Tagged by author Kelli Owen who was tagged by author Rob Swartwood who was tagged by author Tim Lebbon, I’m posting my answers below to a few questions about the new novel, due out sometime late next year.
1) What is the title of your next book?
Tentatively, it is called Bridgewood, but I will likely change it to something catchier/more thematically appropriate.
2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
The history of Danvers State Hospital was a huge influence on this novel.
3) What genre does your book fall under?
Horror/Supernatural Thriller.
4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Well, I could definitely see Shemar Moore as Derrick. Liv Tyler as Myrinda. Jessica Tandy would have been a great Aggie Roesler, but in lieu of her, maybe Rosemary Harris or Cloris Leachman. Bob Hoskins or John Goodman as Hal. Sean Hayes as Wayne.
5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Tenants of a newly-built apartment building find themselves succumbing to their darkest and craziest whims as an insanity from another world poisons the very ground on which they live.
6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Neither — I’ve negotiated the publication arrangement myself with a publisher.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I’m still writing it but it will be done by early March of next year.
8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Hmm. Maybe Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin. Audrey’s Door by Sarah Langan. Sliver by Ira Levin. Possibly The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Research on the recent history of Danvers State Hospital in Danvers, MA and the actor interviews on the Session 9 DVD extras.
10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
It is connected (somewhat) to the Hollower books and Thrall, if folks are into that sort of thing.
Also, here’s a teaser-y excerpt:
Over the grounds outside the apartment, the night came on quickly. Under the night, the grounds began to change. The changes were subtle and gradual: shifting boundaries between grass and gravel, trees creaking and sinking their roots into new patterns in the ground, moonlight manipulated into distorted finger-shapes by the surrounding shadows. Beneath the apartment building, the black puddle spread outward again, pulsating, breathing, bleeding, pumping its reckless abandon into the world. In the spaces between things where night gathered thickest, the chaotic ones that Aggie knew as hinshing moved and chattered their own half-nonsense language.
The residents of Bridgewood might have seen movement if any of them had been looking out a window toward the Old Ward. They might have caught blurred glimpses, or heard the irregular cadence of the chaotic ones’ speech. As it turned out, the few residents of the Bridgewood apartments were busy with their own thoughts and their own nighttime rituals. But the night wore on, and the chaotic ones were felt as chills, as ideas gone too far for comfort, as memories, both real and faulty. Also, of course, the chaotic ones were seen in dreams, beneath a handful of masks, a number of costumes. It was a common early symptom of the black puddle leaking through.
The hinshing themselves did not sleep, and so did not dream.
It was only a matter of time before they got inside.
