My current wip is an unban fantasy called Twist that I'm writing for Dorchester's new Shomi line. The covers are really cool, Manga style and its our hope that we'll pick up a bunch of new readers with the concept.
So yes there were guidelines for this line. And apparentlly when I pitched it to the aquiring editor he got so excited about my concept that he forgot one part of the guidelines.
No vampires.
So I'm halfway through the book which is due Sept one and scheduled to be released Feb 08 and I get a really sweet and apologetic email from my editor.
"uh, Colby, I forgot...we're not using vampires or werewolves in this line."
"uh, (insert editors name here). Did you forget that the vampires are my badguys?"
"Nope. But still, we got to do something. Make them nonvampire vampires or something like that." (thats a generalization of what he said.)
So after I had a morning meltdown we put our heads together. And what did we come up with?
Aliens. Aliens who are the reason there is a vampire legend. Actually it was pretty cool to come up with a new concept on an old tale. Plus we made up lots of slang and my heroine only lost a few of her really snarky lines.
So I lost the past two weeks to rewriting my nonvampires into existence. And I"m pretty excited about Twist. In spite of the monkey wrench.
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Jacqueline Lichtenberg beat you to that, darling. Read her THOSE OF MY BLOOD if you want to learn about aliens and vampires and why they're on this planet. ;-) Then read her DREAM SPY which is awesome. ~Linnea
ReplyDeleteBut see, this little detour, or rather the insider knowledge of it makes the book mega-cool! It has a secret past. *grins*
ReplyDeleteAlso? Aliens influencing Earthly legends is a pretty cool concept. I've done some collaborating with another aspirant, and between us we've linked alien visitations to Earth's legends of dragons, sirens, elves and the Aurora Boralis. No, really!
So, whaddaya think? Too much caffeine?
I also think its a cool idea. I mean really, how would vampires first come into existence? They had to have some sort of origin.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like monkey wrenches are sometimes good things!
Sounds like a book I will want to read - it will have all my favourite elements in one cover :D
ReplyDeleteBesides Jacqueline's, there have been many SF stories that postulate vampires as aliens who originated on other worlds (and many more that postulate "alien" -- i.e., another natural species -- vampires who evolved on Earth along with us). See my monograph DIFFERENT BLOOD: THE VAMPIRE AS ALIEN, covering the topic in fiction from the mid-1800s to the 1990s. For instance, Elaine Bergstrom's vampires in SHATTERED GLASS and its sequels originally came from another planet. But there is always room for a new twist on this motif! From my bibliographic research, I think one of the first stories to use the specific premise that our vampire legends were inspired by vampires from another planet was my husband's short piece "Vanishing Breed" (originally published in my anthology CURSE OF THE UNDEAD in 1970, reprinted in TOMORROW SUCKS, a vampire anthology edited by Greg Cox, which I think is still in print -- it's really cool, because it's a collection of strictly SF vampire stories).
ReplyDeleteI'm going to do my Tuesday entry on this discussion -- oh, what a huge topic! Thank you Cindy!! And hey, can I get a review copy????
ReplyDeleteJacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Yes! Review copies will be available. Unfortunately my sci-fi reading is way behind. When brainstorming this I heard that Stargate Atlantis had a version of what I call Chronolotians. Plus its really scary to venture out into unknown terriotry. ALl I know is my mother will be very happy that I'm not writing about "real vampires" She was afraid I'd go over to the dark side when she heard about it.
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