One Year With Kiss Me After The Kill

What I’ve learned about writing, and what works best for me, from the past 12 months of working on a vampire romance novel.

I was on Facebook earlier, and this delightful memory came up:

Here are *those* 2k words:

“No need to tremble, my pet. You know what to do.”

Azrael’s deep voice resonated behind me as I stared down at the supple neck of my first victim.

Their skin was covered in stubble and tattoos—markings of the cartel they belonged to. Azrael had chosen this one especially for me, because of the heinous crimes he’d committed.

Still, my heart thudded in time with the victim’s. My breath caught as I inclined my head and bared my fangs.

My lips locked around the drug dealer’s throat, clamping onto the carotid artery, just as Azrael’s long fingers stroked through my hair.

“That’s it. Now drink.”

The first gush of warm blood was like ice water after a day in the sun. I couldn’t stop myself from greedily gulping more and more.

As I consumed his essence, visions of his past crimes filled my head—I saw him pushing meth onto a young woman, barely twenty, her eyes wide and glazed. I watched, horrified, as he held up a local convenience store at gunpoint. I saw him beating an older woman who looked like she could be his mother—and something inside me snapped.

My fangs tore at his flesh, ripping his neck open so blood sprayed across my face. Even as his heart shuddered and stopped, I didn’t slow down.

I gorged myself on his depravity, fueled by the grotesque images of his past. His blood was fire in my veins. As he weakened, I grew stronger.

Azrael had given me the one thing I’d always craved—power.

No longer was I at the mercy of my abusive father, or the predator he’d tried to force me to marry. I was free.

My thirst sated, I lifted my head and turned to Azrael. His red eyes gleamed in the darkness, his long black hair a silken veil around him.

With my mouth still full of blood, my mind clouded by the intoxicating rush of my first kill, I did the thing I’d longed to do since the moment my dark saviour found me: I crushed my lips against his, hungry now for a different kind of heat.

He hesitated only a moment before taking control of the kiss.

He cupped my cheeks, tilting my head to suit his position, and opened his mouth. The blood of the dealer flowed from mine to his.

His tongue lashed against mine—and then came the subtle, pinprick sharpness of his teeth as he bit my bottom lip, my blood mixing with that of my victim.

When I pulled back, my eyes were as glazed as the woman’s in the vision.

Azrael smirked. “That’s my good girl.”

From that night, and every night for eternity, I was his.

By September 18, that new vampire story that was absolutely not supposed to become a 'thing', and was now very much a 'thing' had a name, a 4000 words first draft and a much more unhinged origin for Lucia:

The door to the drawing room was ajar, and she could hear a strange, grunting sound coming from within.

‘Oh God, not again,’ she thought as she entered the room, expecting the worst.

The sight that met Lucia’s eyes caused relief to wash over her, even though her brother was lying in a pool of blood on the floor.

Beatrice wasn’t there.

And then she saw him. Bent over her brother was a shadowed figure with long, black hair nearly tied back with a deep red ribbon. He wore all black, too, with fine lace cuffs and a tailcoat that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Regency Era.

She knew she should scream, but no sound left her lips, as Lucia saw the light in her brother’s eyes dim, and the figure stood.

He still had his back to her as she whispered, “It should have been me.”

The shadow turned to face her, and for a moment, Lucia was stunned.

‘He’s beautiful, like an avenging angel. ’

He had porcelain white skin that contrasted with his veil of black hair, and deep garnet-coloured eyes.

His dark brows drew together as he studied her, and a small, surprised smile appeared on his lips.

“No, sweet one, you're too innocent. I do not kill the innocent,” he said, with a voice like a velvety smooth prayer.

“Not the one to die,” Lucia said, never taking her eyes off him. “The one to kill him. He raped my best friend.”

(Fun fact: “He’s beautiful, like an avenging angel” remains in the current draft! Some things were apparently right from the very beginning.)

Back then, my initial plan was to serialize KMATK. I even made a website for it and everything!

Between that first version, and the second version, which I began a few weeks later, I decided actually, I wanted to aim for traditional publication.

I then proceeded to write the bulk of KMATK during November, and wrote “the end” at 79k words on January 30th.

After finishing the first draft on KMATK, I actually decided to try the serialization route again. I had decided that the story fit a self-published model better, and I had also begun work on what would become my trad-publishing project: Tea Leaves, Pages and Starlight (featuring yet *another* vampire! lol)

The story was complete, so I wouldn’t have to worry about running out of content, and I really did (and still do) enjoy serial fiction.

Between March 30, 2026 and July 27, 2026 I serialized the forty chapters of KMATK on Inkitt, while I worked on Tea Leaves, Pages and Starlight and then moved onto other projects.

With the serial version of KMATK launching, I also decided to give the cover I’d designed a refresh. Below is the original cover, compared to the current cover. And I must say, I am very proud of how my graphic design skills have improved.

At the end of June, I sent KMATK to my editor, the very same woman whose writing workshop had sparked the idea for a vampire story in September 2025!

My editor’s main issue with the story was that the modern setting DID NOT work with the concept of “forced,” arranged marriage. Also, completely accidentally, I was writing in a more antiquated style that would work better in an historical time period.

After some thought, I decided not only would KMATK work best in a pseudo-Regency era setting, but that instead of being set in our world as we knew/know it, aspects of the story would work better if I created my own fantasy world, with both similarities and differences to our world.

That change opened up a lot of possibilities for me, and allowed me to strengthen my vampire mythology in a way I love. My editor also helped me realise I needed to really zero in on Lucia’s fiance, Vaughn, and make him the villain of the piece.

So, a year later after that first “spark,” that’s where I’m at. I’m eleven chapters into the edits/revisions, having completely changed the time period and setting, and I’m about to delve into exactly *how* evil Vaughn is in this new version! ;)

I will soon be sending those 11 chapters to my editor for her approval, while I continue with the rest of the story.

But in the last few weeks, I made another important decision regarding KMATK. After serializing the story, I intended to publish it with the publishing co-operative Crimson Fox Publishing (through which all my other self-published books are available) on October 27.

I still intend to publish with KMATK, but I have not set a release date, as I want to give myself not only plenty of time to finish the re-writes/ revisions, but also so that I can really boost my pre-release marketing efforts in ways such as submitting KMATK to trade reviews and awards, sending out ARC copies to book bloggers etc. and even investing in advertising.

Of course, these things take both time and money, so I am tackling it slowly to allow myself plenty of time for everything.

But, in the last year, I have learned taking things slowly is actually beneficial, so I know I am doing the best I can for my silly little vampire story that became so much more than I ever envisioned it could be.

And yes, 13-months later, I am *still* obsessively listening to Buck-Tick every day, and swooning over Atsushi Sakurai -- the eternal muse! <3

I hope you enjoyed this trip down KMATK-memory lane! I certainly did.

I’m off to make lunch now, and then it’s back to revisions. But I will be back at the end of September with my regular monthly wrap-up.

Until then,

Take care & Stay creative.

T.T.F.N

Cross-posted to Medium and Substack