Origin of The Monster Within
I am sitting here on a mountaintop in northeasternPennsylvania at my last writer’s retreat of 2024. I’m so excited to announcethe release date for The Monster Within and to reveal the cover art. (Those ofyou who follow me on Facebook have seen both, so I have a little extra fun foryou here.) Some exclusive content that never made it into the book.
On October 15, 2024, The Monster Within willfinally (and I mean finally) be released from NineStar Press. https://ninestarpress.com/product/the-monster-within/
Isn’t the cover gorgeous? Wow, they took my suggestionsand exceeded my expectations. I love that the various elements could representso much, that dark cloud hovering could be the mists or it could be the swarmcoming down. The figure in the forefront could be our hero, Michel-Leon, thelast Chevalier de Rouen, but it could also represent our villain who roams themists hunting for children. The shadowy figures could be the people whodisappear into the mists or the shades of Michel-Leon’s ancestors that he meetson the astral plane. And I think the image of the Arc d’Triomphe gives it acertain amount of hope because for as dark as the story can be it is at it’sheart a story of love not just for our heroes, but also for people, for anation, even love of the strange and wondrous.
The Monster Within has taken over a decade to come fromconcept to this date. One very foggy morning on Veteran’s Day in 2012, when thestreets were weirdly deserted because most everyone in the city had the day offbecause of the Federal holiday. I remember exactly where I was when the ideahit me - as I navigated the ramp from 295 to 395.
Its original working title was Dark Things from aline my husband gave me for Janvier. “I never involved myself in your father’saffairs out of fear. Your grandpère told me more than I wished to know,even more so after he saw I took on the responsibility of tending to you. Theysought dark things and those things ate your father’s soul raw. I watched himdie two deaths and could do nothing to stop either.” Originally, the book wassupposed to be set in London because where else would I set a novel that has acity beset by fogs and mists? However, the story stalled. London just wasn’tworking for me.
It wasn’t until I moved the story to Paris and renamed it Mistson the Seine that I got a better idea of what the story would entail. Belowis an excerpt from Michel-Leon’s journal. As much as I wanted this journalentry into the novel it never did make it. The voice didn’t really work forMichel-Leon who can be quite humorous for a man who lives with what he does.
The mist rose from the Seine, smothered Pont Neuf and thenspread to ooze through the streets of Paris. It crept down the broadboulevards, wreathed the gaslights and rendered them all but useless in theconsuming nothingness. Tendrils of gray, sleepy, sentience surrounded bothpalace and hovel. It reared up to clamber over the Notre-Dame de Paris,slithering around the buttresses, swallowing the gargoyles, until it only a faintoutline remained in the shadows. It seeped under doors and sought the cracks inthe window shutters. The fog hunted day or night and struck when hungry.
And when the sunlight broke through, driving back the fog inshredded tatters, it revealed the damage left behind. Individuals, families,sometimes whole streets of people… gone. Doors and windows flung open, evidenceof tasks or play interrupted, and no trace of violence. The people haddisappeared and were never seen again.
It was never spoken of. Not by the denizens of the slums,huddled in their pleasure houses or taverns, fodder for the dark ritespracticed by those whose greed for power and knowledge had enslaved them. Bythe factory owners and the bourgeois, those who forced toil and rent out oftheir workers and tenants, ignoring the screams that pierced the dark and thediminished numbers in the morning. It was never spoken of by the lingeringnobility who clung to their crumbling titles as if they still had meaning anddreamed of a return to relevance.
Throughout all the madness, those who considered themselvesthe elite, the ones who held the reins of power continued to meet in secretwith their circles and salons, thinking they were orchestrating events when infact, they were the ones being manipulated like so many puppets on a string.They could not see the trap closing in about them.
Something was coming. The taste of it hung heavy in the air.It coated the throat until it had become so thick it could be choked upon. Andthat omen too was ignored. Only now, even as I write this, I’m not sure if theportents I sense are true ones or merely the effects of the slow, erodinginsanity that had consumed my father and his father before him.
Over the next couple of years, it stayed on my radar, butI didn’t do much with it as I worked on other projects. I was having a hardtime conceptualizing the lifecycle of my swarm and the science behind everything.The magicman wasn’t a problem. I’ve been wrestling with magicmen since I was 14,but the crux of the story was the swarm and I needed to get that handled. In2018, my sweet husband ended up in ICU for months. He had multiple surgeries,was in and out of consciousness, and I spent countless hours at his bedside. Itwas that nightmarish spring that I finally figured it out and work began on Monsterin earnest.
I originally had the idea of writing an epic poem to gowith it and putting a couplet at the start of each chapter, but the epic natureof it never arose. It ended up being quite short so I never used it, but Iquite like it so I’ve included it here.
Grave symbols etchedin strange motif,
Warning of perils yetunborn.
And break of dawnbrings no relief,
To those who evermourn.
Do not heed thealluring cries,
Whenthe mists on the river rise.
In 2019, I finished the rough draft and my husband passedaway. Writing used to always be an escape, but suddenly I couldn’t writeanymore. All my words left me. It hurt, but I set writing aside until I couldfocus and free that part of myself again. When I did start writing it was poetrywhich was what I started with way back when in elementary school. Eventually,in September 2020, almost a year later, I picked it up. I focused mostly on funwriting. A fantasy around a couple of D&D characters my husband and I had thatI didn’t expect to go anywhere. That fun writing brought me back to the joy anddiscipline of writing again and I began to think of my abandoned project. Iwanted it out there. I needed it out there. It carried so much of my husbandand I within it.
It was slow going, but I edited it and eventually got itoff to betas. I took their suggestions worked on the third draft and more betasbefore I finally, finally had it where I thought it was good enough to submit.I’m so glad I stuck with it. I hope you enjoy this tale of monsters and love asmuch as I did.
