Putting it into words...

Every day, I draw nearer to the ending of Vampire Society… and I can't wait.

Vampire Society has an interesting back-story, which some of you may know but I'll tell you anyway. I began Vampire Society in 1999, ages ago. I'd just finished writing the four Rynia fantasy novels and I was looking to return to the more philosophical styles of This Land is My Land and Revelations. It wasn't hard to find material for a book about ethics. All I really had to do was look around me and see the world I was in.

In less than a year, I'd written the first 60,000 words and was caught in a quandary of a book that, while it was about ethics, wanted to be a love story. I wasn't much into writing love stories at the time. After all, my marriage was falling apart. And when the end of my life with Rosa came, I was in even less of a state. So, I put it aside.

It wasn't until this year began that I read it again. Maybe it was the years and maybe it was Vicky that had healed me enough to see what the book was trying to do, and the value of writing a love story about values, but I knew I could pick it up again. And so, I did.

And as I saw the end approaching, I knew I'd have to define the ineffable. I'd have to find a catchphrase for a book that defied explanation. When people ask what a book's about, they don't want to hear, "Well, it's a book about ethics that takes place around these people growing up and…" They want a short description… something memorable…

Today, I found it. I wasn't really looking for it. As happens so often with these things, it came to me without me looking for it.

Mind you, when I mention the end coming, I only refer to the book. The essay at the end will take all summer, I'm sure.

You might have guessed it by now. Now that I know it, I'm littering it about whenever I talk about the book.

Vampire Society is A Love Story About Values.

Of course.

Now to finish it.