Dear Cowboy,
Well, first off, I’m a real cowgirl. I run barrels and poles, and I’m starting to rope. Me and my cowboy have been getting a little more into each other. He’s always complimenting me and things like that. And I know I really don’t need to be thinking about this but, um, I’ve always heard that cowboys are the “love you and leave” types. And I was just wondering if that’s true? Me and my cowboy aint official yet, but we’re about as close as you can get. Would he leave me without blinking an eye or would he want me to come with him?
Signed,Confused And Worried Cowgirl
Dear CAWG,
My favorite pair of cowboy boots are held together by duct tape and prayer. I think I’ve been wearing them for maybe twenty-five years now and resoled and reheeled them maybe five or six times. I’ve been driving the same pick up truck since high school — and that was a long time ago (it still has an 8-track cassette player in it … look it up in the internets). What am I trying to say? Well, it’s about loyalty … Read more of the Cowboy’s answer >>
Idle traveling is great, but traveling with a purpose has its definite attractions too. As paranormal fiction writers, whenever we find ourselves in a new locale, we make sure we have time to check out the local paranormal lore.
On a recent trip to Key West, we discovered a mother lode of stories, and also stumbled on the horrific (literally) linguistic history of the phrases “dead ringer” and “saved by the bell.” Read the rest of this entry »
We recently came across an article by Brandon Keim in Wired titled Consciousness After Death: Strange Tales From the Frontiers of Resuscitation Medicine. It’s a nice summary of the real science underlying The Meta in The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller series. Increasingly, as scientists are able to measure life at the cellular and synaptic level, ways that extend life beyond simple respiration and blood flow, a period in between life and death has come into focus, or an “after-life” as its called in this article. People who are resuscitated from this limbo land often refer to this as a near-death-experience. It’s heartening to see science taking these experiences seriously. And writers are leading the way with Consciousness Fiction, or Con-fi.
Discovering the “Dark Side” of a tropical paradise
One of the great things about writing paranormal fiction (The Cowboy and the Vampire, Blood and Whiskey and the soon-to-be-released book three, which is getting closer) is that we get to do fun, weird stuff on a regular basis.
Case and point: We were recently in Key West on a well-deserved vacation. The weather was beautiful, the booze was flowing on Duval Street and while most people were dancing and laughing and enjoying another perfect sunset, we were on the “trolley of the doomed” touring the most haunted places on the island. And for a tiny island, there are a LOT of haunted places. Read the rest of this entry »
If there’s an option, always pick Key West
Location, location, location; my father’s cautionary advice to me upon purchasing a first home. “Nothing else matters, Kath, location, location, location.” It was good advice, I was glad to have it.
The advice, it turns out, is relevant to a novel’s setting too, but since Dad had no similar editorial advice, Clark and I learned this literary lesson — and the ripple effects on everything from post-publishing marketing strategies to taxes — on our own.
Here are four fruits of that experience, interspersed with a running deliberation on a related question: does the literary ball-and-chain “write what you know” meme apply to setting choice too? (For sure, hell no and it depends). Read more >>
