Yes, I am back......

 Firstly, I apologize for the delay. I have been penning away when I can, but the tale seems to grow further on. I am now at 197,000 words aka Chapter 66, and finalisingt eh ending.... soon I hooe. Its not my way of publishing a tale still in the write but its here. I will complete the tale soon, with my work schedule and health. 

An introduction to my tale and the journey todate. 

Prey and Predator 3; Love binds, Families destroy

 

A retold of three classics, intertwined into one tale.

Romeo and Juliet

Dracula

Merchant of Venice

And dashes of

Les Miserables

 

By Jimmy Loong

Started on 30/3/25 after a sleepless night.

 

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

 

April 17^th

I am at 52K words now, trying to tie up the endings (or was it ending), but it is a complex tale here, unlike doing the Frankenstein / Carmila tale, this one held three classics. Honestly, horror was not the genre, unlike the previous tale, but more of love and compassion with the knots of love and family obligations.

Dracula, with the reference to war, and killing via impalement was in the background, but I focus on the unexplored side of the brothers’ love and their obligations since young from hostage to Voivode. The love of Vlad Tepes for his land and people, his family, and that of Radu, his brother. It was more of their personal conflicts here.

This is not only a Dracula tale, for it also involved the traders, aka the merchants, and then the money lenders. The two intertwined in one huge write-up, and comes the love, the conflicting love of the two young persons. We have the major characters: the Capulets and the Montagues, and their children. Shylock and Portia, and Bassanio. Who was Shylock before he became the coin trader?

And the ‘where art thou, Romeo?’ needed to be told. The tale of the two main characters and the supporting ones.

As taken from the Macbeth play, we mashed them all up into one pot, and we have ……. Headache to write……

April 23th

There comes a time when a tale adapted must be made to be an original from the original. Here I am interfacing three classics and the outcome will be …… classic in my view.

Tally Ho…... I am now diving in.

August 1^st

After a hiatus of silent thoughts, I am back to write once more. Now at Chapter 50 on the tale, it will be ongoing. Combining/adapting three major tales is not an easy task with so many characters to interplay and then strike off in stages……. I would not know who stays or leaves till then. But the main topic of the tale is all about love; family love, lovers in a bind, and the love of greed.

And I hoped to keep to that.

From Romeo and Juliet, the two main protagonists, Jessica and Lorenzo, the family feud, the murder of Mercutio, and Tybalt. I explored the others like Benvolio, Friar Lawrence, and Reynard.

From the Merchant of Venice, Shylock and his wife, Lea, Portia, and her fiancée; Bassanio, and there is the pound of flesh. The others I wrote in were Nerissa, Portia’s friend, Gratiano, and of course, the newly added characters of Magistrate Javier and 24601……Les Misérables counts among my fav.

From Vlad Tepes, his exploits, with his love for his family, Radu and his family, and of course, the love between the brothers. I calculated to add in the Ottomans and the Hungarians from Count Paris to Prince Escalus.

Sept 2^nd

After some issues with my other lifestyle, I was to pen down some chapters and trying to conclude this tale before the mid of Sept. My title of the tale was LOVE BINDS; FAMILIES DESTROY. Perhaps it may be true at times, and with that will be my focus here. In my write, I made some changes which was …... well, to keep the cogs in the wheel rolling. Please accept my version here. 

Sept 18th

I had to start publishghing this for I am getting impatient on my end to post something here. And it will also drive me to end the tale soon, or I may delay or procastinate... on it. I was down with some respiratory issues, but recovering now. It was a challenge to combine three pooular tales into one, but life itself is a challenge of sorts. 

Why Vlad Tepes woven into Romeo and Juliet, and Shylock? I was thinking of the same timeline with some imaginative addons, and instead of battles and killings, it was all about love. I explore beyond the depth of the characters and brought forth the others there from the background. Then it was to 'micromanage' the details, making it lively and well, my own version of the tale. 

I shoukd be tying the final words to this tale before the end of the mth, and then to my othehr unfinished tales...... originals writes, and from there.....its TALLY HO. 

Pardon my erratic write.....medicine makes you see words differently.

Cheers