After finishing Dark Medicine, I needed a break. Between the writing and mostly everything else in the community I am working on and my bill paying job, I pushed myself to the brink of burnout. I am back now, but I am leaving Dark Medicine in the tomb for a while as I work on a novel in a different genre (see The Guardians)

I am also taking this opportunity to inform my readers that I am re-looking at my bloging schedule. The purpose of these blogs is to inform, share, seek opinion and promote…but, before I went silent I felt my schedule was out of control and stealing the time I needed to actually write Dark Medicine. The weekends yields the most time I have to write, and I am posting blogs on the weekends…which shows that I have split my priorities. The novels should be my top priority. Later this week I will announce when I will move this blog to. At this time, I am pondering moving this and the blog for The Guardians to a weeknight.

The first draft of Dark Medicine was clearly too ambitious. Looking back at the original plot and thinking about how it evolved as I wrote it, it grew to be larger than what I had imagined. I had designed Dark Medicine to be a gothic tale of different kinds of vampires, with a dash of ghosts, and a large dash of paranormal and shake it up in a story style that reflects the more classic vampires rather than the growing trend that is shown by Hollywood. As I think about reviewing the first draft I know that I am considering breaking it up or killing off a sub-plot or two …maybe hold it off to a sequel (assuming some agent shops it to some publishing house to publish it).

These are the things that are being pondered for when Dark Medicine comes out of the tomb like Lazarus.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates on my stories, blogs and events.

Some writers keep journals, I keep blog entries. If you have ever seen my handwriting, you would understand—I can’t read it after too much time (a week?) has passed. As Dark Medicine comes closer to the conclusion of the first draft, I find my mind is already considering the second draft.

One of the considerations I am having is in regards to one of the subplots and wonder if I made one subplot too many. As I write this, I am heavily leaning toward the answer of yes to this it is too soon to know for certain and I will not attempt to put the answer into place until I have completed the transcription draft and let the novel sit and rest for a short time.

Which subplot am I considering getting rid of and what would I do if I did? There are multiple characters wrapped up in a conspiracy about jury rigging. When I plotted the novel I thought this would be an important subplot to the story. Looking at it now, I find it is more of a distraction at the moment. If there is a sequel to Dark Medicine, as I am hopeful there is, I may take this subplot and weave into that one or have the plot of the sequel revolve around it.

These are considerations I needed to get down now, but respond to when the time is right—in the near future.

Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the articles, blogs, non-fiction books, stories, novels, and poetry I write.

Stories of vampires seem to have changed over the last few years. Where it began I don’t know and will leave that to the literary historians, but I can speculate that it began with a 1960’s soap opera. The change has come from making ghosts and vampires from being creatures that send tingles up our spins and out our fingers to objects of pity, remorse, and even of love. This is not a bad change and has lead to a creation of a cross genre of supernatural romance. Sadly, it seems that the fear aspect has been replaced with something else.

While Dark Medicine has romance in it, as does most dramas, it is not a pure supernatural romance. What Dark Medicine does with the romantic aspects is step back into gothic horror and the sense of fear. The novel is almost completed as a first draft, in the later draft will be the exploration of the showing of emotions (see a blog on my Fiction Writing blog on this topic)of the various levels of love and of fear, with the intention of building a crescendo in the reader as the story builds.

As to the progress of Dark Medicine, this weekend has not been as productive as I wished, but I still believe that I am on track to have the dictation draft done by the end of the month and the transcription draft completed by the end of November. Those on my “Trusted Reader’s List” to give me critiques should have it by the end of January.

Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the articles, blogs, non-fiction books, stories, novels, and poetry I write.

Dark Medicine appears to be on track to be in dictated draft by the end of October, and on pace to go through all the drafts and be ready to be shopped to possible agents by the end of April 2010. It is has been a much longer journey than I would have intended. I had expected this novel to be ready by last month. In some ways I feel like my main character, Alexandre Levreau—who has been on his own version of an odyssey—failed or blocked to achieve my goal of bringing this story home.

In other ways, I have a fear regarding this novel. Everywhere I turn I see a new vampire story. All the ones I have read or seen on television or in the movies are “Hollywood”ish versions of the old tale and I wonder where Dark Medicine will fall into the arena. Is there just too many vampire stories out there right now?

That will be a question for the agents, publishers and the market to answer. I am not getting my hopes up, but I will proceed to shop it in April. In the meantime, should it not be bought, I am starting research for a different novel altogether. What, you may ask, do I have up my sleeve? Excuse the cat who ate the canary grin, but I will give a hint—I have been researching my Native American heritage, folk tales, and legends again for my fantasy writing and it looks like I can cross some of the ideas over.

Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the articles, blogs, non-fiction books, stories, novels, and poetry I write.

The universe is filled with qundrums. Without sounding like a Taoist, have you ever noticed that you cannot truly see or even begin to understand something without seeing something to compare it to. Perhaps this is one of the reasons there are so many shades of colors. Perhaps this is also why every language has so many ways to express an emotion. As the contrast allows us to delve deeper into the spectrum of existence of a thing.

My readers may be wondering why I am focusing on this odd philosophy and what it possibly has to do with the gothic horror I am writing. There are two primary reasons. One is the obviousness that my characters are a contrast to each other. The main character, Alexandre Levreau is a contrast to his creator, Marsca, not only in his view of life and humanity, but also they are different kinds of vampires. Then there is a contrast between the two many antagonist in the story . . . and here, I must keep my mouth shut or I might reveal something.

The second reason is that I am looking at what I have finished on the first draft and thinking of what I need to do for the next one. One of the big things is that I need to sneak in a little more humor. Why? The levity of the moments will help make the scenes darker. This is what I want to show. The question behind Dark Medicine, the theme that pushes it along is “can someone do so much that he or she can never find redemption?” With the levity and the signs of hope I can truly show the darkness of the soul that man can slip into.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates to my blogs, articles, stories, and poems I write.