"I want to wait until I'm excited about the material again, and I'm excited about Edward, and that it's something that's motivating," she said. "Right now, it feels like homework. And when things feel like homework they go very, very slowly for me. So it's still not a 'It's not gonna happen!' I want to do it when I can do it right."

Producers Nick Wechsler, Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz have used their own money to acquire screen rights to "The Host," the first adult novel written by Stephenie Meyer, author of the "Twilight" series. Andrew Niccol will write the script and direct.

Meyer's novel is a love story set in the near future on Earth, which has been assimilated by an alien species of benevolent parasites that call themselves "Souls." One such soul, the Wanderer, is fused with a dying human named Melanie Stryder, in an attempt to locate the last pocket of surviving humans on Earth.

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In addition to writing four volumes of the "Twilight" series, Meyer has been heavily involved in the screen transfers, and she spurned several overtures for "The Host." The producers continued lobbying the author and her UTA reps with a significant offer, a strong vision for the project and a collaborative spirit. Meyer eventually said yes.

In fact, Niccol first came under consideration after Wechsler and the Schwartzes asked Meyer what her favorite science fiction films are. "Gattaca" and "The Truman Show" were in her top five; Niccol wrote and directed "Gattaca" and scripted the Peter Weir-directed "The Truman Show."

The names Edward and Bella are almost as famous around the world as those of Harry and Hermione. But in Arabic-speaking countries, the heroes of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight quartet might yet eclipse those of Rowling's mega-selling series.

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[Foreign rights and sales manager of the Arab Cultural Center Haissam] Fadel said, when Rowling's books were translated into Arabic by Egyptian publisher Nahdet Misr, it helped to open a new market of readers—those now willing to give YA a try.

Fadel's company, which has divisions in Casablanca and Beirut, took a chance and bought Arabic-language rights to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight quartet at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair. "At the time, the books were not so well-known in the Arabic world," he said, "but the movie changed all that." When the books reach bookstores this May, images from the film will be used on the promotional posters.

Fadel said the company wanted to capitalize on the interest generated by the film, and felt it was important to get the books translated as quickly as possible. "It was a huge commitment and hugely expensive, but we used four different translators—one on each book," he said. "Of course, we would have liked to have just used one translator, but we observed that when customers went into a bookstore to buy Twilight they tended to buy multiple volumes, so we wanted to have them on offer all at once."

Stephen King's opinion may drive a stake through the heart of Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. In an interview with USA Weekend, the bestselling author compared Meyer with J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. According to Stephen, "Both Rowling and Meyer, they're speaking directly to young people... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."

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"People are attracted by the stories, by the pace, and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it's very clear that she's writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It's exciting and it's thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because it's not overtly sexual."

He further explains, "A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like, the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet."

"The manuscript that was illegally distributed on the Internet was given to trusted individuals for a good purpose. I have no comment beyond that, as I believe that there was no malicious intent with the initial distribution," she wrote in a posting on her website. But Meyer, 34, said this was a huge violation of her rights of an author as well as her rights as a human being because she owns the copyright and has say over when the book should be made public.

She said that musicians and filmmakers have the same rights over their work, and that it is dishonest of anyone to download material off the Internet and to reproduce and distribute it. "This has been a very upsetting experience for me, but I hope it will at least leave my fans with a better understanding of copyright and the importance of artistic control," Meyer wrote. "I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on 'Midnight Sun,' and so it is on hold indefinitely."

Meyer said the draft that was released on the Internet was incomplete, with messy and flawed writing, but she was making that draft available on her site because it added a new dimension to the "Twilight" story.