Origin of The Monster Within

 I am sitting here on a mountaintop in northeastern Pennsylvania at my last writer’s retreat of 2024. I’m so excited to announce the release date for The Monster Within and to reveal the cover art. (Those of you who follow me on Facebook have seen both, so I have a little extra fun for you here.) Some exclusive content that never made it into the book.

On October 15, 2024, The Monster Within will finally (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 suggestions and exceeded my expectations. I love that the various elements could represent so much, that dark cloud hovering could be the mists or it could be the swarm coming down. The figure in the forefront could be our hero, Michel-Leon, the last Chevalier de Rouen, but it could also represent our villain who roams the mists hunting for children. The shadowy figures could be the people who disappear into the mists or the shades of Michel-Leon’s ancestors that he meets on the astral plane. And I think the image of the Arc d’Triomphe gives it a certain amount of hope because for as dark as the story can be it is at it’s heart a story of love not just for our heroes, but also for people, for a nation, even love of the strange and wondrous.

The Monster Within has taken over a decade to come from concept to this date. One very foggy morning on Veteran’s Day in 2012, when the streets were weirdly deserted because most everyone in the city had the day off because of the Federal holiday. I remember exactly where I was when the idea hit me - as I navigated the ramp from 295 to 395.

Its original working title was Dark Things from a line my husband gave me for Janvier. “I never involved myself in your father’s affairs 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. They sought dark things and those things ate your father’s soul raw. I watched him die two deaths and could do nothing to stop either.” Originally, the book was supposed to be set in London because where else would I set a novel that has a city beset by fogs and mists? However, the story stalled. London just wasn’t working for me.

It wasn’t until I moved the story to Paris and renamed it Mists on the Seine that I got a better idea of what the story would entail. Below is an excerpt from Michel-Leon’s journal. As much as I wanted this journal entry into the novel it never did make it. The voice didn’t really work for Michel-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 then spread to ooze through the streets of Paris. It crept down the broad boulevards, wreathed the gaslights and rendered them all but useless in the consuming nothingness. Tendrils of gray, sleepy, sentience surrounded both palace and hovel. It reared up to clamber over the Notre-Dame de Paris, slithering around the buttresses, swallowing the gargoyles, until it only a faint outline remained in the shadows. It seeped under doors and sought the cracks in the window shutters. The fog hunted day or night and struck when hungry.

And when the sunlight broke through, driving back the fog in shredded tatters, it revealed the damage left behind. Individuals, families, sometimes whole streets of people… gone. Doors and windows flung open, evidence of tasks or play interrupted, and no trace of violence. The people had disappeared 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 rites practiced by those whose greed for power and knowledge had enslaved them. By the factory owners and the bourgeois, those who forced toil and rent out of their workers and tenants, ignoring the screams that pierced the dark and the diminished numbers in the morning. It was never spoken of by the lingering nobility who clung to their crumbling titles as if they still had meaning and dreamed of a return to relevance.

Throughout all the madness, those who considered themselves the elite, the ones who held the reins of power continued to meet in secret with their circles and salons, thinking they were orchestrating events when in fact, 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. And that omen too was ignored. Only now, even as I write this, I’m not sure if the portents I sense are true ones or merely the effects of the slow, eroding insanity that had consumed my father and his father before him.

Over the next couple of years, it stayed on my radar, but I didn’t do much with it as I worked on other projects. I was having a hard time 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. In 2018, 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. It was that nightmarish spring that I finally figured it out and work began on Monster in earnest.

I originally had the idea of writing an epic poem to go with it and putting a couplet at the start of each chapter, but the epic nature of it never arose. It ended up being quite short so I never used it, but I quite like it so I’ve included it here.

Grave symbols etched in strange motif,

Warning of perils yet unborn.

And break of dawn brings no relief,

To those who ever mourn.

Do not heed the alluring cries,

When the mists on the river rise. 

In 2019, I finished the rough draft and my husband passed away. Writing used to always be an escape, but suddenly I couldn’t write anymore. All my words left me. It hurt, but I set writing aside until I could focus and free that part of myself again. When I did start writing it was poetry which 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 fun writing. A fantasy around a couple of D&D characters my husband and I had that I didn’t expect to go anywhere. That fun writing brought me back to the joy and discipline of writing again and I began to think of my abandoned project. I wanted it out there. I needed it out there. It carried so much of my husband and I within it.

It was slow going, but I edited it and eventually got it off to betas. I took their suggestions worked on the third draft and more betas before 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 as much as I did.