I just spent an inordinately long time in my bathroom yelling at an enormous spider on the floor while I hastily applied expensive cream to my cracked heels. That’s not relevant or anything, but when the spider started moving toward me, rather than away, I was incensed. I didn’t just yell at it–I lambasted and berated it. I’m seriously hoping I damaged its self-esteem a little bit.
Anyway, the spider did not attack me, so that’s a win. I know I was doing a thing with epigraphs or something, but I’m so over that. I have ADHD, something I inform people about more often than I say my own name. What I’m going to talk about today is the newest project that plopped out of my brain: Gracefall [working title]
Honestly, the reason I’ve been able to write books so quickly in recent years is mostly due to two things:
- An excess of preplanning that goes on in my head, often while I’m trying to fall asleep at night
- ADHD hyper-fixation/hyper-focus that aims and fires my attention at writing so much so that I often forget to eat or pee
(The reason I wrote books so quickly in the less-recent past is because they were bad books.)
With all the above being said, I have never written a book so quickly before. Two weeks ago, on Friday October 9th, I sat down to start writing. By Sunday the 11th, I had nearly 30,000 words written. Now (Friday October 23rd at time of writing), I am working on the climactic conclusion. This tells me that the book is either very good or very bad. Only time will tell! It’s a new endeavor for me, an attempt to marry horror with romance.
I have spoken before about how there is a surprisingly fine line between the two genres. Tip too much one way over the line, you lose the necessary elements from the other genre. It’s a delicate dance, like the image below which looks like an idyllic romantic romp until you study it a little further.
It’s a gif. Everybody gets that, right? I do not want to be accused of gaslighting anybody. And also I’m not clever enough to make one of those “Charlie the Choo Choo” type drawings a la Stephen King’s Dark Tower series that actually becomes more sinister the more you look at it. My point is that it’s hard to blend horror and romance, but I am trying. It has been a wonderful adventure. Even if the book ends up not so good, I definitely enjoyed the challenge. I can’t say for sure, but this feels like the first manuscript I have written where I constantly find myself writing and subsequently deleting paragraphs at a time as I feel my way through the story. My gut has been guiding me a great deal with feelings of, “No, that slows the pacing too much” or “Eh… this would happen in a contemporary romance, but…”
Even with that, I am stunned by the speed and ease with which this book has made its appearance.
So what’s the book about? It’s a gothic horror romance that is loosely based on Beauty & the Beast. For research, I read the original story, and let me just say… there are no dancing teapots in that one. Here’s a very brief teaser/synopsis:
The old gods do not waken to celebrate the death of innocence.
They waken to avenge it.
Hidden away in the cliffside forest of Rhode Island is a manor that many know about, but none can find. The locals call it Gracefall. Once belonging to the esteemed Weston family, who amassed wealth from ship building and trade, now it is nothing more than a local legend. A mythical place guarded by a fearsome beast that chases off—or kills—anyone who gets too close. No one has ever found solid proof that the estate existed.
Until an invitation to Gabriel Weston III’s engagement party lands on the desk of Brooke Kowalski, antique book expert.
With an address to go off of, Brooke sets off with her sometimes-boyfriend, Morgan, to track down the missing estate. When the beast makes its first appearance, Morgan runs scared, taking the car and leaving Brooke behind. She finds refuge in the manor, but soon learns she is not alone.
Here’s a brief excerpt/teaser*:
October 17, 1918
I am writing this here so that there might be an accounting of what happened to me, though I feel, I fear, no one’s eyes but my own will ever see these pages. My name is Gabriel Richard Weston III, and I have either taken full leave of my sanity, or I have been cursed by a god.
And here is one more (longer) excerpt*:
Using two fingers, I guided the pendulum of the metronome all the way to the left.
“Yes,” I said.
I pulled the pendulum all the way to the right.
“No.”
Hoping my message had been received, I moved the pendulum back to center position and released it. My heartbeat picked up as I stared at the device.
“Are you a ghost?” I asked.
A moment of silence followed my question, and then the pendulum slowly tipped over to the right, clicking once as it reached the base of the arc. It paused there for a beat, then resumed its center position.
“Will I be in danger if I stay here?”
The question had to be asked, but the house didn’t seem to know how to respond. The pendulum listed to one side a little, then back to the other. Maybe it needed specifics.
“Am I allowed to leave?”
More hesitation and dithering.
“Am I safe here? Inside the house,” I amended quickly.
The pendulum stayed still this time, resting in its centered position. For a moment, I wondered if the spirit of the manor had left me. Was the pendulum centered because no one was there to answer? Or because…
“What does that mean?” I demanded. “Maybe? I’m maybe safe? How can I be maybe safe? How?”
Of course the metronome couldn’t answer, and I wondered why “maybe safe” felt so much more dangerous than “definitely unsafe.”
*This disclaimer is probably not necessary, but these excerpts are from some kind of almost-first draft, a draft that is rougher than rough, so they are very much subject to change. Also I cut out a chunk from the middle of the second excerpt to keep some of the mystery alive, so don’t be surprised if/when you see the metronome conversation is much longer.
So that’s it! I’m very excited to talk more about my genre-merging journey, but (as always) this post is already quite long. Next time!
