Sexy Vampires

A Girl Bitten by Three Vampires by janramvampire

My book, Harvest, is heating up. There's a lot of science fiction and action in it, but it's also getting a lot more sexual as the female characters exert their own agency in the story. I don't want to have a story where only the male characters are victimizing and sexualizing their prey. This is nothing too new since erotic vampires have been in the mythology for a long time, but it's a little new for me because it presents an issue.
How erotic should a vampire story be?
My favorite writers push the boundaries of these kinds of things. They make you kind of look over your shoulder on the subway to make sure no one is reading behind you. A book should be a dirty little secret. Some of my favorites, like Pynchon and Miller and McEwan and so many others get pretty raunchy at times. I remember reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy thinking "holy shit!" when the sex scenes happened.
I would like someone reading my book have the same reaction when my characters get down. I'd also like them to feel that way about the science fiction parts and the horror elements, of course. . . but in a way it's harder to shock when it comes to sex.
Sex is everywhere. A book takes your mind and shows it things. Do you want it to show you what you already know? Do you want it to show you what you've seen a million times before? Do you want it to be safe?
And if you are having sex, you have sexual fantasies, and if you're reading a book, don't you want it to poke at that?

Anyway, the second part of the book is under construction, and I think it's more violent and sexual and scary than the first part. Somewhere in the middle, I'm sure it will calm down a bit, but for now I want the sex to be like a treat for getting through the scary bits and the parts where science fiction has us flying through time warps and everything.

What do you think? How much is too much? And should we ever dial it down? Isn't there something pornographic about vampires anyway? Even something as horrible as Twilight is all about sex in a way isn't it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

By the way, here's a top ten list of sexy vampire girls »
And here are some videos of hot naked vampire chicks biting one another in erotic ways »

Buy my book on AMAZON!

The Haunting of Ninjatown

I'm trying out the affiliate program on Amazon. I get money if you buy things. Here's the link to my book, The Haunting of Ninjatown.

Ways to Unfuck My Life

1. Clean up living space daily, including making the bed and doing all the dishes and making sure all working surfaces are uncluttered. I've allowed this to go too far because I've been living with someone who doesn't like the way I tidy up. I can't think properly when there's so much clutter, though, and I'm going to just start doing it my way regardless of what anyone says,
2. Wake up earlier. I used to wake up early and go to bed late. I think that is the best way for me to live. I feel like I got a lot more done and was more creative when that was the case,
3. Take naps in order to make the previous rule possible. Naps are the perfect break from work. If you get up early and rock out a bunch of productivity, you've earned the nap. If you haven't been productive enough, a nap might be the perfect thing to get you back in the game. Say "fuck off" to anyone who thinks napping is lazy.
4. Concentrate on writing and drawing. When I was writing and drawing more, I had enough money in the bank to make me happy, and I had enough positive feedback from the universe to make me happy.
5. Blog more.  I enjoy sharing my thoughts with the world, and I love getting email or comments. For some reason, I've never received many comments on my blogs, but I do get a ton of emails about them. I'm always thrilled when I get something in the mail regarding my blogs. I think blogging regularly is also a great way to keep the instrument sharp.
6. exercise more often. I go through spurts of intense exercise, and then I get a minor injury or insane weather comes our way, and I use that as an excuse to not work out or go for runs. I hate that about myself. I'm going to stop doing that.
7. Spend more time with animals. I love hanging out with my dog or my publisher's cats. Sometimes they're annoying, but they make me feel like there's love in the world.
8. Never let anyone own me. I feel like there are too many people who hold dominion over me at the moment. I will no longer deal with tyrants or naysayers or haters. I used to be really good at just ignoring them or masking how I felt about them. I was much happier when I just cut people out of my life when they betrayed me. I'm going to go back to that.

The Dark Knight Rises

Actually, after all of my fears regarding this one, it's my favorite and I'm glad it didn't suck.
Lots of violence and suspense, plenty of sexiness, and a healthy dose of fanboy stuff, this final film of Nolan's Batman story is pretty great.
I loved that the film didn't try to be more than a hero epic, and I love that its makers were talented enough and thoughtful enough to make it unique. The similarity batman has to his enemies and the similarities his enemies have to Batman's friends provide some thought-provoking fodder for anyone who feels like looking deeper, but the movie doesn't ask you to. That's a great little trick for an action movie to accomplish, allowing its audience to decide how many levels to enjoy it on.
Maybe my favorite thread of it was the way the military was portrayed. And here, I mean militarism more than our armed servicemen. We start with a CIA operative who is as ruthless and cowardly as the villain, and the villain is promptly boosted from custody by a sort of Navy Seal team that is as loyal to their cause as the special forces supposedly are to theirs. I hated the military badassedness of Batman in the previous films with a Hummer AV as the Batmobile and jelly grenades and that part when he's sucked out a window by an airplane. In this movie, Bane has all those tricks and more. He even drives the same car and has an army of cop-like thugs whom he somehow manages to organize. Batman did this with cops in previous films with a military grade spotlight and tech support.
There's even a scene where a football player is depicted like war hero running from a bomb crater. And later, cops literally condemn a school bus of orphans and the whole city to death. The fact that both Bane and Batman are former League of Shadows movers who use Hi-tech military style devices to deal with their pain is also kind of fun.
If you liked the comics Knight Fall, in which Bane breaks Batman's back or if you liked the Thalia Al'Gul storyline and were wondering why the Lazarus Pit isn't ever mentioned in the first film, you might like this interpretation of the Batman Mythology. I did.

The Haunting of Ninjatown Special Covers

I've been making some extra covers for my book, TheHaunting of Ninjatown. You know why? Because I really like to, and I think it's a fun way to make the book seem fresh for those who haven't read it yet. I had such a thrilling time on the project, I don't want to let it stop. The wild rabbit is a very important symbol to me. All of the designs so far have been created on my iPad with my fingers. I GOT BLISTAHS ON MAH FINGAHS!!!

Do you want to be part of the project? Just send me a cover proposal, and I'll post it. In the end, I'll send people T shirts for my new Project, Harvest. 

#theatershooting

I've been following the Reddit feed and the Twitter hash tags and all the other stuff about the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, as I hope you have. I'm particularly distraught by this tragedy because it forces me to reevaluate the attitude I have toward violence depicted in art.

I'm for violence in art. The reason I'm for it is because I think it brings up questions about oppression, the role of violence in our society, how we dole out justice in the form of violence, and even what violence is. I also think there is an entertainment value inherent in violent depictions in art. Violence elicits an emotional response. It causes your heart to race. It is a release and kind of a fantasy like revenge and vigilantism; we can't act on those urges, so it's fun to watch Michael Corleone or Bruce Wayne do it for us. But what do we do when a theater full of people watching a violent film about vigilantism gets massacred?

We don't know this James Holmes's motives are yet, but they'll surely be the kind of rambling crap we always get in cases like these. But here's the thing: no matter what he says, this is the most senseless mass murder in my memory. If you kill a whole school because they bullied you, isolated you, or kicked you out, that's crazy and extreme, but it follows a degree of reason. It's indefensible, but it makes sense in a very haunting and real way. If you're a Christian nut job who murders a bunch of diplomats' kids in Scandanavia, you're a nut job, but your insanity followed reason. If you're a Muslim nut job, and you crash planes into one of the greatest symbols of your enemy's accomplishment, I disagree with your tactis, but it kind of makes sense. But who does James Holmes hate? Moviegoers? Does he hate Christopher Nolan? Comic books? The only thing I can think is that some club that didn't want him was seeing the film together. But barring that, what brand of crazy is this?

Anyway, I'm particularly distressed by the whole thing because I love violent movies and movies in general. I love entertainment in general. And now James Holmes dresses up, pretends to be the Joker, and kills a bunch of people just because they also like to be entertained. Not because they're christian, not because they're Muslim, not because they're capitalist technocrats, just because they like movies.

Also, just FYI, I like guns a lot. I like shooting them at flying targets or just random things like pumpkins and bottles. I would never kill an animal. I'm vegan. But I enjoy guns, and I think that stronger gun control laws are necessary. 

Harvest Is Now Published!

I just put my book HARVEST on Amazon as an eBook. It's the first in a series of books revolving around a time-traveling vampire named Napoleon and his love for all time, Josephine.
Amazon says it'll be up about 12-48 hrs.
You can check it out here.

Also, I'm running an art contest on twitter for The Haunting of Ninjatown. If you design a Ninjatown cover and hash tag it #thehauntingofninjatown, I'll pick the best ones and send them cool stuff.

I hope you like it.

Harvest: my new ebook project

I'm using this logo for my new project. It's a series of ebooks called HARVEST. It's about time-traveling vampires. The first one will be out next week or so.