I feel I should preface this book release with the fact that I get excited by new and interesting ways of telling a story. The novels that I tend to write more quickly and passionately are the ones where I know there’s some sort of challenge involved in the writing itself. That’s a big part of what drew me to write Singularity. And it’s the context for how I decided to write this new novel.

When I came up with the idea of a war between vampires and dragons, I thought it sounded interesting and fun but if I was going to do it then I needed a different approach. I had heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) many years ago, and had always been intrigued by that idea but knew I needed a different kind of project to try it out on, something where I was totally comfortable being experimental. The two were made for each other. I decided to do this whole thing in one month, starting from scratch, with no professional editing and doing only what editing and revisions I could do on my own before the end of the month. And so, after one month of prep, filling my head with as much inspirational vampire and dragon related material as I could find, I engrossed myself in the story for the whole month of November, threw everything onto the keyboard, reached 50,000+ words, and then did only what editing I could in the time allotted.

I spent all of October gaining inspiration for this story. (Good timing!) I already had the basic plotline in my head but needed more ideas as far as characters and seeing things from their perspectives. Some movies I wasn’t able to find in time, like Blade, Interview With A Vampire, and Queen of the Damned, but I had seen those films before and remembered enough from them to carry over the elements that inspired me the most. I was very happy to be able to rewatch What We Do In The Shadows, a dark comedy that actually lists a lot of the things vampires have to deal with, like the need to be invited into places. On the dragon side I watched How To Train Your Dragon and The Desolation of Smaug. But a lot of inspiration actually came from the video game Skyrim, which was the only game I played for almost all of November (briefly switching to Fallout 4 for environmental inspiration). Not only does Skyrim give a lot of insight into the ways of vampires and dragons alike, but it’s a game where, if you play your cards a certain way, you can become a vampire who hunts dragons. It was perfect.

This is also a darker story than I would normally write, so I’ll mention to parents that this is not written for children. I tend not to get too graphic with things, but this book does contain elements of horror, violence, and adult situations (and reference to songs containing strong language). As well as having an overall darker tone than most of my books. As I was deciding the setting, based on the core concept (the premise) I decided on setting the story in our world because I wanted to include all standard strengths and weaknesses of vampires and if I went with a fantasy world then I would have to explain why the cross is a weakness for creatures who have never heard of Jesus. And since a war between vampires and dragons would be hard not to notice, the story couldn’t be set in the modern age or any historical age, which meant going post-apocalyptic, which is a new genre for me.

As a natural perfectionist I knew the one-month challenge would be difficult. I can always find things to fix, or improve, even on projects that take me multiple years to complete. The limited time meant stepping out of my comfort zone, editing only what seemed essential, and not making any further changes after December 1^st. It was quite a different writing experience. It was exciting, frustrating, liberating, heartbreaking, and overall fun. I hope you have fun reading it!

To check it out on Amazon, click here

To see the Pinterest board for visual aid, click here