Research a new character with your tastebuds 😋

Before we start, I’ve been working on the backend of this newsletter to improve deliverability, as for some of you it’s been heading right into the ol’ spam filter. Please add [email protected] to your contacts, so you don’t miss any of the really exciting updates that are coming this month…

Hey Fabulous Readers! It feels like it’s been two months since the last newsletter, not two weeks 😂😭 But that aside, let’s get this rolling with an announcement! 📢

I have been considering pursuing graphic novel adaptations, and would love to speak with any professional comics artists who might be interested in discussing this project.

(I know what you are thinking, but sadly Kwasi is too busy already with other projects to take this on 😭)

So if you know any comic artists who would love to take on a dynamic vampire story with violence and history (and I have ideas on what to do with the spicy bits to make them compelling but not graphic), please pass along my info to them or theirs to me. Just hit reply to this email or send to rb at ravenbelas dot co

(This would seem like a crazy way to find people, but when I wrote about not being able to get the legal permissions to use “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” in my story “Finding Bela Lugosi,” it turned out that a wonderful reader of this newsletter was working in that industry and helped me make it happen. And I know that many of you who read this are fantastically talented in your own rights and have extremely cool friends, so from that perspective, it’s just the right place to start 😎)

Research with your tastebuds 👅

As you may recall from the last newsletter, the new character of Caaisho was announced, with some gorgeous art by Kwasi. Caaisho is a Somali-American woman who is about the come head-to-head with the am’r—and neither she nor the world of the am’r will ever be the same again…

(For those of you who might be worrying, never fear, Noosh is not going anywhere! Well, she’s continuing on the journey you last saw her embarking upon, in the story “Teeth Are Bones” in Blood Triad, but you will absolutely be seeing her )

Obviously, for Caaisho, I need to do my homework and do it well, giving the character’s backstory the respect it deserves, and I have indeed done a lot of reading over the past many months…

One fun part of the research is that I’m cooking dishes that Caaisho would have grown up thinking as the “taste of home.” I was excited to find Soo Fariista / Come Sit Down by Wariyaa: Somali Youth in Museums — high school students who explore cultural preservation and history through food.

During the nor’easter last Monday, I made my first dishes from the cookbook:

And canjeelo, a pancake-like flatbread that soaks up the sauces perfectly!

Canjeelo reminds me to mention again that in the Somali language, the “c” is not at all like English. So our new character Caaisho’s name should not be said with a hard “k” sound at the front of her name. Here’s some perfect practice for you!

The first two dishes came out perfectly and I loved the flavors so much that I can’t wait to eat my way through the cookbook. For the canjeelo, I need much more practice, and I have found a more complex version of the recipe that I am going to try next time.

I won’t fill this newsletter with recipes, but if you want to try any of theses dishes without buying a whole cookbook, email me and I’ll send you that recipe, with my notes.

Blood Depths Update

Chapter One is finally done! (Well, at least pre-editing “done.”)

This chapter has been a helluva thing to write. First off, it is told by Caaisho, and it’s the first introduction to her voice, so it’s gotta be great—no pressure! 😂😭

Secondly, it must kick off the story with Action, Baby! I personally don’t need an initial action chapter to get into a book, but I grew up with Robin Mckinley and Susan Cooper and Tolkien, et al, and I don’t mind doing an “ease on down the road” into a story.

But all the advice right now is that your first chapter must kick the reader in the face for people to not put it on their “DNF” list, especially in the genre sandboxes I am playing in.

I first wrote this first chapter years ago, right after I finished Blood Eternal (which was still titled Blood Ad Infinitum, back in those ancient days.)

Then, well, I left The Terrible Publisher, and Blood Depths got set aside for years while I republished everything, blah blah, you know that story.

Then this past summer I finally picked it up again, heavily retooled the first chapter…and realized I was not ready to tell Caaisho’s story, and I had massive research and rewriting to do. I proceeded to jump head-first into that 🏊‍♀️

Last month I cut everything that was in old Chapter One, and started it from scratch. I wrote the chapter, finished it…and suddenly realized it was not an Action Chapter, but a very lovely “get to know the character” chapter. After swearing passionately under my breath (I was at one of my mom’s doctor’s appointments, in a waiting room), I selected the whole damn thing, moved it to Chapter Three (where it doesn’t need much rework to be perfect), and started writing Chapter One Yet A-Fucking-Gain.

I’ve lost count of how many rewrites that is, but honestly we are getting up into Blood Ex Libris territory, where I did a huge re-editing pass every time I got a rejection letter for five long years 🙄

Anyway, I am very excited about this shiny new Chapter One and I hope it will kick you in the face like THIS in a very satisfying way

I have two huge news items that I want to write about, but cannot yet, until they finish working through the stage they are in (publishing is such a frustrating business!) so I am going to keep this newsletter short, and go rework Chapter Three to being exactly the chapter it needs to be. So until two weeks from now, know you are cherished readers, and I hope in all your endeavours you follow the guideline of “Be good or be good at it!” 😘

💭 I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

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