Writing is one thing, choose the subject is another. Alexa Wayne writes about horror and vampires are the biggest part of it!

Start At The Beginning

When I was a very young child, I remember watching Sesame Street and my favorite character beside Oscar The Grouch was The Count.

I learned how to count with The Count! I like his appearance, accent which today might be seen as a little offensive. However, I believe my obsession with vampires started from that moment.

Research & Imagination

Living in a house with a long and wide backyard, woodlands in the back, it left much space for the imagination to grow. I would sometimes sit in front of the patio door in the evening after dusk and imagine would could be walking around in the woods.

That woodland had my creativity burst in my head. I would imagine all sorts of what others would see as “monsters” while I perceived them as intriguing. I would go to the local library and look for the series of Unexplained books and focus my attention on vampires.

I would do so because vampires were the most intriguing to me with their immortality, never changing appearance and living in the dark lifestyle.

Them consuming blood was actually non important to me as I saw it like others eating meat. At a very young age I turned vegetarian because of my love for animals and also because I never was able to digest red meat) and therefore I saw no difference.

The vampires I watched on television were impressive, but what driven my curiosity and spin it to an obsession was the desire to remain unknown to the human race and how they perceived us. I knew they weren’t real, yet, a part of me wondered if all around us was that gray and without any spark.

Lifeless World

I refused to believe our world to be that lifeless and so, I kept on looking for more information on the creature.

I watched all the vampire movies, then would take notes and compared them to see what common ground were shared and what varied. I came to the conclusion that most authors or artist had their own spin on the creature.

The origin of the vampire folklore being from all around the world had me thinking if there wasn’t a specie somewhere hidden from us. Like the Sasquatch or Bigfoot, vampires have roots everywhere. The difference is, some think it is more natural to believe in a giant ape than it is a vampire.

My grandma being Acadian had very unique beliefs, such as vampires being one of them and werewolves. It helped me knowing that I wasn’t the only one questioning the existence of “monsters” and maybe, just maybe, that they desired nothing more than to remain a secret to the rest of the world.

Growing up with such an active imagination was very hard and heavy on my shoulders. When opening to someone, I risked being called insane and it happened more times than I can count. I lost many friends because of their parents believing I needed help when all I was doing was research.

Scaring The Crowd

Of course, it is no spoiler to say I was a fan of Tim Burton‘s work (except Batman) and his way of thinking. No spoiler to say my favorite author is Stephen King either. I guess because I don’t see horror like everyone else, I see it as intriguing and igniting my curiosity.

My views of vampires are not a horrifying nor it is a romanticized one. I see them as introverts and at the very limit afraid of what the human race would do to them if they are fewer in numbers.

Do I believe in their existence? I want to, but that doesn’t mean I do.

And again, I was alone in my own little world where I was okay. Seeing myself as Alice stuck in Wonderland because let’s face it, I couldn’t believe this world was meant to be mine. I would keep on doing some research and added a tattoo on me here and there to prove to myself that I wasn’t meant to be part of the crowd.

Twisted Fate

Then, I met a man who would thirteen years later become my husband and who shared my love for the paranormal and respect my beliefs and support my dreams. He never judged me or made me feel insane, instead saying that I was creative and artistic and until proven otherwise, everything could still be possible.

Then, one night, about five years ago, I dreamed about a house across the woods where we lived at the house I grew up in. It was an old Victorian house, a vampire lived there. His name was Caleb de la Durantaye and his nemesis was Celtic vampire, named Liam Neill. The story was engraved in my mind like a fresh memory.

 

Afraid that the idea came from somewhere else, I re-watched some Buffy The Vampire Slayer episodes, then some movies and finally, I watched the HBO show of True Blood thinking that maybe I saw a trailer and it was recorded in my subconscious and I dreamed about it.

My husband and I ended up watching the entire show, hooked from the first episode, but I soon realized that my dream had nothing to do with the series and so I went on and started writing the novel that would soon become a series.

Over & Over

I wrote the novel once, thick and full, I needed to write the entire idea out. Then, I reached out to an editor who was kind enough to guide me a little to help me understand how being a writer worked.

My novel was too long, too full of ideas and so, I went back in it and cut some pages out and tried to refine the writing as best as I could, English being my second language and French my primary one.

I divided the novel in two realizing the end was the most perfect one. Then, I let it sit for a while but never stopped thinking about it. I knew it needed more work.

To inspire me, I even had the ancient wooden stake made by a blacksmith couple, Artistes Les Tordus, and delivered to me. It was perfect and ignited my thoughts. I rewrote the story again and polished it.

Then, my husband and I moved away, in our house “in the sticks” where we still live today. I then met an editor online, Tara M. Clapper, that would become one of my closest friends. I asked if she could look at my manuscript and her quote fitted my budget.

Open to suggestion and advice, I took every comment on her editing as a learning process and re-wrote the entire novel again. When sending it back to her, impressed, she said “This is a good story now.”

My Writing Obsession

Ever since, I have been writing about vampires more and more. I won’t stop. I even created Gothic Bite Magazine to satisfy others like me because I know I am not alone. I was able to hold on to who I was, because of a wonderful husband who loved me and my strange mind.

What drives me are telling stories. I enjoy creating and writing and challenging my mind to come up with ideas that seem crazy at first, but then come to life. I do not care what anyone says, I’m a writer and an author and I will succeed despite my genre being twisted and clumsy.

I’m a writer, a dreamer and a very, very strange girl.
The OCD Vampire!
Alexa Wayne