was a serious, character-driven meditation on the horrors of modern medicine, until that unforgivable attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator of readers.

Blake

• • •

You guys DID notice that Joe added a “Talk about a half-assed injury!” joke to Paul’s first section, right? :)

Jeff

• • •

I thought that was another one of your jokes.

Joe

• • •

Jeff - can you switch your manuscript review days with Paul? We only gave Joe 1 day to review. That would mean Paul reviews Sat./Sun, you review Monday/Tuesday.

Blake

• • •

Yep, absolutely.

Jeff

• • •

Re: Jenny scenes: Great stuff! But when Jenny asks Randall to bite her neck, we sort of stop being the anti-TWILIGHT.

Jeff

• • •

I think Randall needs to glow in that scene.

Joe

• • •

Want me to start writing a Shanna/Driscoll scene up to where the hospital blows up?

Paul

• • •

Let Jenny say, “This isn’t a Stephanie Meyer book!”

Blake

• • •

Absolutely. We still need to work Shanna’s quarantine issue out (If she’s in Q she can’t meet Mortimer)…do you kill Clayton in your scene, and did you like the idea of a painful but quick test to tell if Shanna has been infected, which keeps her out of Q?

Blake

• • •

I’ve never seen or read Twilight. Is there really a “bite me in order to stay alive” scene?

In Randall’s case, he pushes her away, so it might not be similar. But then, if it were my husband, I’d want him to bite me.

Joe

• • •

Okay, Jeff brought this up, so here’s an uncomfortable question…Jeff…have you read or seen TWILIGHT? Because if there actually is a bite me to stay alive scene in Twilight and we use it to make fun of TWILIGHT, well, that’s awesome.

Blake

• • •

How’s this?

I’m assuming Shanna’s being quarantined because she shot off her mouth, revealing she knows too much.

The kids and baby (she has no idea whose it is) would be put in with her because they ARE being quarantined.

I don’t see why the returned-to-human-form Mort can’t appear at the door and take the baby and free Shanna. He’s more than human now (who knows what powers he’s got?), so he could pull this off.

Outside, Shanna notices the army clearing the parking lot, backing away from the hospital. She sees the army helicopter lowering something to the roof. Mort says it’s a huge shaped charge and describes what it will do. (sterilize, etc.)

Shanna runs off in search of Driscoll to stop it but doesn’t get ten feet before the hospital becomes a huge funeral pyre. Mort comforts her and tells Shanna to flee.

We can fiddle with this until everybody’s happy, but at least it will give us a skeleton to clothe.

Paul

• • •

The whole concept of Twilight is that the mopey teenage girl wants the mopey ancient vampire to bite her to change her. I can’t specifically remember if “bite me to stay alive” is in there, but that’s a common resolution in paranormal romance.

Keep in mind that this is not a romantic Lugosi nibble. Randall has bloody fangs that have ripped right through his cheeks. She’s not gonna offer him her neck.

Jeff

• • •

She offered him her arm. But if you guys vote it down, we can kill the scene.

Also, “Ha ha! Jeff saw Twilight!”

Joe

• • •

In the DRACULAS 4.1 I’ve got, she offers him her neck.

That moment (not the whole scene) is total paranormal romance. We could acknowledge that, but if we’re trying for genuine emotion, that’s not the time to be winking at the reader.

Jeff

• • •

It should be her hand or arm. And it probably isn’t the right time to wink at the reader. I’ll take a look during the rewrite.

Joe

• • •

Could Mort somehow be involved with the quarantine? Working for Driscoll somehow? Or is that too far-fetched?

Joe

• • •

Yeah, far-fetched. But if he’s dressed in nice clean scrubs, he could look like he belongs and slip under the radar.

Paul

• • •

I had him do his metamorphosis in the laundry room for that very reason.

Joe

• • •

Okay. I’ll start on it.

Paul

• • •

Okay. I’ll dig in Saturday AM and flip it to Jeff Sunday night.

Paul

• • •

Re: Randall’s Last Stand

Jeff 10.0 is up

• • •

My pass is going to be the “Mad Lib Edit”, where I substitute every noun with “wiener.”

Joe

• • •

That’s the wurst idea I ever hoid!

Paul

• • •

You really mustard that one up.

Joe

• • •

Paul, don’t succumb to his evil!!!

Jeff

• • •

But he’s such a brat!

Paul

• • •

That was rather frank.

Joe

• • •

Blake and I are going to write DRACULAS II by ourselves.

Jeff

• • •

“Blake and I are going to write DRACULAS II by ourselves,” he said, with relish.

Joe

• • •

Except it’s going to be like a Spike Lee joint…DRACULAZ 2, BIOTCH

Blake

• • •

I quit. This had already gone furter than it should.

Paul

• • •

Really? You had a redhot streak going there…

Joe

• • •

Shanna’s last name…I can’t find one. I’ll stick in a placeholder and change it if anyone remembers.

Paul

• • •

I’m pretty sure it was “Wiener.”

Joe

• • •

Goddammit, that’s what I’m putting.

Paul

• • •

Then let’s change her first name to Anita.

Anita Wiener.

Joe

• • •

Randall 10.0…Great scene Jeff.

Love: They could take away his humanity, but not his fucking chainsaw.

I just put it into the manuscript.

Blake

• • •

Clay’s death…rocks big time…love Alice fusing to his hand. I think we’re all set to write the end tomorrow…Joe has about 100-300 words to write for Jenny and we’re done. I’ve put your Clayton scene into the manuscript, Paul.

Blake

September 23, 2010

I’ve read what we’ve got so far. Very nice job, everyone.

I finished the Jenny scenes, and also added to everyone’s rooftop scenes in order to make her character consistent throughout them. I wanted to have her focus be on Randall, and for Randall to know that she stayed for him. It’s in Dracula 4.2

On the promotional front, people have downloaded almost 700 free teaser copies of Draculas. Also, I heard from the publisher of Blood Lite, and Paul and I should be able to use “A Sound of Blunder” in the extras without being sued.

We’re at about 78,000 words, and we’ve written 70k of them in just five weeks. You guys are rock stars. It’s crazy how quick and easy this was to write.

Paul, can you put an excerpt from one of your ebooks into your dropbox folder to use as an extra? Maybe THE KEEP, in sticking to the vampire theme. (and yes, I know Rasalom isn’t a vampire.) MIDNIGHT MASS would work, too.

Jeff, you missed a question in the interview section.

The goal is to get this to the proofreader by next Monday, and the formatter before the end of the month.

Joe

• • •

BTW, if we do a sequel, we should call it “DRACULASES”

Joe

• • •

Not to bombard you guys with emails, but I had an idea for extras that’s obvious.

I liked Clay’s death scene, but I also dug the discussion we had about Clay surviving.

This is an ebook. So why not do both? As an extra, we could have an alternate ending, like they do on DVDs. We could even have more than one. Gimmicky, sure, but it would be fun for each of us to pen a different ending where different, outrageous things happen.

Also, remember Paul’s scene where Shanna liked firing the gun? That deleted scene that could be used as an extra. There may be other scenes too…

Joe

• • •

Shanna and the new Mort in “end scenes.” Feel free to play with this.

If we do a sequel, I think it will be far more interesting to have Clay’s father turn Shanna into a new Clay - a pissed-off, gun-toting momma out for blood.

Paul

• • •

Nicely done, Paul.

I like it, but I went in a different direction while fleshing out the rooftop scenes, and our scenes don’t quite mesh.

I dig the shaped charge concept. For emotional impact though, both Jenny’s and the reader’s, I believe it is stronger to have Jenny know it’s a bomb and that she’s going to die. I also believe we need to see the bomb go off and the hospital destroyed, and perhaps that Shanna should be the one to bear witness to it. Explaining the hospital will blow up in dialog, without seeing it sort of takes away the surprise. And not seeing it happen is sort of unsatisfying, and readers will be asking “Well, did the bomb go off? Did Jenny make it?.”

I like Shanna seeking out Clay’s dad, like Mort with the baby, and like the mystery behind Driscoll and her team,

Can all of you read the last the last few scenes on the roof, then Paul’s scene, so we can discuss? Or can I go in a play around with Paul’s version, and show what I’m going for?

This, BTW, is a perfect example of the “extra and deleted scenes” bonus features I mentioned…

Joe

• • •

What is this then?

The roof of the hospital exploded in an incandescent flare. The boom and shockwave stopped her in her tracks and she watched in horror as the windows and walls of the fourth floor belched flame and debris, followed almost immediately by the third and second and first. Every entrance, every exit blew its doors and shot flames like giant blowtorches.

And then the floors began to collapse—first the roof onto the fourth, then the fourth onto the third, pancaking all the way down to ground level in a mini-reenactment of the trade towers’ collapse, leaving only a flame-riddled cloud of smoke and dust and debris on the far side of the parking lot.

Paul

• • •

Gotcha. I just reread it more carefully. During the first read, for some reason I thought what Shanna saw was the explosion Adam caused. Adam’s explosion killed Clay, but because Shanna thought the second one killed Clay, and I thought the second was the first.

Still, I’m not sure we need the bomb explained, or that Jenny’s last thought should be one of confusion at what she’s seeing as opposed to realization that she’s dead.

Do you mind me reworking it a bit?

Joe

• • •

I’d rather forgo the exposition myself. OTOH, readers are going to wonder how this bomb did what it does. Just saying it sterilized the scene is asking for a leap of faith. Mention plasma jet and 10k degrees, and they can be pretty certain there ain’t gonna be any survivors—not draculas, not humans, not even viruses.

Paul

• • •

I think I see what my issue is. The final six scenes should be rearranged, so Clay’s death immediately follows Adam’s detonation. Then we can have Shanna and Jenny react to that.

Then I can break up Jenny’s last scene. Half before Shanna goes into the interrogation room, then Shanna, then Jenny realizing it’s a bomb, then back to Shanna to see the explosion, then Mort.

Then we can include the bomb explanation, still get the emotional impact of Jenny realizing her own demise, and avoid the confusion of which explosion is which.

Make sense?

Joe

• • •

Go for it.

Paul

• • •

Almost done. This works much better for me re-arranged.

Do you think it’s better to have Dr. Mortenson ask Shanna her name, or would it be a bit more fun for him to know her name and assume some familiarity with her? It would give her, and the reader, a chance to maybe recognize him before his reveal, even though no one will.

Also, I’ve got an epilogue idea that I’m going to write. We can omit it from DRACULAS, but it’s where I want to go when the sequel rolls around…

Joe

• • •

I think we can give our readers more credit. “Dr. Mortenson” is a pretty fair clue. And if not, twice she thinks she’s met him before. Pairing those with your previous transformation scene pretty much gives it away, no? I don’t think we need to hit them over the head. I’d rather have them make the leap on their own - that way they go from passive to participant. Those who don’t glom on their own will get smacked in the head with it when the guy in the scrubs starts feeding the baby his blood.

Paul

• • •

It wouldn’t be hitting them over the head. It would be subtle.

But I do think we need to spell it out in the last scene. I can see some folks going, “Huh? How did the doctor become a dracula?”

I’m going to tweak it to try it. We can always axe it if it doesn’t work.

Joe

• • •

Okay, 4.3 is done, and the book is done.

Let’s all read the last twenty pages and discuss if it works for everyone. I’m sure we’ll change some stuff. And we might cut my prologue, but I wanted to hint that a follow-up book will have werewolves in it.

Also, we still need a book excerpt from Paul and an interview question answered from Jeff.

Excellent job, everyone!

Joe

• • •

Woo-hoo! Can’t wait to read.

Blake

• • •

Guys, I think we have an important decision to make for which cover we go out with on October 19th.

Check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Chapters-Upcoming-Release-ebook/dp/B0042ANZBU/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285261706&sr=8-1

I happen to think the cover without our names on it is much more striking, Intriguing, and buzz worthy. It’s just plain bad ass. Joe - perhaps we could ask your readers on your blog, continue the involvement of marketing on all levels with the fans?

Blake

• • •

And another point…not having four names on the cover points to the underlying which is to create one, seamless novel. Subconsciously, I think readers will favorably make that connection and be more apt to buy.

Blake

• • •

I’m for the names. I want my name on my books.

But the title by itself looks sweet on a t-shirt.

Joe

• • •

Read the end, fantastic…made some small changes…

1. took this out: “in a mini-reenactment of the trade towers’ collapse” - that’s going to pull everyone out of the moment.

2. changed what Zeke the dog is eating to a rat per Adam’s earlier scene…makes sense a rat and not a dracula would have escaped the hospital.

3. changed Dr. Mortenson to Dr. Cook…not quite as on the nose.

4. Put Clayton’s death (just the last paragraph) after the 2nd to last Shanna scene.

Paul - can you drop a choice chapter excerpt into your folder? I’ll add it to the manuscript

Jeff - please finish the interview.

I think Joe and I are good with this draft to begin proofing if you guys are.

Blake

• • •

My wife finished reading it, and loved it. But she had a few concerns.

1. She still holds out hope that Clay somehow survived.

2. She guessed Mortenson was Moorecook the moment he picked up the kid.

3. She didn’t like it saying “the end.” because Driscoll and the Zeke scene were unresolved, she felt it should end with “To be continued…”

4. She’s pissed we killed everyone.

I explained to her that the building was incinerated, and that Clay was 100% dead, but if it wasn’t clear to her, it won’t be clear to others. So we should consider making it either more final, or more ambiguous about the possibility of him surviving.

But keep in mind that the more threads we have hanging, the likelier we are to annoy a certain percentage of readers.

Blake changing Moretenson to Cook is better, and maybe we should go with Paul’s original line and have him ask Shanna’s name to throw the reader off a bit. I thought it was too much misdirection, but I was apparently wrong.

Maria feels it ended too abruptly, which is a clear sign she wanted more. That’s fine, but I don’t want that dissatisfaction to result in bunch of one star Amazon reviews. Perhaps that could be nullified if we have the first chapter of DRACULAS 2 as a bonus feature.

As for killing folks, she cried at the death scenes, so I think they worked. But I don’t want people finishing this book confused and angry.

Blake, gimme a call and I’ll put you on the phone with my wife.

Joe

• • •

Also, we need to keep an eye on a few consistencies.

Some internal monologue is in italics. Some isn’t. We should unify it one way or the other.

Also, Clay calls them “draculas.” According to Blake, that’s what they’re called in The Passage, which I haven’t read, but which came out after we had the idea for Draculas.

Might want to not call them “draculas” so we don’t sound derivative, even though we came first. We might want to stick with the full length “draculas.”

Incidentally, the title “Draculas” came from a Twitter joke I did on March 27, 2010.

“There’s nothing to fear, but fear itself. And Draculas. There’s probably one in your closet right now.”

I liked it enough to repeat the joke in CUB SCOUT GORE FEAST that I wrote with Strand, and then had a eureka moment when I realized it would make a good title for a horror book.

Joe

• • •

When I put it up on FB, one comment was, “Oh, I thought it was 2 new authors - Crouch Kilborn and Strand Wilson.” Of course, he was being facetious.

Paul

• • •

That Crouch Kilborn guy is a dick.

Joe

• • •

Done - a sequence from MIDNIGHT MASS.

Paul

• • •

1. She still holds out hope that Clay somehow survived.

Nothing wrong with hope. But he and Alice are together in that Great Shooting Range in the Sky.

2. She guessed Mortenson was Moorecook the moment he picked up the kid.

That’s because she’s smart (choice of spouse notwithstanding.)

3. She didn’t like it saying “the end.” because Driscoll and the Zeke scene were unresolved, she felt it should end with “To be continued…”

No reason we can’t put “(Not)” or “(Not really…)” beneath it. We’ve been having fun with the readers all along. Why stop now?

4. She’s pissed we killed everyone.

Not Shanna and not Moorecook. But this IS horror fiction, not romance, so a happy ending is not guaranteed.

That said, I’m not a fan of epilogues in general and this one is no exception. Ending with the baby nursing on Moorecook’s blood hints that the story is going to ramp up to another level. The epilogue puts us back to square one: the start of another epidemic. I’ll go with what the majority decides, but that’s my $0.02.

Paul

• • •

“Blake, gimme a call and I’ll put you on the phone with my wife.”

Oh hell.

Blake

• • •

I see what Paul’s saying to this extent…end with current epilogue (which can become a deleted scene) it ends with oh, the thing continues. End with Mort saying I have plans, we get a sense that it’s escalating into maybe a world-wide thing, which is very cool. I’m still on the fence…

Blake

• • •

I’m fine with using the epilogue as an alternate ending or extra scene, and omitting it from the main manuscript. Or using at as Chapter 1 of DRACULAS 2. I’m not nearly as interested in a government dracula testing lab as I am a werewolf outbreak. New genre, new toys, new monsters.

My son just finished reading the book. Liked it. Was pissed Clay died.

I’m also pissed Clay died. That’s 3 for 3 in the Konrath house for at least making it more ambiguous.

Stacie and Randall had poetic death scenes that were emotional.

Adam’s was heroic. Jenny’s was the end of Night of the Living Dead, which had been my intention when thinking up this scenario.

Clay’s death is like a bad joke, without the laughter. He’s hands down the favorite character. While the other deaths make sense, this one seems cruel. Even in a horror book.

He’s your creation, Paul. If you want him to die, we won’t fight you on it.

But I’m directing the hate mail I get to you. And in talking to my wife and son, I’m gonna get hate mail.

I think we could head off that hate mail if he grabs Alice, the building explodes, and his last thought is, “Oh, shit.” Then there’s always the possibility he comes back.

Joe

• • •

By the way, Paul, it’s your own damn fault for writing a great, likable character.

Joe

• • •

I think he’s gotta die. It brings a certain closure.

In DEEP AS THE MARROW I had a character named Poppy who I had to kill because her arc demanded it. I got tons of angry mail. But you know what? People remember that book because Poppy died. If I’d found a way to let her live, it might have been, Meh.

Look, I can take out the fusing with Alice scene and leave it a little ambiguous, leave a little hope. If we do a sequel, and we want to bring him back, we can find a way.

Paul

• • •

I vote for leaving it ambiguous.

Joe

• • •

I vote strongly against making it ambiguous. If Clay is on the roof when the hospital explodes, he’s dead. We’ve gotta play fair. Suggesting that we might offer some sort of implausible explanation in the sequel for how he survived isn’t going to placate readers.

I also vote to get rid of the epilogue, which makes the book feel like we’re trying to set up two different sequels.

Jeff

• • •

Clay isn’t on the roof. He’s down a few floors.

Here’s the thing, guys. We’re releasing this as an ebook, and before it goes live 200 people are going to review it.

I love nihilistic endings. I thought the end to The Mist was one of the greatest endings in modern horror films.

Word of mouth killed The Mist in its first week, and it tanked at the box office.

Do we want to have a big ebook launch with an average two and a half star rating?

This isn’t like a paperback, where the majority of customers won’t see the reviews. Every potential customer will see the reviews and the star rating on the same Amazon page they download the ebook. Bad reviews will kill sales.

Am I saying compromise artistic integrity and pander to the audience? No.

Am I saying allow a character that readers have grown fond of a chance to survive? Yes.

We’re not making some sort of social commentary or statement with this ebook. It’s just supposed to be gory fun. But it loses some of the fun factor if we annihilate 90% of the cast.

Lanz, dead.

Benny, dead.

Randall, dead.

Oasis, dead.

Jenny, dead.

Adam, dead,

Stacie, dead.

Clay, dead.

Then secondary characters like Winslow, Brittany, Grammy Ann, and Herrick, all dead.

Mort and Shanna are the only POV characters that survive, and one is the main villain.

This isn’t nearly are serious as my other horror novels, but more of the heroes survive in those.

I think we should at least allow for the possibility that Clay lives. This is a classic case of Pascal’s Wager. We have a lot to lose, but everything to gain. What does it hurt to give Clay an ambiguous fate?

And with that, I rest my case. But let the record show that the readers—angry at the ending—will read through our emails and see that Paul and Jeff were the ones who pushed for Clay’s death.

Joe

• • •

“What does it hurt to give Clay an ambiguous fate?”

Ask Brian Keene how much hate mail he got over the ending of THE RISING!

I’m not necessarily voting in favor of Clay dying…if there’s a believable way he can survive the hospital blowing up, I’m all for it. I’m voting against the idea of leaving it up in the air. I’d feel much more cheated as a reader not knowing for sure what happened to him than having him die in the explosion.

Jeff

• • •

Then in the last scene, I vote for Clay crawling out of the rubble.

We need a scene where readers can cheer. Instead we bring in a government conspiracy completely out of left field that isn’t explained or resolved, several depressing deaths, and an open-ended “villain wins” finale.

The more I think about it, the more I think the last fifteen pages kill the fun we had build up for the previous 250 pages.

Maybe it’s my insecurity showing, but now I’m thinking we eliminate Driscoll and her team, and have Shanna find Clay still alive.

I’ve got a wild idea that I’m going to throw out there, for you guys to consider. You know how Hollywood has test screenings? What if I did a happy ending for Clay and Shanna, we gave both endings to the reviewers, and let them pick their favorite? Then we use that one for the book, make the other one an alternate ending, and I don’t have a nervous breakdown.

I like the outcome where I don’t have a nervous breakdown. I’ve written SEVEN novels this year. I’m so close to burning out that I need to mainline caffeine.

Before you tell me no, I think we all need to read the book straight through, and do our final edits. We mention Aliens and so many other cool action movies in this book, and they all had endings where the audience smiles big and pumps their hands in the air. We’re ending Draculas with a nihilistic whimper, and I really think it’s gonna hurt us. This book was too much fun to end with such a downer…

Joe

• • •

Okay, I feel better now. I did a different ending which I think still offers a lot of sequel potential, but will make readers say “Hell yeah!” when they finish. As Mickey Spillane said, “A good beginning makes them buy the book. A good ending makes them buy the next book.”

It’s labeled Alternate Ending in the Dropbox. We can debate whether we use it, or a variation of it, for the final manuscript. If we don’t use it, at least it exists, and we can stick it in the extras.

Wife and son loved it, BTW.

Joe

September 24, 2010

I agree that the ending is the final taste a book leaves in the reader’s mouth. If it’s sour, it can taint all the flavors that came before. (Wow, look at me - maintaining a metaphor.)

I can buy this ending. Since peds is on the 2nd floor, I can buy Clay getting blown out and somehow surviving.

But he’d never hear Shanna through an intact thermopane window. Also, it wasn’t clear she got free of the trailer.

I did a couple of minor fixes in bold face that resolve those.

Paul

• • •

Good points, Paul. Your changes are spot-on.

My wife WOULD NOT stop talking about Clay living. She was so damn happy after reading the new ending, she smiled for—no shit—and hour after she finished.

She also says she loves you.

If Blake and Jeff are okay with it, I vote for Paul’s Altered Alternate ending to be the ending, and then the old ending to go into the extras. I also would like the dog epilogue I did that we cut to be an extra, and Paul’s scene where Shanna refuses to let Clay take her gun away to be an extra deleted scene.

Blake, you want me to put this together, then we can all start our final edits?

Jeff, you can finish the interview in the final edit.

Rock on!

Joe

• • •

Joe, you DO realize that you’re saying “But my family likes my writing!”

Just kidding, you big lug. Again, my issue was with an ambiguous ending, not a “Clay lives” one, so this all sounds good.

I finished the interview yesterday but didn’t send out a note saying I finished it. But now we have to revise the part where we said there were no disagreements.

Jeff

• • •

You guys have met my wife. She’s brutally honest, and she doesn’t put up with my BS.

However, I told my son if he didn’t say what I wanted, he was grounded.

And this wasn’t a disagreement. This was a meltdown on my part, that you guys were kind enough to tolerate.

The complete first draft with everything in it will be up tonight. Then Paul can have Saturday and Sunday to go through it and make changes. Jeff can have Monday and Tuesday. I’ll do Wednesday. Blake Thurs and Fri, and then off to the proofreader.

Joe

• • •

Nice work, Paul and Joe, I love the altered alternate ending!

Blake

• • •

Okay, we’ve got a final first draft, Draculas 4.5, in the dropbox.

Paul, it’s yours unit Sunday night. Make your changes and save it as Draculas 4.6.

Blake and I have discussed out editing rules, and we think they should go like this:

1. Fix any errors, typos, plot inconsistencies, obvious problems you come across.

2. Concentrate on tightening and fixing the prose that you wrote. We don’t want to rewrite each other’s scenes and mess up each other’s style and voice.

3. If you find problems with someone else’s writing, or story arcs, it would be cool to send a mass email to discuss how to fix it.

Having four sets of eyes on this should really make it bulletproof. But we don’t want to lose the individual touches that make each of our scenes unique.

So basically, treat your edit like our editors treat us, fixing mistakes, but asking before making any big changes.

Finally, the acknowledgements are at the end. Feel free to thank whomever you want to thank.

Joe

• • •

I’ll start this afternoon.

Paul

• • •

“We don’t want to rewrite each other’s scenes and mess up each other’s style and voice.”

Randall’s speech patterns change a bit from author to author. I assume it’s okay for me to go in and tweak dialogue throughout, right?

Jeff

• • •

I think I already asked you to do that in his scene with Clay, but if I’ve got any others, feel free.

Paul

• • •

For sure, and that brings up a good point…be on the lookout for scenes where others have written your characters, b/c that’s where most of the inconsistencies may arise.

Blake

• • •

Absolutely. Also, the scenes I have Benny in might be a bit different from your Benny scenes, Jeff, so go ahead and tweak. Ditto for Dr. Lanz, Paul. You originally created his voice, then I stole him for the Jenny scenes. If you want to adjust him, go for it.

Joe

• • •

Also Paul - I assume you’ve been keeping tabs on this already, but if you see any medical terminology, etc. that we’ve screwed up, please feel free to just fix it.

Blake

• • •

Re: comments going thru Draculas 4.5…

Pajamas gone — Mort needs pants on so Shanna can recognize the buckle

Moved Eastwood outgoing message up.

Oasis’ — Oasis is singular. I know you see otherwise, but where I come from, a singular possessive requires an ‘s — as in Oasis’s. Only plural possessive get a lone ‘. Agree? Disagree?

Red eyes or black eyes on the draculas?

Paul

• • •

Agree with the s’s. Hate how it looks, but it’s correct.

Draculas have huge black pupils. But the white of their eyes is bloodshot.

Joe

• • •

Got it.

Paul

• • •

“We need to get them safe so they can be sick and die in peace.”

If this isn’t my favorite line in the book, it’s way up there.

Paul

• • •

“Is that…a flamingo?” asked the old woman.

Okay, this is up there too.

Paul

September 25, 2010

I just updated the Draculas Amazon pages to mention the deleted scenes and alternate endings.

Right now we’ve sold 101 preorders, and have had 702 downloads of the sample chapters. Not huge numbers, but they’ll go up when we start getting reviews. They’ll really go up when the book goes live. Readers aren’t big on samples or preorders, but once the real thing is available, they’ll pull the trigger. I have no doubt this will outsell all of my other ebooks, and I’ve got ebooks that have sold over 2500 copies in a month.

Paul and Jeff, makes sure you add Draculas to your Amazon pages. Blake and I already have.

There’s a dracula skull sketch in the dropbox. The plan is to get 5 more similar drawings and put them in the ebook, Hardy Boys style.

The Draculas website should be up soon. It has a forum. You’ll all be expected to make at least a token appearance there.

We’re also going to do a 48 state, six month tour to support the book, starting on Christmas Eve. Break it to your wives now. I already spent $600 on the 1978 VW Van that we’ll be touring in and living out of. It has a mini fridge and four cots. The van has a faint odor (it’s either feet or cheese), but I think that will be masked by the Porta Potty I’m having installed.

During the tour, we’ll each need to bring $35,000, for gas, food, and prostitutes. That dollar figure has been carefully worked out, and doesn’t include narcotics. If you want narcotics, plan on bringing extra cash.

Since we’ll be living in close quarters for half a year, we need to make sure we’re up to date on our vaccinations. Also, I want to disclose that I have ringworm, but I’ve been told it isn’t very contagious.

Joe

• • •

Guys, from the beginning, Joe and I wanted the end of this book to resonate, inversely, to Night of the Living Dead, where instead of the one good guy getting killed in the end, the one bad guy escapes. With that in mind, I’m writing a short little scene from the POV of a private who has been tasked with shooting anything that comes out of the hospital following the massive blast…I’ll drop it in my folder, and if everyone likes it, maybe Jeff can add it in when he begins his review. It will occur between the scene where Clay gets blown out of the hospital and Shanna meets Dr. Cook. This sound OK?

Blake

• • •

Sounds good, Blake. Maybe stick it in (and fix those typos you found) when Paul finishes his pass, then it can go to Jeff. No reason to wait…

Joe

September 26, 2010

Finished my read through and I’ve gotta say, this thing moves like a sumbitch, but manages to build some real relationships along the way. It’s by turns hilarious, horrific, and poignant, but the momentum it achieves toward the end is (to borrow from Mr. Jobs) insanely relentless. The four styles mesh smoothly. Almost seamless.

Adding to my previous comments:

Pg. 121 Moved the Wolkenstein explanation up because timing-wise it needs to be in hour two.

Speaking of hours, I think we should get rid of the “Hour” dividers. They interrupt the flow, they’re inaccurate, and serve only to distract and cornfuse.

Pg 127: Randall — what happened to the dracs following him in his previous section? They seem to have disappeared. Also, his leg doesn’t seem to be bothering him as he’s kicking the wheelchair back again and again.

I changed Lanz’s amputation a teeny bit. No need to saw through bone in the glenohumeral joint — it’s a ball-and-socket joint; you need only cut away the tissues holding the ball in the socket.

Pg 146 — Adam’s backpack: “Adam took it, unzipped it, and dumped the contents—a change of clothes and some toiletries.”

doesn’t jibe with:

Pg 161: “Unshouldered his backpack, hands shaking so badly he could barely unzip it. He pulled out his iPad, powered it up.”

Maybe he could pull it from a side compartment. That aside, an iPad seems like an expensive toy for a young minister. A netbook might be more his speed, and serve the same purpose.

I changed Sgt. Halford to a colonel. Can’t see a non-com with that kind of authority and responsibility

pg 236 “I’m catching a cab out of here.” Didn’t sound right. I changed it to: “I’m arranging a ride into town.”

Along the way I divided up a Clay scene and a Shanna scene to coincide with the timeline a little better.

Paul

• • •

I agree about removing the “Hour” dividers. That’s something I was going to watch for in my read-through, but I think the combined action takes place in quite a bit less than four hours.

Jeff

• • •

Terrific points, Paul. Great catches, all.

Is it ready for Jeff to begin? If so…

Jeff, can Blake add his new scene and fix a few typos before Jeff takes it?

Blake, can you switch some content around? I think the TOC should go:

Joe

• • •

Sure. Blake, just let me know when you’re done.

Jeff

• • •

Jeff, I haven’t heard from Blake, so go ahead and take 4.6 and start your edit. Save it as 4.7, and try to get it to me by Tuesday night if you can. If not, Wednesday will work.

Blake, I see you’re still working on the soldier scene. No rush. But if you want to forward the typo list to me or Jeff, feel free to shoot an email…

Joe

• • •

Nice, Paul!!! And very glad to hear your enthusiasm for the final product. Agree with all your comments…Instead of an iPad, would a Kindle give sufficient glow to barely light the way in a dark basement? Joe?

Jeff, go ahead and dive in. I’m still finalizing my brief soldier scene and Joe can put it in when he takes the next handoff.

BTW, we’re up to 161 advance review commitments…

Blake

• • •

Kindles aren’t backlit…

Paul

• • •

But Kindles do have detachable lights, and I love that he’s use a Kindle. In fact, I really really really think this is the way to go, especially since Amazon has been so helpful.

The Kindle light I use, and love, is an XXXXXX.

I say, use that with the Kindle. Then I’ll contact XXXXXX and see if they’ll send us some swag in exchange for the plug.

Joe

• • •

Jeff, I figure you’re just getting started on the manuscript I’m going to finish this scene today, and then let you know where you can to stick it (ok that didn’t sound nice, but you know what I mean ;). I would like you to see how it integrates with the end scenes on your read…might need to have Shanna hearing the big .50 chugging.

Blake

• • •

34 pages in, just minor tweaks here and there. I cut the “Talk about a half-assed injury” joke because Lanz is a jerk who would not be thinking in amusing puns.

There’s one piece with Lanz fleeing that might confuse readers:

“Out of the treatment room, into the ER proper. Ignore the terrified, questioning faces. Find a place to hide. A door—SUPPLIES. The handle won’t turn. Locked. Of course. But he has a key. He fumbles it free, unlocks the steel door, ducks inside, closes and locks it behind him.”

I think that putting this whole paragraph in italics will make it clear that the use of present tense is a stylistic choice. Any objections?

Jeff

• • •

None. I lapsed into present and left it.

Paul

• • •

No objections to italics. But the “half-assed injury” joke will make it into the final manuscript, if not by Lanz then by an observer that I invent specifically to say the joke.

In fact, I’m pretty close to renaming the book “Half-Assed Injury.” Rather than the title looking like fangs, it will have different identifiable features.

Also, Jeff is off my Christmas list. This year I’m giving out hams to all of my friends. The hams will be delivered in brand new Camaros. Blake, you still wanted red, right?

Joe

• • •

I was thinking of you. I wouldn’t want you to squander the “half-assed injury” joke on DRACULAS, where you might not get full credit for it.

Jeff

• • •

Don’t lie. You weren’t thinking of me at all. You were selfishly thinking about what’s best for the book.

No Camaro for you. It would have been black, with a supercharger.

Instead, for Xmas I am sending you half a box of expired Minute Rice, and a rawhide bone my dog stopped chewing because it made her gums bleed. And you won’t get them until December 28th.

Joe

• • •

“Talk about a half-assed injury!” said an onlooker, pointing at the softball player.

“Mr. McGlade, please,” said the doctor, “if you don’t hold your hand in place it’s never going to reattach itself.”

Then six or seven draculas burst into the room, and ate Harry in twelve or fourteen bites.

“I’m almost sad about that,” said a patient. Then everybody popped open a cool refreshing beer and laughed for a while, just like the end of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Jeff

• • •

Doesn’t McGlade get killed in the Choose your own adventure Draculas subplot?

Blake

• • •

Only twice, which isn’t enough.

Jeff

• • •

You just lost your half box of Xmas Minute Rice, Mr. Sarcasm.

I’m leaning toward this:

Jack lowered the brim of his Boston Red Sox cap and sat down in the ER waiting room. He blended into the background, just another normal guy, an average face in the crowd. But the vibe was all wrong. This didn’t seem like a run-of-the-mill fix-it job. He felt a chill—the Otherness that had become inseparable from his life since his near death encounter with the blue meanies.

(I’m still not sure where the “half-assed” joke will come in yet. I may have to write for this character for a few more chapters before I find the spot.)

BTW, Paul. Since you never mentioned Jack’s last name, I’m just going to give him the surname “Snortkowski.” Also, in this scene, he gets his pelvis chewed off. You’re gonna have to retrofit that into your series.

Joe

• • •

Don’t lie, Mr. Liar McLyingpants.

The Draculas scene from Banana Hammock by J.A. Konrath went like this:

Mortimer rolled on top of her, like a lover, blood and saliva dripping onto Jenny’s face and neck. She reached up to push him away, but even as terror-stricken as she was, Jenny couldn’t bring herself to touch him. It was like willingly sticking your hand into a box of angry rattlesnakes. Even as his jaws drew near, Jenny’s revulsion wouldn’t allow her to fight back. She stretched out her hand—her face imploring—to Dr. Lanz, who stood within reach. But he shrank away from her beckoning fingers, retreating into the safety of the nurse’s station.

This is it, Jenny thought. I’m going to die.

“Cool,” Crazy Knife Goon said.

Harry McGlade nodded. “Draculas is a real roller coaster ride. Soon the whole hospital is overrun, with a few remaining survivors fighting for their lives.”

“Which parts did Jeff Strand write?” Andrew Mayhem asked.

McGlade gave CKG a knowing nod, and then they both shoved Mayhem at the creature, who tore into Mayhem’s throat like a fatty ripping open a bag of potato chips, except blood came out, not chips, and it wasn’t a fatty, it was a dracula. There was babyish squealing and some unmanly cries for help from Mayhem, who was probably a bed wetter, and then the dracula ate him all up and everyone gave each other high-fives.

Also, despite the very reasonable $2.99 Kindle price, Draculas never sold a single copy, so Strand never got any royalties.

Joe

• • •

I was too distracted by the desecration of Winnie the Pooh.

Jeff

• • •

That wasn’t desecration. That was parody, which is protected by fair use, and I never mentioned that beloved childhood copyrighted character by name so it isn’t infringement.

Joe

• • •

If McGlade shows up in this I fucking quit.

Blake

• • •

But I still get paid of course, it’s a symbolic quitting.

Blake

• • •

You just lost yourself a Camaro, Mr. McCritical.

I think you’re still sore because anytime someone mentions “Blake Crouch” in Banana Hammock, no one knows who you are.

Joe

• • •

I come home Sunday night to 15 freakin emails? And I thought it was us old guys who weren’t supposed to have lives.

Paul

• • •

Jeff started it.

Joe

September 27, 2010

Blake, I continue to be blown away by the amount of energy you’re putting into the extra bonus features, and the marketing and publicity of Draculas.

I made a few tweaks to the working in the review email blast you just put in the dropbox…

CURRENT ARC REQUESTS: 165

Goal: 300

1. EMAIL TO PROOFREADER

Hi Marcus: Please find attached the manuscript in a word document. In terms of how to go about this, we would request that you make a running list of typos you locate and turn that list in with the corrected manuscript If they’re straight-forward misspellings, blaring typos, just correct them—American spelling please :). If you come across something more complex, please just make a note of it. It’s a big old book, and we would appreciate if you would go through the bonus content as well. Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask, and thank you again for your willingness to help us out on this project (we’ve already thanked you in the acknowledgments).

Best!

Blake

2. EMAIL ADDRESSES AND EMAIL FOR SENDING MS. TO UPCOMING RESPONDERS TO JOE’S BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ARCS AND TO GOOD READS

Thanks to:

Marcus Blakeston, Carl Graves, Rob Siders, Chris Rapking, Suzanne Tyrpak, Maria Konrath, Jeroen ten Berge,

Gef Fox, Nenad Ristic, Steve Windwalker, Chris Blewitt, Marc Buhmann, Krist Rufty, KD James, Cherie Reich, Stephen Grogan, Dr.CPE, David Dodd, Gail Snyder, John McCarthy, Anthea Strezze, Douglas Dorow, Jason Otoski, Juli Monroe, A. Sadie Timm, Julie Smith, Christy Pinheiro-Silva, K.S. Elkins, Carolyn Lee, Paul McMurray, Traci Hohenstein, Steve Malley, Debbi Mack, James Reed, Missy Meyer, Gretchen Rix, Karly Kirkpatrick, Brian Spaeth, Roxanne McHenry, Kaoru Tanaka, Dennis Welch, Cynthia Briggs, Baboi Alin Lucian, Andrea Allison, Steve Lewis, LaDonna Bubak, Jessica Crooks, Greg Swanson, Robert Carraher, Aldo Calcagno, Brian H “The Chalkboard Dad”, Mary Stella, Tamera Martens, Jeroen ten Berge, HL Arledge, Jason Davis, Suzanne Fyhrie Parrott, Scott Marlowe, Stacy Krueger, Philip Hansen, Carl Obermeier, Steve Peterson, Tyler Kneisly, Sandra Gilbert, Ahmed Khalifa, Lamar Giles, LK Rigel, Misty Baker, Raven Corinn Carluk, David Villalva, James Reasoner, Frederick Altstadt, Anthony Grogan, Donnie Light, Kim Wright, Pauline Funa, Gerald Writer, Kipp Speicher, Jennifer Baker, Holly Barnes, Elizabeth White, Trish Gerstman, J.E. Taylor, Rob Cundall, John Smith, Joe Bishop, Daniel Barbier, Claudia Lefeve, Geoffrey Rabe, Ty Simmons, Mike Heppe, Daryl Sedore, Helen Letourneau, Rai Aren, Selena Kitt, Georgiann Hennelly, Debbie Gilliam, Rhonda, Brenda Sedore, Janene Irvine, John Hartness; Robert Cundall; Keith Gaston; Kyle W. Kerr; Mickey Reed, Katie Hardin, Eghe Precious, Steven Beltzer, Amanda Pickett, Karen Dyck, Lakisha Speltzer, Catherine Saxton, Dorlana Vann, Phoebe Conn, Matthew Dow Smith, Terri Dukes, Vicki K. Brown, Ilsa Bick, Karen McGrath, Tee Tate, Vannessa Grace, Yeva Wiest, Anthony Policastro, Shannhu, Joanie Raisovich, Tim Rich, E. Wylie, Judy Sizemore, Loretta Giacoletto, Sharon Anderson, Holly, Jaime Wasserman, Katie Hardin, Natasha Pixie, Melissa Zellmer, David Wisehart, Moses Siregar III, Heather Dudley, William Tombaugh, Kendall Gutierrez, Georgekutty Adappur, Barb Best, Bobbie Crawford-McCoy, Paula Phillips, Aaron Patterson,

1st email to the troops:

Dear Friends: Attached to this email is the finished manuscript of DRACULAS, including all of its extensive bonus content. We have attached the book as a pdf, an epub file (for you Nook and Sony lovers) and a mobi file if the Kindle is your pleasure.

If you have any questions or issues with any of the file attachments, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via draculasthebook@gmail.com.

We will be following up with a second email in about a week with further instructions as we approach the 10/19 launch date. In the meantime, please just explore and enjoy DRACULAS (you should enjoy the bonus content…trust us, it’s off-the-hook). We hope you’ll read the book within the next week and start gathering your thoughts for a review.

We seriously couldn’t do this without you. Your willingness to help us spread the word about DRACULAS means the world to us, and we’ve already thanked every one of you in the acknowledgements at the end of the book (and if you find yourself missing, let us know!).

More soon!

All the best,

Blake, Joe, Jeff, and Paul

2nd email to the troops:

Dear Friends: As of this email, we are a mere four days from the launch of DRACULAS. Hopefully, you’ve read the book and written a review, and now it gets exciting.

As early as possible, ON OCTOBER 18, please post your review on your blog(s), Goodreads, Facebook, Shelfari, interstate overpasses, basically anywhere you see fit.

We would also request that you include the link to purchase DRACULAS on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Novel-Terror-ebook/dp/B0042AMD2M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1284569826&sr=8-1

Then send an email to draculasthebook@gmail.com, under the heading “REVIEW LINK” and drop us the link to your blog(s) review of the book, or if you don’t have a blog, include the text of your review in the email.

ON OCTOBER 19, please post your review onto Amazon’s DRACULAS page: http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Novel-Terror-ebook/dp/B0042AMD2M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1284569826&sr=8-1. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY THE BOOK TO POST A REVIEW ON AMAZON, you just need an Amazon account.

If you use Twitter, please tweet about your review and also what Joe Konrath will be posting on his blog. http://jakonrath.blogspot.com. He will be including a link to every blog review of DRACULAS, and we want people to have to scroll through page after page after page to get to the bottom. The DraculasTheBook.com website will also feature all reviews.

To our knowledge, this type of marketing experiment has never been attempted on this level. What is the power of several hundred reviews all appearing on the same day, and on Amazon? Is it enough take DRACULAS viral? To hit #1 in the Kindle store? That’s our hope.

We find it exciting and liberating to enlist our wonderful readers to help us connect to a wider audience. Because the more books we sell, the more books we are able to write.

For those of you who have expressed concern that Draculas is only available as a Kindle ebook, remember that it is DRM free. That means, once bought from Amazon, it can be easily transferred to any other ereading device (Nook, Kobo, Sony, etc.) Visit www.DraculastheBook.com for instructions. Draculas will also soon be available in print.

Thank you again for joining us in this experiment, thanks for reading our work, and here’s to a successful launch. Keep on the lookout for another email shortly letting everyone know how we did.

All the best,

Blake, Joe, Jeff, and Paul

Joe

• • •

Private Rogers 1.1 is in Blake’s folder. Everyone take a look. I think it could still use some tweaking, so anyone who wants to volunteer, go for it.

Joe

• • •

Okay. Don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but …

It’s a great sequence, but I don’t see what purpose it serves. We introduce a new character only to kill him. I admit that I am by nature a taker-outer rather than a puter-inner, so let me give my reasons for relegating this to alternate endings (along with my Dr. Driscoll sequence).

1) I think Dr. Cook appearing to Shanna in clean scrubs adds to his mystique.

2) having draculas escape on Pvt Rogers’s watch indicates that the autoclave was a failure and that dracs could be escaping elsewhere. (Clay was blown through an open window, so that’s a different story)

3) in order to have closure in this book, we need the reader to buy that the autoclave bomb worked, that this episode is over, and whatever comes after is all new.

Pace, Blake.

Paul

• • •

Good points, Paul.

Blake (and I) wanted to drill it home that Cook is still alive because he accidentally was mistaken for human, just like Duane Jones in Night of the Living Dead was accidentally killed because he was mistaken for a zombie. In both cases, it is the men with the guns who make the mistake.

I killed Rogers because I thought he wasn’t the best example of exemplary soldiering. Blake originally didn’t bring the dracula into it. When I did bring the dracula in, I killed it, so there weren’t any more running around.

But I also think your points are correct.

What if Rogers gave him a free pass and didn’t die, and Cook’s scrubs were clean?

I don’t want to force this scene in, but I like what it brings.

On the other hand, maybe we can give Cook a line when he’s being interviewed: “I barely escaped. One of the soldiers even wanted to shoot me, until I showed him I hadn’t been bitten.”

Thoughts?

Joe

• • •

Ditto - very valid points, Paul…by way of explanation, I started this scene, because in reading the final sequence in DRACULAS, it occurred to me that (a) I thought the perimeter scene was under-drawn, and (b) the original idea of having Mort escape in opposite fashion to the end of the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD hadn’t been fully achieved. But maybe we don’t need that. I do agree that we need to have the full sense that all of the draculas are dead and that perhaps this also screws up the pacing of the final scenes…let’s hear what Jeff thinks and sleep on it. I’m not married to this either way, and if it gets relegated to deleted scenes, I’m okay with that.

Blake

• • •

I think you’re pushing for a pop-cultural point/reference that no one’s gonna notice or care about.

I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, but I don’t think it adds to the narrative. And if it doesn’t, then ya gotta let it go. This is not a tantrum igniter for me. I simply don’t think it’s necessary. This is a collaboration and majority rules. But for my part, I think it’s extraneous, so I vote “alternate ending.”

Paul

• • •

I think we can keep it omitted. But then I do want a bit added to Dr. Cook at the end, explaining he almost got shot.

While folks probably won’t notice the pop culture reference, the whole “Moorecook is saved” was part of my first conversation with Blake about Draculas, and one of the reasons we wanted to write this story in the first place. Night of the Living Dead (and I Am Legend by Matheson—at least the Vincent Price film version of it) was about trapped people surrounded by monsters. NotLD blew me away the first time I saw it (nine years old?), especially the nihilistic ending. Doing a reverse-nihilistic ending drew me to this project.

But then, as long as it’s known what our intent was, I see no problem in cutting it.

Curious what Jeff thinks…

Joe

September 28, 2010

Okay, looking back, maybe I’m being a tight-ass. If this section is important to you guys, if leaving it out’s going to make the book something less than you intended, let’s go with it. Seriously.

Paul

• • •

But honestly, Paul, if it struck you as a speedbump in the pacing, particularly at the most critical part of the book (the end), that gives me serious concern about the scene and that maybe it shouldn’t be in there. I’m sure we’ve all written books having a certain scene or note in mind to hit at the end, and then when the time came, it just didn’t jive with the rest of the book. Let’s see what Jeff thinks.

Blake

• • •

I’m withholding my vote until I’m done with the proofreading. But the fact that a scene was part of the original idea should be irrelevant to whether or not it’s appropriate for the book as it stands now.

Jeff

• • •

I’m contacting various Kindle booklight manufacturers to see if we can get an endorsement deal. A Kindle light saves Adam’s life, and perhaps some company would be happy enough about the product placement to cover our start-up costs (art, formatting, website.)

Plus, it would be great publicity, for both us and them, if Draculas was the very first ebook with advertising in it. Both Blake and Jeff know I’ve been predicting this for years…

Joe

• • •

Agreed.

Blake

• • •

Remember, though, the light is dying as soon as he turns it on, creating a ticking clock to darkness.

Jeff

• • •

It they don’t give us a deal, I’ll have the light die and Adam can smash it into the wall and say, “This fucking piece of shit is so unreliable!”

Blake

• • •

Adam started running, made it out of the laboratory and halfway through reception, when his XXXXXX finally faded to black.

He froze, waited a moment, thinking his eyes would adjust, that he would be able to see something, but it never happened.

His first instinct was primal, animal panic, a sense of the walls both closing in and spinning until he’d completely lost his bearing.

XXXXXX. It leaves you in the dark to be eaten by vampires. $29.99.

Jeff

• • •

XXXXXX…it’s not going to help you when the lights go out during a vampire outbreak.

Blake

• • •

Our emails crossed and yours is much funnier…LOL

Blake

• • •

Clay stopped at the Pepsi machine and got a refreshingly tasty Mountain Dew. Halfway into sipping the delicious beverage, he heard a noise on his left. Reaching into his Levis 517 Boot Cut jeans, he removed his Benchmade Griptilian folder, flicking open the blade.

But it wasn’t a dracula. It was Jenny, riding a brand new Schwinn Seneca 700cc, her L.A. Gear Walk N Tone shoes furious on the pedals.

“They’re coming!” she yelled while screeching the brakes. “But before we run, I need to apply some L’Oreal True Match Concealer! I don’t fight monsters without looking my best!”

Guys, we’re gonna be rich…

Joe

• • •

Okay, I’d never heard an XXXXXX, but now I really want one.

Paul

• • •

No, I completely agree with Paul. It’s a good self-contained scene, but it feels less like “enhancing the irony” than “overexplaining a plot point.” Readers don’t want six pages of a new character right at the finale.

Jeff

• • •

I’ve gotta say, this book flows incredibly well for a four-author project! I’d expected to find a lot of awkward pacing, but no, it’s smoooooooth. Huge kudos to Blake for managing to figure out where everything should be pasted together.

For a book with so many characters, they’re all distinct, and I don’t think readers will have any difficulty following the action.

I fixed a few typos, some redundant description, and the occasional continuity error. I changed the iPad to a Kindle with a light. Cut a line here and there.

I have a couple more changes to make (there’s a paragraph about Clay/Shanna’s relationship that’s too much like Randall/Jenny’s relationship, and Randall gives Jenny a hatchet that’s never used), and then I’m going to go through the special features.

Jeff

• • •

There’s another deleted scene for the fire.

Joe

• • •

Okay, I’m ready to hand this thing off to Joe.

The Clay epilogue is fantastic. Feels like it was planned out from the beginning.

Jeff

• • •

Don’t know about rich, but I think the least the Taurus folks can do is send me a Raging Bull.

Paul

• • •

If Taurus contacts you, asking if you received the firearm they sent your way via my address, they’re liars and never sent me anything.

Also, remind them I wanted extra clips.

Joe

• • •

And somebody is bound to send Blake some red candy!

Jeff

• • •

Okay, I’m just getting started, and have only made some small changes.

I switched Clay’s profession from cop to high school guidance counselor. Now, instead of all the shooting, he encourages the draculas to talk about their feelings.

Stacie is now a man.

I cut all the stuff Jeff wrote.

In my scenes, I added two commas, and fixed a typo.

I also made one minor addition. Dr. Lanz is now a minor. Sort of like Doogie Howser. Because of this, he is now being played by Neil Patrick Harris, who has turned the role into a singing part. Not quite sure how that will work in an ebook, but this is all such a fabulous new technology I’m sure there’s a way.

Oh, almost forgot. I also changed every noun in the book to “wiener.”