“I am terrified, but I’m not afraid”

This is a story about a story. But it’s more than that.

Somewhere in early 2012, I’d started working on a story, set in the same universe as my short stories “Crossroads”and “The Devil’s Jack” (forthcoming inDEAD MAN’S HAND). But about three thousand words in, I realized that there was more here than a short – that I’d created a character, and a world, that wanted to expand into a novel.

So I sent the story and a proposal to my agent, and said “what do you think?”

She thought that it was a great...