July Update
The UK is experiencing a fabulous summer (in relative terms), and I have been living (mostly) in shorts and T-shirts since my last blog. Amid a hectic personal life, a taxing day job, evening consultation work, trips to the beach to reset, exploring the countryside to unwind, and trialling alcohol-free beer, I have managed to get my next story ready for release! Read on to find out more.
THANK YOU, READERS!
I am increasingly blown away by the response to my horror stories. It genuinely is mind-blowing to think that people are reading my work, and that some even have a favourite tale of mine. In particular, readers who have taken the time to leave a review or reach out to me about my stories have truly motivated me to continue on this journey.
Raising you all a huge glass of the RED stuff.
MY WRITING JOURNEY
When I wrote Obsession, I was so excited to have finished a story that I released it within a month of the first draft. Not long afterwards, I wrote and released PACT. The response to both psychological horror stories was unexpected but hugely motivating. People were not just reading my books but loving them, hating them, and sharing their experiences on social media. This led me to finalise See You Later, my first supernatural horror tale. See You Later received a mixed response, and I completely understand why. This was my first attempt at writing, but it sat on the shelf unfinished for a few years. When I revisited it, I was so passionate about the story that I didn't change much of the original draft. Although I do feel it is overwritten, one or two readers rate it as my best story.
Why am I telling you all this? Back then, writing was not a chore for me. I wrote because I loved seeing the stories in my head come to life on the page.
RED was the last story I truly enjoyed writing. When I read through that final draft, I knew I had created exactly what I set out to create when I first started writing. The kind of story I would love to read. Although RED started modestly, it soon became my most popular tale and remains so to this day.
After RED, writer’s block finally set in…
My next venture, Sins of the Wronged, initially felt like a Frankenstein’s monster of a horror tale. I knew what I wanted to create, but I felt massively out of my depth. Learning the craft of writing as I went had been fun up to that point, but I was beginning to feel the pressure to create something better and more original than before. The reviews for RED kept coming in, and a voice in my head told me to write another story in that style, but another (louder) voice insisted that I do something… different.
Yes… I have voices in my head!
So I forced myself to commit to SOTW, and over the months that followed, I kept staring at the first few chapters, wondering how I could bend the story to my will. A year later, I still hadn’t settled on the structure, and I even flirted with the idea of giving up writing altogether.
I decided to take a month away from social media, reading, and, of course, writing.
It was during a brief weekend break at a remote lodge that the story (finally) came together in my mind. With my laptop gathering dust at home, I sat for a few hours, using notes on my phone to structure the nuances of SOTW, and finally… I had a story!
SOTW was released a few months later and is (currently) my most polarising story. People really do seem to either love it or hate it. As for my thoughts on the story, I genuinely am on the fence and still have no idea what state my head was in during the (long) process.
Nearly there… I promise…
After SOTW, I fell into the next clique condition, Imposter Syndrome. SOTW had almost broken me as a writer, so I decided to jump back into safe water with Formulation. Writing first-person psychological horror comes naturally to me, and although I was proud of the final product, it felt like I was taking the easy route. At this stage, I started to feel quite depressed about writing. The effort required to create something new was stifling. That self-inflicted negativity ate away at me and took me a million miles away from those early days of actually enjoying my writing.
It took me a few months after Formulation to start a new project. I spent most of that time staring at unfinished projects and playing with old ideas. Writer’s block and imposter syndrome were my only companions as I tried different locations to find inspiration. The one hour I set aside for writing each day proved fruitless until one December afternoon. I was in a coffee shop, just about to close my laptop, when I looked up to see a Christmas tree being decorated. Coldplay’s ‘Those Christmas Lights’ chimed merrily in the background, and as I watched the tree lights pulsing and flashing, a new story suddenly unravelled itself in my mind. Each week, I came back to the same place, sat in the same chair, and wrote ISOLATED as Christmas burst into life around me.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that writing has been extremely tough for me since RED, due to self-inflicted pressure and imposter syndrome. That said, many writers likely go through a similar journey, so please continue to offer them your valuable support. I am pleased to say that now I am on the other side, I feel I can get back to loving writing again. I just need to do a few things differently!
ISOLATED
I am excited to announce that ISOLATED is now available for pre-order. The paperback will follow around Christmas. I (personally) won’t be doing the usual pre-release promotion for this story, as I don’t want any of the (self-inflicted) pressure. My plan is to release it quietly, just as I did with my debut release, Obsession. Once it has a few reviews, I may ramp up promotion after the summer. ISOLATED is very different from my other work, so it will be interesting to see how it is received. Links are below, and I hope you enjoy this one.
IN CLOSING
As always, thanks so much for your continued support, whether you are a reader, fellow writer, or blogger. Every mention, share, like, review, or sale goes a long way towards ensuring I keep creating more horror.
Yours in horror,
Daniel Lorn