Lucian's Interview

Hi all. I finally ran Lucian Ravenswaay down in New Orleans. I'm sure he let me do this since I'm not the most savvy and stealthy person on the planet. After pleading (pathetically) that he let me interview him, he agreed and we met up at his friend Jackson St. Marie's bar, The Pit.

Lucian's stats:
Age: 285
Height: 6'7"
Weight: 260
Hair: Black and red, shoulder length
Eyes: Green

I was more than a little nervous. I mean, I KNOW who hangs out in this bar and I'm not talking about bikers. Jackie (he told me I could call him Jackie) was hanging out at the bar and looked far too amused to see little ole me trailing behind the Oculum-se. He sent over a drink. I guess he figured I needed Dutch courage to get through the interview. You can bet your sweet ass I gulped it down!

So, Lucian led me to a table in the back of the bar and I really didn't mind walking behind him. He has the nicest derriere I've ever had the fortune to ogle. The front is even better, by the way. I kind of caught that by accident as he'd turned around while I was still looking at his butt. Niiice!

Without further ado, he sat me down and glared. It was time for the interview.

Danica: So, uh...thanks for meeting with me! (My voice was kind of squeaky...I hate it when it does that!)
Lucian: You didn't give me much choice, Dani. You were making so much noise following me around, the demons were scared to come out.

He flashed a little fang, but I knew he wouldn't go for my throat. I'm not really his type, like I'm O positive and he's into rare.

D: What do you look for in a woman? (I decided to get right down to business. Have I mentioned he's sexy??)
L: I like curves. I like a woman who doesn't feel like she's gonna break if I decide to play with her.
D: Have you met anyone who matches that description?
L: Only one person.
D: Um, okay. Do you have a favorite color?
L: Black, red, orange.
D: What's the best night you ever had?

This is when he grinned and OMG people! OMG!! I think I wet my pants when he grinned, but back to the interview.

L: I was here one night when Pagan told me she found the last Chieftain. Man, I was hyped, but pissed off cause I'd wanted to hook up with these two blonds for some B&R-
D: B&R?
L: Blood and recreation.

He winked and people, this man has SEXY green eyes. I was drooling but he was gentlemanly enough to ignore it.

L: Anyway, I went over to the Hotel d'Ours to wait for the Chieftain. I thought Pagan was joking with me when I saw it was a woman. Not just any woman either. This woman was stacked. Full hips, full chest, almost as tall as me.

Okay, I was jealous. This man was talking about a virtual Amazon if she was as tall as he was since he's nearly six foot eight. He was also really into describing her body and I wasn't going to look down at my own.

L: She was...wow.
Jackson: She was hot!
L: Shut the hell up! Don't talk about her, or I'll shove your head up your ass. Now, where was I?
D: She was wow.
L: Right, so I knew the minute I saw her, that she was gonna be something special. I wasn't sure how special though.
D: What's her name? Did you get it?
L: Chieftain Ruby Fontenot-Blue of the Elk Fire Line.
D: Where is she now?

His face closed up tighter than my mom's when I asked her if she'd had sex before she married dad. I have a habit of putting my foot in my mouth.

L: That's classified.
D: Is it true that Malachi Cromwell, the Eturian leader, is after her?
L: He'll die.
D: Um, okay. That's fair. So, is it true what they say about vampires?

I really hadn't meant that to sound so sexual, I had meant about the staking through the heart, sunlight and all that mess, but he'd just been about to take a sip of his Jack and Coke and spit it out all over me. I guess I need to work on my interviewing skills. Jackson appeared at the table and gave me a towel while smirking at Lucian. I really like Jackie.

L: What the hell kind of question is that?
D: I meant can you guys go out in the sun and all.
L: Oh. Okay, cause you're cute, but I'm not interested.
D: Just answer the damn question! (I didn't mean to shout, but he looked like he thought I meant business and not too insulted so I guess he would let me get away with it.)
L: Sheesh, calm down, lady! I didn't mean to insult you. Hell. Before we transition, vampires are just like humans, but after the transition we become very similar to what you read about. We drink blood, we can go out in the sun, but it isn't advised since it hurts after a while. We don't live forever cause nothing is truly immortal, you cut some thing's head off or stake something through the heart and it's gonna die. We can't make humans vampires, so don't even ask.
D: Do you get that a lot?
L: What do you think? Ever since all those Underworld movies came out - by the way Kate Beckinsale in that catsuit thing?...mmm - we're getting more people running to us if they suspect what we are. Could be at one time, we inspired fear. Now everyone wants to be bitten.

He wasn't looking too happy, so I decided to change the subject.

D: What are your goals?
L: Get the Chieftain in a safe place, take out Malachi, finish this assignment and take over the seat I've been apprenticed to on Council.
D: For our new readers, what does the Oculum-se do?
L: The Oculum is the High Council spymaster and the Oculum-se is part of their network. We follow up on any rumors of rebellions, danger to the Council, and anything that might pose a problem for the Veil.
D: What do you do with the problems?
L: The Oculum trusts me enough to handle them how I see fit.
D: How so?
L: I eliminate problems.
D: O-kay...what is the Veil?

He sighed like he wanted nothing better than to throttle me.

L: The Veil is the community of 'others'. We live parallel, within, and around your world. We are masters at blending in, well most of us are at least. Most of the time humans don't even know we exist and we keep it that way. We hold jobs in every sector of the human world, but we only follow the laws of our High Council.
D: What races belong in the Veil?
L: Everything 'other', of course. (I think he was getting exasperated with me cause he rolled his eyes.) Vampires, werefolk, demons, angels, succubi, incubi, centaurs, minotaurs, elves, dwarves, fairies, you name it, we have it.
D: Can I get a copy of this for my website?
L: You realize that if you publish anything about the Veil, I'll have to kill you.
D: Ha. Oh, you're not joking. Um. I wouldn't publish it per se...
L: Fine, I'll loan you a book. Are we finished yet?
D: Just one more question: Where do you see yourself in five years?
L: Gods, I hate questions like that. Why do people ask that? Hell, I don't know. I'll be the Oculum and the Chieftain will be my sex slave. Now, are we done?
D: Sure, thank you so much!
L: Yeah, just don't tell anyone about this, okay? I really would hate to kill you.

He walked away without another word. I spent several minutes trying to catch my breath. That was one intense male! Now I just have to figure out where Ruby is and get an interview from her too!

Fighting the Cynic

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I'm a pretty cynical person. For the longest time, I called myself a closet romantic because even though I read romances, I wasn't sure that I believed in the love I read about. I'm sure college had a lot to do with that (when all else fails, blame everything on college!).

However, I do believe in love. I believe that there is someone out there meant just for me (yeah, I'm single. meh) and that when I finally find him, we'll be together forever. I'm a child of divorce and remarriage. I grew up with two homes although I only counted one of them as 'home'. I saw the bad side of marriage, but I also saw the good side. Unfortunately, the bad side seems more prevalent than the good, so sometimes I have to remind myself that love does exist.

Reading (and now writing) romance gives me a way to explore how powerful love really is. As a history major, love has been used as the cause for everything from war to torture to historical monuments to sacrifice. It is, I believe, at the root of all our lives whether we believe in the happily-ever-after or not. That's what romance books are about. It's learning about this fickle, overwhelming emotion and what causes reasonably sane people to do crazy things.

So yes, sometimes (especially after reading or watching the news or hearing about the new woman my uncle found online) I am the cynic, curling my lip at the idea of love and romance, but the romantic always wins out.

I think I might be able to get back to my work-in-progress now. I feel like I've got the muddle out of my head.

Character Interviews

Hi everyone. So, I'm thinking about giving my blog a little more pow by interviewing the characters of my first finished book. What I want to know, is if anyone out there would be interested in reading about them (if I can get them to pay attention to me while I ask questions instead of making goo-goo eyes at each other, that is!).

I'd like to get some followers on this blog so that I can entice Lucian and Ruby into wanting to do the interview. They're stubborn as all hell and more than likely won't want to talk about anything but each other, but I'm hoping I can get them to answer a few questions about the Veil, the Council, and the Eturi.

Here's a little background on 'Ruby: Uncut and on the Loose':

Ruby Fontenot is a recluse in South Louisiana who lives for her independence. She finds herself accidentally inheriting some of the most unique powers in The Veil, the supernatural community that exists parallel to the human world. She becomes the last Lineage Chieftain in existence and as a result, has become the most hunted being in the world. Who's she hunted by? The High Council, the Veil's governing body, and the Eturi, the Veil's worst nightmare.

Lucian Ravenswaay is the vampire apprentice to the Oculum, the Council Spymaster. He's been searching for the last Chieftain for years and when he finds out Ruby's it, well, you can imagine his shock. The Chieftain has never been a female, not to mention he thinks she just might be his life-mate. Oh, did I mention that he's terribly protective?

Throw in a dog with gastrointestinal problems, wise-cracking Amazons, and a malicious mentor and you've got the recipe for disaster, or one hell of a love story.

I will get these two characters to give us an interview, trust me. If anyone has anything they'd like to know, leave a comment or e-mail me at danica.avet@gmail.com

Til then!

Oi for Monday

It was a lovely weekend. My birthday was Saturday and I really had a wonderful day. Very calm, very relaxing, but that isn't the point of this post.

You see, I've been re-reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I LOVE these books. Even though I've read the series start to finish at least twice before now, when I pick them up after a while, I still crack up laughing at the monkey on Lulu's back, Grandma shooting the roast chicken, and any other of Stephanie's crazy life. What got me to thinking was, if you're a fan of the series, you know how Stephanie ranks birthday cake up there before sex. Morelli thinks sex comes first, but she thinks birthday cake should come first.

Well, as a result of reading this entire series over the last week, when my birthday rolled around, I didn't have a 'real' birthday cake. I went to dinner with my immediate family and left the restaurant with a slice of the most sinful chocolate cheesecake with fudge and caramel sauce topped with pecans. It was so good, I can't lie: I drooled a little bit. Mm, that cheesecake was divine!

However, yesterday morning, I finished reading Ten Big Ones and of course, Stephanie was going on about birthday cake. I put the book away and decided I needed to do my weekly shopping. I headed to town (down here, you're either going down the bayou, up the bayou, or 'going to town' even if you live in town) to get some food for this week. I'm wandering around the grocery store, picking up things and somehow I found myself in front of the bakery. There, sitting on a shelf, was a beautiful white icing birthday cake with a red border and huge red roses. Even better, it was a chocolate cake. So what does a Stephanie do when she's confronted with this temptation? You bet! I made room in my basket for the cake. It's now sitting on the counter at home looking like it was butchered. No, I didn't eat it by myself, I had a lot of help.

So I just wonder how often it is that we get 'inspired' or 'persuaded' to do things from the books we read. The birthday cake isn't the first time I've found myself thinking 'oh man, that sounds REALLY good right now', whether it's swimming, or having a few drinks, or buying a birthday cake I really don't need.

How can a Friday be 'blah'??

Well, I'm not sure how it's managed, but I'm having one. I think I was okay until I got to the office. In fact, it might not be me at all, it might be all of the onions that were chopped have sunk into my brain and eyes making it impossible for me to think. You see, I work in the oil industry (lots of men in hardhats 'hubba hubba') and the bosses like to cook. Unfortunately for me, my office is right next to the kitchen so anything they cook filters in here and I smell like whatever they cooked that day. Fried shrimp? You got it. I walk out of here at the end of the day smelling like fried shrimp. So much for my expensive perfume!

I need to get some writing done today, but I just don't know if I have the...I don't even know the right word. This is a further example of why I shouldn't be subjected to their cooking ventures. It rattles my brain and I'm useless!

Or maybe it isn't any of that. Maybe it's because tomorrow's my birthday and I'm beginning to feel the 'getting-older-blues'. Hm, I doubt that. Birthdays don't bother me. I don't mind getting older.

Maybe I'm just under the weather. That's got to be it! Thanks so much for letting me work this out for myself!

Docudramas

I'm having a heated debate with my best friend in the world. She and I have been friends since we were 13 and even though we have a lot of things in common, we don't always see eye-to-eye.

Today's discussion is about the Lifetime network. She claims to love it. I'm not a fan. I'll watch it come August 20, but that's because Project Runway will be playing there now. No, my problem is the docudrama.

See, as a single woman (and a romance writer), I want to believe in love and happiness...even if the cynical part of me calls the romantic side a fool. So, sitting down to watch a Lifetime docudrama is BAD. Think about every docudrama you've ever seen on Lifetime. Some woman is either being abused, cheated on, murdered, kidnapped, raped, or having her children taken away from her by her husband, her mother, her ex-boyfriend in college, her neighbor, her husband's ex-girlfriend, a total stranger, the person she talks to at the bus stop, or she has a eating disorder that kills her, that's another one. It isn't very pretty. It depresses me. I believe the last movie I watched on Lifetime was about a porn actress who either killed herself or someone else killed her. I was unemployed, sick with pneumonia watching this movie, and I couldn't. Leave. The. Room. Now I don't even bother flipping to that channel.

I keep telling people that if they showed docudramas like this in Sex Ed classes, teen pregnancy would probably go down. No offense, Lifetime! I know a lot of women who adore that channel, spend hours - hell, entire weekends- watching it, but not this cookie!

Bruce Dickinson and Steve Irwin

I don't normally blog twice in one day, but something has been on my mind and I just have to come out and share it with everyone.

Bruce Dickinson was on Heavy: the Story of Metal a few months ago (maybe a year ago) and he was wearing this hat that made him look like Steve Irwin to me. Now, if you don't know who Bruce Dickinson is, he's the lead singer of Iron Maiden. This man can SING. He's got some vocal chords on him! I try singing along, honest I do, but my voice can't reach the same pitches he can. It's ridiculous. I admire his music.

Steve Irwin, as I'm sure everyone knows, was the Crocodile Hunter. I thought he was a great host.

So anyway, back to the point of this post. While I'm watching this documentary on Heavy Metal, Bruce Dickinson is interviewed and I swear, he looked just like Steve Irwin! He's talking about heavy metal and I keep waiting for him to say 'Danger, danger' while pointing out Blackie Lawless' exploding codpiece. Of course, now that I finally got around to blogging about it, I can't find a picture of Bruce during that episode, nor the correct picture of Steve Irwin to reinforce what I saw!

It was interesting and it startled me every time I saw Bruce interviewed. He was wearing what I found out could be called a 'slouch hat' which is a wide brimmed hat with one side pinned up to the crown. It was insane!

Anyway, if it ever comes on VH1 again, please look for it.