RHYTHM

A writer has to find a rhythm; the words have to beat as the eyes dance over them. The syllables have to dance like the notes on a stave, they have to move seamlessly with the eyes and the mind, and hopefully not tread on any metaphorical toes.

If there is a misstep somewhere, the prose will crash to a grinding halt and the reader will have to back up, find what it was that caused the accident, and scrutinize it carefully to understand it before proceeding.

Stories rely on cadence, that’s how storyteller’s in days of yore held their audiences captive. They voiced the story, lilted, whispered, shouted, moaned, and whined. They beat a path to understanding, using words to create characters and situations that danced through their listeners’ minds.

I knew before getting into Vampyre Blood-Eight Pints of Trouble, that I needed a new sound, because Count Dracula, or Drac as he’s called in the book, was a story that was written in 1897 by that wonderful Irish author Bram Stoker, and Bram had a gothic style of writing that has become synonymous with the character.

So the Gothic style had to blend with a modern style in a folksy way that almost sings the words and carries the story along in a wavelike motion that doesn’t want to let you stop. It was kind of like Jack Kerouac meets P. G. Wodehouse in my mind, which it doesn’t seem at all like now, but that didn’t matter. I just needed a hook to hang my hat on so that I could sit down and listen to the characters as they dictated themselves.

At the very beginning of the book Count Dracula meets Waldo, the drummer of the Techno Zombies, a Goth rock band on a world tour, and as soon as this chance meeting takes place it adds a new layer to the story. The band plays four songs throughout the book, and their lyrics illustrate the inner turmoil the Count contends with as he struggles to become human again in a world that seems to have only one aim in mind—quashing individuality.

I have to admit there were many times throughout the creation of the story when the antics of my characters literally made me want to give up and walk away. But I didn’t, I hung in there and it made me realize that you can cut into life anywhere in the world, and you’ll find hearts beating, and minds working overtime trying to create their own story to lift them out of hum-drum and boring existences.

It may seem from what I’ve said here that this book came about in the last few years, but that isn’t true. I began writing this book before I was born, and every situation I found myself in, and every person I associated with in my life are a beat in that rhythm, and their spirits live on in this book. I guess in truth, this book is indeed a gift of the rhythm of life, and for that I am eternally grateful.