{"id":269,"date":"2012-07-26T23:07:10","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T23:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/?p=269"},"modified":"2012-07-29T23:56:30","modified_gmt":"2012-07-29T23:56:30","slug":"what-is-a-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/what-is-a-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Hero?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This post is part of the Heroes Blog Hop<\/a>.\u00a0 Click on the image to the left for details.<\/p>\n

There are lots of prizes, including a Kindle and a huge swag pack – see picture at the end of the post.<\/p>\n

Comment here for your chance to win one of many great prizes — more at the end of the post.<\/p>\n

What is a Hero?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are lots of ways to define \u201chero.\u201d\u00a0 The TheFreeDictionary.com website offers these as its first two entries:<\/p>\n

1. In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods.<\/em><\/p>\n

2. A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life.<\/em><\/p>\n

When we talk about \u201cheroes\u201d as authors, we\u2019re often using their fourth definition:<\/p>\n

4. The principal male character in a novel, poem, or dramatic presentation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Personally I find the\u00a0number\u00a02\u00a0kind much more interesting and prefer to combine number\u00a02 and number\u00a04 in my principal male character.\u00a0 I’m also interested in some of the less obvious forms of heroism, including the quiet, self-sacrificing kind that often goes unrecognized and unacknowledged in daily life. Those heroes are all around us.<\/p>\n

Just as an aside, despite the specific role of number 4, I like to think of \u201chero\u201d as a gender-neutral term.\u00a0 I\u2019ve known a few female heroes in my time. But for the purposes of this essay, I\u2019m using the gendered version of hero as a male character.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My novella, A Vampire\u2019s Christmas Carol<\/em><\/strong>, actually uses the idea of heroism, what it is and what it means, as one of the major themes.<\/p>\n

My heroine tells her reluctant vampire companion that she isn\u2019t married in part because she\u2019s been holding out for a hero.\u00a0 So far she hasn\u2019t met anyone who even came close.<\/p>\n

Over the course of one hugely important night for him, Carol is a reluctant witness to Michael\u2019s heart-wrenching battle to hold onto what little humanity he has left. Doing that means not drinking human blood until the next morning. He only has to do it for ten more hours, but her presence and the continuing intrusions of his maker and nemesis provide temptation almost past bearing, while the deprivation causes him torturous pain.<\/p>\n

It gives her a new view of what being a hero means and motivates her to do what she can to try to save him or at least ease his way if nothing else is possible.<\/p>\n

Blurb for A Vampire’s Christmas Carol<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can Christmas Eve get any more fun? On her way to her family’s home, Carol Prescott\u2019s car slides into a ditch in a deserted area with no cell phone signal. The only available shelter is already occupied\u2026by a vampire. To Michael Carpenter, Carol is the bait of a trap.<\/p>\n

In an effort to hold onto his soul, Michael has resisted the urge to drink human blood for almost a century. Now he hovers between human and vampire. If he doesn\u2019t drink from a human before the night ends, he\u2019ll die. He\u2019s desperately thirsty, but Michael has seen the soulless monsters vampires are and he prefers death. Carol is pure temptation to him, the Christmas present from hell\u2026or is it from heaven?<\/p>\n

Amazon Kindle<\/a>
\nNook<\/a>
\nSmashwords<\/a><\/p>\n

THREE\u00a0<\/strong>grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 100 times!<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT: Be sure to leave your email address in your post, so we can contact you if you’re a winner!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now what are those prizes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet<\/strong><\/p>\n

2nd Grand Prize: A $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Card<\/strong><\/p>\n

3rd Grand Prize: The following Swag Pack!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

Large Swag Pack<\/p><\/div>\n

In addition, I’ll be giving away print copies of two of my books to one of the lucky commenters here on this post.<\/p>\n

By the way, all of my books are on sale at Smashwords:<\/p>\n

A Question of Fire is 50% off:
\nhttps:\/\/www.smashwords.com\/books\/view\/43245<\/a><\/p>\n

Magic, Murder and Microcircuits is 50% off:
\nhttps:\/\/www.smashwords.com\/books\/view\/100257<\/a><\/p>\n

The Night Prowlers is 50% off:
\nhttps:\/\/www.smashwords.com\/books\/view\/131688<\/a><\/p>\n

And A Vampire’s Christmas Carol is FREE!
\nhttps:\/\/www.smashwords.com\/books\/view\/109662<\/a><\/p>\n

Check the right-hand column for the codes for the sale books!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of the Heroes Blog Hop.\u00a0 Click on the image to the left for details. There are lots of prizes, including a Kindle and a huge swag pack – see picture at the end of the post. …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}