I want to write the great American ghost story.

One of the houses in my neighborhood just couldn't keep tenants. People had been shuffling in and out of it for as long as I could remember. It was a corner house, tipping two sleepy little streets, with a high, brown-green crusted backyard fence and a worn-down shed... during one of the many periods in which the house was for sale, Melissa and I snuck in, got past the fence, and rooted through the shed examining the crap last family had left there. We all said it was haunted.

My love affair with all things spooky stretches back to early childhood. For years, the small cemetery on our property in Avon fascinated me; eventually I discovered the larger one next to it. At the time, my best friend and I had convinced ourselves that we could see flying horses and unicorns. I "found" a family of vampire flyaways, as we called them, living in the cemetery. (Years later, we both figured out we couldn't see them... but were still afraid the other could.)

Vampires, ghosts, and the places they play will always hold a special place in my twisted little heart. But how can I describe the thrill, the adrenaline, the nervous shoulder-shudder in a graveyard at two AM, the ripple of the moon over a headstone, the flutter of curtains in the window of an abandoned house? How can I document the chill of being chosen by a black cat darting across my path, the bleak creaking of an aging jewelry case, the yellow-paper decay of photographs of people long passed with sullen, stormy eyes that beg you to consider whether you have done them wrong? How can I convey my love for terror?

Originally, Guardian (my novel in progress, for the unacquainted heathens) was a dark, creepy vampire story about the corruption of innocents. Somewhere along the way it developed an unbelievably complex plot in which vampires are a given; the only characters that aren't vampires are slayers. Without the contrast provided by normal, innocent humans, vampires lose that creepy element I adore. I want to write a good, old-fashioned, spooky-as-hell ghost story, the kind in which the author just sits down to tell a story, without obsessing over how this character would realistically react or why that character didn't just see that [plot element here] would unfold.

I'm hoping to start on a good ghost story soon. I'm not sure how long it will be... more to the point, I'm not sure how long it'll be able to hold my attention. I fleshed out the beginnings of a supernatural crime-thriller, but I'm still trying to decide if it's too cliche, and usually if you have to ask... it is.

These things I know:
-I want vampires.
-I want my main character to be human.
-I don't want it to resemble Rice or Hamilton in ANY WAY. *twitches with hate*
-I want to enjoy writing it and reading it.
-I want to start soon, before my interest flutters off.