What started with The Murder House turned into the Valley of Shadows, but that is not clear until the Valley of Death. I didn't really plan it like that. It wrote itself it that way, so blame the books.
The Murder House started with a dream I had. Was it when I was living in New Orleans? This dream just kept haunting me, re-writing itself into various forms, until it went down onto paper as The Murder House.
In the dream, it was like an art project that was not really an art project. People would go inside but not come out. Art students claimed it was a horror project, and everyone knew about it seemingly...
Valley of Shadows started with inspiration from a video game, a simple question: kill or be killed? I did not know that the two were connected when I started writing it, thinking that The Murder House was done and over, a standalone, but then some of the themes kept re-appearing in different forms and scenarios. It's like people were bringing up inspiring things without knowing it, making the wheel continue to turn.
When I started noodling around with the idea of Valley of Shadows, I had talked to my ex-boyfriend about it extensively. He got so inspired, he started jotting down notes apparently after we had separated for some time, as he went to work in one place, while I stayed in another part of the country. These stories were written in real time, with a time stamp of the start and end, all errors included, so people can see exactly what was written by me on what days and times exactly, errors and everything included.
Well, I finished Valley of Shadows, published it, and by the time I finally saw him again months later, he told me he had been writing notes for his own version of my story, handing me a pile of papers that I have still yet to read through entirely, though he verbalized a few of the ideas to me. The only reason I did not read all of his notes was that I did not want it to mess me up from knowing what I wrote, as it was apparent that there was still more to come from this book that I thought was a standalone as well. That's when it was like okay, how can this thing go a step further into something more yet still?
I had been dating a different guy when I was writing The Murder House, as that was written before I had even moved to Wisconsin, and during the writing process of that book, we had been talking about quantum physics, and I had tried to explain to him the concept of Schrodinger's Cat, which wound up showing up in that book. Fast forward to years later, and I'm trying to explain the concept to somebody else and the time of trying to figure out how to move the storyline of the Valley of Shadows further. That's when I realized the connection between the two books was that concept in quantum physics.
Anything is possible, until you open the box. Just like in a game, anything is possible, so long as you use your imagination. I don't want to ruin the concept of the final book, but there's my cryptic clue.
The Valley of Death is the culmination of those two books. It takes the concept of perspective, flipping things on its head. If you don't like the way things are going, just swap out the perspective of the story, but you might not always be expecting all of the results from some else's point of view, so be warned.
There's probably a bit of a disconnect, as the entire trilogy spanned years, starting with the first book finally published in 2014. The final book has a disconnect as well, as it was started in 2019 and finished in 2022. The three books were written as part of the National Writing Month contest, and as it challenges you to write non-stop, that's why I like to include the raw text, errors and all, in publishing.
These can always be cleaned up, or re-written in a different format, such as a movie or comic. Most changes would be merely surface, such as T2ell, simple typos while writing fast, but it gives character. It took me a long time to buy into the fact that it's the errors that make something unique in the first place, and once I did, I figured why not let that show with a few errors left in books to prove I'm me?
In 2019, I did a couple book projects for the total word length of that year's competition, as some of what I wrote wound up being used in TLS, which is a project I'm still working on, a little different. I probably should've just wrapped it into the storyline of the final book, but I wanted the Tragic love stories to be more of a bathroom reader, more like a collection of shorts. I'm still adding to it, so it will come out at some point later in the future with no specified date, as inspiration comes as it wants to.
Maybe one of these days I will crack the notes my ex left me and re-work another perspective. Is the Valley of Death over? Is this the end of The Murder House, or is it more of a new beginning?
If you haven't noticed by now, I have lost some of the steam of book releases, as I used to throw concerts and huge parties for the books I released. Whether it's the change in location or just me getting older, not wanting to buy into the hype, I just keep cranking these things out. I'm crossing off the lingering projects on the to-do list, slowly but surely, and there's still more left to do in publishing.
There's a couple books I'm sitting on still, as some of you know. One I really just have to clean up and publish, so maybe I'll work on that one next. Those are two that hurt to publish, so they're good.
Guess we shall see what y'all think when more of my pain hits the paper. However long it takes me, the crystal ball does not say today, sorry. It will be when it will be, and not before, apparently.
Until then, check out the rest of my collection. There's more than 100 books to browse. Don't tell me that you've flipped through all of them already, so go find a new favorite one of mine to discover.
For more, visit www.amazon.com/author/marisawilliams, www.lulu.com/spotlight/thorisaz, and www.outlandishwriter.com. Follow on Twitter @Booksnbling. Follow on Instagram @Thorisaz.
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