My Blood Spills

What if someone who knew little about vampires but lots about writing wrote a modern novel about the creatures—one actually? This funding campaign is a humble request: To help raise seed money so I can produce a genre-resetting book about undead set against the modern plague of our times.

Synopsis: An AIDs-like disease spreads across London and Paris. Victims' immunity collapses within 24 hours, sending them into a near-death, comatose state. Searching for causes, a 22 year-old graduate student makes the startling discovery: Patient Zero's DNA places his origins in Northern Europe nearly 700 years ago.

A vampire spreads the disease, which afflicts him as well. However, his system resists hemoglobin, essentially immunity increases, interfering with nourishing sustenance. He must feed more to get less vitality, all while spreading the disease with each victim.

Hi, I'm Joe Wilcox, a well-known journalist. Over the last year, I wrote five non-fiction eBooks. My Blood is my first fiction work.

Try before You Buy

To give you a sense of the story, I have condensed My Blood's opening chapters into an 8,000-word short that you can download. The draft is a good measure of my storytelling style and sets up the main protagonists and antagonist.

However, the book is a work in progress that likely will not flow the same as the draft, which in condensed form leaves out much of the dialogue and huge chunks of the eventual story. Language needs cleaning up, too, as I am not a French speaker and relied on an Internet translator when preparing the preview version.

The Big Perk

Contributors won't wait months or years to read My Blood. I will begin serializing the book about the time the campaign ends. My Blood will release in chapter chunks with cliffhangers over a number of months before being completed. You will be able to start reading right away. The more money I can raise, particularly beyond the initial funding goal, the more time I can invest in My Blood and the better I can make it for you.

More than Money

Your input will shape the storytelling. Later in the funding campaign, I will set up a method by which contributors can participate in the storytelling process. While I have a clear direction where My Blood will go, I want this book, particularly one embracing a genre as popular as vampires, to be a collective work. You can guide the storytelling. Your ideas matter. The book will leave deliberate hooks——storytelling paths I don't plan to follow———————for you to pursue. For example, time-travel isn't on the agenda, but there's a hanging storytelling thread early in the 8,000-word preview should enough readers want it taken up later on.

Big Demands

My Blood can be lots of fun for all of us. My perks ask much, without offering any trinkets, tote bags, or teapots. You give with the promise of getting back a great story and chance to be part of the process.

Download the 8,000-word proof-of-concept version created specifically for the funding campaign and judge by it whether My Blood is worth your blood.

Photo Credit: Tiffany Downes