This morning I blogged about Vanya Ferreira’s story, “The Story of Lucius Cane: Book One,” a promising start to a series of stories about an atypical Vampire. Vanya was kind enough to take part in a little Q&A with me about his writing in general and his upcoming projects. I kept it short and sweet, because I’d rather he work on those project than take too much time with me, y’know?

What got you into writing? Who are some of your major influences? (whether or not you think those influences can be seen in your work — you know they’re there)
That’s actually a very interesting question. I remember my parents reading to me as a child and as I got older, my friends would be out and about, while I roamed in the library. I always found the library to be my sanctuary; a place where different worlds, knowledge and realities all overlay. I guess that it was all the reading that got me into writing but this only came much later; I did, in fact, actually despise English as a subject at school. Some of my major influences would have to be Stephen King, Paulo Coehlo, Oscar Wilde, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Christopher Paolini and many more.
About Lucius Cane: how many stories do you have in mind for this? Or are you going to expand this into a novel?.
I’m actually thinking about having 3 to 4 books for this series which would include a complete background of who Lucius is. However, to keep something of the mystery and why he is who he is, I plan to release the background as the final book in the series. I don’t think that I’ll expand it into a novel but I’ll rather just keep it as a short story collection that flows into each other. I have noticed with today’s society that our attention spans have gotten rather short and I think that this makes the story easier to read and keeps the excitement for what’s to come next.
Your Amazon bio says that you’ll have Crime Thriller out this year — what can you tell us about that?
Yes, indeed, I am. At the moment it is still very much a work in progress and doesn’t have a title yet. I believe that it will be quite different than most crime thrillers out there since it closely follows the life of the killer himself as the main character. I wanted to create something that would take the reader through the emotional depths and the crevices of madness that I imagine many killers must feel. For example, the serial killer William Heirens (a.k.a The Lipstick Killer) actually wrote a call for help in lipstick at one of his crime scenes, which just goes to show how difficult it must have been for him to be, well, who he was. So my aim for the novel is to try and transform that mental disparity and transport the reader into the world, and hopefully mind, of a killer.
In the writing of “The Story of Lucius Cane”, what was the biggest surprise about the writing itself? Either, “I can’t believe X is so easy!” or “If I had known Y was going to be so hard, I’d have skipped this and watched more TV”.
About the writing itself? Hmm… I think that I was quite surprised at how easily the story unfolded. I remember that I had the vague idea of someone watching a girl from the bushes, as seen in the prologue, and the rest just seemed to flow. I admit, however, that there were days in between where my inspiration just flat-lined but it seems that to just continue writing would spark it back up. Apart from the writing, I would have to say that the biggest surprise, by far, was the amount of work it takes to actually publish and promote a work. Looking back, it’s quite clear that writing was merely the first, and easiest, stage; it’s the promoting and getting it out there where the real work is at.