Today on Chit Chat and All That! we have Kiki Howell chatting with Ana Hart about their favorite subject.
But I'll let these two cheeky ladies of literature tell you all about it. Grab your beverage of choice, settle back and make yourself comfortable and enjoy yet another first rate Chit Chat and All That!
Ana: Hey, girl! So we're doing a
Chit Chat and All That together!
“Unusual Paranormal Creatures and We Aren’t Talking About The Usual
Vampires or Werewolves.” I like this
topic!
Kiki: I love the topic too. I just finished and
subbed a book about a chimera and a Native American Indian woman with a Dragon
Spirit, so I am all over the unusual these days! Creating their mating ritual
was fun and will lead to all kinds of possibilities for sequels. LOL Plus, I am
working on a trilogy, At War In The Willows, where there are clans of vampires,
werewolves and witches fighting, and well secretly falling in love without
knowing the consequences of merging the clans. So again, not your typical
vampire and werewolf stories there either.
Ana: Hey, those do sound like interesting books!
I'm currently working on a series, One Powerful Addiction, that is blending
ancient Shaman beliefs and common public misconceptions as far as magic is
concerned. I thought it'd be easier to play on those misconceptions rather than
trying to completely rewire them. For example, most people accept the notion of
summoning up spirits and demons in a paranormal setting – which is a perfectly
accepted belief in some magical traditions – but in the Shamanic tradition, you
would go to the spirit as opposed to having the spirit come to you.
However, just to keep things simple, there's quite a bit of spirit summoning
going on in One Powerful Addiction.
Kiki: The stories have been fun to write, to really
let my mind go where I wanted it to. I think chimeras are so powerful and
beautiful anyway, and I have a few research books on Dragon Magick that I was
dying to use some of the information from in a story. Just been in the mood to
mix all the creatures together!
And, don't know if you watch the Vampire Diaries or not, but the hybrid thing
there interests me.
Ana: Unfortunately I don't have access to TV in my
place so I'm not up-to-date on any current shows. What kind of hybrid thing is
going on over at Vampire Diaries?
Kiki: The Vampire Diaries has a vampire and
werewolf hybrid who is trying to create his own army by turning werewolves,
because hereditary, into vampires. But they have this whole doppelganger
mythology going that is preventing him from doing so as in only her blood will
allow the hybrid to conversion to work.
Ana: You know, I have to say that
while I LOVE vampires, I do get a little tired of seeing them everywhere.
Maybe, if we're going to use vampires in our stories, we should spice them up a
little bit, you know? Like vampires that don't feed on blood!
I love Jim Butcher's White Court Vampires in his Dresden Files series because they feed on really strong emotions like lust,
or anger, or fear. I'm totally one of those nerds who plays tabletop
roleplaying games and my game night group and I are playing a Dresden Files
game in which I'm playing as a White Court Vampire who feeds on lust. She's
also a porn star! It's a lot of fun to play, haha.
Kiki: I'm not familiar with the Jim Butcher series
or game, but sounds fun. I like vampires that feed on energy, but yes, we do
these days need to mix up the vampires a bit. They are everywhere. I mean I had
fun writing a historical story where the vampire was all Byron-like, but then I
like to move on, change things up, even if it is to pit the different
paranormal creatures together. I love the interplay of necromancy, spells of
witches to control vampires too.
You bring up a good point, though. One way to spice up any paranormal creature
tale, whether going with old myths or creating new ones is to add in the edge
of sex. I toyed with the idea of my chimera, having so many different animals
in him, of having a mate for each one, but it just wasn't that type of story,
it was more action-packed CIA type thing actually.
Ana: I also like the vampire
generator over at Seventh
Sanctum. They always come up with some interesting
twists. For example, I just navigated over there and the first one the
generator spat out at me is a vampire that subsists on human neural tissue and
he feeds through his skin.
Kiki: So, let me ask you, what are your favorite
paranormal creature outside the vamps, witches and weres?
Ana: Hmm... well I have an old WIP of mine that
features a race of dragons with the ability to shapeshift into humans. I'll
probably be digging it up soon because I really liked the concept of the
reverse shifting there.
Kiki: I like the idea of the reverse shift, kind of
like Annette Blair's Dragon Magic series. The dragon book I used for research is
non-fiction, spells to connect with dragon spirits. Interesting stuff!
Ana: I also love merpeople!
Especially the myth of the selkies (which is so interesting but completely
tragic.) Selkies are apparently seals that can shed their skins, thus allowing
them to adopt a human form for a short amount of time. They must put back on
their skin in order to return to the sea but I know in a lot of the selkie
stories, mortal men would hide the skins of the female selkies so that they
couldn't go back.
Kiki: Ah, yes, the mer people! I love them too, but
then I just have a thing for water. I've
only written one story though using them, undines, represent the water element
in Wicca, and it's believed if you lay in the water, their empathic abilities
sense your dreams and desires, and they help to guide you in where you need to
go through visions. The story was called "Hero of the Waves" included
in the Hope Ocean anthology by Hedge Witchery Books to raise money for the Gulf
Oil Spill in 2010.
Ana: Can't forget spirits! (And
not the alcoholic kind, haha.) In my ARe Just One Bite story, the protagonist
calls upon a spirit of the Lower World (one of the three realms of existence on
the spiritual plane in many shamanic traditions.)
Then we have nymphs, fauns, satyrs... incubi and succubi...
Kiki: I too love to mess with ghosts, spirits of
all kinds, but I love when a book puts together a demon and angel. I just love
the automatic romantic angst created by having two such opposing creatures fall
in love. I've read several and written one to date. I had no idea at the time
what I was getting myself into, how hard it would be to find ways to get them
together. I joked when I was writing it that I spent my whole week trying to
get a demon into heaven - in lots of ways! LOL
The incubi and succubi are something I would one day like to
read more on.
Ana: I almost forgot to mention
angels. I seem to have an obsession with writing about angels here lately, too!
Mostly fallen angels, though.
Now, I have a question for you!
There are a lot of awesome paranormal/supernatural creatures that aren't
exactly sexy enough to be featured as a hero or heroine in our stories, but
what are some of your favorite creatures to use as baddies/antagonists?
Kiki: Well right on track with your angels, I'd
have to go with Demons! Although I had a halfling, half demon half human, as my
hero in my story, A Questionable Hero, I had his father and brothers, full
demons, causing a lot of havoc in the story. Not sure how usual demons are, but
I like them when they can morph between human form and some grotesque demon
form.
I also have done several ghosts in short stories, again, not different really,
but since I write erotica, I like my ghosts to get in on the action, force
human's hands, and other body parts so to say! They are never the main
characters for me, but giving those around them a hard time LOL. Once used the ghost of a witch in a haunted
house type story who brought a couple closer together if you know what I mean.
Ana: Bahaha, yeah, I think I know
what you mean.
Kiki: I was also thrilled to be in
the NNP anthology, Wicked and Wanton All Hallow’s Eve, with you.
Ana: That's a fun anthology. I'm
glad we both got to be a part of it!
Kiki Howell - A Midnight
Showing
Two nights before the Halloween opening of her husband's
theater, Meredith along with the
help of her husband and his best friend slash investor, try to
rid the theater of a ghost who made
trouble for them when restoring the place. The female spirit, it
is rumored, killed herself in the
projection room back in the sixties after catching her fiancé at
the movies with another woman.
The lonely ghost has other plans for their evening. As the scary
movie goes crazy and popcorn
goes flying through the air, the lustful spirit coerces man and
woman and man into some
compromising positions while joining them in the fun.
Ana Hart - Welcome To The
Inferno
Welcome to Club Inferno where the wicked come to play only one
night out of the year –
Halloween. It is the only night when those creatures of myth and
darkness can mingle in the
open, put on a new face, be a new person, and have a little bit
of fun.
Domniar and Laria are no different from all the rest. Two wild
Fae directly from the realm of
Faerie, this saucy couple have donned their new ‘glamours’ for
the evening and are ready for a
little wicked passion, a bit of exhibitionism, and a whole lot
of shameless lust. Just remember,
there is only one rule in Club Inferno: Thou shalt do no harm to
another within the walls of the
Inferno. Unless they ask for it.
Kiki Howell
~Where love is a mystical thing~
Ana Hart
Erotica, romance, and everything in between.
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Thank you Kiki and Ana for a very fun and interesting take on “Unusual Paranormal Creatures and We Aren’t Talking About The Usual Vampires or Werewolves.”
Next week week we have Tessa Wanton and Dawne Prochilo talking about Physical BDSM v's Mental BDSM.
