Ink Raindrops

Overview:

Sam is a fledgling horror writer struggling to overcome her greatest enemy–herself.  Despite her best efforts, she has never been able to complete a novel.  Ideas flow like water to her eager mind, but reaching any sort of conclusion to them seems impossible.  At last, after years of struggle and failure, she gives up on her dream, planning to force herself into the real world, where she just does not belong.  However, her novel isn’t prepared to go quietly into the night, even if she is.  Is the strange and frightening world Sam finds herself in created by the ghosts of her own ideas, or has Fate conspired to bring her worst fears into reality instead?  Can she survive to discover the truth?

Rating:

This story is rated red.  Though the first chapter does not contain anything objectionable, the story begins to get dark and frightening by the second, and is expected to continue down the horror/dark fantasy path as it progresses.  Be warned that you are in for the darkest, most graphic and frightening story that I am capable of producing at this point in my career.  The main character also has some complex emotional and mental issues that may make her difficult to understand or connect with for younger minds.

Spoiler-Free Author’s Notes:

This is another experiment for me.  Though I love “psychological horror,” most notably the kind found in Konami’s “Silent Hill” video game series, or the board game “Arkham Horror,” I don’t often write in this genre.  I am not at all certain that I can succeed on this front, but I’m going to try.  I’m planning to blend it with some dark fantasy, so if I’m lucky, that will assist me during the times where I feel I’m falling short on the challenge part.

On top of that, this is also my attempt at working with the first of many writing prompts given by Brandon Sanderson and the “Writing Excuses” series of podcasts that he, Dan Wells and Howard Tayler host for new writers.  (Write a story about a writer who can’t finish anything because he or she is blocked.)  Though I expect it will take me longer than one week to write the entirety of this, at the very least, I can get the ball rolling for your enjoyment.

While Sam shares many flaws with me on a personal level, she is not intended to be a placeholder or a mouthpiece.  I share the agony of not being able to finish something, and I hate endings with a passion.  I also tend to be very shy around people that I don’t know, though not quite to the extent that she is!  However, I plan to take her places that I don’t usually go, and that means she needs to be her own character rather than just a mirror image.

You may not even like who she becomes in the end… but that’s half the fun of good horror, right?  Watching your characters struggle and suffer in terrible circumstances, against seemingly overwhelming foes and odds.  If they succeed, in the end, it is as changed men and women.  Life as they knew it will never be the same again.