#annerice

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Lestat Comes Home

Welcome Back. Lestat!

Welcome Back. Lestat!

The audio version of this post appears below. Just click on “play”.

 

 

So, let me be the fifty-millionth person to write about the return of Lestat.

I rarely look forward to book launches. It’s not because I’m a pompous egotistical a-hole who feels he is beneath reading new literature (even though I am the egotistical a-hole part, that’s not why), it’s just that there is so much great stuff floating around that I haven’t read. Therefore, I don’t get excited. However… my ears perked up and a Chris Matthew’s style shiver went up my leg when I heard Anne Rice was bringing back her antihero the vampire Lestat.

Like millions of Rice fans, I love Lestat. He is one of my favorite characters ever and I’ve always wanted to be able to create a character with the kind of layered supernatural richness braised in human foibles that Lestat embodies. To no avail of course, Anne Rice is Anne Rice after all, and there’s only ever going to be one, thankfully.

But, I do think about my characters like Anne thinks of hers, as living beings that come to her and not vice versa. Lestat hasn’t been around for a very long time and as you can see here, there is a reason; she has been wrestling with the brat prince for years. I totally get that. I read Rice novels because of Lestat. As much as I love all of her writing, I can only get through the books of the vampire chronicles because her other work doesn’t hold my interest. The writing is always beautiful, but the plots aren’t to my taste.

Lestat is like the James Bond of the vampire world – he never gets boring and always stays true to his character. Anyone can identify with him and the situations he goes through – even if we’re not all preternatural beings, we can put ourselves in his place and enjoy the ride.

Hopefully, all fiction writers have characters like Lestat who even when they are dormant in our mind hang in the background like an ethereal mist, just waiting for the right time to come out and pounce on our consciousness. That’s what makes writing and reading fun – the realness of fictional characters.

I’ve written before that we are our own main characters in one way or another. I definitely identify with that idea. My Lestat is Charlie who appears in my short story compilation 5 Tales. Charlie is an amalgamation of real people I know, but his personality is closer to mine than any other character I’ve developed. He’s not an alter ego by any stretch of the imagination – but he possesses my snide-ness and some of my mannerisms. I couldn’t be Charlie, he likes killing too much, but I identify with a lot of his characteristics and experience.

Anne has spoken of Lestat as her lover. I find that incredibly intriguing – inventing a character that is so close you can call them a lover, begs the question as to what aspects of that character are a part of the author? I mean; that’s fun to think about. I’ve never created a character that I thought of as a lover. I’ve created ones I thought could be best friends, or ones I’d like to kill, but a lover? Not yet. That’s some serious character development right there.

Yeah, I can’t wait for Lestat’s return.

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You DO NOT Have to Write Everyday to be a Writer

The audio version of this post appears below. Just click on “play”.

 

 

 

 

As anyone who’s ever read this blog knows, I dig Anne Rice. I haven’t read every single word of her extensive offerings, but I’m pretty well versed in everything Vampire and witch and have never read a book of hers I didn’t love. But, it’s not just the books – its Anne herself. I’ve always felt like I could relate to her, as I’m pretty sure all of her fans do. For such a superstar in the literary universe she remains fairly accessible and communicates with a surprising number of her fans and followers on Social Media as well as in the real world at signing events and other appearances. She even answered me directly on a Facebook message. What I like the most is Anne carries herself not as a seasoned celebrity author, but as a real person who is constantly finding ways to re-invent herself, which she’s done periodically over the decades.

 

Thus, you can imagine my outrage over the years when I’ve heard various talking heads and armchair critics accuse Anne Rice of not being a real writer because she doesn’t write everyday. What kind of sanctimonious bullshit is that? Clearly, its ridiculous and Anne does address it quite often with the style and grace that is inherent in her personality while encouraging other writers not to take it seriously. I, too, have heard from many people that if you do not put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard on a daily basis, that you are a hack.

 

I understand for some people a routine is the key to success, but to suggest that a writer is not a writer unless their ass is stuck to the chair eight to ten hours a day is complete bilge water. If I did that, my stuff would suck so badly it isn’t funny. Most of my work takes years to put together. (5 Tales took four years) That doesn’t mean I’m not working on it everyday, I am. At any given point, I have at least five story lines swirling around my brain looking for an exit point. I write in bursts, as do many writers including Anne. You can’t force inspiration, and to do so just for the sake of keeping some kind of routine is only going to limit your work and probably will make for some boring content.

 

Possibly the reason I have chosen the hard way into this business – self publishing – is because I don’t want to be held to deadlines. Deadlines can do two things: 1. Make your work fantastic due to forced output, or, 2. Make your work suck moose genitals due to forced output. I won’t risk number two. I want my work to be organic so someday when I’m keeping the maggots company, my kids can read it and know the sentences I strung together in life were the ones I really meant. And, if that means there are huge stretches of time between writings – then so be it.

 

So, just like my rant about “killing your darlings”, I think the idea that you should write everyday in order to be considered a true writer should be filed away in the back of any writer’s mind as something some no talent ignoramus would spew from their frothing twisted visage. Write when you have something to say. If that’s everyday – great, but forced writing is obvious writing.

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Insight from Anne Rice

Anne Rice

Anne Rice

I got lucky yesterday. I follow Anne Rice on Facebook not just because she’s one of my favorite authors, but also because she engages her fans and speaks directly to them. I think that’s really admirable and I enjoy getting insight into her personality and process.

So, yesterday Anne posted a link to an obituary for Syd Field. Field wrote what became known as the Screen Writers Bible back in early ‘70’s. I’ve heard of it but never read it. Anyway, here is what Anne posted on Facebook:

“In this obituary for Syd Field, there is much talk of his bible for screenwriters. Sounds like a book that might be an aid to novelists as well as those writing scripts. Comments welcome. I didn’t know Syd Field or know of him, but it sounds as if he made a very valuable contribution with his books; and surely many people will be ordering them today for the first time.”

I replied something to the effect that I couldn’t see how this book could aid me as it would probably change the tonality of my stories were I to follow it, but that I always try and make screen plays out of my short stories in case Hollywood ever calls. Lo and behold, she answered me! I was shocked and engaged her for another couple of posts. Here is how she replied:

“I don’t know about that. Sometimes these books can inspire. Years ago I read Aristotle’s formula for great drama — written for tragedy in Ancient Greece — and it inspired me mightily with my novel writing…something on the order of plot, character, spectacle — creating pity and catharsis. And voila. Interview with the Vampire.

I do think screen writing techniques can help a novel. One of the most popular novels I ever wrote — The Mummy or Ramses the Damned — started life as a long screenplay. I converted it into the novel in the space of a few weeks. The structure of my screen play — which was quite sloppy with notes and such — helped the novel to become a lightning read.”

First of all, I was in awe and amazement that I was actually conversing albeit electronically with the great author. If I were ballsier I would have tried to pitch 5 Tales, but I’m not like that anyway. I was just happy to glean any wisdom she was willing to impart.

I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about what Anne said. My problem is I tend to be too technical when thinking about screenwriting as opposed to novel writing. The reason being as I’m writing, the scene is in my head but I’m less worried about characters’ stage direction, speech intonation, the scenery in general and am more involved in the meat of the story. Therefore, panic ensues when I think about writing backwards from a screenwriting standpoint. I would look at the physical format of the writing and be too worried about forming the character to the motion and flow in terms of the stage or set.

However, if you look at what Anne said, it makes total sense. It’s like looking at the story from the top down. Taking the drama and emotion of the stage/screen and injecting it into your writing makes perfect sense to me now that I think about it. Those screenwriting techniques Anne talks about and surely Syd Field teaches in his books could be just the salve needed to repair an injured piece of work. I have to give it a try. Lord knows I have plenty of unfinished novels to try it out on!

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Vampire Porn

This is a Vampire

This is a Vampire

The audio version of this post appears below. Just click “play”.

 

 

I’m not immune to the wiles of Nosferatu. I’ve loved vampire stories for as long as I can remember. I have a vivid recollection of being very young, I’m guessing about eight years old, this was in the late ‘70’s, – I’m really taxing my mind here. A brother of a friend of mine packed the two of us into his wickedly cool Barracuda, popped a eight track of Seals & Crofts into a player the size of a friggin’ Wurlitzer and hauled us off to our local library to watch a Friday night screening of Dracula, like, the original one with Bela Lugosi. That was a vampire! Scared the hell out of us. In fact, that night at my friend’s house I puked just to get a pass on the sleepover so I could go home and sleep with mom.

Let’s see, Dracula couldn’t go out in the dark, hated garlic and crucifixes and could only be killed with a stake through the heart. Purism, baby. They were fond of black and red velvet, had VERY pointy incisors and absolutely had to survive by sucking the blood of their victims. Well, what the hell happened? A century and a half later, we’ve got a bunch of ripped, half naked Romeos and seductresses infiltrating our high schools, colleges and holding jobs from baristas to rock stars. Vampire porn, that’s what it is. The only difference between it being actual porn and figurative porn is that it exists in the mainstream.

I believe in evolution and maybe my disdain for the current status of Vampire-dom is because I really am getting old, but I just think it’s gone too far. A few years after my Dracula experience at the library I read and watched Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot and although I loved it (still do), it seemed to go off script. Now that seems completely ridiculous if you look what’s out there today. I’m not going to mention any specific authors or titles – that’s just hacky and bitter, but compared to what the public is exposed to today, Salem’s Lot was damn close to the original vampire script. It was the writing that made it so great. There’s the challenge I think, writing around the original vampire structure. A little tinkering is fine, but stay as close to script as possible. It’s a great framework – like the Constitution! Try and make it better, but keep the structure.

This is another Vampire

This is another Vampire

So, if Salem’s Lot threw me off a bit imagine what it was like when I started reading Anne Rice. To me, Anne is the second and my favorite generation of vampire lore. I won’t belabor what an amazing genius Mrs. Rice is, but her work does two very important things; she stays very close to the original framework of the vampire as created by Bram Stoker and the progenitor of it all John Polidori, and then adds in all the human elements to her characters which are relatable and thus, believable. She works from the vampire out, discreetly and erotically including all the human emotions we love to read and fantasize about. If Dracula reigned as the standard from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th centuries, then Lestat is the vampire ruler from then on.

No clues as to what this is

No clues as to what this is

The vampire world of Anne Rice is exactly as it should be – perfection. If it took almost a hundred years to aptly change the world of Dracula, it certainly will take another hundred to de-throne Lestat and crew. In my opinion what has been going on in the last decade is drivel. Don’t get me wrong, if this is what the readers’ want and someone is willing to serve them – more power to all. I may be intellectualizing Vampire-dom a little too much, but I like quality and I’m not seeing a lot of that in the writing these days – the production values of television and the big screen are stupendous, however. But, it’s the ol’ lipstick on a pig thing. Those big budget screen ventures are pretty, but the substance lying underneath is flimsy and insulting as hell.

Maybe I am just getting old and let’s face it, I won’t be here when the next great vampire story surfaces, but I’m ok with that.