Whylight?

It’s official. I am ‘vamped out’. Yep. I just don’t get the fascination with vampires these days.

Okay, I admit, I DID read the ‘Twilight’ books to see what all the hype was about. And yes, I did read all four, even though the last one was completely brutal… I just had to see how the series ended. Will she or won’t she? Immortal or mortal? I must know! A friend pointed out to me that I could have just Googled a synopsis of the last book and saved myself the headache. ;)

And then, of course, I saw the Twilight movie that was all the rage, with that cute little Robert Pattinson (who I loved so much as Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter movie.) This was another big reason why I read the book… you all know by now my own personal ‘rules’ about seeing a movie that is based on a book. Gotta read it first.

And incidentally, I liked the movie more than I liked the book. Wowza… you almost NEVER hear that. It was just so much more straightforward than the book. I didn’t have to read every 4th paragraph about how dazzlingly beautiful Edward is… ‘with his cold, marble skin and intensely piercing bronze eyes…’ Anyway, you get the idea.

Someone suggested that I read the series by Charlaine Harris, so I gave it a whirl. I read the first in the Sookie Stackhouse series. And it was… okay (definitely a lot… um, more adult… ahem… than the Twilight series. ;) An easy, peasy, lemon squeezy kind of read. Which was definitely up my alley on the drive to New Orleans… nothing too deep or involved when I have to turn around and yell at the kids every few minutes:

1) Stop that bickering!
2) Guys, if you can’t agree on a movie…
3) Seriously, if you don’t stop touching each other…
4) Can’t you just ‘hold it’ for 5 more minutes?
5) Hey, where did you get that cookie?!

So on the drive back home, I wanted another easy read. I thought, “Just a good old murder mystery will do the trick.” No fangs… no creatures of the night… no beautiful immortals with an aversion to the sun. So I picked up a promising-looking little book at a Target before we headed home. It promised murder. It promised intrigue. It promised…

Frickin’ vampires?! Seriously? It said NOTHING about vampires on the back of the book jacket… and yet here was another author jumping on the ‘undead’ bandwagon.

But wait just one second… maybe I’m overlooking something. I’m not QUITE finished writing my novel yet.

(thinking… thinking…)

Yes… there’s still time to turn my main characters into wing-flapping, blood-sucking vampires! Yeah, that could be just the ticket to getting my book published. And, the bonus? If I can’t figure out how to end the story…well, I can always just write an extremely sunny day into the conclusion. ;)