Before this film came out I’d seen a few other vampire movies.  Bad ones mostly.  Usually they would focus was on the sex and violence rather than anything to do with the nocturnal predator themselves.  I also hadn’t read much vampire fiction either, having kept my focus more on science fiction and fantasy.  I had an idea that vampires could be interesting characters but had never really seen it done well so the idea hadn’t fully formed within my mind.

Then along came Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  I can honestly say that this was the one defining film that turned me around on the whole genre.  The story itself is a simple one: boy meets girl, girl is menaced by some terrible evil, boy rounds up his buddies to take care of business and win back his woman, happiness and songbirds ensue, etc.  Though the story itself isn’t why I like it.  For me, this film was all about the flavor, style and character of Dracula; about how dark, eerie, sinister and powerful a vampire can really be.

A large part of why Dracula is so terrifying is because of the supernatural gifts he has at his disposal – bending shadows, turning into mist, summoning wolves, emotionally or mentally manipulating people; shape-shifting into wolves, bats, and a hoard of rats; walking on walls, floating around his castle, opening and closing doors without touching them; whatever he did to punish his “daughters” by blending them into that weird spidery looking thing (White Wolf calls it Vicissitude, or Fleshcrafting), and (one of my favorites) mentally tricking people into thinking he’s not there or that he looks like something he’s not.  Every vampire I’d seen prior to this was basically just a human with fangs.  They wanted to kill people and drink their blood, which I’ll admit is scary, but that’s nothing compared to the monster that can blend into the darkness as if he’s not even there, make himself look like your best friend or turn a pack of wolves on you.  It’s the trickery and sheer supernatural weirdness that makes him stand apart from the typical serial killer and take his place as a true creature of the night.

Dracula was also the first vampire I’d seen that had an agenda.  It wasn’t all just about the woman either; he was setting down roots in London.  Buying up properties and exerting supernatural control over people of influence, like Renfield.  The film didn’t go too deeply into this as it was more about the love story but I could see some great, untapped potential for getting his hooks into many areas within the city.  Had he not been so focused on Mina, he could have easily owned half of London as well as had a hold on many important people in positions of authority.  This idea is an important one to me because I’ve always said, “If you’re going to live forever, you might as well be rich and powerful while you do it.”  The point is I just get annoyed at seeing nothing but bottom feeder vampires living in squalor.  The next century’s going to pass anyway so you might as well put a few bucks into that investment portfolio.  Dracula may have been killed at the end but at least he had a plan for eternity.

Since this film, I’ve consumed hundreds of movies, books, TV shows and even comics about vampires.  Very few have been successful in portraying a vampire in as frightening a manner as this.

I think one of the reasons I’m more likely to succeed than most is I don’t seem to get too emotionally invested in what people think.  I’ve seen cases of a lot of writers having extreme emotional reactions to agent responses or story feedback.  The worst examples are things like sending hatemail to agents that have rejected them or getting near suicidal when someone says they didn’t like their work.   It blows my mind how they can be so sensitive about it and I think it’s people like this that usually prevent agents from giving personalized feedback.  Of course it goes both ways; writers having joygasm’s over a request for a partial or thinking they’re the greatest storyteller in history because an e-zine published one of their shorts.

I’ve noticed that most of my reactions throughout this process have been far more neutral.  It doesn’t matter to me that a couple magazines didn’t like my short story; others have enjoyed it greatly.  It doesn’t matter that one of my beta readers wasn’t enthused about my novel; the other nine absolutely loved it.  I know that what I write isn’t for everybody and I don’t need the whole world to fall in love with me.  Sure I get a bit down after a series of rejections but I’ve even had one or two really harsh ones and I haven’t had the impulse to slit my wrists over it (though honestly, it was obvious they vastly misunderstood the story so it’s hard to be offended there).  Rejections are the nature of the business and even the best writers have had dozens before getting picked up.  I’ve also had three different agents request partials already and while it’s moderately exciting, I’m certainly not shouting it from the rooftops.

The point is that I’m not letting it bother me and I think that’s a key step along the road to success.  The writers that ride the emotional roller-coaster over every scrap of feedback are likely to burn out quickly and fail.  The ones that can take it in stride and use it to improve their future projects are the ones most likely to be picked up.

In most cases, I hate being referred to as lucky.  It bothers me, considering all the crap I’d gone through in my life or all the hard work I put into the thing that people are calling me lucky for.

For example, people called me lucky when I bought my condo.  That really annoyed me.  Nobody gave me the condo and I didn’t win it in a lottery; I bought it.  It was the result of a year and a half of picking up extra overtime shift and on-call hours, saving my money and minimizing my expenses.  Plus I ended up moving back in with my mother and living in her basement for eight months to cheap out on rent.  Sure it’s nice that I had someone who was willing to help me out in that way, which can certainly be called a form of assistance, but being called lucky in that regard makes it seem like the condo magically appeared for me.  It really undermines the hard work and sacrifice I put in to achieve the goal.

There have however been a few moments along this process that I would consider lucky; where things, through random happenstance, just worked out well in my favor.

• The First Layoff – At the time it happened it was devastating.  I was in a panic and unsure of what I was going to do.  The timing however could not have been more perfect as I’d already bought my condo and was all settled in, so I had a safe and secure place to write.  If it had happened earlier, I’d have been scrambling for a job instead of writing and if it hadn’t happened at all then I’d still be pouring all my efforts into IT.  In either case, I’d never have rediscovered my love of storytelling.
• Six Month Contract – After finishing up my first book I was able to land a contract position at another oil and gas company.  It paid for my expenses while I worked hard on revising and polishing my manuscript on evenings and weekends, plus it gave me some breathing room while I got a few short stories completed.  During this time is when I also created most of my web content, which was about a two month project.
• The Website – After I’d completed my first book and was idly thinking about having an online presence, my mother touched base with my cousin who lives a province away and mentioned to him what I was doing.  Out of the blue he sends me an e-mail saying “You need a website” and the next thing I know he’s teaching me how to set everything up in WordPress and even hosting all my data.
• The Printer – As I was getting ready to start sending out agent submissions, my inkjet died so I went hunting for a new one.  The very first store I walk into has a $500 laser printer on sale for about $140.  It can print about 800 pages on a single toner cartridge compared to the 50 or so per ink cartridge of my old one.  Plus because it’s toner I can easily get it refilled for less than the cost of a new inkjet cartridge would have been.  It’s already paid for itself a dozen times over.
• The Second Layoff – When my manuscript was ready to be sent out to agents, I lost my contract position.  Suddenly I had all kinds of free time to spend hundreds of hours on agent research, drafting and redrafting my query letter, and putting together submission packages for agents.
• Absolute Write – During my agent research, I stumbled across this most amazing website.  I honestly haven’t looked a lot at the website itself but the forums were an invaluable resource for me.  There I found a collection of hundreds of other writers at all different stages and skill levels.  I can honestly say that I learned more about the world of publishing in my first month at AW as I had on my own in the ten months prior.

Now that all the hardest work regarding my book is done and most of my queries are out the door, it’s looking like I might have a couple really good opportunities available in the IT job market again.  If I get one, then I can work hard and pay off all the extra debt I’ve accumulated during my time off work, maybe save a little bit of extra money in the process and give agents time to review the queries and partial manuscripts I have out the door.

Hard work, sacrifice and perseverance is what’s made all this come together for me but the above lucky moments have sure made the process run smoother.

Something for the Warcrafters out there:

20 stacks of Tenacity on a demonology warlock in Wintergrasp = 128k health, 4-5k health regen from Fel Armor, DoT’s that tick for 5k damage and a Shadowbolt that blasted for I don’t know how much (enough to one shot a lot of people).  I literally could not be hurt.  When I got down around the 80k health mark (which took the efforts of at least ten allies) I would just switch to life draining everything and top right back up again.

Didn’t last long as a bunch more hoard showed up and the tenacity buffs started peeling away but for about 3 minutes I was the godliest warlock ever.  I wish I’d taken a screenshot with my voidwalker out.  All the pet’s stats are based off the masters, so my Voidwalker was pretty uber as well.

Right click and select “View Image” to see it full size:

Behold! 80 levels of wasted youth... and this was just one of three characters...

I don’t play Warcraft anymore since I’ve rediscovered writing but it was fun for a time.