*** Author's Preface ***
This is a preface by the author. It's masturbatory, but perhaps not in the way you were hoping. Please move down to Part One if you're just interested in the fiction. If you're a struggling writer like me maybe what follows will strike a chord, or at least be of minor interest. I promise it's short.
***
I started this work with the intention of submitting it to the annual Literotica Halloween Contest. That would be the 2016 Literotica Halloween Contest. It was supposed to be a short story.
Instead, something like 30,000 words poured out of me over the course of a single week. The Muse was with me, and my usual writing rock fight had been replaced by a bountiful torrent of ideas AND the wherewithal to turn them into consecutive complete sentences.
When I stopped to catch my breath, I realized it was barely the first act. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I was writing my first novel.
The taps remained reasonably open for the next six months, and I powered through to about 70,000 words. Sometimes I would write 3,000 in a day. Sometimes barely 300, but it kept coming. I had outlines. I had beginnings, middles and endings. I had clever little lines of dialogue jotted down. I had IT, whatever it is the Muse grants.
And then it was gone.
***
I told myself life got in the way. I got a promotion. I bought a new house. I got a divorce. I changed jobs.
I did not write.
I fell into a depression. I hated my new job. I drank too much. I was searching for apartments. I was dating again.
I still did not write. I thought about finishing my novel all the time; it was pretty much 90% done! I told anyone who asked that I wanted to be a writer: my family, my friends, my girlfriends, my therapist. But I did not write.
I found a new job and quit the one I hated. I took a sorely-needed vacation, by myself, someplace quiet.
The dam broke and I wrote. I finished the novel. I knocked out 10,000 words in four days, sitting on a beach alone. I came home and fucked my girlfriend half to death.
That was October 2018, two years after I first sat down to write a short story about a spooky sex cult.
It was done! Well, mostly done. It just needed a few touches. Now that it was finished, I was going to put it through a few rounds of edits and make it "good."
The novel sat untouched for six months.
***
The new job was worse than the old job. Much worse. Depression, drinking, dating - the familiar phantom obstacles all made new appearances . I was miserable again.
I did not write. But I knew that I could write, and then that I should write, and - eventually - that I must write.
So last month I quit that job too. I do not think I'll go back to an office job ever again.
Now I'm freelancing, consulting and writing. I wish I had made the move years ago, but I probably wasn't ready. I'm ready now.
I'm taking one business day each week to work on personal projects. First up: get this fucking spooky sex cult novel out of the fucking door.
***
I don't know if it's "good" after the few touches I've made. I think it's "better" and that will have to do. This thing took 2.75 years, most of which was wasted time spent not writing. It's time to move on to new things.
So here it is, my first novel. It was an enormous struggle. Now I know I can do it.
This one is for me.
*****
*** Part One ***
Sam sat in his cramped cubicle, hunched over his desk, jotting down the notes while managing editor Marty Barnes gave the last bit of his rah-rah speech somewhere behind him.
"Remember our jobs are to watch the watchmen, to shine light where there is none, and to inform and delight our readers," Sam mouthed to himself, delivering each a half second before Barnes.
The fact was the Monday story meeting for the metro section of the paper essentially ran on autopilot. Reporters talked through their stories with each other while Sam Stone, associate Metro editor, took notes on how the section was shaping up and began to think about layout, art, headlines and online interactive.
It had taken years, but Sam felt like he finally had worked himself up to running the section, despite the bullshit 'associate' tag in front of his title. Barnes didn't actually pay attention during the meetings, so the reporters didn't actually care about his advice - the whole thing was a waste of time.
Sam hoped it hadn't gone unnoticed either; the higher-ups had announced a new assistant editor position on the paper's investigative team. Sam had applied, and rumor was he was actually in the running for the job - or at least get a spot on the team. It was nice recognition, theoretically, but not something he could really dwell on; there was another paper every day and he had more than enough work to keep his attention. Still, he had a good feeling that things would shake favorably for him, and frankly it was his dream job.
Eric, the long-time cops and courts reporter who had taken over the beat from Sam himself, finished his last note about another murder/suicide, the third in as many months in town. This time it involved two local celebrities - the headmaster at the preeminent private school in the area was shot by the owner of a popular downtown nightclub, who had then turned the gun on herself. It was darkly scandalous - both victims were married to other people.
Things had been a little exciting lately in town; Eric thought it was a mix of school anxiety starting back up, the economy transferring from summer to holiday, and the full moon.
"Okay everyone, do your best work today," Barns said, closing the meeting, a half second after Sam had mouthed the same thing. "Stone, I expect to see the expense reports by end of day tomorrow."
Barnes turned and walked away without waiting for a response. As the reporters started to get up, Sam spoke for the first time that morning: "Don't forget to think about art and make sure you give the designers plenty of notice if you need a homemade graphic. Tomorrow you should all have story pitches for the Sunday paper. Lily, hold back a second, I've got something for you to do."
The reporters cleared out of the area around his cubicle and wheeled their chairs off to their own cubes. The relative calm of his corner of the floor devolved once again into the controlled chaos of the newsroom. Lily stood up, smoothed her knee-length pencil skirt, and bounced over to his desk. She opened her notepad to a new page and looked at him eagerly.
"Okay Lily, you've been with us full-time for a few weeks, are you ready to go find me a Sunday story?" Sam asked.
