Angel of Darkness

A work in progress

Yes, I am writing a book. And yes, the title is Angel of Darkness.

If I actually get it published, it will be the first in an unnamed trilogy. Right now I've only just started.

I won't be including any excerpts here for a while, not until I actually make noticeable progress. But I will give some information on the book.


Angel of Darkness is by no means my first attempt at a book. Primarily because my first attempt was in kindergarten, with a picture book titled "Animals." It's not even my first serious attempt, as that honor was taken by Beyond The Door in sixth grade. It's just the longest lasting, and the one to go through the most changes. Angel of Darkness was conceived not long after Beyond the Door, but was set aside because of that work.

When I "finished" the draft of Beyond the Door, I turned my attention back to the story of one Gabriel Kinell, outcast. I even went so far as to do some (bad) character sketches, and write a few passages, which may be posted here at some point. But the story seemed to have no real place to go, and was abandoned. Several characters were tossed aside in the process, but Gabriel lingered.

His name changed, going from Gabriel Kinell, outcast, to Gabriel Moonshadow, mage. He formed a new identity, and with it a new appearance. But bits of the old story lingered and began to fuse with the new. The ideas came, but not the desire to write them again. I didn't have the will.

Until October 1998.

One night that month, in drawing class, I was inexplicably seized with the desire to draw Gabriel, even though to date not a single drawing of him had actually been decent. Still, I drew. And the drawing actually began to look like him. I drew a second one, and finally saw him outside of my mind's eye.

That drawing was all it took to bring back the desire to tell his story. The work began almost immediately, with new premises, new characters, new paths. The story became not just that of an outcast, but that of someone beating the odds and finding his place in the world. That of someone learning that not everything is as it seems. That of someone discovering a secret inner strength, a force... power.

But some things never change. Gabriel's strange abandonment, his human name and that of his mother, his father's profession, and one of the incidents of the original story remained behind, lurking in the background, hinting at what almost was Angel of Darkness.


If Angel of Darkness actually does get published, it will be part of a trilogy. I have not decided on a name for the trilogy, but the three stories in it and their plots are already decided.

Angel of Darkness
The Sound of Thunder
Legends

In fact, The Sound of Thunder is based on a short story connected to Beyond the Door!