I haven’t written a serious essay since my undergraduate thesis. Funny enough, the subject was, yes, you guessed it right: vampires. When the Hunter becomes Haunted: the fall of Lestat is my baby. Twenty pages of blood sweat and tears that guaranteed my graduating with honors and my winning a bet against a certain annoying, freckle ridden-red headed fellow student who almost died of disgust when I started out to write a semi dissertation on a series of books I could pick up at the local Walgreens.
Things didn’t follow the way of the scholar for me, and after trying out a couple of unsuccessful short stories, I decided to call it quits. However there is a part of me that became fascinated with the subject of my essay at an academic level that will never let me go. Sometimes I disguise it as fangirl appreciation. In sunny, happy days it is my quest for the best vampire movie ever made. In other occasions, I baffle mere mortals with obscure trivia that will guarantee winning every single question of Jeopardy in a row if the subject were: Things you didn’t know about Stoker.
And then there are days like these. It is against my will I swear. I’ll find a book that no one knows about, and I feel I need to make them notice- even if them is just me, trying to put my thoughts in order. My brain works overtime and in a discriminating manner. It throws full passages, long forgotten stanzas... it reminds me that if I really set my mind to it, I could take out that dusty MLA Citation Guideline and spin away, facing the challenge to create something original to go along with my rigid and sacred quotations.
I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I finally found it, the book that brought me off the shadows- or dragged me back into them. I am writing like the desperate, as if my life depended on it. I don’t know where my essay will get me. I have no idea if I’ll succeed, given the object of my affection: a Japanese graphic novel, written by an ex-hentai mangaka - not the wisest literary choices, but then, I like my diamonds in the rough.
I’m at a crossroad, and at thirty-five I might give it another chance- college, you know, it’s in my blood; all pun intended- I’ll write about vampires again, knock on their door and walk in if invited.
The quote:
"It is only when you refuse to give in with all your heart that you begin to transcend your humanity." Hellsing: Red Rose Vertigo. Dir. Umanusoke Iida. Writ. Kohta Hirano. Per. Crispin Freeman, 2001
