My very first novel is about to become a published book…
A lot of emotions come with that thought… excitement, disbelief, joy, anxiety. It's strange how a person can feel those things all at once. Most of the time, though, I'm just mystified. Something that lived in my head as this lingering thought that I kept playing around with in an untitled Google doc, is about to be this real-life, tangible thing. My story, Queen of the Dead, is going to have an actual front and back cover. People have had meetings about it, rights were bought, there's marketing involved... and it all came from something I made up on my way to the grocery store one day. That's wild!
It wasn't an entirely random thought that came into my head that day, though. My route to the store has me driving by three cemeteries, which can sometimes make for a morbid trip to get bread and milk. They're surprisingly different cemeteries from one another. One is on a hill with flat gravemarkers that you wouldn't see from the road except for the flowers that sit atop them. Another is filled with old, crumbling tombstones that are super creepy and cool. And the last one, right before I make that turn into the grocery store, is your run-of-the-mill generic cemetery.
It has a short brick wall and an arched iron entrance that encloses it. It was here that I first had that starting thought... that first idea of a story. I looked over my shoulder while waiting at a stoplight and imagined a ghost sitting on one of the tombstones. I wondered what that ghost looked like. I imagined a floating aura that looked like a woman from the 1950s with big bouffant hair, a perfectly pressed dress, and a string of pearls around her neck. Mrs. Hammond was born.
On another trip to the store, as I drove past the creepy old cemetery, another ghost popped into my head—a small child from the Victorian era wearing a sailor suit, peeking out from behind an old sculpture of an angel. I named him Tom.
Mrs. H and Tom-Tom came into shape with their own pasts and personalities. I just needed someone to interact with them—someone living who could see and talk to these ghosts. And that’s where Lou came in.
Her personality and identity were formed by how she interacted with these ghosts. I asked myself questions about Lou: How did being able to see and talk to ghosts affect her? Was this a gift or a curse? What would Lou’s answer be to that question, and how did it change the way she viewed the world around her? From there, the chapters poured out of me. Lou became the heart of the entire story. The small town of Magnolia Grove suddenly sprang to life along with a cast of flesh-and-blood characters who anchored Lou to the land of the living and were there to remind her just what it means to feel like you belong.
My favorite parts of Queen of the Dead are the characters (if you haven't figured that out by now, lol). I loved writing Mortie, the father figure Lou never had until now; Vick—a stripper with a fierce attitude who can see the future with just a touch; and Scott, who offers Lou a chance to feel like a normal girl, even though he has his own dark secrets he can't share. Through every plot twist, every moment of tension and suspense I could imagine, these characters shined on the page. And after a while, it felt like this was their story to tell—especially Lou's—and I was just the person they had allowed to put pen to paper.
I'm so excited for Queen of the Dead to hit the shelves and can't wait for readers to find out what's in store for Lou. I hope they enjoy her story as much as I loved writing it!
