What I'm Writing, and Why, and Jesus This Entry Got Long

So, what am I writing?

A vampire story.  Because I figure, what is a market that isn’t quite saturated to its very limit?

Ever since I was a wee ginger lad, I’ve loved monsters. My grade school library had an encyclopedia of malign creatures from around the globe which I would check out on a monthly basis and pour over for hours. The one creature that stood out, more than any other, was the vampire, the undead creature with a thirst for human blood. This love was no doubt reinforced by Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula, which would air on cable with some regularity. His endless hunger, commanding grace, and timeless evil mystified me even as it scared the shit out of me. I used to have nightmares that he was sitting at the edge of my bed, just waiting for my feet to come untucked so that he could nibble in my toes. Needless to say, I wrapped myself up like a mummy every night to ensure this never came to pass, and never questioned why fucking Dracula, immortal demon of the night, would bother flying to San Diego to suck on a pre-adolescent kid’s feet.

Time marched on, and I was introduced to new versions of my favorite monster. I eventually actually read the book Dracula, and (surprise surprise) thought it was great, though was surprised at the titular character’s ability to walk around in sunlight. I found Gary Oldman’s portrayal of the big guy to be amazing (though that might just be me man-crushing on Mr. Oldman), even if the movie itself got really fucking weird.

Anne Rice’s wet dream emo prince Lestat was interesting in an overly sexualized sort of way. I never understood the need to sexualize the vampire; what’s so great about humping a giant, human-shaped parasite (this goes double for you, True Blood)? However, she also did a service to the genre by decoupling the creature from Christian allegory (well, until she didn’t; long story, don’t ask). She lost me when she turned her boy into Superman.

Whedon made vampires pathetic punching bags. Buffy vampires seem to have more in common with zombies than with the vampire I know and love. Angel was alright, but suffered from the all-too-common problem that all modern vampires seem to suffer: he was a morose, brooding hunk that spent most of his free time yearning to be free of the curse of vampirism, unless he was busy mooning over his One True Love. Spike was much more to my liking, insofar as he actually liked being a vampire, and fuck the haters.

The World of Darkness role-playing games kind of cannibalized every sort of popular vampire trope from popular culture and melted it into an amalgam that everyone could enjoy. That being said, the setting it created suffered from these unbeatable vampire demi-gods that secretly ran everything behind the scenes, which I always thought was rather silly. In fairness, the reboot (i.e., New World of Darkness) did a lot to change this, much to my delight.

Twilight made everything weird, but in fairness I haven’t read the books. I’ve seen the first movie, and I didn’t think it was as bad as everyone made it out to be. There were even some great “vampire” moments, though yeah, the sparkly skin is just bizarre.

Wow, that got long and rambly.

The long story short, I guess, is that there’s a lot to “love” about the vampire, but I’d like to take a crack at telling a new version of it. Here are some guidelines I’ve sent for myself:

• No Emo Bullshit. I figure if you’re a vampire that’s made it past your first few nights of undeath, you probably aren’t too shaken up by the whole “eating people” thing.
• Older Isn’t Wiser. Just because you’re a couple of hundred years old, it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily any brighter than you were before.
• No Sex. For reasons explained above, I find the whole sexual vampire thing to be bizarre.
• They’re Monsters. Sure, from time-to-time you might get to like a vampire, but at the end of the day, they wake up and eat people.
• Under 9,000. I’d like to keep the “power level” of vampires at a fairly even level, so to speak.
• Things Change. Time marches on. Those that can’t adapt are left behind. Vampires included.

There you go. Let’s see how this turns out.