Becoming MISTWALKER
MISTWALKER comes out today, and I wanted to talk about where it came from. This is a special book to m
e. In my head, it’s a sort of companion to SHADOWED SUMMER. I’ve never wanted to write a book more than this one.
While I was drafting it, I disappeared into it. It’s a personal book, one that’s very special to me. But it w
asn’t a thunderbolt book, where it appeared in my head fully-formed and I just had to type fast enough to keep up. Nope.
The idea for MISTWALKER came in two entirely separate pieces. The book is written in two POVs, which reflect the dual inspiration:
PART ONE: GREY
So I told you that I write because I still have people to prove wrong. This is exactly where the mythology for this book came from. There was a blog post at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, talking about what the next big thing in YA would be.
This was pr
obably four or five years ago, back when paranormal was still the hugest of the huge. It was also when adult romance sites had just started reviewing YA novels as well. Which, as you can imagine, ticked off some of the romance-only readers. YA had invaded their space!
I was enjoying the comments until about midway through the comments. There, a couple of disgruntled readers started joking about the most ridiculous creatures that could be the next big YA monster. Somebody said leprechauns. Another suggested minotaurs. Then somebody said, far liath.
I had no idea what that was, but if I was going to be outraged at all these suggestions, I needed to know.
So I looked it up. Far Liath- the Grey Man. He appears as fog, lures ships into the rocks, and unsuspected travelers to their death over cliffs.
Oh. Ohhhh.
Immediately, I could imagine a backstory for a character like that. Something more human than just a spectral, hateful fae.
And because somebody said it was ridiculous and couldn’t- or shouldn’t- be done, I decided I was going to do it. That’s where Grey began, cursed to haunt the lighthouse on Jackson’s Rock until he took a thousand souls or convinced someone else to take on the curse.
PART TWO: WILLA
When I was sixteen, my younger brother took his own life. He was fourteen and it was a tragedy. Everyone agreed, it was unnatural for my parents to have to bury a child. That’s not the order of things. That’s not how the world is supposed to work.
And that, I suppose, is why so many adults said to me, “You have to take care of your parents now.” Or, “You need to be strong for your parents.”
Because to them, this was my parents’ loss, not mine. So many people said it, family members, family friends, adults I trusted, I believed them. I wasn’t supposed to grieve, I was supposed to take care of my parents.
That’s exactly what I did. I sat between them at the funeral, and forced myself not to cry. I stuffed everything down, over and over. I did what I could to be the strong one- this meant holding my mother’s hand while she talked to news reporters about it. Making dinner at my dad’s house while he sat in the back room and cried.
It’s a strange sort of hole to have in your life. When you meet people, there are small talk subjects- but I don’t know the answer to “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I guess to be absolutely correct, the answer is no. But that feels like a lie, because I once did.
I was shocked, and relieved, and furious to discover that I wasn’t the only one. Apparently that’s just what people say to surviving siblings: take care of your parents. You have to be the strong one now. (So if you’re in that position, friend, please instead say, “I’m so sorry for your loss. Do you need anything? How are you feeling?”)
That’s where Willa’s story comes from: struggling under that hopeless, oppressive, endless sense that you have to take care of everything because your brother or sister died. Her story is all about the way people treat you when you’re the kid who survives.
FINALLY
My best friend and I agree that when we die, we’re going to get on a ferry and go to Maine. We love it there, and I can’t imagine MISTWALKER taking place anywhere else. That’s not really a foundational point; it’s just a little trivia. A little bit more about where the book comes from. You can see why I say MISTWALKER is personal, a book of my heart.
I’m both excited and terrified that it’s out in the world today, but I’m so glad I get to share it with you.
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Originally published at making stuff up blog. You can comment here or there.