Lisa Jane Smith

Anyone who knows me well, knows I love a book about Vampires.

I have been working on and off of this post for a few weeks now as I wanted to do the particular author in question some justice.

I have read a fair few series Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires and Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels being 3 of my favourite.

I cannot explain how much I love reading and not just the Vampire genre.  Words cannot express how much I love just getting my teeth into a really good book. (ha teeth, no pun intended - I really do think I have read too much Vampire literature if I am describing things like that without realising the irony until after I read back!)

When I read I get to escape my own boring life and live in another world for however long it takes me to finish turning the pages.  I literally think I zone out when I read, I see everything I read in my head so clearly that it is like I am watching a TV series.

I in away become friends with the characters, I want to know what is going on in their life, I want to keep turning the pages to find out more and I get ridiculously frustrated when there is nothing left to read, waiting a year or more for the next addition in the series of a book can almost drive me insane! - I have to remind myself that great authors take their time to write such great stories.  I have to appreciate that me reading a 300 page novel in 1 day is not the same time frame as it took for someone to write it all out.

I become sad when the characters do, I get involved in their life and I really get inside their heads and this is why I think writing books is such a wonderful thing, it's a great talent and to be able to share a talent like this and make people as I put it earlier 'zone out' is just mind boggingly amazing!!!!!!!

I would love to write a book myself, it is my biggest dream, imagine being able to create your own little world to escape to when you want and then if it is good enough, have the pleasure of sharing your made up world of words to the real world.  I wish I wasn't dyslexic.  I didn't even know I was until a few years ago, I'd always struggled but I worked my way around it.  I got through school without any help in regards to it so I guess the dream could still happen if I put my mind to it.

Going back to Vampire books, the most recent one I have been reading is Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith.

I am a bit of a geek when it comes to information, I like to know what I am getting myself in for when I read a series of books and that means getting to know as much information as possible about the author.

I looked up L.J. Smith and the series and I was confused to see that L.J. Smith only wrote the first 7.  An author would never just abandon their book and let someone else take over, no way.  I did a little further research and my heart goes out to her.

I found this quote on her website...

'I am sorry to tell you that I cannot write any more VAMPIRE DIARIES books. There is already another book out called VAMPIRE DIARIES: PHANTOM but it is not by me. It is by a ghostwriter. She will be writing the other books in the VAMPIRE DIARIES series now. I really, really loved that series and wanted so much and fought so hard to write it, but I signed a contract twenty years ago when I was a young and naïve writer and now I am forbidden to write the VAMPIRE DIARIES anymore. I am so very sorry.'

This made me so angry, how can a company do this to a person who has literally created this world of words from scratch, it's like stealing her baby.  It really is.

I thought do you know what? screw the rest of the books, I'll do some more research to find out how Lisa wanted to end the books.  To add further insult to this I found out that by law she wasn't allowed to even tell people how she wanted it to finish either!

I am absolutely disgusted with this, contract or no contract do they have no morals?

I actually did stop reading them because of this.  I know there is still a story to be read but I do not see any point to it if the person who conjured it all up in their head in the first place isn't even allowed to finish it how she imagined and wanted.  IT WOULDN'T BE THE RIGHT ENDING, EVER.

Lisa, I can't wait for a new book of yours to come out that some heartless money machines can't rob you for and I hope that one day you get your story back.

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