Journals of the Undead

Tag: books

  • My Creative Challenges of 2023: Not Writing Enough and What Can Be Done About It

    My Creative Challenges of 2023: Not Writing Enough and What Can Be Done About It

    It’s only a few weeks and 2024 will be over. By comparison to 2023, it feels like I’ve done very little. Last year I was busy with editing and getting the Latvian version of my novel, “Šķautnes”, published and then doing the promo work (in addition to my day job and everything else, of course). This year I did some creative writing but nowhere near as much as I intended. It made me remember the old times some 15 years ago when nothing could prevent me from writing: if an inspiration struck during a lecture I’d simply stop taking notes and start writing my latest story instead. A busy day at work? I’d still write in the evening. My ability to focus and write for hours non-stop was incredible, a sharp contrast with the present day when a million thoughts are rushing through my mind every day and I get distracted easily.

    My plans for publishing a revised English version of my vampire stories, Journals of the Undead, had to be shelved. Hopefully the updated version, this time with illustrations, will see daylight in Autumn 2025. We’ll see…

    This year I made some progress with the English translation of Parallel World, my other vampire stories. It’s an old project of mine that I can’t seem to finish (ongoing since late 2019 so it’s been a while!). I think it’s taken me so long because the stories are quite old now. They were written in 2010 and published online on several Latvian sites. It was only some years later that I thought of an English translation for Wattpad but it wasn’t until 2021 when I actually sat down and translated 20 out of the 35 chapters. I had set myself a target of one story per week to motivate myself. The thing is, even though it was my creation and I do love my characters and the story lines, it was an old text for me and therefore I found working with it again boring. I like to create, to turn the page and do something new. That’s what excites me. Returning to something I wrote years ago doesn’t. Therefore, it was inevitable that at some point I lost interest. At the same time, I don’t like to abandon projects and I had readers who enquired when new chapters would be available. During an extended holiday earlier this year, I talked myself into going back to Parallel World and that resulted in a few new English chapters. Now I only have 5 left. Would be great to get them all done by New Year’s Eve but the realist (or pessimist) in me thinks that’s not gonna happen. I’ll be lucky to translate two chapters max before it’s time to sing the Auld Lang Syne again.

    My plans to launch a YouTube account for book reviews with a twist remain just plans. The same goes for comedy sketches for Instagram of which many have been written but none have been recorded.

    I’ve tried to understand what led to this… I don’t even know what to call it. Tiredness? Procrastination? Laziness? Apathy? Or is it just an inability to focus for long enough? I’d like to blame life getting in the way but it’s not as simple. When I’m passionate enough about something, everything gets moved out of the way so I can pursue that passion. The trouble is, I can’t quite reach that state of mind these days.

  • What’s Next?

    What’s Next?

    This has been one of the most frequently asked questions recently. Yes, I am working on my next novel. I don’t like to talk much about ongoing projects but there are a few things I can share…

    The new novel will be a spin-off of Journals of the Undead and will focus on Beatrice. As I’ve mentioned before, she was supposed to be the female lead in my debut novel, however, life (and Lucretia) had other plans. I always felt bad about that so now I shall use the opportunity to rectify things.

    Unlike JotU, the spin-off will be set entirely in the 19th century, apart from the occasional flashback. Readers of my debut novel said that they loved the stories but thought that covering four centuries in 12 short stories was too much and I agree with them.

    The novel will show Beatrice’s life as a vampire at a particular point of her life, reveal how she became a vampire and tell what her human life was like. It will feature a few vampires from JotU, as well as introduce some new characters.

    I love mixing real life with fiction, so expect historical facts woven into the story. Some of the plot is inspired by real events.

    When will the novel be available to buy? Best case scenario, Autumn 2025 for the Latvian version and Autumn/Winter 2026 for the English edition. This time I want to write in both languages simultaneously as opposed to translating the Latvian manuscript like I did with Journals of the Undead.

  • The Black Vampyre & Carmilla

    The Black Vampyre & Carmilla

    I never run out of books to read. In fact, I have 50+ unread books at the moment on my shelves, but that doesn’t stop me from buying some more. The latest additions are two 19th century vampire stories: Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Uriah Derick D’Arcy’s The Black Vampyre.

    I chose them because I’m working on my next vampire novels that are set in the 19th century and reading books from that historical period helps me get into the mood. I also pay close attention to the language, to how people addressed each other and how they described the world around them. Whilst I don’t want to sound like a 19th century author, I don’t want to sound too modern either.

    I haven’t started reading Carmilla so I cannot provide any feedback at the moment. I chose it because this 1870s novel inspired Dracula and the vampire is female.

    The Black Vampyre (1819) I have read. It sounded very promising: the first black vampire story and the first comedic vampire story that also had a revolution going on in the background. The main character is a slave who transforms into a vampire after being killed by his captor and seeks revenge. So far, very promising. Yet I was left with mixed feelings. The plot summary was better written than the story, in my opinion. If I were reading this in the 1820s then I would have been excited for this was an entirely new genre and I love a good revenge story. However, I was reading this as a modern reader (that is difficult to surprise). The author (whose true identity remains unclear) wrote the Black Vampyre as a response to John William Polidori’s The Vampyre. Polidori’s story became a sensation and what usually happens when something becomes a sensation? Many others try to create something similar. Personally, I found the language in The Black Vampyre difficult to follow but maybe that’s because it’s written in English as it was spoken in the United States 200 years ago. Overall, it was an interesting reading experience.

    I’m also planning to read The Pale Lady by Alexandre Dumas père. I had no idea that the author of The Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo had also written a vampire story!

  • Vampires & Religion

    Vampires & Religion

    I recently finished reading The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice. Whilst I really enjoyed 2/3 of the book which focused on Armand’s different lives through the centuries, I started losing interest when his story returned to the 1990s. I simply couldn’t understand his obsession with Christian relics and Christianity in general. To me, vampires and religion do not mix. My own vampires turn their back to any religion after their transformation. They do believe in a higher power but they understand that their existence goes against the eternal cycle of life and death: everything that is born passes away some time later. They’ve cheated death and therefore there is no God available to them, they’re completely on their own.

    To each their own, obviously. Vampire literature would be boring if all writers had the same beliefs and there would be a strict canon.

    And yet I struggled. The thing is, I was born in an atheist country where religion was banned and grew up in a secular state. We did have some Bible lessons at school but I quickly realised Christianity was not for me. Therefore, to this day, I know very little about it. When Armand was in ruptures about Veronica’s Veil I had to Google it because I had no idea what it is and why it’s significant.

    So, when Pandora (who was born in Ancient Rome) didn’t share his excitement and Armand asked why, I shouted out loud when she said that Christ was never her Lord. Same thing, Pandora, same thing!

    But, as I wrote earlier, everyone’s different. And I did enjoy most of the book…