My Journey To A Mystery Novel

YES!!! It's finally out!

The book that I've been toiling away at, and bothering everyone with my endless streams of author-babble for over a year, is finally released to the unsuspecting public. Set in a sleepy fictional country town with no name, coincidently located at the exact geographical area of the town where I live, this Aussie mystery/crime novel will keep you guessing till the last page. I know that, because it had ME guessing till the last page! Here's the blurb.

A week ago a local teenage girl went missing.

With half the town out looking for her, it wasn't going to be long before a local Private Investigator got wrapped up in the search. However, a midnight phone call from an old acquaintance was not what Jack Mullens expected. Thrust into a web of false trails and cold leads, he soon finds that nothing is secure, and nobody he knows can be trusted.

He learns the very Essence of Betrayal.

If that's enough to grab you, check it out at the following sites:

Smashwords.com/books/view/EssenceOfBetrayal 

Amazon.com/Essence-Of-Betrayal

Bookdepository.com/Essence-Of-Betrayal

Also in Kobo, iTunes and Google Play. Just search Essence Of Betrayal Damien L Malcolm.

Otherwise, stick around for the story of how it came about.

On the 2nd of May 2013, I had this funny idea of having a go at writing something different than the space adventure novels I'd been writing since turning 15. It was a couple of days after hearing a story on my local ABC Radio about what it's like to be a Private Investigator.

Honestly, the bloke they interviewed made it sound a little boring and not at all inspiring. But we all know how the mind can wander...

So this idea floundered into my head and started to germinate. But, I still had my mental brakes on at first. You see, some in the writing world say this innocuous little phrase that sounds something like:

"You should only write what you know." 

Which is a short way of saying don't venture off into fields and topics that you have no idea about, because any reader will see through that, and your book will fall flat. Fair logic. That's why I've spent 15 years writing sci-fi, because let's face it, I'm a bit of a nerd... space, aliens, buttons, holograms and starships are what I know. ;)

And while I've always wanted to branch out into something different, something a little more "contemporary" and "main-stream" to stop people looking at me oddly and moaning when I uttered the word "sci-fi", I was often held back by that phrase. But then I started thinking, "Hang on a second. If there's anything I know, it's being a Handyman, and at the same time basically leading a double life." By day in my real life, I'm Damien the handyman, an all-round maintenance bloke fixing door handles and tap washers, before coming home and playing happy families. But on some nights after the kids went to bed, instead of just doing plain old paperwork, I would slink off into the office and open my latest manuscript. From there I would be launched into my own personal universe where anything I wished could become reality.

Ode to the life of a part-time writer.

So, armed with this new-found interpretation of the above term, I started to apply my own life to that of another person, with a few tweaks here and there - like changing the second job from author to P.I. I started thinking, "Ooooh, what if a bloke was working a normal job by day, but at night would slip on dark clothes and do stake-outs with a night-vision camera and things." Fuzzy pumpkins!

That's when, for the first time in my life, it was like a door opened in my mind and some strange fella walked in. See up till then, while writing sci-fi, story and scene ideas had always just played out in front of me while I typed, like watching a movie. Somehow dissociated, observational only. But even contemplating the idea was like tuning into a different radio channel. It was almost tangible; this middle-aged bloke - dark-ish hair, bit taller than me - simply strolled up to my mind and said, "G'day mate. I'm Jack Mullens. Wanna write a book about me?"

I know that sounds crazy, but I promise I'm not. I've heard other authors describe similar experiences, so I'm not the only one.

I mean it was that simple. I knew his name, face, body description, history and living arrangements in a flash, just like a Vulcan mind-meld! That day, I mentally wrote the first few pages of Essence Of Betrayal while vacuuming a local Church. (Sounds even crazier, I know.)

It wasn't till a couple of weeks later that I actually decided to sit down, put aside the half-finished Winchester: Convolutions manuscript, and start a fresh story. I didn't have a title, a plan, anything. I just started typing what I had in my head and let the rest flow.

And flow it did!

I was averaging 10,000-15,000 words a week for the first few months. May not sound like much to a full-time author, but remember here, I only had a couple of hours every other night to do this. One night, with a mid-July storm raging outside, I laid down 3600 words in 2 hrs and left myself so worked up I couldn't sleep. That scene was so intense for me, the next morning I found myself staring at a dot on the wall while absently chewing my weetbix, lost in a deep thought stream. If it affected me that much, I so hope that the reader gets something out of it. (Chapters 29-30 if you already have the book in your hand and like to skip ahead to the good bits! Spoiler alert, though.)

By around December 2013, I had enough down for the book to reach up and show me its title. And I mean that exactly as I wrote it just then. I had not had to sort out, research or make up any main character names; Jack had given me all of them. Nor did I have to really think about what I was going to write next session. I'd just sit down at the keyboard and Jack Mullens would tell me what to type. Completely surreal. If I were being honest, Jack is about as real to me as anyone else I know. At one point a lady, whom I slipped a section of the manuscript to an early opinion, said, "Why on Earth did you have to call him 'Jack Mullens'? Of all the names in the world, why that?"

My reply? "Because that's his name. That is the name he said when he introduced himself to me." She looked at me like I'd just stepped out of a spaceship landed in her back yard. Evidently she has never performed automatic writing for a fictional character transmitting from the ethereal netherworld.

I have. And the result was this obscure, hopefully exciting, Aussie novel called Essence Of Betrayal. You know, since finishing the book last month, I've even found that I'm missing Jack a little. That hairy-chested, smart-mouthed larrikin with an odd view on the world has really grown on me over the last year and a bit.

I hope he grows on you too.

Till next time,
-Damien