Written in Blood

I am keen to the idea that I'm a writer. I write, so doesn't that make me a writer? I'd love to be a published author. That is something I cannot say I am. This fact doesn't come to me for a lack of trying. Believe me, I have tried. I thought it just took writing that one amazing story that would get your foot into the door. Well, I wrote that story, a vampire story if you haven't already guessed called "Dying to be Dead". I'm actually still half-heartedly writing a sequel to this first novel.



I completed my novel and I had no idea what to do next. So I got online and I looked through the websites of some of the literary agents that I found listed in a book called "The Writer's Market". Some of these lit agents had an electronic submission form. I sent my first 50 pages to one. Two days later they dropped a bomb on me with one of their automatic Dear John letters that said I wasn't something they were interested in at this time...but hey..Keep on writing! I felt like someone jumped up and down on my chest with a pair of size 15 Birkenstocks. I was disenchanted to say the least.



Although, I didn't want to accept that I was out of the game just yet. So a couple of months later, (yes, it took me 2 months to work up the courage again to submit to another lit agent), I got online again and found another agent and this one had an electronic query form. I read a little bit about doing queries in my writing handbook. I was flimsy on the whole idea at best. I built up a synopsis for my story the best that I could, all the while knowing it was robbing my story to try and place it in a little box of 200 words or less. I did it, though. I submitted, and they took over two long weeks to get back to me with the same lame, generic letter as the previous rejecting lit agent. Do these guys meet up for lunch and share their material or what?



Feeling rejected, humiliated, and just plain beaten down...I gave up for a while. I still have that spark in me that tells me to write everyday. I work for an article content site that allows me to get paid for writing. Yeah, its lame-ass web content no-brainer articles, but at least I write everyday. So my manuscripts sit there collecting dust while I watch this cycle of teen vampire stories explode just about everywhere you look. Maybe it's just a case of vampire overload. Maybe I'll ride it out...I don't know. All I know is that these suits might be able to keep me from being a published author, but I'll always be a writer.

Vampires Will Live Forever

Vampires have been a favorite plotline for stories since Slavs stood around open fires and blamed vampires for their ruined crops and stolen virginity.

Varney the Vampire stole his way into Victorian literature. Then Bram Stoker got a hold of the history of the Count of Wallachia. He spun an epic tale that turned Vlad Tepes into the mythical Count Dracula. This was a turning point where vampires went from being something decrepit out of a nightmare into something undead willfully pulled from a fantasy. All of the sudden the vampire was debonair. He was the midnight seducer. The taking of the blood stood for so much more.

Then, along came Anne Rice and her brat prince Lestat de Lioncourt. Lestat broke every rule. Humans were food, but also so much more. Humans became playthings, and temporary love interests. Vampires had souls, or worried whether they did or not. They struggled between their inherent nature and trying to being good. They stalked the evildoer and had a conscience.
Anne rice shaped much of what is seen today in the vampire world. She gave many of us that first taste that left us yearning for more. Anne Rice walked away from the vampire genre and left us empty with no one to pass the torch onto.

Stephenie Meyer came into the scene, be it the young adult scene just at the time we were starving. We wanted blood, and she gave us vegetarian vampires that sparkled. Hmm….Can I plead my case and restate the fact that Anne Rice left us high and dry? Well, Twilight sparked the way for teen vampire stories a plenty. Some good, some bad, some I just won't touch on.

Then, make way everyone, Charlaine Harris comes tearing into the scene with her magical Sookie Stackhouse novels...and boddabing......HBO picks them up as a TV show called True Blood. True Blood is amazing. The books it came from were amazing, corny, very southern, stereotypical, and somehow… still amazing. True Blood brought the Sookie Stackhouse novels' characters to life, and then threw in some extra characters for good measure. If this is the direction the vampire genre is heading, I like it. Either way, they're here to stay.

True Blood Season 2 Finale

Well, the Season 2 finale was aired earlier tonight. I am wondering what everyone thought of it. It's fresh and I won't give anything away just yet. I can't say that I'm too happy with where director Alan Ball is taking the character of Eric Northman. That is a true vampire. He knows his nature. He has made peace with what he is, but all in all he's not a bad guy.


I'm really getting tired of the black and white villain portrayal of Bill being the good guy and Eric being the big bad vampire. I'm not a bookie-well not exactly anyway- but in the Sookie Stackhouse novels Eric's character is much more multi-faceted then what they allow him to be on the HBO show True Blood. Alexander Skarsgard isn't the problem; it's the weak writing of Eric's TV show character.

This is not to say that all the book characters are better than the show characters because the book character of Godric was creepy and unmemorable, a pedophiliac child murderer. The TV Godric was mesmerizing! I hated to see him go. Allan Hyde was the actor that portrayed this version of Godric, and he's fresh out of film school, believe it or not! I hope to see him more in the future, maybe through flashbacks on the show. Even through all qualms I have with True Blood, I still think it's the most amazing thing on television today. I will suffer until next June!

The Road to Cain's...An AFI Journey Part 1

So, we got our tickets to the AFI concert Nov 3rd at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Ok. I've been on the DF page, and several other members are saying that they are going to be there, too. I've never been to Tulsa. It's a 3 hour drive from where I am. I'm sure that it will be completely worth it, though. My baby bought the tickets, my sweet Joseph. I know we couldn't afford them, but he got them anyway. AFI has been my life anthem since 2002. It seems like longer. I will need to be pinched or punched or something just to know that it's all real. The Cain's Ballroom is suppose to be very small and intimate. Davey Havok, Jade Puget, Adam Carson, and Hunter Burgan will be standing just mere feet in front of us! This is sure to be amazing! It's only just now starting to set in! I'm counting down the days!!!!!!