Yesterday, Wednesday, October 31st, I did a quick author interview with Ripley's Believe it or Not Radio. Part of it was to do with Can Vampires be Good Role Models for Children. My answer was a resounding Yes! If you've read the books, you will know that Gappy is just a normal kid who goes through all of life's experiences as other regular kids. He deals with bullies, he's not very good at math, he's loyal and sticks by his friends through thick and thin, he works hard to solve problems and doesn't give up, he's compassionate and kind, etc. Also, as commented on by the teacher of a fourth grade class that I visited to talk about my books and the joy of writing, Gappy also has to deal with being different. Already shy and somewhat serious which makes him an appealing target for bullying by Billy Tompkins, now he has the huge, secret identity of becoming a vampire, to boot. Imagine how hard that must be? Kids can relate to Gappy and if they model his behavior, they can't go wrong - except for the part about hiding his secret identity, that is and the various evasions that that incurs. However, he has to do that to protect the vampire race from discovery by regular humans - regs, so I think he's allowed. Although the interview was taped yesterday, which is kind of appropriate, seeing as October 31st is Halloween - OOOOoooooh - the segment will air sometime in December. I'll post the podcast when it comes out. I also told Ripley's about the reeeeeally weeeeeird things that happened to me while I was writing Book Six of the Young Vampire Adventures: Gappy and the Witch's Curse. I still can't believe that they happened. They were really spooky. See below blog entries for details.
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So this is the second weird thing that happened to me while I was editing Book 6, Gappy and the Witch's Curse: Don't read this if you don't want to learn what happens at the end of book 6. There's an episode where a skeleton starts growing innards, like organs and muscles and blood vessels. I'd been working on this section for a while, so my head was full of images of what that would look like. Needing a break, I came into the living room and flipped on the TV to see what was on. The channel that came on was playing the movie "Hollow Man" starring Kevin Bacon. It was just beginning a scene where a huge invisible monkey - a baboon or gorilla - was being injected with a formula which would make the monkey become visible again. As the formula snaked through the veins and arteries of the animal, they became visible like a web curling around the body and weaving in and out. Slowly organs and bones began to plump into visibility, then skin and muscles. I couldn't believe my eyes because what I was watching was the exact same scene (except that my skeleton was human) of what I had just been editing in my book!
This is the first weird thing that happened to me while I was writing Book 6, Gappy and the Witch's Curse. It was April of this year (2011), and I'd recently returned from Salem, Massachusetts where I'd been doing research for the book. I was writing the last few chapters and filling in blanks, and was totally immersed in the history of the Salem witch trials when, on a Saturday afternoon, I visited a second-hand book store to look for an old book on chemistry or electrical engineering for a science professor friend of mine whose birthday was coming up. The shop owner showed me a bookcase near the back wall where old, cloth-bound chemistry textbooks were shelved. As I browsed the shelves, reading the titles of the books, I suddenly caught sight of a hardcover novel whose modern white jacket stood out in contrast to the muted reds and browns of the old textbooks, some of which dated back to the 1940's. As I looked up at the book to read the title printed on its spine, a cold shiver crept down my own spine. The title of the white book was In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, by Mary Beth Norton, published in 2002. Amid the shelves of mouldy old texbooks, all devoted to organic and inorganic chemistry and the odd biology text, In the Devil's Snare had obviously been misfiled at some point, but what a huge coincidence, and what a spooky one, too! Needless to say, I bought the book, and it proved very useful as a reference guide for checking facts and figures and adding the finishing touches to Gappy and the Witch's Curse.
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AuthorStar Donovan, author of the exciting Young Vampire Adventures, a series of books about a normal boy named Gappy, who gets the shock of his life when he learns that he is turning into a vampire and then proceeds to hurtle from one dangerous adventure to another. Gappy makes it to TV!!
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