The Hunted Journey

My path to writing the novel that eventually became Hunted started somewhere around the year 2004. I was still in college, and was at the time working on The Talisman of Delucha. Between writing, my coursework in microbiology, my part time job, and everything else that comes with the life of a college student, I was kept very busy. But somewhere in the midst of that, I came up with the concept of the summoners and their conflict with the hunters.

For those who know me, it will come as no surprise that I made a few notes about the idea and quickly put it aside. I had the trilogy to finish first, and I have a tough time with multi-tasking when it comes to writing projects. So the idea remained just that for a few more years. I finished school and finished writing the trilogy. I found a full time job as a microbiologist at a local company. I got engaged and then later we married. Life events took precedence over writing for a while.

Along came 2008. That year started out with great promise for me; I published The Moon’s Eye in February of that year and was very excited to see where my writing would take me. I did not know a fraction of what I now know about self-publishing, and the result of that was not many people knew my books existed (they still don’t) – but that’s a story for another time…and I am working on a plan for Hunted that will (hopefully) have better results.

In March of 2008 I was forced to find a new job. The company that I had worked for was going bankrupt, and they never were able to recover from that loss (that company no longer exists). My new job was primarily on-call, which gave me time to start writing again. I started a few random projects, and started writing Hunted a few times, but nothing stuck. During that year, my aunt passed away; she had always encouraged me to read sci-fi/fantasy, and had sometimes given me new books when she visited. She had been genuinely excited when I first published The Moon’s Eye, but I don’t believe she ever had the chance to read it, which still saddens me to this day. Later that year, I also lost my last surviving grandparent, and a week or two later the temporary job I had taken fell apart. 2008 was a rough year for me. In order to take my mind off the trouble in my personal life, I began to write more seriously, and the final iteration of Hunted was born.

It took me a little over two years to complete the initial manuscript. By the end of 2010, the publishing company I had opted to work with for the trilogy was undergoing their first buy-out, and customer service became almost non-existent. It took months to get book orders to come in, when previously, it had taken less than two weeks. I was frustrated by that experience to the point that I swore I would never self-publish again. Rather than do the productive thing and research other options, I simply remained angry for a while and put the manuscript away. Maybe one day I would find the desire to come back to it, but at the time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I almost gave up on publishing all together.

I worked on a few writing projects between 2010 and 2019 that never got anywhere. It was a case of “I don’t like my characters anymore” for some, and a case of “I don’t know where I’m going with this” for others. Most of those projects were shelved, unfinished. I will probably return to some of them later on.

Then along came 2019. There were a number of stressors with my job once again; there had been several rounds of layoffs that occurred between fall of 2018 and spring of 2019. Somehow, I managed to survive the cuts, which I was grateful for – but once again, I found myself diving into a new major writing project in order to block out the negativity I was experiencing at work.

Near the end of May 2019, I began writing Exile. I was shocked when only seven weeks later, I had a complete manuscript. I immediately moved on with the series (The Caein Legacy), and wrote Guardian, followed by Harbinger. I am currently writing the fourth book, which does not yet have a title. It was around the time I completed Harbinger that I began the process of querying agents for that series, after receiving some very encouraging feedback from a couple trusted people (you know who you are – and I thank you). Somewhere along the way, I realized that some agents might take notice of my other novels, but it had been ten years since I last published anything. It was too long ago; those books no longer felt relevant to my current writing process, and I wanted to showcase more of what I am truly capable of now.

The idea came to me that, even though I swore I would never self-publish again, perhaps now was a good time to reevaluate that stance. I could release Hunted; I felt it was a good story, and it helped me cope during a dark time in my life. So, I dug out the manuscript and began to go through it. It needed work – a lot of work – but I was still pleased with the story overall. I revised/edited at least 90% of the manuscript during the great quarantine that has been 2020. And now, as of this writing, Hunted is set to be released on October 20, 2020.

I chose an October release date because the book does showcase the summoners – and their ability to call forth demons. It felt appropriate to release the book close to Halloween (which also happens to be one of my favorite holidays). As the days draw closer to release, I become increasingly excited to share this story with all of you (on another note, my proof copies arrived last night!). I hope you all, as readers, enjoy Hunted.