NS-SS - I'm so sorry for no updates for such a long time. A year, even. My life has been going through a really rough patch. A member of my immediate family passed away, and writing hasn't been my highest priority. So I'll be passing this story, and Southern Star, on to an awesome friend of mine. She gave me the inspiration for my name, and she's a really good writer. She'll be keeping some of my writing (yay) and adding things, tweaking them, and changing the story line a bit. In fact, she'll be taking over my profile because I don't think I'll get back on here to write again.
Manly Men will be deleted, unless somebody wants to take it.
She re-did the first chapter of Queen of Night for you to see how you guys like her writing. Here it is below – you can compare it to the original first chapter if you like to see which you think is better. (I think her one is, definitely)
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I love the night. I love the way it can the edges of shapes until they seem as soft as a cloud. I love the way it sharpens them until they could cut flesh.
I love the thrill of the hunt. I love my prey. I love the hot blood coursing down my throat.
I have long dark brown hair. I have huge gold eyes. I have cold glowing white skin.
I look fragile. I look vulnerable. I look helpless.
Call me the Haunt of Twilight. Call me the Star of Daylight. Call me the Queen of Night.
My name is Isabella Marie Swan.
I am a predator. I am a destroyer. I am a vampire.
In my wide travels I rarely come across one of my own kind. I'm not a member of a coven. Vampires usually travel and live in small groups for protection, regardless of what many might believe. None of us are invulnerable. Forming close bonds with a vampire is near impossible, however.
When I do, I usually kill them. Blood-drinkers with flaming red eyes that dim to a dry maroon as they slowly die. Make no mistake, I am not a tracker. I won't lower myself to be a mere associate of those vile beings who live for the base desire to hunt and destroy.
No, I hope that I am a more sophisticated being than that. I do not enjoy violence. I do not enjoy seeing one of my brothers or sisters of the blood* die. It is justice that I wield. Some humans, although surviving the transition to a vampire, must be killed off. Many can go mad with bloodlust, used to being able to indulge in life, they abandon their human morals as one of the undead. Humans are slaughtered. I have seen places with blood splattering the walls, crushed corpses, the dark reeking of death and stolen heartbeats.
I see this, and am glad that I am not one to indulge in being the villain in such nightmares. I feed off the creatures of the wild. I am very old. My memory stretches back over the dusty millennia. There is one thing I have forgotten: my creation. The situation surrounding the affair of my rebirth as a vampire, and any events prior, lie in the dark recesses of the long forgotten past.
I believe that the key to my past lies in my future, and it is that thought which gives me reason to carry on through the weary ages that stretch before me like a twisting black ribbon.
***
Sitting on the window ledge, I let my eyes wander lazily to the twinkling stars above. The moon in the night sky was fractured with the sharp outlines of bare tree branches. A gentle breeze caressed my skin and ruffled my hair. The night was beautiful, and I was lucky, a creature blessed to be at one with the dark.
Turning from the moonlit scene, I surveyed the small room that I was in. Not very large, all it contained was a tiny bed and a wardrobe, neither of which I had used. A small bag rested against one wall. Inside were some clothes, money and a few small trinkets that had caught my fancy in an antique shop.
The small country town which had been my home for the past three weeks was no longer where I wanted to be. Rumours had reached my listening ears of another place, near the Olympic Peninsula, where a coven of non-human feeding vampires with eyes as golden as the sun live at one with humans. I do not know if this is true or a falsehood, yet my heart urges me to go. I had, of course, heard previously of vampires living a lifestyle like mine, but I had never sought them out.
The curiosity and damning temptation draws me, driving all thoughts of resisting this siren call from my mind. And so I go, running through the wild to the little place that pulls my heart. Towards, perhaps, my fate. My destiny.
And so I will answer the call. The mysterious shadows of the wild have always been home to my heart; the times are different, however – and it is time to step out of those untamed valleys and into the modern era.
It's time for a change.
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Jaide - So this is the new and (hopefully) improved prologue. Still short, yes, but an okay attempt. I've tweaked some stuff, but there was some awesome imagery in there, so I didn't want to change it completely. I added some of my own, too. It may be a little over the top and overwhelming....
Oh, yes, if you approve of me taking this story, I'll be looking for a beta-reader, too, because I'm great at grammar but I'm lazy, so I don't go over sentences with a microscope.
*Yes, they're changed into vamps by blood, but it has a ring to it and it is meant in a metaphorical sense. So there.
Read, review, dance. Whatever makes you happy.
NS-SS – And there you have it. Send ideas, complaints, flames, recommendations, errors, praise. Whatever you like to help improve the story.
