Storm Grant Life Resembles Art

Life Resembles Art

Or sometimes, TV resembles something I’ve written.

Earlier this week, I was flipping channels and landed on a TV show featuring a de-fanged vampire. There was a horrible scene of blood dripping out of the blood-sucker’s mouth, and some really great camera shots showcasing big empty sockets where his canines had been. Make that “ex-blood-sucker”. Apparently in this show’s world-building, no canines = starving to death. They never grow back and without them, the vampire can’t feed.

I’d actually thought of this scenario a couple of years ago, only with 100% less death! In my world, there’s another body fluid on which a de-fanged vampire can survive. Happily.

I let this premise percolate in the back of my mind for a long time, then I started thinking “under what circumstances would a vampire lose his teeth?” followed by, “And how will I make this a sexy love story?” 

I made a few notes, opened my GMC* template, and then suddenly, I’d written an m/m romance about a vampire and his dentist. Don’t you just love it when that happens?

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NOTE: *GMC = Goals, Motivation and Conflict, a fabulous book by Debra Dixon with a simple formula for writing character-driven fiction. I use this in conjunction with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat story structure for plot-driven fiction. Together, they’re all you need to plan a book.

Here's the blurb:

No greater love has a vampire than for his dentist.

Deeply in debt to a loan shark, oversexed dentist Cary Drewel lives in fear of foreclosure and bodily harm. His new practice is missing one rather crucial element: patients. Which, terrifyingly enough, is the one thing his creditors also don’t have.

Pierce Sharpe, a powerful vampire with a drinking problem—or, more accurately, a problem drinking—can’t feed through the pain in his damaged eye teeth. In danger of losing his standing in the vampire community, Pierce seeks Cary's dental services. When Cary extracts his canines, Pierce must turn to other bodily fluids for sustenance.

Together, Cary and Pierce find a mutually pleasurable solution to both their problems. Turns out, though, there’s more to this dentist-patient relationship than simple suction, and what began with raw hunger from each of them might just end in love.

Click the title to read an excerpt and purchase Sucks and Blows.

Visit Storm's website.

Ethan Stone - In The Flesh

'm so excited to be hosting Ethan Stone today. He's an up and coming author and he's talking about his current release, In the Flesh and how it's connected with his upcoming release, Flesh and Blood. Welcome Ethan to my little corner. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The idea of Cristian Flesh, the star of my first book In the Flesh and the sequel, Flesh & Blood, due out in March, started with only his last name. I loved the idea of using the name Flesh. I knew Flesh was a very visceral character, one who spoke his mind and loved sex. And it grew from there. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. But, like dozens—hundreds—of other people I had plenty of excuses. I was married, had kids, going to school full time, working full time, starting a career, ending a career, accepting I was gay, getting a divorce, being a single father and plenty of other excuses. I just didn’t think I had it in me and most of all, I didn’t think there was a market for what I wanted to write. I had absolutely no idea there was such a huge market for the stories in my head—fiction starring gay men with a strong sexual content. Then a few things happened the first was discovering a magnificent website Paperback Swap. I discovered the existence of the m/m genre and also made a wonderful friend. She read m/m books as well and proposed we trade books amongst ourselves. We also learned we were both writers and it wasn’t long before she had her first book accepted by Dreamspinner Press—Promises by Marie Sexton.

With Marie’s help I saw that it was everyday people getting published in the m/m genre. I messed with a few things I had written years before but nothing clicked. Then, like I said before, I came up with an idea for a character with the last name of Flesh. I wrote out the basic concept of Cristian Flesh on my down time at work. Page after page of notebook paper with character and plot notes. Names of supporting characters changed even within those pages, but the plot stayed the same from there until my first draft. Forcing myself to write that first draft wasn’t easy at all, but thanks to Marie, I pushed on. And then she read my first draft. And that’s where the plot changed. I had been so set on the plot I had originally envisioned that I didn’t see the major problems. The biggest problem was that Cristian looked like a dirty cop and a jerk. And not even a lovable jerk, just a downright asshole. So that meant a major rewrite and then more rewriting and more rewriting. Thank God, Marie was patient with me, especially since she was busy working her own novels. Cristian Flesh did end up being very similar to how I originally envisioned him. He can be a dick, and he’ll tell you that, but when he loves, he loves completely and totally. I don’t know if there’ll be any stories with Cristian after Flesh & Blood, though I do have some basic story ideas—including a short which would take place before In the Flesh and involves Cristian and a pair of red-headed twins. Flesh & Blood is due to be published in early April and Wolf Moon, a paranormal story, is due out at the end of April. I’m slowly working on my fourth novel, a story starring Gabe Vargas who was a supporting character in both In the Flesh and Flesh & Blood. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Awesome, Ethan! I love to hear about how other people's book are born. I would say created but to me, it's the work, nurturing, molding and polishing to make a good book a great book. Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing with us. You can find Ethan's books here: His website is here: