Tag Archives: Bite Me

what a difference a week makes

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Last week, I had the worst Wednesday ever. ..

Today, I woke up feeling all sparkly on the inside. Did the Sandman give me a Red Bull in my sleep? Did the Sparkle Monkey visit me? Where did all this energy come from?

Oh who cares where all the sparkly goodness came from. I’ll take it.

Last night my nephew started talking about when BITE ME! and LOVE SUCKS! goes to Hollywood to make a movie that he couldn’t wait to go help me cast the movie. He thinks he should be able to play Oz (Ryan’s baby brother). He says he could totally dye his hair red and get freckles for the role.

He’s right. He totally could.

He talks about the books being made into movies all the time. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Dear Garry Marshall Fancy Hollywood Producer

Please buy my movie rights and make my books into the best movie ever so my
nephew Ryan’s dream will come true. He’s okay if he doesn’t get cast in the
movie, but he has totally made me promise that he gets to walk the red carpet
with me when it premieres.

C’mon dude! Work with me here!

Love,
Melf

You think that’ll help?

book club

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Last night I was invited to a local (adult) book club. One of the women works with fishdog, and since he’s still one of my biggest pimps, he’d been talking my books up so her book club chose to read BITE ME! this month.

It’s always so flattering when a book club reads me and then asks me to come for a visit. But it’s also nerve wracking because what if they don’t like the book? And then I’m sitting there facing a group of displeased readers. And WHAT if there is no wine?

Luckily, none of the above happened. They all seemed to genuinely like the book (which is always a plus since it was written for a different age group) and there was plenty of wine, as well as very enjoyable company! Lots of laughing and storytelling and I truly had a great time. Thanks ladies for having me!

In other news, BITE ME! received another fun review this week! 4/5 Stars!

send in the clowns and watch Melf panic

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Before I get to my panic attack, let me show you some fantastic reviews I’ve recently received!

BITE ME! from Leslee at Night Owl Teen Reviews
BITE ME! & LOVE SUCKS! from Sharon’s Garden of Books
LOVE SUCKS! from Zoe’s Book Reviews

go forth and enjoy the awesome…

Okay, I know, you don’t really care about my fabulous reviews. All you care about is my pain…So here, let me share it with you.

Y’all all know I came to work dressed as Mrs. Roper on Friday for costume day. We had a good crowd of costumes…and one of them included a soul-sucking rabid clown from Hell.

Now, I’ve joked in the past about how much I hate clowns, but usually I can handle them. Only Pennywise from Stephen King’s IT has really ever made me wish for instant death. The others I’ve usually managed to just shudder, wrinkle my nose in disgust and move on.

That all changed on Friday.
My co-worker Dan decided to torture me and sadly, there is photographic evidence to prove it.

I’ve never had anything remotely resembling a panic attack until this moment. My heart was racing, I was hyperventilating, laughing nervously until I started crying, and shaking like a polaroid picture. Yeah, I knew it was Dan. Yeah, I knew this was a costume. Yeah, I knew I was safe…but I couldn’t stop my body from taking over and freaking out.

Of course, it didn’t help that Dan was standing behind me saying things like “I live under your bed.” and “I’m very fast. You can run, but I’ll catch you.”

Now you know my Achilles’ Heel, Internetz. With great knowledge comes great responsibility. So don’t clown me unless you wanna die, because I am now carrying a taser in my purse just in case…

Count Smurfula will be blue if you don’t come to B.A.M. on Sunday.

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Look what was in the paper today!!!!

I will be signing books (both BITE ME! and LOVE SUCKS!) on Sunday at the North Little Rock Books-A-Million from 2-4 pm. Please come see me!

Count Smurfula will also be making an appearance…if I can find him. It seems the Kittehs have a fondness for the Count. They’ve either kidnapped him or he’s in hiding…


Count Smurfula demands you come see me or else he’ll get with the Unicorns and bring the Internetz to Life and you know what that means, don’t you? Yes. Rick Astley will make a come back! And since there is only one person in the world who wants Rick Astley to make a come back (RaderFrancis) I suggest you do your best to get to Books-A-Million on Sunday.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down…never gonna run around and dessert you.

reviews! fabulous reviews!

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Check this out! It makes me so happy to know that people who haven’t read BITE ME! (um, why not?) are able to pick up LOVE SUCKS! and enjoy it.

I love this review. Thank you so much!!! Especially this part:

When my power was out for 8 hours I sat in the car with a book light glued to my paperback copy, laughing my butt off and cheering for new favorite characters. I may not have read the first book, Bite Me!, but I can tell that Melissa Francis has been able to bring something new to the vampire world, which many of you know is a rare thing today.

Something else this author seems to have a talent for is balancing out characters. I can’t tell you how tired I get of seeing people try to write from a first person point of view with an attitude and not be able to hold together a real emotional connection with the story. But Melissa Francis did
what they couldn’t, and I commend her for it.

YAY! I love to be commended! (oops. Did I type that out loud?) When I read, I love to lose myself in the story…and when I write, all I ever want is to affect someone the same way. Thanks for a great review, Arya!

Here’s another review from someone who hasn’t read BITE ME! that made me smile. (dudes, y’all need to get a copy of BITE ME! quick, fast, and in a hurry…) I especially loved the last 2 paragraphs:

AJ Ashe is left preparing for a new arrival to her paranormal Brady Bunch Family but she also has to contend with an unfortunately sexy professional vampire trainer. All the while being chased around by creepy nasty things that don’t exactly want to be friends with her. It’s not very often that I enjoy the entire family in a book. Usually there is that one person who just ticks me off. However, I didn’t find that with Francis’ book. I really enjoyed all characters marked as ‘good’.

I have to admit it, for the past week I’ve been in a reading slump. No interest to read a book what so ever. But to my surprise, Love Sucks! brought me out of that slump and back to my more constant reading level. While this book might not be of my top interests (I am tired of vampire romances) if it was capable of stirring my imagination and bringing me back into the reading world then I applaud it.

Thank you very much, Erica. I’m so glad I could help you get out of your reading slump!
Also, I’ve gotten lots of inquiries about a 3rd book. I do have an idea, but I can’t promise it’s gonna happen…I’m certainly gonna try though! (BTW, THE MORE COPIES OF BITE ME AND LOVE SUCKS THAT SELL, THE BETTER THE CHANCES ARE FOR A THIRD STORY… just sayin’…) In the meantime, I’m working on a new series proposal that may not be filled with fangs, but it’s certainly sprinkled with sparkle…

Sparkle on, Wayne.

Sparkle on, Garth.

my biggest fans are smurftastic!

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Ryan, my 10 year old nephew is my self-proclaimed biggest fan. He’s all the time talking about when BITE ME! goes to Hollywood, how he’s gonna be in the movie. And how he can’t wait to walk down the red carpet with his Aunt Mel.

Now, he’s never read my books, but he knows that one of the main characters is named Ryan which means he is a very. important. character. He has to be, right?

Well, my nephew is obsessed with my books being a big hit and he very badly wants me to write a 3rd book so the other day when I walked into his house he hands me a piece of paper and says, “Here’s your 3rd book idea.”

And now (with his permission of course) I’m going to share it with you:

The Final Bite
Author Meilisa Francass
Melissa Francis

The drama continues when one day Ryan was hit with a pistol andgot sent back in time to England and he meets his greatest challenge when himand his new friends have to fight Dracula and his vampire goons. Now they haveto kill dracula before sunset (I think he meant sunrise) [&]find out newromance in THE FINAL BITE.

That is truly a story made of 10 year old awesome.

Another thing that is made of awesome?
My friend’s daughter saw this and just had to buy it for me! Right now I’m calling him Count Smurfula but I’m thinking he might need a better name. What do you think? Any suggestions?

how did that happen?

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Can someone please tell me how it became July? I mean, I swear it was just January! Now the year is half over? And soon (25 days) LOVE SUCKS! will actually be on the shelves!

Really?

(BTW, both BITE ME! and LOVE SUCKS! will also be available on Kindle…)

Can someone else please explain why I always and WITHOUT FAIL burn the roof of my mouth when I cook microwave pizza? (We will not discuss the fact that said microwave pizza was this morning’s breakfast.) Now I have a lovely blister that I won’t leave alone.

BTW, if you ask me about my books and want to know if my vampires sparkle, this is the answer I’m going to give you: I sparkle, my vampires do not.

Hey Oxford! Are you ready for some Melf sparkle?

puffy eyes, dokken shirt, fans and pictures

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I’m better today. I think I have an eye infection. (see, I kinda sorta try to stretch out my contacts longer than I should cuz when money is tight, that’s not really where I wanna spend my cash…) Problem is, now I have to spend the same amount going to the doc and getting some antibiotic. Stupid, dumb writer chick. You just can’t teach common sense, ya know?

So this week I’ve been walking around with a puffy right eye. I kinda look like I’ve been punched; especially first thing in the morning. The eye runs constantly and so I also have a runny nose. Claritin D helps with the swelling and the runniness, but not completely. Yeah, I’m a big fat swollen hot mess.

Last night was trivia night (4th place again! Still #2 overall!) and I brought a couple of books to give away. One to a 14 year old daughter of a competing team memeber(BTW she was GORGEOUS! and now I’ve decided that she and my 16 year old need to be IN LURVE by the end of the summer. Cupid? Do you hear me?) MAY THE SCHWARTZ BE WITH YOU is our #1 nemesis…but they are a lot of fun so we cut them some slack. Especially since they got beat by FARTSMELLERS last night. LOL (FARTSMELLERS are pretty cool too, and my youngest sone thinks they have the best name ever so maybe he should defect to their team. TRAITOR!) So anyway, when I met John last week, he said his daughter was a huge reader and he called her and she immediately looked me up on the internet and said she wanted to read my book so I promised her a copy. (longest run on sentence ever?)Jaqueline came to trivia night last night, I brought her a book and signed it, we hugged, we bonded…and she wanted a picture of me.

Okay, remember the puffy eye? Um yeah. Me, no make-up, a big ol’ puffy eye…AND MY DOKKEN CONCERT SHIRT FROM THEH EARLY 90s. But I sucked it up and now she has a collectors item. Because seriously, that is one ugly ass picture of me. (Jaqueline, please come back next week. I promise to look presentable and we can take tons more pics if you want!) I was happy to take a picture with her even though I looked like I had been rejected by the Grim Reaper.

John was so appreciative that I brought his daughter a book, but honestly I am happy to do it. I always feel like giving 1 book to a new reader is a great way to spread the word. All I ask of the person I give the book to is that if you like it, please tell your friends to buy a copy and to write me a review somewhere. Tit for tat and all that. 🙂

I also brought a copy to our Trivia Jockey (TJ instead of DJ) Brent. He’s a great guy and entertains the hell out of me and he always plays my favorite songs…so he deserved a copy. And I gave a copy to a friend of my brother. 3 copies total. I guess all in all, despite my stay-puf face, I had a great time last night.

BTW: 2 months from tomorrow…LOVE SUCKS! will hit the shelves!!!

words. I haz them.

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funny pictures of cats with captions

Me and my friend, Kitteh (aka Kristen Painter) apparently had the same idea this week. We’re both posting Catmus Pictures…and so far, we’ve managed not to copy each other! Pop over and see what LOLZ she’s been posting.

So, last night was my signing and visit at the Bryant Library. I grew up in Bryant, and even though the town of Twelve BILLION Thousand no longer resembles the town of 2800 that I knew, it is still one of the warmest places on earth.

I felt honored and humbled by the show of support. It was amazing.
cat

The room was standing room only. (okay, it was a smallish room, but still SRO sounds so AWESOME, right?) and we sold out of books (YAY!) and then people sat down to hear me talk.

Me. Talk.

As if that’s ever a problem.

Well, it is a bit different to talk in front of a group. Thankfully I knew most of them, so that helped. And so I rambled on about why I started writing (I was bored), why I continued writing after we moved to Oxford (I was really bored), how I found an agent (luck!), how I decided to write about a teenage vampire (more luck!) and how I got published (A BUCKET LOAD OF LUCK). So my talk went something like this:

One day I was bored and started writing. I moved to Mississippi and kept on writing. I got lucky and signed with an agent who totally gets me and a few years later I got even luckier and sold a book. The End.

Don’t you wish you had been there to hear all that in person?

I had a fabulous time and hope they’ll invite me back again someday! I’ll have pics for you soon, just didn’t get them downloaded last night.

I’d like to give a big shout out to awesome librarian Jill Martin who made these signings happen. And a huge, huge thank you to all my friends who showed up on a rainy Tuesday evening to shower me with love.

Y’all are all smothered in awesome-sauce!

Say What?

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My signing and talk went well last night. It was a small crowd but they were very attentive. Especially my new biggest fan…a 13 year old boy who decided I should be a comedian. Yeah, maybe. Except for the whole being-funny-all-the-time-in-front-of-lots-of-people-who might-not-find-me-funny-at-all thing. And I got to see two old pals from a long time ago…My high school prom date’s Dad stopped by. And good ol’ TTB brought her 9 year old son by…Parker, my youngest and most awesome fan.

Tonight’s signing at the Bryant Library should be a bit larger. I’m excited about it. I’ll get to make a fool of myself in front of old friends, and really, nothing is better than that! Hopefully I’ll find my camera today so I’ll be able to post pics tomorrow!

Now on a more frustrating note: if you post negative anonymous comments on my blog, you will be deleted. If you continue to post them multiple times, your IP address will be blocked. It’s okay if you don’t like me or what I write (hopefully you’ve actually READ the book if you’re going to hate on it…) and it’s okay for you to tell me that. It’s not okay for you to be hateful about it. You may not think I’m the most positive of influences on impressionable young minds…but IMO, anonymously posting hateful messages is pretty negative behavior as well. DOes that make us even?

Whew. I feel better now.
funny pictures of cats with captions