Usually, I take this time to thank everyone who supports me while I go on this crazy-train journey toward of being a writer. And to all the usual folks—Lori, Evan, Kristin, Michelle, Sylvia, you readers—thank you. But I thought I might take a second to do something a little different.
I know many of you who read this are aspiring authors yourselves. I know you haven’t finished that manuscript, or you aren’t brave enough to hit “submit,” or you don’t think you can handle the aftermath.
Do it.
Write that thing. Publish that thing. Yes, you’ll get bad reviews. Yes, you’ll have to deal with your friends and family reading something you wrote and the embarrassment that comes with that.
My father has read “the desk scene” in Steel Rose. Process that for a moment.
But it’ll also be something you get to hold up to the world and say, “I did this.”
I mention this in the beginning of my Dracula duet for a reason. I began writing, like few people would likely want to admit, with fanfiction.
I know, I know.
The horror.
Stay with me.
I started writing Dracula fanfiction when I was young. I did it because nobody was writing the fiction I wanted to read. I wanted to read stories where the villain got the girl for a change. Where they got to win for once. They are always the better and more interesting character.
I also wrote stories because I daydreamed them in my head and needed to get it all out on paper to make it stop. It only freed up space for my head to move on to the next one.
It was many, many years before I was brave enough to post my silly stories online. I made a few fans—Sylvia, I’m looking at you—and I slowly realized I was spending so much time building my own world within someone else’s that it was time to break free and do my own thing.
I took the leap and put my stuff out there. And it’s been a wild ride. It’s had ups and downs. And it’s a slow climb. But it is absolutely worth it.
Now, here’s a simple fact for you.
I’m not special.
You can do it too.
My writing story began with Dracula, and here we are coming back around to him. I’ve made friends, garnered a few fans, and have had a blast. And I hope to continue for many years to come.
So to you, the one sitting on the manuscript you’re afraid to put out into the world, I say push the button. Send the email. Hit submit. Be brave. Be silly. Tell the stories you want to tell. Get the things out of your head and share them with the world.
This story is for you.
1
Maxine Parker’s life ended with the sound of a knock on her front door.
Squeak. Clack, clack, clack.
A brass ring in bad need of oiling let out its preemptive squeak before the figure on the other side rapped it against its plate. Not urgently, not impolitely, and with nothing except simple social propriety.
It did not help the sense of dread she felt as she sat on the stairs of her home, gathering the skirts of her long navy dress around herself as she stared at the back of her front door, wondering if she should simply ignore the call of those on the other side. She did not know who was standing there, summoning her to answer, but she could sense one thing from them—death.
Maxine was very good at sensing death. Especially as of late, considering what had befallen Boston. Murder came to the city on the inky wings of the night, summoned by a crimson moon that never wavered and, by some means, defied the motion of the Earth to remain full.
Most of the residents of the city ignored the screams and howls in the darkness, the sounds that belied what hunted its prey was not human. The papers attributed the disappearances and remaining gore to a pack of wolves or coyotes that had taken up residence in the Boston Common and the Public Gardens.
But wolves could not leave a man’s head impaled on the wrought-iron railing of the Granary Burying Ground. But the papers kindly skipped over the details of that particular night. No need to incite a panic. People might run for their lives.
Many had already done exactly that, but many either believed they had no reason to fear or they had nowhere to go. As for her? She fit in neither category. Her excuse for