So I am thinking of writing a story. A short fiction piece about a vampire that specifically derives its’ powers from sunlight. It doesn’t drink blood, it doesn’t sparkle (God abeg), it actually has a reflection and it is not affected by crosses. However, it does need permission to enter buildings, it can’t turn into a bat, cannot eat food, or commit murder. It is more or less a person.

I do have some reservations about writing this story. One: there are numerous stories about vampires. Like, way too many. Like, I’m sure you can easily mention at least ten characters from any form of media. Bella Swan, Louis de Pointe du Lac (the fine one that the actor from Game of Thrones plays), Nosferatu, Bella Swan, Angel, Marceline the Vampire Queen, Nadja of Antipaxos, Blade and so on. Like it is done to death. There are even other characterizations of vampirism that do not strictly come from Eurocentric perspectives. The aforementioned Blade, Blacula, The Girl from A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Sang-hyun from Thirst, Atl from Certain Dark Things and more. My point is: there is a lot.

Two, I’m not sure I’d actually write it. I have like three other story ideas about vampires that have been swimming in my mind for years now about which I have still not written. I have a story I started in February 2023 that I still haven’t finished but I really want to – especially as it’s the continuation of the first story I got published. It’s one thing to say you want to write something, it’s another thing to do it. My writing life is that one meme where there’s a girl that daydreams about doing something versus the same girl in tears when she actually has to do the thing. My problem is I really want to write it but I don’t know if I ever will. Between my ADHD, depression, and anxiety, it’s hard to care about myself sometimes, much less open a notebook and write about something as trivial as a bloodsucking monster of the night.

Three: If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know how to write the story. Specifically, I don’t know what to do about my character’s origins. So my character is a DJ who lives somewhere sunny in California and she is a fair African American woman. She usually DJs on the beach during the day and spends the night at home with her three young children. My issue is: does she have to be African American and does the story have to be set in America? It’s hitting me that I don’t always know how to write outside an American perspective and that’s worrisome as a Nigerian writer. Like I feel I should be able to write all types of people, regardless of their background, but there’s only one I think I’m good at, and that’s a problem.

So my question now is: how do I find the solution to this problem and quickly too? Because I don’t know if I will eventually draft this story, but if I do, I don’t want a western influence to perpetually hang over my head every time I write.