Blog Posts–and an Upcoming Book–that Inspired “The Vampire’s Lure”

The blog posts that inspired “The Vampire’s Lure” are not about vampires but about the lure of youthful beauty common in real life. Heather Starsong’s novel Never Again, slated to be released this August by Barking Rain Press—and edited by me—concerns a woman who is not a vampire but whose adventures take her one step further… or, more accurately, backward. In most vampire stories, the vampire ceases to age at the point of his change. In Never Again, eighty-year-old Clara meets beings from another planet that make her younger. Heather’s website tells more about this intriguing soft science fiction plot: http://heatherstarsong.com/never-again/

The following blog posts explore issues about youthful beauty and its lure, its definitions, and the varying uses of its power:

http://heatherstarsong.com/2014/12/29/the-lure-of-youthful-beauty/

http://heatherstarsong.com/2015/01/12/beauty-is-dangerous/

http://heatherstarsong.com/2015/02/12/beauty-is-power/

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The Genesis of the AVS

 

Twenty years ago I never would have guessed I would be writing about vampires. I have never considered myself a vampire lover as such (never wanted to be a vampire, never thought vampires were creatures to look up to or envy, never thought drinking blood was cool, etc.). And I didn’t pick up the subject because it was popular. In fact, vampires were not much the rage when I was first inspired to write about the AVS. I don’t write anything because it is popular. (I tried that once after meeting an agent who told me fantasy was out and “sweet romance” was the rage. I set aside my fantasies and tried writing a Harlequin Romance. I fell flat on my face with that one; it was the biggest waste of time and effort I ever made, and it was crap. I decided to write what I really wanted to write, popularity be damned, and if people liked it, that would be great.)

What got me on the vampire kick was a dream I had one night. I take my dreams seriously. I often have dreams deep in symbolism, or even dreams that come true. I see many of my dreams as messages from God. I’ve had several that have been ideas for stories, but none so obviously so as the one about the girl vampire with short red hair.

I didn’t record when I had the dream—somewhere around 2000, maybe. I dreamed I was a jilted teenage girl seeing an event that amazed and terrified her. The dream continued with one scene after another, laying out key inciting incidents of a story with me as the main character, acting on the terrible reality of suddenly facing a vampire in her life and experiencing all the girl’s emotions. A confrontation led to a different approach to the subject than I had ever heard of, and ended with a question that demanded an answer.

Next, I was myself, in a wooden locker room, telling a teenage friend that I had had this dream and it was a good idea for a story.

When I woke up and thought over the question the girl in the dream asked, I decided it was a story that needed to be told.

This was back before the publication of Twilight and the craze that made vampires so appealing that readers and viewers practically filed the fangs off the monsters without any expectation of retaliation. I hadn’t even watched “Interview with a Vampire” yet. When I did, I was so spooked I could barely get myself to watch it again. Maybe it’s a bad thing I got used to the movie. But yeah. Vampires, for me, are not the kinds of creatures I want to meet in a dark alley (or anywhere else), and they certainly wouldn’t light up that alley by sparkling. I’m writing about people (whether they be considered human or not) that you love to hate . . . or hate to love.

AVS: The Anti-Vampirism Society

AVS: The Anti-Vampirism Society is a series of young adult novels I’m writing. So far, the characters and events have spurred an award-winning short story published online and four pieces of flash fiction in two different zines (not ezines–the real, paper kind). This blog focuses on the characters and the process and will feature the books when they are published. I may also post about my other writings.

I already have a blog on Goodreads.com, but I wanted a place where I could incorporate pictures, graphics, and color schemes. Now I’m struggling to make the new blog work the way I want to with minimal instructions and minimal ability to re-do what I don’t like. I thought experimentation with the colors would be easy, but I cannot find a way to get back to the original night-sky background shade of WordPress’s Dark To Dawn theme. Even going back and selecting the theme again doesn’t give me a chance to start over again. If anyone would like to tell me how to get back to the default background, please comment, and I will be eternally grateful.

I hope you read slowly enough to notice the term is Anti-VampirISM and not Anti-VAMPIRE. The name is decided upon by a group of kids who have seen one of their own bitten and hope they don’t have to kill him. One of them, Darrell, thinks that if his best friend Hugh has become a vampire the only thing they can do is destroy him. But Mary, who is still shell-shocked that her boyfriend has left her for someone else–and then witnessed the new flame biting him–bears the hope that there might be some other way to prevent disaster.