ALL THINGS SCARY...ME AND WRITING

Even when I was little, all things scary interested me. In grade school at the library, I checked out and re-checked out these giant books of short stories presented by Alfred Hitchcock. That was about as scary as my grade school got material-wise.

In 3rd grade, I wrote a story about a demonic puppet that came to life and killed people, including the ventriloquist who spoke for him. (Like that movie Magic with Anthony Hopkins only not as good). I wrote it in the front seat of my Grandpa's '57 Chevy. I always wrote better in strange places; my Grandpa's truck, the RV he and Grandma had parked in the back yard during non-vacationing seasons, the closet in my bedroom. Grandpa discovered my demonic puppet story a week or so later (I'd forgotten about it and left it on the floorboard of his pick-up truck). He handed it to me one day and said, "Kimmy, I found one of those stories you're always writin' in my truck. Kindly scared me." Grandpa was born and raised in Texas so "kind of" always came out as "kindly". But I'd done it. I scared Grandpa! I'd found my horror calling. And it was all monsters, ghosts and scary stuff from then on.

Even thought I had a hefty collection of short stories (that weren't that great) I started my first "official" novel when I was 16. I'd decided I wanted a whole book of scary. It was about a little boy with a super-special (and DNA altered) golden retriever who could see ghosts. Nearly halfway through the book, my mom came into my room with a book in her hand, dropped it onto my bed and suggested I read it before I did anymore work on my work-in-progress. Lo and behold…Watchers by Dean Koontz. He'd gotten there first. I hated him. I cried. I crumpled up my handwritten pages and tossed them in the trash. Trust me though when I say that Koontz's story WAY better than mine anyway. Once I got over the jealousy, I enjoyed Watchers and became an avid Dean Koontz fan. I moved on to Stephen King, and John Saul, to name a few.
Over the years, I kept writing scary, continued to read everything I could get my hands on and watched all the movies I could (usually over at my friends' houses since that stuff was forbidden in our home): Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, Ghost Story, Rosemary's Baby, The Shining and Carrie, Phantasm (OMG you have to love those crazy metallic spiky balls!), and so on and so on.
But one thing I was always certain of, I wanted to be a writer. I just didn’t think it would take me over 30 years to get good enough to publish something.

ALMOST…BUT NOT QUITE

The closest I came to landing an agent was in 2001. I had written a humorous book about being a single mom in 1995, because by that time, I had already started my soon-to-be ginormous family. I had 4 boys. I did not start sending it out to agents until 2001 and got the attention of Charlotte Sheedy at Sterling Lord (Ally Sheedy's mom for those of you old enough to remember the Brat Pack). Charlotte said she "loved" my writing but ultimately did not feel that without some sort of background in syndication a la Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry (via newspaper columns), just little old nobody me would not sell many books. Imagine my surprise a few weeks ago when I saw an advertisement for In the Motherhood, a new television series airing in 2009 dealing with the same stuff I wrote about. Whatever!

I went back to what I loved, scary.

I wrote some more books, a few young adult novels and a couple adult novels. I was offered a contract for my first young adult novel, Darkness There and Nothing More, from a publishing house that as MY luck would have it, went out of business before the contact even came in the mail. I'd already had my celebratory party with my family and some close friends; so to say it was a huge let down is an understatement. It was such a letdown; I stuffed it away in a sock drawer. Yes, we writers do have drawers of "Books That Might Have Been". Perhaps I will resurrect it again one day. Then, in 2008, at least in my mind, I finally got it. The right combination. Horror-scary-organized religion and the fanatics that are sometimes encountered in that organization and VOILA! Children of the Damned was born.

This book just felt different from everything else I had toiled over in the past. It felt "right." I hope it's right because currently, there are many publishing houses checking it out. So enough about me…what about me???

Other than my 4 teenage sons and my beautiful blessing of a girl who will be 4 this month, writing is all I ever want, all I have ever wanted. I hope that I will be able to scare others the way some of the greats have scared me over the years. And…that is my (probably too-long story) and all that needs to be said about how I got to this point. From this point forward, I will share bits and pieces of what is to come --fingers crossed – a published book and multi-book deal and an advance because we're hungry : ) -- and my journey to publication. And I promise I will do my very best and to please my readers and give you all the best I have. Like Alfred Hitchcock said: "Give them pleasure ... the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare."