What are vampires to me?

To me, a vampire is never messy when actually feeding. They take great care and consideration when feeding not to leave any evidence behind that could trace back to them. They respect their prey, they respect their prey for the life that is sacrificed in order to keep its own life flowing. They are shrewd by nature, but considerate and well-mannered.

Vampires generally do not live alone; they go about in packs and travel a lot during the night to hunt. They do not however, hunt in packs unless they are settling scores. Where they hunt and how they hunt is usually discussed within their nests to avoid any pattern setting. Typically a vampire will travel to hunt anywhere within a 200 mile radius of their home, they avoid a pattern being set by having one large nest in every 30 to 50 mile radius near large populations and generally swap and change their abode with others as they are not limited to their favourite pack members, but the whole extension of the vampire network.

Vampires typically accept each other very easily and are very protective of all other vampires of their breed, treat each other as though they were very, very close siblings, even if they only ever meet each other once a decade.  They know who is a vampire and who isn’t instinctively and they never get it wrong.

If a vampire isn’t seen to have an instinct to protect or love their own kind easily, they tend to either destroy themselves or become destroyed by the pack members within one lunar cycle.

Vampires have a strong sense of pack relations and traditions. The older they get the more refined they become of the mortal culture that surrounds them. They maintain traditional values; they maintain etiquette and react to the area as the highest possible class that’s available. The vampires have their own dates for special occasions and have their very own culture which they all respect and protect fiercely. Anyone who is sloppy, anyone who acts out of line threatens the very essence of the pack and they don’t allow this and like wolves will either kill off or run out of the pack the one who upsets anything. Along with their traditions there is a hierarchy that is respected profusely, there is a system as to who is top dog and who isn’t and anyone challenging that upsets the pack and if you upset the pack, you die, simple as that.

Despite the respect for mortals they have, they also understand that they are killers and they have to end lives sooner or later and if they don’t, they betray themselves and their nature.

If you are considered physically or more importantly mentally too weak for the pack, they will end your existence. If you are a sloppy killer, you will be killed. If you lure hunters to the pack, you will be destroyed, if you go against tradition you will die and if you ever commit a crime against a member of the pack you will be trialled and if found guilty tortured horribly before you die.

Vampires respect each other, they respect the hierarchy and they respect traditions. They do not treat each other as slaves, they do not turn their own kind away and they always help out.

They work together to keep each other safe and happy.

They hide from sunlight but are not completely at risk in mild light, such as twilight, dawn, and dusk, low light day like cloudy rainstorm weather or fog.

They have no problems with religious artefacts, water or garlic.

But like anything can be killed with a stake through the heart.

My vampires are pack animals, they don’t like to be alone and they never will be entirely alone.

There is safety in numbers and they know this.

They also have semi-immortal servants which are kind of half sired that protect them during the day. Like the original Fright Night.

They are very picky about who they sire and get to know their sired children before doing so.

A vampire isn’t moody, they live their lives very similarly to humans if they can and they are often very thoughtful, content creatures.

Because their memory is wiped when they are sired they don’t dwell on their mortal past but rather get on with their existence as though it’s a reincarnation – which it is.

They don’t sparkle.

They don’t rip their victims’ limb from limb.

They don’t taunt their prey.

They can cross water.

They can eat normal food and drink.

They don’t need to sleep in coffins or sleep at all.

That’s what vampires are to me.

Should I make my vampires sleep?

I have had a passion for vampires since I first watched “The Twins of Evil” when I was six years old and by the time I was nine years of age I wanted to write about them.  From the age of eleven I became what I thought was “A Goth”, though not entirely serious, I allowed my mother to dictate to me a lot on how I should portray myself to the world, but in my eye at the time, black slacks and a black polo-neck would suffice for the tag, with black shoes.  I wanted to wear black gypsy skirts but my mother insisted that with my size (as I was very overweight when I lived with her) I looked like I was wearing a tent and so, I didn’t have the confidence to wear them.

The passion I have for vampires is so deep, that it is a strong part of who I am.  When I haven’t read a book about vampires, researched them or watched a movie with them in it for a while, I start to feel a deep hole inside of me.  This hole swallows me up, makes me moody, makes me depressed and ultimately makes me feel alone.  Because I am alone, in regards to this passion for vampires, I know nobody who is in regular physical contact with me, who has the same passion.  A lot of people I know merely tolerate that this obsession is a part of me. 

The people I have who are my friends and are Gothic, weirdly enough do not share the same concept about vampires as I do and nor do they view being Gothic in the same light as me either.  Whenever I talk about vampires to another fan of vampires or Gothic culture online, I come up against a brick wall.  A wall of which I find sleazy and corny, yet despite saying this, I am not the old school romanticist that I’ve often been accused of being!

In my opinion the last decade of vampire movies has either become too soft that it’s another version of “My Little Pony” or too vicious that it makes me think that the so-called vampires in the movie are just another type of vicious intelligent zombies.

Since I was nine years old, I have been writing an extensive series based on vampires, complete with an encyclopaedia about the mythos.  I say series, yet I really mean saga.

There are over 70 stories in this series and I have never once approached a publisher about them and nor do I feel ready.  Not with my vampires, I am very protective of my vampires.  Yet when I have discussed my stories with close vampire loving online friends and gothic culture dudes and dudettes, I have been told that my ideas are too old fashioned and romantic.  That the days of the aristocratic vampires are numbered and this pains me.  I have been told that despite the fact I know the market of vampires really well, I have failed to understand how they have evolved within the media and how the new style of vampires are what publishers and producers want more of.  So therefore, I feel I would waste mine and the publisher’s time in even approaching them.

I spend two thirds of my serious writing time on my vampires.  The rest of my fiction, poetry and songs are left on hold.  This is why I sometimes think that I will never get published, because I won’t put my vampires to sleep.

Because I won’t put my vampires to sleep, I neglect my other stories, I neglect this blog, which is why I have made a difficult decision to try and talk about my vampires in new posts in the future, or vampires in general.

If you would like to discuss with me what you like about vampires, or tell me what you expect from vampires, I would like to hear your thoughts. 

 

 

 

 

 

snippet 2

It was midnight and Sophie was brushing her lush brown hair that she had just taken out of her beautiful bun and her eyes became heavy, ready for sleep, when she caught a glimpse of a little girl in a cobalt blue dress at the corner of her eye reflected in the mirror in front of her.

Sophie started for a moment and looked behind her, but the little girl had gone.  She shrugged this off as a sleepy hallucination and continued brushing her hair.

Crash went the vase at the other end of the bedroom, smashing into pieces on the floor making Sophia stand up in a start.

What on earth caused that?  She thought.  She started to become anxious, alone in the house with no children of her own and no pets for the cause.  She decided to get downstairs fast to phone her husband who was on his nightshift at Donaldi’s a restaurant in town.

Shortest story ever written by me

The fog was seen rolling over the city like some predatory animal swallowing up thousands of people in one fair scoop at a time like some giant anteater.  Within five minutes the city was bare.

Everyone had gone, dead, eaten by this thing, this cloud and I could only watch in horror from a safe distance, sitting on a hill.

 

Snippet 2016 = 1

Relaxed, lounging on the cream velvet chaise lounge dressed in a gold silk dress she smoked from her cigarette extension listening to adagio for strings on full volume, watching the city below her closing down for the night.

Her man, not far from her was helping himself to another glass of whiskey quietly and thoughtfully.

Years has past she thought to herself, years they have seen mortals below them come and go in their petty little lives, lives that they needed and not any of them ever questioned how long they’ve stayed in the area and how they’ve never changed, not even a spot.

Funny creatures she thought to herself.

Such potential though, their talents are wasted on their greed and their dramas, if only they knew.

Finally she broke the silence.

“Are you hunting tonight darling”? She said to the man behind her.

“I hadn’t thought of it, why are you hungry then my dear”?  He enquired.

Now I understand that this snippet is full of adverbs and mistakes, but this is what I do when I am between writing actual stories.  I just sit and I write random stuff and the most frustrating thing is that on Facebook I have many friends who are writers and I ask them questions like “do you do this too”?  They never answer me.  So am I alone in how I write?  Or do all writers sit down with a plan?

Also understand that this is a first draft and is not part of a planned story, it was just something I wanted to get out of my head and I couldn’t go any further with.