It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy’s birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our brave friend’s spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together. But we call him Quincey.
- Jonathan Harker, Dracula
You’ve reached the front of The Heritage, my sequel to to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This isn’t to dismiss the work that has gone before – there have been some fine vampires and victims to follow in Stoker’s footsteps. This is just the story I want to read… so I’m writing it.
I know this looks like a blog. It’s not.
This site is a book.
Or, rather, a book-to-be.
This book is free. You can read it starting right here. There’s more than 77,000 words (over 300 pages) worth of material for you in this rough draft.
It is a work in progress. Entries will change, whole passages of dialogue will move (and have moved) from one entry to another. In fact, as this is the rough draft, I already know I will be going back to completely rewrite a character (Lucille Seward, in particular), drop one in (a fellow named Raymond Dark), remove one (or more), and add/move various important scenes.
So, if it’s a work in progress, why am I putting it up here? I’m basically workshopping it on the Internet. Ever have a creative writing class in college? Same idea here… only I’m getting people who are interested in the topic reading this, not having to deal with other students who took that workshop solely because it fit their schedule, they like the instructor, they enjoy being the bane of my existence, etc.
This project’s first phase started in October of 2011 and ended May 2, 2012. Now I’ll take the summer to clean up the novel, edit it, and then self publish it in September of 2012. At the same time, the entries here will be taken down and the final entries will be re-posted on the day of their writing in the novel (much like started doing with this draft before February tripped me up, but those will be the entries as they are published in the final work).
As this is a work in progress, I want your feedback (just tweet me or email me). Let me know what you think, what needs work, what really didn’t work for you, etc. If you want more information about the project and why I’m doing it, check out the About the Book page.
Thanks for stopping by… and now, “Enter freely and of your own free will!“