Vampire Next Door

    I recently published my first novel, “Vampire Next Door”, on August 29th, 2013.  On that day, I remember having such a surreal feeling.  My lifelong dream had been to publish a book.  And I had just done it.

   My passion for writing came at an early age.  I can remember writing songs and poetry when I was in second and third grade.  I remember writing entire plays by fifth grade.  I started my first novel when I was fifteen.  That novel is still a work in progress, and I believe it will be my masterpiece, so to speak.  And, of course, it is about vampires.  My obsession with vampires started in the year 1994.  Interview with a Vampire and “The Last Vampire” series by Christopher Pike were at the top of my list of things to obsess about.  The more I watched and the more I read, the more I wanted to write about vampires.

    “Vampire Next Door” was initially two separate stories.  The first story was about a battered woman who was married to a rich, powerful and evil man.  There was a vampire living next door who was in love with this woman and saved her life after her husband had gone too far.  The woman reminded him of a long lost love from his past.  It was really a fairytale kind of story.  At the same time I was developing that story, I had another story in my head.  The other one was about a woman who had amnesia.  While trying to adjust to a new life without a past, she fell in love with her doctor, who had an evil twin brother.   Now, the plots for these books were not complete in any sense.  I honestly would have never finished each one individually.  They were missing something…a lot actually, and I was too busy working on several other books to pay them any mind.  They were just ideas.  And that was that.

    I often hear from authors about their characters speaking to them, almost as if they’re begging for their story to be told.  Well, Sebastian wouldn’t get out of my head.  I thought about him.  I dreamed about him.  He was everywhere.  One day while I was looking through my many, many, many (did I say many?) documents with all my stories on my computer, something just clicked.  Combine the two stories that were going nowhere and come up with a brand new story.  And so Sebastian Alexander became the main character for “Vampire Next Door”, and he became my obsession for the few months while I wrote the book.  Sebastian had finally found his home in “Vampire Next Door”.

    My method of writing is not methodical, to say the least.  I tend to think of my method as a jigsaw puzzle.  I get ideas for chapters, and I write them down at a feverish pace while the idea is still in my head.  Now, I could be working on the beginning, the middle or the end at any given time.  And, hell, I work on several different books at the same time as well.  How all of those chapters come together at the end into one big story is a mystery.  I like to think I have the entire story in my head and that I planned the whole thing from the beginning, but I don’t know if I honestly believe that sometimes.  But I also give a lot of credit to my “jigsaw puzzle” method, because I think that’s how my stories get so much action.  I’m writing each chapter individually and giving it everything I have, and it makes for  a great story in the end!

    The characters were easy to come up with.  I never have a hard time with the characters actually, and I usually create them before I even come up with a good plot.  Sebastian Alexander is based on real-life actor Colin Egglesfield.

    And the ladies out there can see why I didn’t mind having that image stuck in my head for months.  😉  Whenever I have a book idea, I create a folder and keep the character’s pictures in it.  It helps me when I’m trying to imagine a certain way they would act or look in different situations.  I even keep pictures of houses, cars, etc., just to help with bringing the characters, places and things into reality while I write about them.

    Although the characters were not hard to come up with, the blurb was.  The blurb for “Vampire Next Door” was not a simple task.  In fact, I think it was harder than writing the entire book.  I made about a hundred drafts of a blurb and edited and edited and edited until I thought it was near perfect.  “Vampire Next Door” has such a complicated plot (most of my books do) that it was difficult for me to pinpoint the real drama that would catch the reader’s attention and not give away any spoilers.  Here is the blurb:

After being left for dead in the woods, a woman wakes up from a coma. With no memory of her past, she is given the name Jane Doe. While trying to adjust to her new life, tragedy strikes again. However, this time a mysterious and handsome next-door neighbor is there to help her pick up the pieces. But is he really a stranger, or does he hold the key to unlocking her past and finding out who wants her dead?

    Not bad, eh?  It only took me two days and about a hundred revisions and the advice from a few friends.  All that work for just a blurb!  I’m thinking for future novels that I’ll write the blurbs first and then the book! 😉

    If you would like to purchase a copy of “Vampire Next Door”, you can find it on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EV69622  There you can find the e-book for your Kindle or the paperback.  I also have an eStore through CreateSpace – https://www.createspace.com/4153084