Assuming The Guardians 1st draft is finished sometime this weekend, I could begin rewriting Dark Medicine in the next 92 hours, I am excited to get back to this story that will not die. I know that I will be completely rewriting the story and this knowledge makes me wonder how Dan Curtis felt when he re-imagined his successful gothic television series Dark Shadows. In the 1960’s, Curtis created a show very unique for its time period—a daytime television show with ghosts, witches, other paranormal activity, and a remorseful vampire. Does the remorseful vampire sound familiar? Of course it does. Curtis introduced the idea and most of this kind of character have been influenced by Curtis’s creation.

Dark Shadows ran on television originally from June 27, 1966 to April 2, 1971 when, as Curtis explained in an interview, the story lines ran out. As he has admitted, if the writing talents of people like Stephen King and others had been available at the time, the stories may not have ended. After the run on television, Curtis made a few movies of the cult classic.

In 1991, Dan Curtis re-imagined his series in a short run. This was the version I originally saw. The 1991 version moved faster, the special effects were great for its time period. The second run was killed by the Gulf War, as Americas focus was on the war. However, having now watched the original on DVD, I believe the newer run was not as well written.
This knowledge of what happened to Dark Shadows lurks in the back of my mind. I want to re-imagine Dark Medicine to fix problems in the plot and the characters, but I do not want it to lose the gothic saga that the original first draft contained. This fear does not stop me from writing it—it remains as a reminder, a ghost, haunting my mind as I prepare to bring Alexandre Levreau back to life from his eternal imprisonment. Hopefully, with my next entry, I will be able to share how the new draft proceeds.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for information on the blogs, stories, poems, and articles I write.