I’ve had many ah-hah moments in my life and in my writing. But I suppose the most vivid one for me is when I decided to write about vampire moms.
Yeah. Undead motherhood. Weird, right? The idea for a paranormal town filled with PTA vampires came to me after I read an article by Charlaine Harris. In it, she described the process she used to come up with her Southern Vampire series. She talked about the paranormal and genre elements she wanted to include.
She also thought about the writer’s age-old edict:
Write what you know. Thus, the world of Sookie Stackhouse was created.
I wanted to write about vampires, too, but the bookshelves were crowded with wonderful series filled with vampires, vampire hunters, vampire lovers, vampire teenagers, vampire … well, you get the point. I knew that I needed a different kind of hook.
So, I took Charlaine’s advice and tried to answer the
question: What do I know? Well, I knew about motherhood, small towns, and Oklahoma. In three days, I’d written forty pages and synopsis. I sent the proposal to my agent and said, “Nobody will ever buy this, but damn, I’d love to write it.”
To my shock, New American Library not only wanted it, they wanted TWO novels sent in Broken Heart, Oklahoma, the fictional town that gets taken over by vampires and werewolves. So, I got to write I’M THE VAMPIRE, THAT’S WHY (September 2006) and DON’T TALK BACK TO YOUR VAMPIRE (July 2007). Apparently, readers really like the idea of vampire motherhood. And so does NAL because they bought two more stories in the series:
BECAUSE YOUR VAMPIRE SAID SO (Spring 2008) and WAIT UNTIL YOUR VAMPIRE GETS HOME (Fall 2008).
So, my ah-hah moment was inspired by another writer.
And it reinforced lessons I learned early in my
career: Write with passion and with conviction. Dream big. And never, ever give up.
Michele Bardsley
Please visit my websites:
http://www.michelebardsley.com
Susan Shay
