Journals of the Undead

Tag: vampire stories

  • New Year’s Resolutions: Yay or Nay?

    New Year’s Resolutions: Yay or Nay?

    Dear reader, 2025 is here and by this time in January many people will have failed their New Year’s Resolutions already. I’ll offer my explanation in a minute but first I’d like to say that I have mixed feelings about them. It’s good to strive and often we do need to push ourselves a little and set a time frame or a deadline in order to achieve something. I had that when I wanted to publish my first novel, Journals of the Undead, in Latvian. It wasn’t a New Year’s Resolution as such but it was January 2023 when I realised that the reason why I was stuck was because I wasn’t working towards a specific deadline. Instead, I thought that I would get it published once I’d finished the editing, which was very vague. So, I decided I want my collection of vampire stories to hit the shelves in Autumn 2023 and that made a massive difference. The Latvian edition, called “Šķautnes”, was released in September 2023.

    But why do so many New Year’s Resolutions fail? I’ve got several suggestions. These are my personal opinions, of course. Firstly, it’s the lack of commitment. I’m not a gym person. I’ve never been, never will. I enjoy exercising… outdoors. Let’s say I’ve been socialising with an active gym goer and suddenly start thinking I should get a gym membership after all. I wouldn’t last long because my own commitment would not be strong enough – I’d simply be influenced by another person and once that influence had worn off I’d probably end up paying for something I don’t use whilst hesitating to cancel the membership. Whenever you want to do something you need to be sure that it’s what YOU want. TRULY want.

    Secondly, and this is my personal observation here in the UK, is that a lot of people are too harsh on themselves. They’ve either overindulged over Christmas or feel bad about having had a nice festive season or both and feel like they have to saddle themselves with resolutions to compensate for it. I’m Latvian so it’s a foreign concept to me. In the Baltics where the weather is… well, Baltic, we like to celebrate and see no reason why the good times should stop just because it’s January. So we keep your Christmas lights on and keep eating Christmas food leftovers. Also, with the winters being cold it’s normal to hibernate and drastic changes are better saved for Spring.

    What I do instead is use January – the whole month – for deciding what I want to focus on this year. I really think it through and ask myself questions to establish why I think I have a need for this or that. Then I pick a few main goals and decide on a timeline. For instance, this year I want to focus on creative writing and I will share my progress with you in future posts.

    To sum this up, if New Year’s Resolutions work for you, go for them but make sure you know why you suddenly want to start running, learn how to play the guitar or have a surfing holiday in Portugal. If they’ve never worked for you, feel free to replace them with something that does work.

  • 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.

  • My Storytelling Mistakes: Avoiding Foreshadowing

    My Storytelling Mistakes: Avoiding Foreshadowing

    I’ve made quite a few mistakes as an author. When I was working on Journals of the Undead, I liked the idea of surprise. Giving my reader a clue, foreshadowing things? Nah, it’s more fun to introduce something new without any warning!

    I wouldn’t do it again. It works for some authors but I’ve grown to appreciate the beauty of clues, suggestions, little touches that might seem insignificant at first but make sense in hindsight and make me admire the level of thought and effort put into that story. The first example, which is also one of the best examples, that comes to my mind is Breaking Bad, one of my favourite TV shows. Better Call Saul, except for some weird filler episodes and several characters acting out of character on occasion, was also very enjoyable to watch. The level of detail in both shows is insane, the way it all weaves together… There were a lot of things I didn’t even notice until I started watching YouTube shorts and reading comments!

    And you know what, that was one of the reasons why I decided to start telling my own stories differently. I don’t want them to be too predictable but I do want them to become smoother and use “and because of…” instead of “and so…”. A story needs to flow, even I, the author, cannot just take it in any direction I want it to go. A story needs to make sense not just to me but also to the reader.

  • One year since “Šķautnes”

    It’s been a year since “Šķautnes”, the Latvian edition of Journals of the Undead, came out. What is the main thing I have learnt since then? I always thought that writing a book is the hardest bit. I was wrong. It’s actually the marketing bit. Writing a book can take a few years and getting it published can take even longer. Ok, self-publishing comes in handy but there are still a few obstacles to jump – for instance, how to turn a Word document into something presentable and aesthetically pleasing? A bad mockup and/or a bad cover design can ruin an otherwise great novel. We live in a very visual culture, after all! If it won’t look good in a social media post… You can’t have that, you need to make sure it will.

    Ah, marketing… How many authors actually think about that when writing their novel? In the past, far fewer books were published and therefore any new book was the talk of the town. It’s easy to get spotted when there are, let’s say, no more than 20 other paperbacks in the bookstore. These days, books are everywhere. You’ll spot dozens of them whilst waiting in the supermarket check out line. Charity shops are full of books. I have several book swapping places in my area. Cafes often have books on their shelves. And when you walk into a bookstore… You get the idea. Any new book is like a needle in the hay, how would you spot it unless you know it’s there?

    This is something that I’ve tried to explain to people over the years. Those who don’t write stories themselves think it’s so easy – just publish a novel on Amazon, bypass the middlemen and see the royalties rolling in! That’s the theory. In practice, there are millions of books on Amazon. How will potential readers find it? In order to generate organic traffic you need to be good at SEO. Or pay someone to do it for you (it won’t be cheap). Ads can generate traffic but, again, for them to be effective you will need a monthly budget that contains at least two zeros. What about social media? The sheer amount of posts and ads there means that people are bombarded with information and most of them will only be seen by a few people.

    In short, connecting with your potential reader and promoting a book is a long, time consuming and often expensive process with no guarantee of it ever paying off. I was watching an interview with Ville Valo some time ago and he said that you never get back what you put into an artistic project. If one of Finland’s most successful musicians says that, what hope is there for the rest of us?

    I don’t want to end this post on a negative note, though. Going through difficulties and overcoming obstacles is great for building up resilience and growing as an artist. We live in an era when there is more competition than ever in music, literature, film and TV. We have more tools than ever at our disposal but, precisely because they are so accessible, it is so difficult to get noticed. When I was in my early 20s I had lots of ideas but there were few tools to bring them to life. Smartphone cameras were in their infancy, video editing software (not counting Windows Movie Maker) was pricey, a good photo or video camera cost between 3-6 months earnings. I simply didn’t have the money for all the equipment I wanted. Plus, I lived in Latvia which wasn’t exactly known for its bustling art scene back then. Now I can make videos on my phone and edit them for free using InShot! It doesn’t matter where in the world I am as long as I have a reliable Internet connection.

    So, my advance for all the creative people out there is… Create! Just keep in mind that finding and building your audience can take a very long time and you’ll probably need to keep your day job. That, I think, is actually a good thing: when you’re not relying on your art as your sole source of income it gives you more artistic freedom.

  • Blogging & AI

    Personally, I love the new feature of AI generated images for the blog. I think posts look better with images. However, they look even better if all images are of similar style – something that cannot always be achieved with photos even if I use the same filter/special effect. I’ve now added images to most blog posts. A notable exception is the entries about my novel’s main characters as I don’t want their images to differ from the book illustrations.

    Why use AI in the first place? I can draw but… I can draw either living creatures or scenery. I can’t put the two together as the proportions never look right and I can never replicate the image I have in my head anyway. I’m a storyteller. I can describe what I see but I cannot draw it. Santagora, my book illustrator, can and I admire her for that. Me, I use a pen for writing.

    I found the AI image generator feature to be fun, exciting and great for producing something quickly. Most of the time I’m impressed but there is room for improvement – when it comes to faces, AI often makes the eyes look dead. And, if the eyes don’t look right, then the whole picture doesn’t look right.

  • 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…

  • Journals of the Undead vs Parallel World

    Journals of the Undead vs Parallel World

    I have another vampire story, Parallel World, written in short chapters and available on Wattpad. Parallel World originated from some left over material that didn’t quite fit into Journals of the Undead. Also, JotU deals with tough stuff: loss, betrayal, loneliness and depression a lot, which was starting to have an impact on me. There is a bit of humour in my novel but not much so I wanted to write something more light hearted to keep things in balance. And that’s how Parallel World was born. Of course, as it often happens, the characters started to evolve and have their own ways therefore altering my initial idea.

    The main differences are…

    Number 1: less lead characters. Unlike JotU, Parallel World has only two protagonists, Elisa and Jack, and all but one of the chapters are told by Elisa. 

    Number2: Less jumping between centuries. All episodes take place in 2009/2010 apart from the occasional flashbacks.

    Number 3: Whilst writing my book, I discovered how I enjoy using historical facts (the more bonkers the better) and mixing them with fiction. I’m very interested in European history, especially Hungarian, and you’ll notice that when you read Parallel World.

    Number 4: the vampires in Parallel World are less homogenous. When I was writing Journals of the Undead, I was still working out what my vampires would be like. As a result, they all had roughly the same abilities and limitations, and no special powers. By the time I was working on the next story, I started to find it rather boring and mixed things up. Therefore the vampires in Parallel World are a very diverse bunch, including one who can turn into an owl. And I’ve thrown in a vampire hunter to make things even more interesting.

    Number 5: the supporting characters are a truly motley crew. Unlike Journals of the Undead, where the vampires are essentially good guys and girls who only do bad things if the situation requires it, some of the vampires in Parallel World are rotten to the core and no-one can do anything about it. The good vampires tolerate the bad ones and vice versa but they’re all stuck together in this parallel reality.

    Number 6: Latvians! Journals of the Undead had none and it is one of my regrets about the novel. I rectified this in Parallel World, which features three Latvians, all very different, and one of the chapters is set in Latvia.

    The stories were originally written in Latvian and there are 35 chapters in total. So far, I’ve managed to translate 25.

  • Behind the Scenes: Arifay

    Out of all my characters, Arifay is the one I know the least about. How could this be if I created him and wrote the stories? Well, it’s more a case of writing them down. The characters all came to me and revealed as much or as little as they wanted.

    Arifay’s date of birth, surname and home town are never revealed in Journals of the Undead. He’s in his mid 20s and, like Yuri, was born in the 18th century. Romantic yet cynical, more of a thinker than a man of action, calm yet determined, often smiling but with a dry sense of humour, Arifay avoids the spotlight but leaves a big and lasting impression on the humans and vampires he meets. A natural born teacher, he loves sharing knowledge and has remarkable levels of patience. Arifay normally keeps himself to himself but, once he becomes close to someone, he is a loyal friend.

    People have asked me about the origins of his unusual name. The answer is: I don’t know. It just came to me.