My #Inspiration

The first 'The #VampireDiaries' books I owned (Bantam covers, 1993)

I've said before that I read the #AnneRice vampire series and The Vampire Diaries (1993!!!) when I was a teen. I also watched Interview with the Vampire (1994!!!)- so it was when I was 12-13 I got really interested in the vampire genre. I had a friend at school. She was a super geek, very clever, but she was big into vampires and we would sit and talk about the Vampire Diaries (she was #Damon, I was #Stefan, though I changed later- drawn to darkness!). We'd also write short stories. But she was more into her studies than me (I WAS a good student, and got good grades, but I liked to work quickly, get it done, and then enjoy time with friends or a good book!). So I ended up writing more than she did. I would have dreams about vampires (with some very unlikely classmates, usually the geeky ones, in my dream becoming vampires and revealing their darker sides!) and I would adapt the dreams into short scenes, writing the ideas down on lined paper. The only story I extended beyond a dream scene (before Blood Omen) was about a girl called Kelsey. I don't remember much about the story now except that the final scene involved escaping from a castle which was on fire... the papers are stored somewhere in my mum's attic in England...

When I went to college (aged 16-18), I chose English Language/Literature, Art, Photography...and I needed one other subject. Someone suggested Media Studies to me. I'm so glad I went for it. Journalism, radio, TV, film... one of the projects our teacher asked us to do that first term was to get together a crew of 4 people and make a short five-minute movie. I grabbed my best friend Pam, a classmate and her sister and sat myself in the imagined Director's chair! This movie was going to be about VAMPIRES!!! We were supposed to write the script, draw up a storyboard and get the filming and editing done (on big old- well, new at the time!- computers) within two weeks. But when I get my fangs into a project, I want perfection. So me and my crew could be found running around the college at night- me in one of my mum's nightdresses!!!- screaming about vampires for about a week.
The vampire was played by my highschool sweetheart Chris. I was the mother, Pam the naughty kid. We used red juice (Ribena) for drinking blood and lipstick to write the blood message on the wall. The editing took weeks and I never did get the perfection I wanted but we won top marks and had a lot of fun making it!