It has been an interesting few years for me. In 2011, I dusted off my epic fantasy Kings of Infinite Space, which had sat on my shelf neglected for eleven years, and self-published it through KDP. (My 2013 novella, Hrana, is an extract from this.) In 2012 the writing bug really hit me, and for six months I was consumed by the darkness of human history that fed into my second novel Suzie and the Monsters, and the light-hearted short-story spin-off An Aromantic Romance (published originally in the charity anthology Pick’N’Mix). That was also the point when I finally embraced blogging, after two earlier failed attempts.
In 2013, the online story of my friend Alyth, which had started in 2012 as an (originally innocent but increasingly erotic) epistolary series about a witch with real powers, became dominated by a lesbian vampire plot. (There is surely nothing quite so dangerous as a lesbian vampire – and do not dare to disagree with me on that.) Later that year, a brief obsession with the idea of a world without men led to my post-apocalyptic novelette The Slave-Girl and the Vampire (originally published in the charity anthology In Vein), followed quickly by the sequel Serpent in Eden (written over Christmas but published in 2014), which had started out with Eve as a lesbian vampire but got switched around for a decidedly heterosexual Eve living on the fringes of a lesbian utopia.
2013 was also the year when I dived into erotic poetry (collected and published as Quantum Sex & other entanglements), and more followed in 2014 but with greater focus on different poetic structures. My poetry is very rarely personal. (I am too much a story-teller, and also too much a mathematician. Even in writing haiku, I am happiest when restricted to 5-7-5, and always I say far far too much in those seventeen syllables.) For NaPoWriMo I picked the theme of Supergirl on a whim, and fell headlong in love. While I can’t take all the credit, or indeed any, I am delighted that Supergirl is getting her own TV series. My fingers are firmly crossed in hope that she’ll get a dominatrix girlfriend…
I am particularly fond of my ten-part romance Lesbian Succubus Diary, an online epistolary series from 2014 that has not been published elsewhere. I may not get reviews, or even comments, but my blog stats often show that someone has read all the way through, which is validation enough. Alyth, on the other hand, is much neglected – which I think shows the importance of the title for finding readers. Maybe I should change the title of the latter from Alyth: Witch on Fire to The Erotic Adventures of Alyth the Bisexual Witch. Or not.
As you probably know, or can guess from the above, I have a fondness for female vampires who like females (see The Female Vampire and My Top Ten … Fantastic Female Vampires), and I have in my head a really great idea for a story – with yet another female vampire who like females. But although it’s a great idea, the story is yet to grab hold of me and force me to write it.
Whereas, a funny, playful little idea for another story, having nothing to do with vampires of any sexual orientation, has blossomed over the past few days and is currently over 8000 words in length. I love the way it gets my imagination going and almost writes itself – and the strangest thing about it is that it is Victorian steampunk, something that I have always shied away from. I thought I was writing a short story, but it’s starting to look like there’s potential for more. Time will tell.
Francis James Franklin (Alina Meridon) 