Now, when I was in the Army, writing was my hobby.
A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!
We've got one life and the older we get the more we come to realize how short it is.
German readers are much like Brits or Americans: They read for the thrill of it, the occasional shudder down the spine, knowing it's not real - but looking over their shoulders anyway, just in case.
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.
If, like Harry Keogh, I could talk to the dead - God, there are an awful lot of people I would like to speak to! Not least my father. Being in the army for 22 years, I didnt see enough of him, and I know there are a great many things I could have learned from him.
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
The Army was my bread and butter.
There are lots of other things that I haven't done, places I haven't seen. So eventually I'll have to find time for those things while there still is time.
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.
I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore.
But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all.
I have friends who read my books in Greek.
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.
Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.
