A small insight into how I came to write about Vampires. And more pictures of really BIG knickers. But mostly writerly insights. Honestly.

In somewhat less than a month (well, thirty days, actually, but since it's only me that's counting, let's call it a month, shall we?  Go on, humour me) my latest novel will be released upon you in all its paperback glorification. It's available in its Kindle glorification now, if you're interested, look, here although I can completely understand your desire to have a concrete article clutched between your warm, sweaty pectorals.  No, no, it's not really made of concrete, obviously, because this would be impractical and heavy, although nicely waterproof for bathtime reading, also handy for swatting flies just as long as they didn't land on anything precious or breakable. But useful for propping open doors...maybe I should investigate this new material for books further...  And now I'm thinking about your pectorals...  ooh, nice vest...

Ahem.  Anyway.  Vampire State of Mind, for such is the novel of our current conversation, is poised, trembling in the slips.  No, it's not hiding in my underwear drawer, besides, do I look to you like the sort of person who wears a slip?  Quite frankly, you are lucky I'm wearing knickers, never mind the more ethereal of undergarments.

The underwear du jour...

There is, you should be warned, nothing ethereal whatsoever about my knickers. But, that's fair enough, since there is nothing ethereal about my bottom. If you are looking for something ethereal, here you go...

Ether, either, let's call the whole thing off... Sorry.

Now, you see what you have done?  I arrived here all full of straining eagerness to talk about my vampires, and now you've got me on to the twin subjects of underwear, and your chest. You really know how to lower the tone, don't you? Anyway.  What I was going to talk about, before you started on about nether regions and stuff, was how I came to be writing about vampires in the first place.  Well, I shall tell you, lovely people who aren't at all underpant-obsessed...

One day I started wondering.  Oh, I don't know which day.  Maybe it was a Sunday.  Yes, let's say it was a Sunday.. I was wondering about general vampire fiction, where human women fall madly in love with a vampire and, inexplicably in most cases, this love is returned, and this is where I started wondering... how the hell does she think this is going to work?  I mean, in twenty years' time, he's still going to look young and gorgeous and she's going to look a bit...well, let's face it, large underwear is going to be worn, isn't it? And bits are going to be heading south, and, given another ten years she's going to start forgetting where she put the car keys and why she's still got her slippers on, and in another twenty years people are going to think she's his grandmother - so how can it possibly work?  Without her becoming a vampire and therefore the entire book being about two perfect, immortal people being perfect and immortal together?  Which, come on, isn't exactly something we can all relate to, is it?

I mean, essentially, we are looking at this

Ian 'sometimes plays a vampire' Somerhalder

going out with this

Generic old woman. Well, a mask really.  So as not to offend real old women.

and I think we can all see the discrepancy, can't we?  If we can't, I suggest that we take a visit to SpecSavers, which might just save us from a long, and humiliating series of failed dating experiences.

And this then got me thinking about why a vampire might love a human, and how it must feel to be nearly immortal and constantly watching people you love die.  Like being Doctor Who.  And then I started thinking about how your personality would change if that happened, and what kind of a person you would become.  No, not you, I already know what kind of a person you are. You're obsessed with knickers, for a start.

So I wrote Vampire State of Mind. About people.  Some of them are vampires.  Some of them can't work an electric pencil sharpener, some of them have absolutely no sense of humour, and some of them are severely addicted to HobNobs, but they are all people, underneath.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and look at that picture of Ian Somerhalder again, for a while.  About a week should do it...