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Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Guest Post: COLLABORATION by Michael J Moore @MichaelJMoore20


    COLLABORATION by Michael J Moore

I was once asked to write an essay for a book on foster care. As a horror author, I don't dabble much in nonfiction, but the cause was noble, so I agreed and wrote a piece about a group home I was in as a teenager, naming it, "Secret Harbor." However, the project was canceled, and the essay ended up stuffed away in the dark until my wife read it and started submitting it to journals under the title, "The Journey." I asked her why she renamed it, and she said, "Because I'm about to start a new book called Secret Harbor."

For the next three months, she interrogated me about this boy's home, clicking away on her keyboard at all hours of the night, until finally she had a first draft. I finished it in a couple days, and though I won't spoil it for you (it's set to be published next year by Black Rose Writing), it made me fall in love with Cait Moore all over again.

I think we tend to write for each other. I find myself smiling at certain lines that I imagine she'll like — and disappointed if she doesn't. If there's one thing that I can definitively say has pushed me to be a better author, it's the fact that Cait doesn't like the genre I write in. It's forced me to really step it up, and include a depth that my stories may not have had otherwise, in an attempt to captivate and impress her.

When I wrote Highway Twenty, it scared the hell out of me — who isn't afraid of giant insect-creatures who lay eggs inside of you and bury you alive? Cait loved it. She really enjoyed that the dynamic between the protagonist and his girlfriend were equally important to the story as the horror. We shopped it around and received so many offers that they're still coming in a year later, and the thing's been published already (we went with Hellbound Books). Though I write for her, I don't write only for her. I write for me, and most of all, I write for you. So I can only hope you'll enjoy Highway Twenty as much as we did. Leave a review AMAZON and let me know your thoughts.

Michael J Moore's books include Highway Twenty, and the bestselling YA series, After the Change. His work has appeared in various magazines, and received an Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest.  

Follow Michael here: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | LINKEDIN



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