I want to be a writer

Ever since I took a cultural anthropology class, I’ve been on a kick when it comes to finding out why something is.

In that class it was learning about mitochondrial DNA and genetic markers in certain species and why things were. I even wrote a paper on genetics, because it simply fascinates me. I took this class 2003 or 2004.

Well what has that to do with my writing? Well when I am plotting or coming up with story ideas, especially since I like to incorporate fantasy/science-fiction into my writing, I have to know why something is for me to be able to get to the next step. I also look for this in reading other people’s work.

A good example is vampires. So many stories out there from the traditional to the ones that are so good, it is ok to overlook certain factors. In the story I’ve been working on for the past 3 years, I wanted to create something totally different. I needed a people who were vampire like, but with different rules for why.

I created a complex history for them (I did say I’d been working on it for 3 years!!) that explained their origin. That part was fun and hard, as I kept asking myself how and why. For me, I need to know how vampires were created, not just some amorphous reason as to they are.

So after that I then went on about their complex society, language, and their culture in general. It has characters, names and situations. I really had fun with this idea. The problem? Well the story is shelved. It is an epic story that so far is three books. The first book has a title, a plot with a beginning, middle, and an end. But the truth is I became scared of the huge undertaking of this project.

I didn’t know if it was a young adult novel, or an erotic one. I have tried both, but it still feels like it could go either way. The world I created is as a big a character as the characters I created. And I kept on adding and changing things, basically brainstorming on my own. This didn’t help as I already plotted the story completely.

So why was I writing this post? I had to go back to the beginning of the post, lol, and this is why the story that I was working on for the past three years and counting is shelved for now. Because I would start on one thing and then it kept growing and growing. This is why I am now focusing on the smaller writings/projects. I will eventually tackle my vampire story. It is exciting and needs to be written. Especially as I created this cool reason as to why they are vamps in the first place!

The question is: do I tell it as a young adult or adult?