The Glory

A fantastic short story. Wow.

Pen of the Damned

His first cognizant thought was how oddly comfortable he felt. The old football injury didn’t ache in the background like it had for seemingly countless years. And the city was quiet…  Since when was the city quiet? Kurt’s eyes opened slowly and he found himself looking into the face of a stranger. The woman was crouched over him and appeared to be trying to talk to him, but all he heard was ringing.

Kurt realized he couldn’t move. His mind wrestled with confusion and concern as he tried to focus on what the woman was telling him. Her voice began to sift through the ringing, and he recognized some of the words her lips were forming.

accident –

don’t move –

will be okay –

Recollection hit him nearly as hard as the other vehicle did when he ran the red light. He had been typing something to post…

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Short Story Sunday: The Alley

Vampire Maman

Taking a short cut through a downtown alley wasn’t always like it was in the movies. He’d rarely witnessed crimes, or found dumped bodies among the dumpsters and rats. The smells were close to death but not quite. Urine and sun roasted garbage were the aromas of the night. No night-blooming jasmine for this short cut.

Walking along he wasn’t afraid. There wasn’t anything to fear except maybe stepping on something disgusting he’d have to scrape off of his shoe later. But then he saw her standing at the end of the alley.

Had she been a cat he would have taken her home, or found her a forever home, but she was not.

“Hi Val,” she said in a girlish voice. She sounded like she was maybe twelve instead of twenty eight.

“Nikki. You look good.”

She looked good for Nikki. Val hadn’t seen her this clean, well, maybe ever. She’d been…

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Ask Juliette: Motivation for College Bound Teens, Swamp Apes, and New Books

Vampire Maman

Ask Juliette (Ask a Vampire – Advice for Everyone) is a regular Thursday feature on VampireMaman. If you have a questions about parenting, relationships, life, gardening, Vampires, Werewolves, paranormal stuff, art, creativity, history – or just about ANYTHING – just ask and I’ll do my best to answer. And why yes, these questions are from my readers. Send your questions to juliettevampiremom @ gmail dot com.

My daughter keeps putting off studying for her next ACT test and was supposed to have some essays started for her college admission applications by now. How do I approach her about this next time without her shouting, “I KNOW MOM!!!” every time I have asked her about it this summer?

THIS is one of those overwhelmingly difficult questions. I don’t have a guaranteed fix for this. I do have a few suggestions.

Older teens are almost adults but not quite. Some are super…

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Rogue Souls is LIVE!

I love the new covers. This is such a great series (get in your romance and vampire fix.)

JADE M PHILLIPS

Good morning good people! I am in the best mood today. And I bet you can guess why. If you guessed that the long-awaited 3rd book in the Unfortunate Souls Series is LIVE, then you were right! Rogue Souls is finally here! Whoooo hoooo! Click here to grab it from Amazon. And if you aren’t familiar yet with this series, grab book 1, Unfortunate Souls here for only 99 cents!

In the mean time, I’ll be working my little bootie off writing book 4 in the series, which will be out sometime this winter. Come back soon to get updates on my progress. Lots of love!

-Jade xoxoxo

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What is this thing called Pinterest? by The Masked Mujer

I’m still laughing. This is fun and oh so true (even laughing at those muffins)

Mind Control, Elections, and You – Vampire Verisimilitude

Good post. I get asked about this a lot.

Cedarcrest Sanctum

I’ve talked about elections. I’ve mentioned the under-served Vampire Vote. What I haven’t said is the obvious: if Vampires can control the minds of mere mortals, why don’t they? Just tell them what you want and they must obey, right?

Thralling a mind isn’t as simple as that — subtlety is key.

Example? You can say “forget the last three minutes” or “forget you saw me or anyone was here tonight.” That usually works… UNLESS there’s missed evidence. With photographic or video proof to the contrary, a supervisor may decide Mr. Forgetful is either a liar or incompetent; now you’ve cost someone their job. Happy, now?

Missing time can usually be reconciled — “I must have nodded off” — but what about something brain-wired throughout a person’s long-term memory? “Forget you ever had a sister.” Wow. Now every memory of ever doing anything with that sibling is going to feel…

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Short Story Sunday: Fallen

Vampire Maman

Fallen

“Oh man, I wish we could turn into bats like in the movies. That would make things a lot easier.”

Max leaned against the kitchen counter listening to his friend Pierce. It had been a rough night for the hunters of shadows – the Vampires who were dedicated to keeping their world safe for both Vampires and those they lived among.

“Do you think she’ll be alright? I didn’t say anything in the car. You know how sensitive she is.”

Max poured himself another glass of wine. “She’ll be fine, eventually. I’ve seen her through worse. Mehitabel has seen herself through worse.”

“Mehitabel won’t tell you if anything is wrong. Come on Max, she took on…” Peirce paused.

“A fallen angel. Sure, and some people call us fallen angels. They have no idea. We’re just physically different. The fallen angels are pure evil.”

“So is the…

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Maybe It’s Time to Give Up

Kristen Lamb's Blog

I’m a voracious reader and easily go through about two books a week. I recently finished a Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth and it’s a really excellent book, though I’d like to expand on her ideas today.

Though I loved the book, there’s one assertion she makes that I completely disagree with. Over all the studies conducted, she claims that one can never have too much grit. That those who are not seeing the success they want aren’t exhibiting enough tenacity…which is true, but then again?

NOT TRUE.

I think many of us have plenty of grit, we just have them with the wrong things. Successful people “give up” all the time. In fact, today we will talk about what we need to give up in order to gain.

We Need to Give Up On People

This has been a brutal lesson I keep getting…

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Breaking News: Overweight Humanism Party is Announced

Feral Boomer

We’re forming a new party. It’s called Overweight Humanism. So far, it’s just me and my buddy Bob. But we have big plans and even larger appetites.

We believe that big is beautiful and that actions speak louder than words. Where we can convince individuals and corporations to actively seek to help solve some of societies issues, we can and should shrink government.

We believe the Kardashian family should be deported to Alaska where they must live with The Palin family.

We advocate value added and consumption taxes. Our focus is on reducing corporate tax rates if domestic jobs are created and the return of manufacturing as a percentage of the GDP to 30%. We want the ratio of public to private workers to be reduced by 25% in the next decade.

Bob and I have also decided to run for POTUS and VIP. If elected to office, we will…

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On Tour With Vampire Maman (or maybe that was “on the road”)

Vampire Maman

We went on an amazing trip. No magic bus but hey, I’m a Vampire so I’ve got magic everything – well just about.

I’m home after ten days on a crazy non-stop cross country road trip. We (17 year old Clara and I) logged in almost 4,000 miles, saw a lot of amazing scenery, and met some wonderful people.

Sunken Gardens, Lincoln, Nebraska

Aside from a lovely visit with my friend Amelia (thank you so much a hundred times over), we had great luck with Air BnB. We stayed in lovely homes with lovely hosts. If you haven’t tried it out you should. It was perfect for my 17-year-old daughter and me.

My brother Andy’s friend James sent me a message saying he should open up his home as an Air BnB place. Yes, he does have a beautiful six bedroom home with a view of San Francisco Bay, but he…

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Vampires…books, looks, vibes and feelings. What is author R.M.Simone’ up to for August 2016?

More hot fun for hot summer nights – with a bite!

Congressional honor? A breeder of hope? Hold not your breath …

We can only hope that more people will stand up against a childish bully who acts like a bratty out of control third grader. Ignorance knows no honor. Hate know no honor. Ignorance and hate has no place in our government – and neither does the man who prides himself on spreading such hate, with excuses that his pea brained feelings were hurt. This is a well thought out and interesting post. Thanks you S&R.

Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues

As honor dwindles, so does hope.

Is hope a descendant of honor?

If if is, perhaps a little hope can be derived from recent statements of members of Congress in response to the lunacy of the GOP candidate for president. Donald “I am your voice” Trump has rashly criticized two Americans who lost their son to combat in a foreign land. Trump did this, apparently, because Khizr and Ghazala Khan are Muslim Americans from Pakistan.

Some Republican members of Congress have repudiated Trump’s remarks.

From Sen. John McCain of Arizona: “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”

From Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who is seeking re-election: “I am appalled that Donald Trump would disparage [the Khans] and that he had the gall to compare his own sacrifices to…

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