Doctor Who meets Dracula- a Time-Travelling Vampire

I never really intended to write any of my novels. I just started writing, and a sentence became a short story, then the short story became a chapter, then, a few years/months later, out popped a book into the cradling arms of its daddy- me!


hmm, perhaps we could get David Tennant for the title role?

On the other hand, when I began  A Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur’s Court  I had a complete goal in my mind. Not only a novel, but a trilogy- plot lines, titles, everything. It wasn’t like me at all. 

I had the ‘hook’- The title's play on Mark Twain's original time travel novel would spark attention.

I had the genre- Time travelling vampire; Doctor Who meets Dracula, a Bram Stoker’s Sam Beckett gone haywire.

I had the reluctant flawed character, racked with guilt, needing to squeeze revenge out of the situation. On his own, out of his depth, and no vampire buddies to fall back on.

Most importantly, I had the ‘history’…The deeply researched rich tapestry of Tudor England, with a twist; I was telling the story of a Prince that most people didn’t know; Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry the Seventh, big brother of Henry the Eighth, and first husband of Catherine of Aragon. Called Arthur as a throwback to England’s glorious mythical ages, he was a boy born to unite two warring factions in England. A unifying entity to end the bitter rivalries of the War of the Roses. He ended up being neither.
 

From the first line I threw my character in at the deep end.  A time-travelling vampire, thrown back five hundred and twelve years and a quarter of the earth’s diameter. Completely immersing myself in the project, in my first day I wrote 2000 words. I followed that pace for at least another ten days before faltering.

I wrote the entire 68,500 words in 51 days. I knew the punishing pace would be difficult at times, but little did I know it would be so much fun! I loved every page of it, and couldn’t keep the baby to myself.
 

I stopped. I had a day off. Then I sat the next morning, wondering what to write, and another 2000 words fell from my digitalized pen. Then another 2000. I’m five days into book two, A Connecticut Vampire in Queen Mary’s Court, and have already crossed the 10,000 word barrier. I’ve set myself a target: a trilogy in six months.

We all have stories in our heads. We all have time to sit at the computer. We all wonder if we’ll ever get published, if we’ll ever get discovered, if we’ll ever get famous. But we won’t find any of the above if we don’t write. And don’t think ‘luck’ is all you need.

Samuel Goldwyn once said; “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” As I sit at my computer tomorrow morning, churning out my next 2000 words, I’ll pray that I’ll get luckier too.