Ooooooooh how interesting! I'd love to start a reading journal. I think it would help me to organise my reading (I currently have 4 books on the go at once). :S However, I'd worry that I'd spend more time writing in my journal than actually reading the books. I've no serious ambitions to become a writer, although I used to, so maybe, for me, the writing should not take over from the reading. I'm going back to uni in September to do my masters in Librarianship, in order to become a chartered librarian, so books are pretty much my life. :D

How can I subvert the genre? That's a tricky one! How about having vampires that aren't immortal? There's lots of theories about vampires actually existing and being people that sap our energy. You know the kind of person I mean--all take and no give. (I think there was a TV drama about this a few years ago. I was trying to find it again, but all I could find was this, which is also quite interesting, although I think the writing is pish LOL. These look better). You could expand on that. Have the vampire not actually biting, but using some kind of telepathy to drain life energy from their victims. The vampires could be really successful people, because they get more and more energy from others and never give out any of their own. It could be an allegory on the modern way of life, and how people are encouraged to be ruthless and backstab their way to the top. *gets carried away*
I love vamps too, can you tell? For a long time, I wanted to be Anne Rice's Lestat, 'cos I just thought he was the coolest character ever written. LOL. Now I want to be Elizabeth Gaskell's Margaret Hale, so I get to make out with Mr Thornton. ;D