Some passions don’t fade. They just go underground.

There’s a story I’ve been writing for twenty years.
You’ve probably never heard of it.
Most haven’t.
Because somewhere along the way… I stopped talking about it.

It started as a question.
Why are there Latino vampires? British ones? American?
I had just watched Interview with the Vampire, and suddenly it hit me ...
Why have we never seen Arab vampires?

Not just as a gimmick. But as a mythos.
A fully-formed, spiritually grounded world.
So I started digging.

And then I didn’t stop.

It wasn’t just a writing project. It became a calling.
What began as an idea turned into a two-decade scavenger hunt across culture, religion, folklore…
and maybe even something deeper than all of that.

I didn’t find a story.
I uncovered one.

In 2010, in the heart of Hollywood, I tried turning it into a web series.
It flopped. Felt shallow. Wrong tone.
But it added a layer. A thread.
And the more I learned about how storytelling actually worked ... the mechanics, the structure, the weight ... the more I saw this wasn’t just a good idea.

It was a puzzle I was meant to solve.

Then I cracked it.
Not the whole thing. But the part that matters.
The missing link ... the one that made everything click into place.

And that’s when I went quiet.

Not because I gave up.
But because now… it needed protection.

Not just from theft ... though yes, that too.
It needed protection from misunderstanding.
Because the story I’m building doesn’t just flirt with fiction… it dances dangerously close to spiritual territory.
To truths wrapped in metaphor. To ideas that might not sit comfortably in polite conversation.

So I silenced myself.

Partially for safety.
Partially out of fear.
And partly… because I was proud.

Proud that I had something that felt sacred.
Something mine.
Like I’d been entrusted with a secret people would kill to know.

And when I think about that younger version of me ...
the one who asked the question, chased the thread, built the skeleton of a world in the quiet hours ...
I don’t pity him.

I admire him.
For never letting it go.
For keeping the fire alive even when there was no one watching.
I miss his wonder.

Because it wasn’t ambition.
It wasn’t even belief in success.

It was belief in the question.

And I never grew out of that.
I just got quieter about it.

And maybe you have too.

Maybe there’s something you’ve kept tucked away ... not because it faded, but because it mattered too much to risk misunderstanding.
Something you stopped talking about, not because you stopped caring… but because you still do.

If so… I get it.

Some things aren’t supposed to be shouted.
They’re supposed to be protected.
Grown slowly.
Answered in time.

Not everything loud is alive.
And not everything quiet is lost.