DEVILISH INSPIRATION

Funny how a story starts off as one thing, and then becomes something completely different. Case in point… DEVIL INSIDE.

When I first started ruminating about the idea behind this book, it started off a wee bit cheeky. It’s even baked into the logline: A boy meets a demon. Sparks fly.

Think something along the lines of “Warm Bodies.” Or “My Super Ex-Girlfriend.” Everybody remembers that movie, right? (…Right?) Uma Thurman? Luke Wilson?

I have this problem. Or I feel like I have this problem. My stories always tend to start with a hook, a concept that seems/feels relatively simple. This may be the screenwriter in me, who’s been conditioned to come up with pitches that are easy to swallow. At first, they are. But then something… strange happens. The story starts to evolve. Or mutate. Or curdle. One of the above, or all of the above. It becomes something much different then what I originally pitched. The DNA of that hook is still in there, somewhere, but through the writing—and revising—it takes on different contours, different complexities. One might say the story is enriched. Characters take on greater dimension. That’s what any writer wants, yeah? The shadings, the finer details, it all blossoms into a beautiful bouquet of prose. USA Today bestseller, here we come!

My stuff? Well… it usually just gets weirder. And darker. And… messier.

I had every intention of DEVIL INSIDE being a light-hearted love story exploring the complications within a relationship between a human and a demon. That core conceit—the very metaphor of demonic possession—offers a lot of ample narrative terrain to explore the complications within relationships that we’ve all been through. That was essentially my way ‘in.’ I was using demonic possession merely as a mask to talk about how awkward opening ourselves up and letting other people into our hearts can be.

Hand to God, that’s all I wanted to do. Honestly. Then things got… well. Dark.

Why do I do this to myself?

Sometimes, a story simply starts telling itself. The best we can do, as writers, is get out of the way and let the story essentially tell itself. Rather than force the story in a direction it doesn’t want to go in, I tend to let the narrative unfold organically. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? I still have a structure, a road map to follow with narrative beats I want to hit up along the way… but beyond that, I’m just along for the ride. The story is behind the wheel. I’m just tagging along on, wherever it takes us.

As fate would have it, DEVIL INSIDE wanted to go to some dark places.

Who would’ve thought?

The horror in horrormance really started to bleed through… and who am I to argue? I could’ve pushed back, but that didn’t seem to be where this story wanted to go.

Hey, look, relationships can be messy. Turns out, a relationship with a demon is just messier.

I was fortunate enough to have an editor who supported that sojourn. She encouraged me—and the story—to go wherever these characters wanted to go. Their path of discovery was mine as well, and I fell in love with them… no matter how evil they ended up being. (Guess what? They turn out to be pretty evil…)

This always happens to me. It happened with Ghost Eaters. It happened with What Kind of Mother. Those books were supposed to be so… simple. Easy reads. Beach reads. “Commercial,” perhaps. And then… everything went horribly, horribly wrong.

Ghost Eaters? It was just supposed to be about ghosts! Boogedy boo! But… whoops, turns out it’s all about addiction.

What Kind of Mother? Same thing. Just some weird tulpa boy… but oopsie daisy, now it’s some weird crustacean kiddo.

Why in the hell do I keep doing this to myself? I feel like I’d be much further along in my, ahem, career, if I just wrote… you know… easier reads. Not these messy narratives.

Stories really are funny things sometimes. You have no idea where they want to go. I want to believe—need to believe—that by letting the story expand beyond its premise, that yeah, the narrative enriches itself. It gets messy, for sure. But they go a little bit deeper. Into the dirt. Into ourselves. That’s where the good stuff is, right? …Right?

Me? I’m just going along for the ride… Heaven help us all.

Wanna hop in?

CHECK OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL BLURB FROM THEA GUANZON!!!!

Look. Everything’s a little raw right now, if I’m being honest. My sense of self esteem may be dipping a bit at the moment, but I’m hoping to get a little more confidence in the tank. Soon. Fingers crossed. We all take our licks, don’t we? What else can we do but just get up, dust ourselves off, and keep writing. That’s all I’ve got. Stories to tell.

Here are some books that I’ve read recently that blew my mind:

DECOMPOSITION BOOK by Sara van Os

God daaaaaaaaaaamn does this book go hard. To hell with my crap, this is the real lovely dovey stuff (if you’re a freak like me).

ON SUNDAYS SHE PICKED FLOWERS by Yah Yah Scholfield

This book has some of the most gorgeous, sumptuous, terrifying writing I’ve read in a long, long time. I am here for this book. I love this book.

3/28 @ 3 PM. Leigh Valley Book Festival.

3/28 @ 7 PM: Screening of THE RESTORATION AT GRAYSON MANOR at the Alamo Drafthouse BK. QA with me afterwards.

4/4 @ 3:30 PM. In conversation with Maxwell I. Gold for his poetry collection NEUROTICA at the NYPL’s Jefferson Market Branch.

4/7 @ 7 PM. In conversation with CJ Dotson for her novel THESE FAMILIAR WALLS at The Twisted Spine Books.

4/15 @ 5 PM. Date Night with the Devil (virtual).

4/17-4/19 @ Horror Reader Retreat at the Sterling Ridge Resort in Vermont.

4/21 @ 7 PM: Brooklyn Books & Booze at Industry City.

BODIES OF WORK (Titan Books: 4/7/26): Preorder here.

A murderous artist is haunted by the spirits of those he has killed in this surreal and chilling supernatural revenge novella. From the acclaimed author of Ghost Eaters, and perfect for fans of Joe Hill and Delilah S. Dawson.

At sixty-six years old, Winston Kemper has always been a nonentity. No one notices him. His simple existence barely registers for those who come into contact with him. Some call him feeble-minded. He is a janitor at the local church, a groundskeeper by default, and that’s it. No friends, no family. When he’s done with work, he returns home—a remote, single room apartment located above a garage—and that is where his true work begins.

Winston Kemper is a collector of voices, and his magnum opus—The Butterfly Girls—is a sprawling epic of untapped imagination. It has no single canvas, no particular frame. It is everywhere—scribbled on the walls, the floor, and countless notebooks.

Winston is creating a fantasia which exists in words, images and blood. As part of his ‘art’ he has been murdering forgotten women. Poor souls who slip through the cracks of society, who no one’s looking for. Mothers, sisters, daughters to someone, but no more.

Winston takes their lives, their voices. But now he can hear them. They whisper to him. They talk of revenge.

Winston Kemper might not believe in ghosts, but he is about to learn they are very real. And they are very, very angry.

A surreal and dreamlike novella about the ghosts of our past and the dangerous, obsessive pursuit of art, from the “true master of horror.” (CJ Leede, Maeve Fly)

…

So… I’ve been told to put together more posts to get the word out about DEVIL INSIDE, so you’ll be hearing/seeing a lot from me. Forgive me. Hope it’s not too much of a pain in the patooky. I’m just out here, trying to get some preorders. Sigh.

Take care,

CMC