But other vampire stories? Well, no, I really haven't read too many, and I can't say I'm crazy about romantic vampires anyway - to me the vampire is simply an evil monster.

The Army was my bread and butter.

I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore.

And I have to consider myself fortunate, because there are plenty of writers who spend most of a lifetime looking for that certain something without ever finding it.

But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all.

The amazing thing now is that most of those so-called critics who were telling me to find my own voice seem to have lost theirs.

But while our parting was mutually acceptable and even expedient, still it was painful. And I would like to think it hurt both of us, for I certainly felt it: a wrenching inside, like some small but improbably necessary organ was no longer in there, that it was missing, torn or fallen out. And at the time I'd thought that was the end of it; what was missing was gone forever