Hello! You may not remember me. That’s alright, it’s been a while.
I’m K. L. Kerr, the author of the Blood of Ages series. Back in 2012, the first book in the series, The Genesis, was published, followed by a prequel, From the Ashes, in 2013. Things went kind of quiet after that, and for me, “life got in the way”. Jump six or seven years later and in 2020 a little something called COVID-19 happened, and the world was forever changed. During the early stages of the pandemic, I rediscovered my passion for the series and decided to continue working on it. Since almost ten years had passed by that point, I felt that the first book needed some improvements before I jumped into the rest of the series.
All that to say The Genesis has now been edited and updated to fall in line with the future books in the series. The story, in essence, is the same one told in 2012: the series of events are more-or-less the same, and even if you don’t read the new edition you’ll still be able to follow future books. That said, those who enjoyed the original should find the updated version to be even better! If you are interested in getting involved in the beta read of this new edition, follow this link: https://penrefe.com/beta
On the 12 day of the month of March, in the year of our Lord 2000, the Vampyr Snyper Blood of Ages series was born, and the rest is history.
That’s right. It’s 20 years to the day that I started writing what is now the Blood of Ages series. Or maybe it’s 20 years to the day that I finished the first draft of what is now the Blood of Ages series. I’m unclear on which anniversary we’re celebrating, but celebrating we are. The first draft took like two weeks maximum to write, so it’s negligible. I have this date written (by hand!) on a piece of paper, in a file, somewhere in my attic. Eventually, I will retrieve it from the mouse-eaten hellscape and provide an accurate date.
I have taken two days off work to celebrate. Not entirely sure what I’m going to do in these two days.
Not writing, that’s for sure.
Just thought I’d reflect back on the last two decades of attempting to write a series of books about vampires, since it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on this blog.
What we do here is go back…
It was the year 2000, and I was riding my 16-year-old mind high off the back of having seen the Matrix not two months earlier. I had already written four novels by this point. That’s right. Four. I was sixteen, so – as you can imagine – they were all terrible. Author of Eragon, I was not.
The 2000 edition of The Genesis had it all: talking door knockers, vampire drinking games, possibly dragons (or at least dragon-type creatures, I don’t remember, it’s been a long time). It was essentially The Matrix mixed with Blade, and a generous coating of inspiration from the likes of Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.
It was, in essence, a bit ol’ mess.
What’s in a name?
Like many creative projects, the Blood of Ages series didn’t start out with the name it has today. In fact, if you Google Vampyr Snyper, you can still find remnants of its earlier iterations.
I went through my 20’s and my stories came with me. I moved house. I got married, then divorced. I got pets. One died; the other one is still here. I ventured on into my 30’s, still writing, though notably less so. I think I went through something like depression, though it wasn’t ever diagnosed. Just life in general, I suppose. But I wrote less and less, and focused instead on my day job and my life outside of the “writing” world. I’m going to talk about this in more detail on my personal blog in the near future.
But the short version of it is, I came back from that place, and in later 2018, I got a notification on my web site that someone had subscribed to my newsletter for updates on my series. I won’t give their name for privacy reasons, obviously, but I recognised it as the name of a person I used to be connected to on Twitter, who had obviously been so curious as to what I was up to, they had gone to the trouble of signing up to my crappy little newsletter. The pride that swelled within me when I read the notification email really can’t be topped at the moment. Someone cares about my work!
I came back to social media shortly after that, and I also picked up the series where I’d left it abandoned by the roadside and started to write an entirely new draft of the next book.
The Future
And so here we are again, like I’ve never been gone. This web site feels like slipping back into an old pair of boots – comfortable and reliable.
On the 1st March 2020, I finished the first draft of the 3rd book. I am currently letting it percolate, so that I may pick it back up in the next month or so. I am tentatively hoping for a release before the end of the year.
I’m excited to start the next part of this journey, and hopefully share a little more this decade than I did in the closing of the last one.
Dream Team, Then vs Now
Let’s end with something just for fun. So on my old site, I used to have a page dedicated to the actors I envisioned playing my characters, in a dream world. Essentially a fantasy football league, but for a mediocre urban fantasy novel series that’s about as likely to be picked up as it is for humans to learn how to fly.
I feel like this is something a lot of writers do.
Christina Ricci as Catrina
Ricci has always been my Catrina, and she probably always will be, even though she’s well outside of the nineteen year old age range.
Chloe Moretz as Catrina
I’ve had my eye on Moretz for a while, specifically since her role as Hit Girl in Kick Ass. In that film more than anything, she has this kind of dgaf energy that I think embodies Catrina quite well.
Taye Diggs as Jacob
Jacob started as a pure character, a sweet cinnamon roll, a definite “lawful good” on the D&D alignment system. I think that Diggs has a sweet, innocent face, and his smile is just screams of warmth and friendliness.
Idris Elba as Jacob
As time has gone on, Jacob has become something of a more hardened, darker character than originally envisioned. I think Elba currently fits that feel more than Diggs.
Ian Somerhalder as Fox
This is cheating, (a) because Ian Somerhalder is now much too old to play the character of Fox, and (b) because Ian Somerhalder doesn’t even match the description of Fox in the first place. His eyes aren’t even the right colour. But Somerhalder, like Ricci, has always been my go-to when envisioning my characters. I still to this day haven’t found someone who fits the role better, in my mind.
Closest I’ve got so far is Adam Driver, but I suspect that’s just because he does such a good job at playing the emo lord, Kylo Ren.
Here’s to the next decade!
Hopefully, I’ll still be writing here in another ten years, celebrating the 30th birthday of the series. Hopefully, by then I’ll have another 2 or 3 books released in the series, if not the whole first series complete.
I’ve been trying to find the gentlest way to address this, and–well–there isn’t one, so here’s the thing:
My third book, and the second in the Blood of Ages series, “Divided They Fall”, isn’t going to be ready for the beta draft on the date I originally planned, at the end of September.
Please don’t cry.
I won’t bore you with background as to why this book won’t be ready for deadline. Let’s just say that the story was going in the wrong direction, and fortunately, I picked it up before it reached a stage where I couldn’t fix it. Unfortunately, these wrong directions are not an easy fix. They’re an entire re-write fix…like, all the scenes, everything I’ve been working on for the last twelve months, my precious baby…it’s all got to go.
An accurate representation of me disregarding my ideas.
I know that there are (a handful of) people out there in the world who are waiting for this next book. I know there’s not many of you, but I know you exist, and I appreciate you all hanging around in the first place. I’m asking now that you bear with me.
I can’t give you a date right now, because I’m back in the planning stages of this book. Once I have a solid plan–like, a 100% solid plan this time around–then I’ll have a better idea when you can see this thing.
It’s still coming. I’m still working on it.
Questions and comments (angry or otherwise) can always be directed to my twitter.
So a couple of weekends ago, Muse and I got together for one of our usual writer’s weekends.
Amongst other–more important–revelations over that weekend, I learned that I don’t actually hate vodka and orange juice, as I’ve always thought since I tried it as a teenager, but rather that vodka is just a tricky beast that hides inside your drink, undetectable, and slowly takes away the ability to string a sentence together.
We spent the majority of the time drinking and watching Catfish (the documentary and then the TV show, because why not?).
* Put the streamers away. It’s only the first draft.
I’ve been waiting SO LONG to be able to make this post.
Ahem.
I FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT OF DIVIDED THEY FALL LAST NIGHT!
You have no idea how freaking happy I am right now. I’m still on a high.
Last night, I slept SO well.
Yes, I know I’ve used this GIF before. It’s as relevant now as it was back then, if not more so.
So Divided They Fall has been in my mind since around 2002, making it technically 12 years old now, although it didn’t exist in its current idea form until around 2009.
The DTF2002 (that’s my special name for it–it’s code, see if you can figure it out) outline was as, um, “imaginative” as the very first outline of The Genesis (which had the door knockers that talked, and the genetic experiments that also talked, and the injections that could make vampires immune to sunlight for a time, and the car with the SUCKIT licence plate…I should stop telling the world about my early drafts. It’s really not good for anybody).
Its main focus was this shape-shifting spider demon (called Dark Nation, because I’m awesome and also like to steal things from Final Fantasy VII from time to time) that had the ability to change specific events in time, and this demon used her power to stop Catrina from ever being turned into a vampire, for some reason. I think she wanted the Genesis power, or to get in on the Clan, or just to get into Fox’s pants or something, and Catrina was getting in her way–I don’t remember, it was over a decade ago.
My original sketch of Dark Nation in her true form. Isn’t she pretty? And yes, I realise she only has six limbs, not eight, technically making her an insect demon, not a spider demon. And no, I don’t know how she can balance her entire body weight on those talons. It’s probably best not to ask logical questions here. Ever.
Anyway, while the idea was obviously gold, it had absolutely no value in terms of the series (plus, it broke a lot of things, because…well, because a lot of things that happen in the series are Catrina’s fault–mostly indirectly, but still–and let’s face it, if we’re being 100% honest, things probably would be better for everyone–at least for anyone who isn’t Catrina…and actually no probably for Catrina, too–if she’d never been turned).
Maybe when the first series is finished (ha!), we can revisit something along this line, to ask the question of whether changing the past could improve the future. (Future spoiler alert, the answer will be no.)
I started working on the real serious draft of DTF in March 2013, then it meandered for months.
I decided to pull my finger out and concentrate on it for NaNoWrimo 2013. That didn’t go too well, either.
Then I took a little break for Christmas, and I vowed that I would have a draft finished by the end of January. Then February. Then March. And so on.
The more astute followers of my progress might have noticed that I took the countdown timer down a while ago.
I just kept putting it off, and either being lazy or just plain overwhelmed by the amount of work that I needed to do in order to get a complete, working draft.
I hated writing this book. Well, no, perhaps hate is too strong a word. I didn’t hate it. In fact, while I was actually doing it, I loved it, warts and all.
Writing this book frustrated me, perhaps is a better way to phrase it. Or planning it frustrated me.
Back in the day, I used to write a book out of order. I’d do the classic idiot thing and write all the scenes I was looking forward to writing the most first.
Helpful advice for you, if you’re just starting out on writing a full-length novel: this is a terrible way to write a book. It’s pretty self-explanatory, really, since if you write all the bits you really want to write, what you’re left with when you’re done with those is all the scenes you don’t really feel so much love for. And then you don’t want to do them. And then they don’t get done. And what you’re left with is a bunch of scenes that don’t really fit together and no drive to fill in the bits in between, an unfinished not-a-novel.
At least, that’s what happened with me. And I’ve been trying not to write like that anymore. And it’s hard.
But anyway, the important thing is it’s finished for now!
And now…some exciting graphs!
Total word count over time.
I didn’t start recording the daily word counts until around August.
The 20k before that day is a mystery, oooOOOOooooo!
And here’s my EditMinion Report Card:
All looks good, in summary! It’s only when we get into the details where it starts to fall apart. Also, not entirely sure why it’s saying there’s only 94,000 words in there. I think it might be because EditMinion.com has a limitation to the number count. I did write 115k, I swear!
Lastly, here’s a lovely-looking word cloud, showing the most used words in the manuscript.
Seems Devaux is the main character in this book, after all!
(If you want to make your own word clouds, you can generate them at Wordle.net)
Now, I’m a firm believer in the quantity over quality, when it comes to first drafts. Because you have all these ideas flying at you from every angle, you should just throw them down onto the page. Yes, they might be tragically pathetic, and they might not work, but you could find one very important snippet of character development in that terrible scene, which you can use somewhere else.
It’s like the idea of comparing writing a novel to carving a sculpture. You start out with this big block of clay, and you have to make it into something beautiful. Somehow. Using your mind.
This is only a first draft, an alpha version, if you will. It’s very inconsistent, tonally and thematically. The characters are all over the place, in particular the new main protagonists, Devaux and Damien. Catrina is consistent, particularly on being stupid and doing stupid things. I really don’t mean to make her that way (or do I?), but it just seems to happen in the early stages. The biggest changes will be making her decisions less stupid, but with the same results.
The two new POV characters aren’t really solid yet. I know I’ve failed terribly with at least one of them. I’ve never written anything from the Agent’s point of view before, except for that one scene from Nathaniel Rae, and he was King of the Dicks, so writing that was easy. Damien, on the other hand, is supposed to be this complex character who’s supposed to go through some incredible character development, and that’s…just not there yet. He’s just Nathaniel Rae with blonde hair right now.
This draft is not for public consumption, because, in the words of Greg Davies, “It’s fucking awful.”
I sent it to my two alpha readers last night, and they can tear it apart for a while, and theeeeeeeeeen, I’ll be taking it back to start the next monstrous task of the beta draft.
I expect the beta draft will be due around late July/early August.
And now, I’m going to go take a break, maybe play some WoW, or just bum around on Tumblr for the next month.
I’m FINISHED! Weeeeeeeeeeee!
Want to be a Beta?
If you want to be a beta reader for me, you can sign up to my list here. Just bear in mind that since this is the second in a series–unlike From The Ashes, which is a companion novel–I will need you to have read The Genesis first.
I need blunt, honest people to work with. I don’t want things sugar-coating.
I appreciate that I’m not really “selling it” to you with the above post, since all I’m doing is calling it dreadful. But I promise you, it will be better by the time it reaches beta stage.
Alright, nobody freak out, but I’m pushing back the self-imposed deadline of the first draft of Divided They Fall to mid March.
I have been working on this book more-or-less non-stop since November 2013.
I need a break.
I know people are waiting for this book (which is something that freaks me the fuck out. I mean, I have my usual 3 friends (Muse, Richy, Dee–see there’s actually 3) who ask me when the next one is coming, but now I have Internet friends and relative strangers asking about the next instalment. That kind of thing is just…my mind, it’s boggling at the very idea. The Internet, man. It’s a powerful beast.).
And I am working on it, but the going is slow and painful. And at the rate I’m going, I just can’t see a finished, workable first draft being ready by the end of January.
So to save myself the stress, and to save the alpha readers’ future disappointment, I’ll just come out and say it now: you’re not having a book at the end of the month.
Were I in a traditional publishing environment, I’d have already spent my advance and be crying into dust as my publisher and agent both abandon me by the wayside to be eaten by wolves or whatever.
But I’m not. I’m independently published. I’m my publisher. I’m my agent. I’m my publicist, and my media guru and marketing manager and finance department and customer services representative, and that creepy lady that hangs around the copier making awkward and uncomfortable conversation. And I’ve made a management decision to extend the deadline.
So I’m going to set a new estimated date for the alpha draft (not the beta draft, that will be 6-8 weeks later) by 15th March 2014.
I will be taking a short break from writing in the meantime.
Nothing major. Just a week or two.
I might work on something else (*cough*DARKWING*cough*), or I might just not do anything. I don’t know yet.
Only a week or two.
Then it will be back to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, and all the other well-known work phrases I can’t think of right now.
I have set myself the challenging (but by no means impossible) task of completing the remaining 60k~ words of the first draft of my third book for NaNoWriMo this year.
As a result, November will be a stressful month for me while I try to extract all these conflicting ideas from my brain and kind of smush them into words and paragraphs and scenes and eventually an entire novel that make sense from beginning to end.
So I apologise in advance for if you get caught up in any of the following that I do in the month of November:
Being quiet/unresponsive both on and offline.
Talking about nothing except word counts, targets, goals and word counts.
Demanding to be left alone.
Not eating.
Drinking excessive amounts of caffeine/alcohol, depending on the time of day/day of week.
Threatening to “punch you in the throat” or “slap you in the dick”, or just generally being nasty.
Stress turns me from a mild mannered, fairly decent human being into Aunt Irma, so this will be me in November:
I’ve been mostly offline, chillaxing, recovering, and generally soul-searching, which has so far resulted in the possibilty that I don’t have one. I also spent many hours watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which I still can’t decide if I like or not after four and a half seasons.
And I’ve been speaking to my proofers and going over the small army of typos that made it through to ARC stage, including my possible favourite, referencing a scooter as a Vesper (which is a cocktail) instead of a Vespa (which is what I meant). I thought I’d already corrected that one, but evidently not!
As well as a few instances of rearranging word order. I have nothing with which to defend myself, other than to say I can be an idiot, at times.
Anyway, I’ve put all the changes I’ve had so far in now, and I’m probably going to take some time to do a reverse read this weekend (a reverse read, as you may have worked out, is when you read the book from the end to the beginning, a sentence at a time, which better helps spot typos without being as distracted by the story itself).
I’m taking this one last weekend to relax and recoup, and then I’ll be picking up where I left off with the next book.
I’ll be spending my free time attending my baby sister’s 3rd birthday party (oh God, small children), and also cleaning out my bin-on-wheels Fiat 500 ready for it going back on Wednesday.
I’m not going to miss this car. Out of the three I’ve had, it’s been my least favourite.
Yes, it’s cute, but then that’s mostly the problem. I command no authority in it whatsoever, especially with its ridiculous horn that doesn’t so much blare as much as kind of toot, “Excuse me, I don’t think you realise you’re in my way.” And I have enough of a Napoleon Complex as it is, I don’t need a car that accentuates my inferiority–a nice, big car will do away with that anxiety.
So yes, I won’t shed any tears at having to give it back.
Yeah, Yeah, Nobody Cares. What About Your Next Book?
I’ll start resume work on Divided They Fall from Monday, 30th September.
I will get back into the routine of minimum word counts, time counts, and I’ll be logging it all on a public Google Docs spreadsheet and on my Tumblr, so if you give that much of a shit, feel free to follow/like/reblog/show support.
I appreciate it all.
Finally, here’s how the rest of the year should pan out for me:
October to November 2013 – Creating the initial draft of Divided They Fall. [track]
December 2013 – Creating an initial draft of the first Blood of Ages short story, A Demon’s Share. [track]
Yes, I know I’ve used this GIF before. It’s as relevant now as it was back then, if not more so.
