Vampire Science: How much blood for an erection?

How much blood does a vampire have to drink to have sex?

If vampires have no blood of their own, and blood is required for a man to get an erection, it stands to reason that a vampire would have to drink blood to get a hard on. Since the blood that fills erectile tissue does not flow to the penis and stay there (it still flows, it just maintains a higher concentration as the blood vessels going in and out expand and contract appropriately) we are not talking about drinking just enough blood to fill a penis, but enough blood to flow through the entire body. So what's the science here?

Say you're reading a paranormal romance (i.e. my WIP). You have a vampire who has not had blood in a very long time and he becomes very aroused by a woman. She cuts her lip on his fangs and he gets a taste of her blood. He drinks the blood from the cut for a minute or so of kissing. If he then became hard would you, as the reader, be jerked out of the story by the implausibility of him being able to get an erection with only that tiny amount of blood?

On a similar note, how long does a vampire retain blood? Does he need to take in all new blood on a regular basis, or just refresh the blood he has with new blood?

I would appreciate any help I can get on this.

Jenny

Book Review: You've Been Disconnected [R.Allen]

WARNING: Post may contain spoilers.
Title: You Have Been Disconnected
Author: Rida Allen
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Draumer Publishing

Author's Note: Before I begin this review, let me be the first to inform you that I tend to be a hella picky reader. I'm horrible. I'm almost impossible to please. However, the cool part about being a picky reader are those very special times when I stumble across something amazing. Also, I'm not a reviewer by nature. I'm not someone that thinks my opinion is going to sway the tide, nor is this something I do for every book I read. I just felt like doing it for this one.

Blurb:

After five years, you would think you know a person...

Matt Collins has worked with uber-programmer Phil Fink for the past five years and although they've never met in person, he's sure he has the guy pegged. Fink is an anti-social workaholic and a class-A nerd who avoids personal interaction like the plague. Matt and his colleagues love to make jokes about Fink both because of his name and the life they assume he leads. But in business, there's no other programmer that Matt would rather work with. In fact, Matt's sure his next idea is bound to be the big one and Fink is definitely the man to do the job.
 
And of course it's just a bonus if Matt comes back the office hero with intimate knowledge of the infamous Phil Fink.
 
Calling Phil Fink a programming guru is probably an understatement; calling Phil Fink a man is just downright wrong...
 
Five years of being known as nerdy old Phil Fink hasn't bothered her one bit because business is business and who cares what her gender is. But when Phyllis Fink's biggest client requires her to work face-to-face with one of their internal programmers, she freaks out and threatens to leave the country. Communicating via emails and instant messages has always worked in the past, why change what's not broken? Will Matt's intrusion into her ultra-secured home office shake up her personal life as well as her business reputation?

And will Matt keep her secret or return to the office with the scoop of the century and intimate knowledge of the infamous Phil Fink?

My Stunning Opinion:

The Good:

I really appreciate the quality of the writing, and editing in this novel. The author has obviously spent a lot of time honing her craft, and it really paid off. Sometimes, even print published authors make me want to tear my eyelashes out. This author was refreshing, because she wrote well.

The main characters Phyllis and Matt were well developed.

I enjoyed how the author worked Phil's self esteem issues into the story without it being intrusive. Phil wasn’t some wasp of a character that was too busy drowning in a carton of cookie dough, and crying over her loneliness to actually get off her ass and be successful. 

I loved how Matt had a mind of his own, and wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t nearly as good at his job as his female counterpart, but there was a childlike quality to him that complimented her wonderfully. It showed that these two characters had been created specifically for each other.

The Descriptions of the Settings: I had a beautiful visual of this story the entire time I was reading it. I love the detail and dedication the author put into creating a world fit for a computer genius and her lover.

Supporting Characters: All of the supporting characters had unique and individual personalities, as in, they weren’t just normal cardboard cut outs of stereotypical sidekicks.

I really enjoyed the overall plot. The story was long enough to where I didn’t feel like I’d wasted the seven bucks I'd spent. Also, it had a really nice pace. Things weren’t moving too quickly, nor were they dragging ass.

  

The Bad:

There were parts better suited to a How to Book. I, honestly, don't really care about the intricacies of someone’s video camera system. All she really needed to say was: The entire apartment was wired with cameras that fed into her spare bedroom. The author spent at least three pages talking about the ins and outs of this electrical system, and honestly I skipped over it.

Sex:

I didn't really enjoy the sex. It was a bit bland for my tastes. I'm not saying I need there to be leather and spanking for it to be good, I'm just saying some of it seemed incredibly displacing. It was like the sex didn't match the characters. They kept moving rooms. One minute they were in the hot tube, then the sauna, and then the bed room. It seemed like a lot of unnecessary prolonging, and once again I skipped and skimmed through their foreplay, because it was...slow. Somewhere between all of the setting changes it lost momentum. Just because there's a hot tub in a book doesn't mean your characters have to have sex in it.  

The Mystery behind Irish:

I never could understand why the novel was written like Irish [Phil's chat avatar] was a completely different person. I feel like we lost a lot of characterization because it was supposed to be some big secret...Yeah, to Matt. I sure as hell knew who it was the minute she signed on, ten pages into the book.

The Cyber Sex:

The cyber sex was well written. This is the problem. Matt, a man, a beta but a man none the less, was using extremely flowery language while he's typing out his fantasies. It didn't make things sexy; it made them a tad funny. Men don't say things like your "heat." Men say words like: pussy, snatch, cunt...etc. I jerked me out of the story. Like I said, although I did enjoy the book overall, the sex seemed unnecessary and forced.

I'd say I'd give this novel a: 3.5 out 5 stars :)



Creative Process: Cambion and Aloviti/Ala

Some novels start with a plot idea, some with a character idea. Clouded Desire, my first completed novel, started out as a plot. A female creature who feels robbed of the power she should have had by birth, uses what little power she has to drain energy from men who are more powerful than she is. One day, she finds a man who is unaware of his powerful heritage. She takes advantage of his ignorance and begins to drain him of all the power she can. Eventually the male discovers his own power, realizes what she's doing, and BOOM! he makes her pay for her naughty ways.

The Cambion

My female needed to meet two requirements: 1.) She needed to be able to drain energy from others (Succubus? Vampire?) 2.) She needed to feel she deserved to have more power than she did (Two powerful creatures for parents, but little power inherited? Powers bound somehow? Stolen?) A Google search about succubi led me to a description of a cambion, the offspring of an incubus and a human. Given that incubi are not very paternal, and their victims are often unwilling, it seemed perfect.

Thus, I ended up with a cambion whose pious mother was molested by an incubus, became pregnant, and sought the help of a church mystic to try and make her child human. Obviously making her offspring completely human would have been impossible, but the mystic was able to prevent the cambion from coming into her rightful powers. She was left with only the most basic power of draining energy through sex.

This also worked out nicely for character development and motivation, because with a mother who disapproved of everything she was and an absent father, it made perfect sense for my cambion to develop a daddy complex. Convinced her father loves her despite all evidence to the contrary, she spends her life stealing energy in the hopes of earning his love and respect.

The Aloviti

My male character had to have a lot of power for my female to drain. Being that powerful, I needed some way to make him vulnerable enough for my female to take advantage of him and drain his power. At first I tried to think of some way for him to be ignorant of his own power, but that seemed unlikely unless I wanted to get into a whole "human who doesn't know he has a magical parent and powerful heritage" situation. I chose an elemental because I like the imagery of a storm and elementals have renewing energy and lots of it. As I was researching elementals I came upon tha ala, the female form of the aloviti.

Truth be told, the ala has more info than the aloviti. The aloviti actually weren't talked about much, they just flew up during big storms to fight dragons and keep them from stealing crops. Still, I couldn't resist the elemental who also had as an enemy the dragon. Can you say plot jackpot?

Soon I had my man, an aloviti who has been poisoned with dragon energy. The dragon energy locked inside him battle with his own powers and keeps him from using them. If only someone would come along and suck all that nasty dragon power out of him . . .

Voila! Everything fell into place and Clouded Desire was born.

For my notes on the aloviti and the cambion, visit our webpage www.paranormalpassions.weebly.com/alaaloviti.html

Introducing Me: Justine

Well, I suppose my first post here at Paranormal Passions can serve as both an introduction, and a list of shit I want to accomplish this year.
Introduction: Hi! I'm an aspiring writer in the midst of editing two different novels for publication. I'm also a freelance content editor currently employed with Muse It Up Publishing. Between editing and writing, I'm a comic book, graphic novel, and manga nerd. I have a couple of animes I'll watch over and over again. I tend to be a picky reader, and an even worse editor, but hey my time is precious. I can't waste a couple of hours reading a book I have to mentally regress a couple of years to understand. Sometimes I review the things I read. Other times...I don't. I hope this blog will eventually be a crazy active hub of paranormally inclined writers like myself. And well...that's all folks. :)

Now, about my New Years Resolutions:

I could sit here and blabber on about the fifty pounds I could stand to lose, my chipped nails, ect, ect,ect...Ch-yeah, to hell with that. Instead, I've comprised a list of things I'd like to accomplish during the year 2011, a list of goals, if you will....

Goal[s]:

1. Finish Untitled Romantic Fantasy 100%
2. Submit Untitled to various agents and publishers.
3. Finish Untitled Erotic Novella 100%
4. Submit Untitled Erotic Novella to Ellora's Cave, Samhain, and Lyrical Press
5. Edit at least 8 different manuscripts
6. Accumulate at least 60 followers on this blog.
7. Read and Review atleast 10 books.
8. Finish Limbo!

I think that list will eventually grow...hmm...I'll keep you posted.