New Project: A History of Blood

I have just added another project to my current projects bar on the left, A History of Blood(working title). I have always enjoyed history. My major in college was applied history which is now called museum studies so that people understand what it is. I majored in Applied History because it seemed to have more real world applications than a normal history degree, I got to take history classes for all of my elective courses, and I also got to take field excavations, where I helped acquire a portion of a prehistoric rhinoceros skull for the college museum(which isn’t as fun as it sounds, it was 103 degrees out and the hard rocky landscape reflected the sun making it feel even hotter…oh, and I got a little car sick on the ride there).

So I have always contemplated writing a historical novel, ancient history intrigues me the most, but I could never decide which time period to write in, did I want to write about pharaoh Khufu, ancient Sparta, or one of the thousand stories that can be garnered from ancient Rome.

I have written a number of short stories set in ancient time periods, or that required historical research. There was Roman Blood, about vampires during the Revolt of Batavi, Blackbeard's Ragnarok, about Vikings(though I will be the first to admit this one isn’t very historically accurate), Epimetheus' Palace, set in ancient Greece, a few warriors accompany Pandora to close the Box, Let Justice Be Done, about a group of roman soldiers who were mummified and come back from the dead, Mortis Lupus, a flash fiction piece centered around the idea that Julius Caesar was a werewolf, and finally Naumachia Magic, a story of the ancient game Naumachia, where Roman gladiators reenacted naval warfare for the amusement of the mob.

But like I said, when it came to a novel I couldn’t decide what time period...so I am going to do them all. A History of Blood is the first person memoir of a vampire, who was turned around 3000BC, and it will follow his adventurous life until modern times, or at least that is the idea.

It seems a little overwhelming, but it is my new secondary project(I like to have something I work on when I get bored of my main project, what can I say I am easily bored). It will give me something to research when I don’t feel like writing and it will be my first attempt at first person.

It will probably be my secondary project for a long, long time, I can’t even guess at how many thousands of words it is going to take to cover 5000 years, so the percentage done on this one really doesn’t mean anything.

As a little teaser here are some of the names that I am planning on the vampire using throughout the novel, these might change as I write, or research new interesting historical figures: Gwakhmai, Gwyn Ap Nudd, Imhotep, Hemiunu, Djedefptah, Nabu, Sakir-Har, Achilles, Shalim, Cambyses II, Adrastus, Hippocrates, Seleucus I, Hanno, Wodan, Esos, Arminius, Publius Acilius Attianus, Marcus Petronius, Lucius Petronius, Ambrosius Aurelianus, Arthur Pendragon, Roland, Herrick, Eric the forester, John Harrington, Alexandre Botezatu, Alexandre the Strong, Alejandro Segovia, Onondakai, Apotamkin, and Alexander Harrington.

Some of them are real historical figures or gods, others are my own creations, which I will attempt to replace with real historical figures as I research more, but I am planning on the vampire living all walks of life, from commoner to king, and finding the name of a common soldier in 490BC is not that easy, and even if I could, who would really know the name?