Every story has a beginning. Mine started when I was twelve years old when I submit a sci-fi piece to a writing contest. I received a personalized rejection that was encouraging and eagerly began plotting new stories to try again. As time went by I moved on to other interests but never lost the passion for writing, often dabbling into poetry. I compiled journals filled with short stories. I would let friends and mentors read them but never sought publishing. You see, despite praise from strangers, I had been convinced at home that I would only be in for more disappointment if I ever sent my work off to an agent or publisher again.
So I went about life, for years, never feeling like anything I did ever mattered or fit with what I truly wanted to do for a living. About ten years ago I dug out that old outline and sample chapters that I had submit to the writing contest and began to flesh out that story in greater detail. I made it roughly 42,000 words into it over the course of two years before a computer crash and a divorce from my then editor derailed me again. I had a hard copy of my manuscript but it came to represent a huge failure in my life - personally and professionally. It is still sitting in a three ring binder in the top of the closet in my old office. I haven't touched it since I sat it there when I moved into this house nearly seven years ago. It disgusts me. I keep telling myself that I will come back to it and finish it someday.
I may have grown to hate that story but my heart and head were still weaving tales that longed to be put down onto paper. In the fall of 2016, one late night while dozing to sleep, I had this idea pop into my head of a paranormal investigator who becomes a part of the case that he is investigating - learning that he is somehow linked to the apparitions within the walls of an all too familiar house. He would become obsessed, eventually unable to extract himself from the very story that was driving him mad. I leaned over, grabbed my phone, and whispered the words "morbid fascinations David Bennett" into my voice recorder.
In the following months I found myself developing the idea further and adding layers to the characters and environment, all in my head. I was now a father for a second time, remarried, and learning to slow down life around me. As my son began to become marginally self sufficient I found the courage to eventually attempt to write this story down that had been whirling around in my head for a few years. I kept telling myself "one day you'll find time to write it."
That day came on March 3, 2019 when I deleted my personal social media accounts, sick of the problems of the outside world and the pit of hopelessness I experienced in my stomach every time I logged onto Facebook. That very night I wrote the first fifteen hundred words of the first draft. By June I had completed the first draft. It is now mid-September and I have roughly ten thousand words of the second draft to complete.
In this blog I will explore the characters and themes of my debut novel and what we can learn from it. What is the purpose of horror literature? Why are we drawn to stories that frighten us?
Stay tuned...
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