Monday 13 April 2009

Did I pick the wrong vampire?

A few years ago, I happened to mention to a literary agent that I was working on a vampire novel. 'Forget about writing about vampires', he emailed back, 'There's no market for vampire stories'. Well, all I can say is that I hope that the said gentleman was not approached by Stefanie Meyer with her 'Twilight', trilogy, or by now, he will be feeling even sicker than the man who turned down 'Harry Potter'.

Vampires have never been more zeitgeisty. Not only has there been the phenomenal success of 'Twilight', there's also been the Swedish best seller , 'Let the Right One In', and, as everyone knows, since the literary agent told me to 'forget' vampires, we've had Buffy on TV and all the spin off books from that. And the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and 'Undead and Unwed'---there are countless others!

None of which means, of course, that my book is going to get published, although it does prove the literary agent wrong. (Maybe he was the same person who told Richard Adams not to write about rabbits---anyone for 'Watership Down'?) But there is one thing. All the popular vampires at the moment are young and sexy. Think Robert Pattinson. Or at least they look young, even though they've been dead for 100 years or so. My vampire is elderly, elegant, charming and very camp---definitely not a suitable love interest for my heroine.

Oh dear----I'm reminded of the old joke---the vampire rises from his coffin, and seeing Van Helsing holding out a crucifix, says, in a yiddish accent, 'Have you picked the wrong vampire!!"

Well, have I?

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