September 27, 2011
Currently I’m about 60,000 words into what looks like will be an 80-90,000 word novel when finished. Definitely horror, although I imagine it’d be more marketable under the dark fantasy label. The setting is a slightly alternative version of Tacoma, in the Pacific Northwest – sort of suburban, verging on the kind of run-down, gritty urban setting that Tacoma is overrun with (and that I grew up in), except with considerably more demons, monsters, and profane, deformed creations of chthonic magic than I encountered in my teen years. The protagonist is a seventeen-year-old girl named Tesla. The synopsis for the book isn’t really set in stone – this is the first time I’m writing without a concise chapter-by-chapter outline. However, the genesis for the novel comes from an email I sent to someone last year, when I was quickly outlining an idea for a short story (that I never wrote). Here’s the outline:
“…a girl who take a trip with her friend and the friend’s mother to a rather mysterious fabric store, where they find pattern books for things that can be sewn which Man and Woman Should Not Know Have Knowledge of Sewing. Kind of like a crafty Necronomicon for suburban homemakers. And against the girls’ wishes, the mother picks a pattern and some unspeakably profane fabrics, and starts sewing up something squamous in the spare bedroom. Which may or may not be another ‘girl’ (I don’t know, I haven’t decided), but it’s going to be pretty horrific, like a living Raggedy Ann human centipede creature or something like that. And then the older girl wonders if maybe anyone else in the neighborhood was also ‘sewn’, so she does some sleuthing and finds out even more terrible things, of course, about herself as well as other young women in the city. The title is ‘Fabricland’, which was the name of the giant, creepy fabric store I used to work at during my high school and college summers.”
Although I’m using the fabric store and magic patterns/books ideas, the novel is turning out to be quite different than this little snippet. And it won’t be called Fabricland – I have a better title, but since it’s one I’ve used for a previous project, I’m going to keep it to myself for the time being, and continue to use “FrankenNovel” as the title placeholder. Honestly, it’s a perfect fit.
I expect the novel to be completed by the end of the year – several months later than I’d hoped. However, I need to get this right, so I’m taking my time. If I manage to get representation for it and if it manages to sell, I’ll probably never have the luxury of my own timetable again. So I’m making the most of it while I’m able.