Why Fangs Matter

A lot of people like to talk about how annoying it was that Stephanie Meyer made her vampire sparkle, but I never minded that. The affront, to me, was that she took away their fangs. Fangs have to be the most important part of the vampire anatomy, even more so than pallor, ugly capes, bad accents, and red eyes. Fangs are my bread and butter.

In all honesty I just love the aesthetic. Something about a pair of vampire fangs with some blood dripping or biting into a throat, that's picturesque. I think that's why vampires will never go out of style; they manage to be sexy and really, really fucking scary and disgusting, all at once, there aren't many other paranormal creatures who manage to be both alluring and grotesque in the same way.

Werewolves come close, but most of the time its no dice. It takes a special author to really do werewolves right, at least for me.

Vampires are another story. That's not to say that I haven't read my fair share of vampire stories, because I have. I've read and reread them.

Twilight, obviously, was the Big One, back when I was thirteen I had that whole Twilight phase, yes. Dark times.

But also, My Blood Approves, The Vampire Diaries, I Am Legend, to a lesser extent the Mortal Instruments, among countless other traditionally- and self-published books. And there are so many popular vampire series; House of Night and Vampire Academy both blew up in the YA genre, so there's even room for vampire stories that prey on some of the same tropes.

To some extent Blood of Midnight (which is free today and tomorrow!) was an inevitable book for me to write. But I also know its not the last vampire book I'm gonna write.

Every once in awhile, you just need to shove a Dracula insert into a high school romance, you know?

And I think there's still a market for it. Despite how saturated it is, yes. How many people rewatch The Lost Boys once a year? How many people still troll Twilight forums or tune in to watch Vampire Diaries every week? Quite a few.

So that's me: secretly rooting for the vampire genre from my post in the doorway of your bedroom closet or the swath of shadows in the space beneath your desk, every night from twelve to four am. I kid.

Maybe.

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Your Favourite Candy's Cotton, That's Why All Your Teeth Are Rotten~

~Title from Sippy Cup by Melanie Martinez.

A lot has happened. I haven't written much in the last two weeks, and I don't know if I mentioned why or not, but it's because I went on vacation. I bought a lot of books. And chocolate. And I got my first tattoo!

My cousin and I went to visit my grandmother and my aunt in a small town near Quebec and it was a damn experience. The town was tiny, but charming - every house looked like a witch lived there and if you went inside you'd find a cozy place with a pantry full of herbs, a grimoire and a bunch of cats. It was all wide porches with wicker chairs, small town gossip filtering through the oppressive heat, sweat beading on foreheads, the strong tide at the river - where we saw a massive truck get stuck in the water - and the kind of laughter you can only enjoy in the company of good family and close friends.

It was an eight-hour bus ride, both ways. I have never gone on a longer or further trip before, so it was fascinating, and I was paying attention to every tiny detail - the tricks people would pull to sneak extra luggage aboard, like tying a pair of shoes to your bag or having a huge overflowing purse on top of your carry-on, and the way you could feel the dust and pebbles scatter over the road underneath the bus as we flew along.

We went for walks every single night while we were there; we being myself and my cousin, led by my aunt and her plethora of unique and colourful sisters. They led us around town like saints leading the blind, pointing out local hotspots and talking over each other a mile a minute during a heated discussion on Justin Trudeau. It was on a late run to Tim Hortens for our Gramma one night that I first saw the tattoo shop across the street.

"Let's get tattoos," I jokingly said to my cousin.

"Okay," she told me - except unlike me, she was dead serious.

So we did it. We researched, planned, discussed, and deliberated before settling on a matching set of tattoos: the outline of a crescent moon on opposite wrists. The left for her and the right for me:

I love it. I'd always planned on getting tattoos, but I never thought I'd get my first one on a whim, on the last day of a vacation, without telling my parents - but it happened.

Our tattoo artist was a cool guy, and the shop was incredible - I'll write a bit more about the shop and my experience there when I get the name off of my cousin - but I liked it there. The sensation of getting a tattoo was similar to the wasp sting I got once, like a sharp pinch that lasted for just a few seconds. It is a small tattoo.  But I love it, and every time I look down at my wrist it just feel right.

I am a very big night-owl. It's 12:15am as I write this, and my work day is just getting started. I'll be writing for hours, reading, listening to music, blogging, and trying not to die in this heat. My cousin is a night-owl too, though. We're nocturnal together - and we're so alike. We were born seven days apart - as my mom left the hospital with me, my cousin and her mom were just being rolled in. We stay up late reading side by side, arguing, having movie marathons, just lying in the dark talking and playing games like twenty. questions, having heart-to-hearts. We became who we are today in the dark. So I think the moon is very fitting for us.

So I just wanted to let you guys know I'm still working on Souls of Salt and Seawater, and Shadows, and soon I'll be staring the rewrite on BOM. I'm not not working just because I'm not blogging.

And now, bonus, or 'books I bought on vacation' time:

1. New Moon by Stephanie Meyer (I already had this, but it and Twilight are the only ones I have in paperback, and now I'm one step closer to having all the hardcovers.)
2. Crystal Kingdom by Amanda Hocking (Already had this too, but it was an arc and I needed a pretty finished copy!)
3. Just One Day, Just One Year, & Just One Night by Gayle Forman (Which have been priority reads for months!)
4. Echo by Alyson Noel (Ordered on Amazon, not here yet!)
5. Fallen by Lauren Kate (need to snark-read this in anticipation for the movie - ordered on Amazon, not here yet either!)