Twenty Years of The Vampire Files-- YIKES!

Holy cr@p!  Has it been that long?

Um, yup. Calendars don't lie. Not that much!

I'm going to be the writer guest of honor at OryCon 32 next month and they wanted to know if I wanted to mention in the programming that this was the 20-year anniversary of The Vampire Files. 

Really, I was in too much shock to think about it much less give an answer. That's a big chunk of my life.

Original 1st edition from Ace

The first book of the Vampire Files series that I began writing in 1986 (YIKES AGAIN!!!) and sold in 1988 and which hit the shelves in 1990 is now technically a year past the legal drinking age. I signed the contract with Ace in the spring of 1988, the first book hitting the shelves in 1990.

But we'll keep it simple and call 2010 the 20-year anniversary of my partnership with vampire PI Jack Fleming. I can't say it's been easy--he's a tough guy to work with--but it's never been dull.

The series almost never happened. Back then, the Big Name writer was Anne Rice, and I was told that her style was the only style readers wanted. I was told repeatedly that the vampire genre was sewn up in its shroud and dead, not just undead, and that a cross-genre book of any kind had NO chance at all for publication.

I am not known for taking no as an answer. Besides, all the how-to books I read about writing asserted the importance of not giving up. When a rejection comes (no writer escapes!), you take it on the chin, put on your game face, and start all over again--which I did.

Ace reprint edition

That book, "The List", which became Bloodlist, was sent out about 24 times, collected rejections, rewritten, and sent it out again. And again. And again. I got feedback from some very brave people, and kept rewriting.  In the meantime, I began another book in the series, then another, and I wrote gaming modules, selling them to TSR. Professional credits! Pay checks! Cool!

It took two years to sell that first book. 

I made all the rookie mistakes. I sent terrible queries, worse proposals, a rotten synopsis, and they went to the wrong publishers. Back then I thought a mystery house would love to see a dark fantasy--that's what they called vampire books when they were being kind. The rest of the time they lumped them into horror which was and still is dominated by Mr. King.

But the book I wrote was not horror! 

Sure, it had a vampire as the main character, but he was a GOOD GUY. He had a bit of a food allergy, but he usually tried to do the right thing, had a sense of humor, a wiseacre mouth, and even sent money home to his mother. Back then it was too alien a concept for the black cover crowd.

My inspirations came from Fred Saberhagen and Dark Shadows and Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and Conan Doyle and The Shadow and countless movies from Universal and Hammer Films. I watched anything with Bogart, Cagney, Karloff, Chaney, Lugosi, Cushing, and Lee in it.

I can thank author David McDaniel and his Man From UNCLE book, The Vampire Affair for stirring up my imagination!

I can thank author Jeff Rice for inventing Carl Kolchak and the books, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler and the TV series with Darrin McGavin owning the part.  

It is NO accident that Jack Fleming started out as a down at the heels reporter. Carl Kolchak is his spiritual godfather.

 

Audio book

I read the pulps when I could find reprints and searched for books to feed my appetite for supernatural good guys--who were thin on the ground! 

Certainly you could include Barnabas Collins, so ably played by my first crush, Jonathan Frid. He and the writers for Dark Shadows turned him from the heavy of that six-week story arc into an ongoing anti-hero vampire with a conscience long before Joss Whedon stepped in with Angel and Spike.

Thank them for the Vampire Files, not me.

Thank the slush pile reader who liked my first 50 pages and kicked them upstairs to the senior editor who sold the series to the bean-counters who okay'd an offer to me of a 6-book contract and an advance. 



Thank friends like Teresa Patterson, Bill Fawcett, past agent Donald Maass, and present agent Lucienne Diver.

Because of them I got to meet many of my heroes: Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Lois McMaster Bujold, and whoa! -- Jonathan Frid!  (You still make my knees go weak, sir!)

Because of them, I got to meet thousands of really COOL readers at countless conventions.

Because of them, stellar talents like Rachel Caine and Carole Nelson Douglas are my good friends.

I've been able to edit some of the best writers in the business and co-write books with the amazing Nigel Bennett.

I'm leaving too much and too many others out, and I apologize. My point is I didn't do any of it on my own, and I'm grateful to everyone who ever traded words with me about my job.

So happy 20 years, Jack Fleming.
 

Now--let's see what we can do in the NEXT twenty!

Three book omnibus

German Edition

French Edition

Italian Edition