Jill Tracy

I mentioned before that music is a huge part of the writing process for me. I find inspiration and encouragement in music, but it can’t be just any music, it has to fit the theme. I’m not going to be listening to Lisa Loeb and trying to write a vampire/monster story. It doesn’t work. The other day, I found something new, something I have absolutely fallen in love with!

If you’re into darker more macabre music, I highly recommend Jill Tracy. Her music is fantastic. Her lyrics are on the darker, more sinister side, set to piano. So far, “The Fine Art of Poisoning” is my favorite, followed by “Evil Night Together.” Check it out.

The Fine Art of Poisoning:

Evil Night Together (Not an official music video but a vid someone else put together. Very well done in my opinion):

If you’re still interested, you can listen to a few of her other pieces at her Myspace page. I am absolutely in love with her music! It’s so dark and her voice is so beautiful! My birthday is in July and I’m going to try to get my mom or my husband to get me a few of her CDs!

Enjoy!

Kristyn

Drink vamp… rather than the other way around!

I was surfing around on the net today, giving myself permission to do nothing at all, rather than write. I’ve written for 4+ hours nearly every day this week, I’ve done 18 pages so far, I’m taking this afternoon off. I’ll probably write tonight, because writing and this book seems to be the only thing I can keep on my mind lately and it’s there all the time!

Anyway, while surfing, I came across something rather interesting… Vampire Vineyards. Here’s what their front page says…

Rumor has it that the Vampire Vineyards are actually owned by a circle of vampires, and the company’s founder, an entertainment attorney from New York, is actually just a front. (Whether he and his convertible were commandeered by a Vampire is still a subject for debate.) We do know however that after satiating themselves for years with their Transylvanian blood of the vine, the powers that be decided to spice things up and migrate westward like so many vampires before them.

I am dying to try this! Being a vampire fanatic, this is right up my alley. I mean, I could see myself sipping Vampire Cabernet Sauvignon by candle light, clicking away at my keys. Call it setting the scene, a business expense, tax deductible… eh hem, yeah, maybe not.

If your tastes don’t go to wine, and they do have many varieties of wine, they also have Vampire Vodka, Dracola (which I believe was mentioned in a sort of off the cuff way in Blade III), and Vamp energy drink. So, they pretty much have a flavor for any taste. If water, tea, or coffee are your thing, they’ve not quite gone there, but there’s something for everyone else! They even have a beer called Witches Brew!

The wine is $9.99 a bottle and up which is incredibly reasonable!! Some would even call that “cheap wine.” The Witches Brew is a bit expensive for what it is, it’s about $10 a bottle or $130 for a case (12 bottles). So yeah, the stuffs not cheep, but you’re paying for their niche marketing. This sort of thing doesn’t appeal to everyone, after all.

Searching through their shop I found that they also sell wine glasses, various articles of clothing, hats, even skateboard decks and fake “vampire bite” tattoos. I must admit, I’m rather tempted by much of this. I’ll probably leave it alone for now, I have other things I really need to get first, but the day will come when I have glasses that say “Vampire” on them and Vampire Vineyards wine to sip from them!

Anyway, I thought I’d share this little pop culture vampire product with y’all. Someone out there is getting very wealthy selling this stuff! Correction, some vampires somewhere are getting very wealthy selling this stuff!

Kristyn

Greek Legend: The Vrykolakas

Today, while researching for my book, I came across something very interesting. I’ve always been a fan of Greek literature, it’s one of my favorite genres actually and being an English major has given me a lot of opportunity to read some very good ancient Greek lit, I highly recommend it. Anyhow, today, while looking a little deeper into regional vampire legends, I learned that my beloved Greeks have their very own vampire myth. I was surprised, very surprised actually, it just seemed so very unlikely. They’re called the Vrykolakas.

Vrykolakas are a mythical creature closely equated with vampires. The word, vrykolakas, pronounced vree-KO-la-kahss, is Slavic and means wolf pelt/fur wearer. The Greeks believed it was possible to become a vrykolakas by means of curse, a sacrilegious life, a violent death (note, however, that death in battle is not considered a violent death to the Greeks), an improper burial, or the eating of meat of sheep that had been wounded by a wolf or werewolf. Like many other vampire’s of legend, the vrykolakas do not decompose but rather have the appearance of someone gorged or bloated on blood. Legend says that the activity of a vrykolakas is almost always harmful and because, by nature, vrykolakas become more powerful if left to their own devices, they are to be killed and their bodies destroyed.

Rather than passing the affliction through the draining and exchange of blood, like many other vampires, the methods by which to spread the affliction is very unusual to vampire legend –bear in mind this is spreading the affliction, not simply contracting it. Greek mythology says that the vrykolakas go door to door knocking. If they get no answer, they pass by and leave the inhabitants alone. If, however, the door is answered, the person who answered it is said to die within a few days and become vrykolakas themselves. For this reason, a superstition developed in Greek villages, allowing for the custom that no one was to answer the door until the second knock. Also, it is said that the vrykolakas would suffocate the sleeping by sitting on them, much like mara/mare (a malignant female wraith that appeared to cause nightmares in Scandinavian folklore) and vampires in Bulgarian legend.

Interesting, no?

Kristyn

Source links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrykolakas
http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=20