It began a few days before September 28, 2006, when an idea struck me, an idea borne of a thunderstorm, an idea which metamorphosed into a novella penned for and presented on my blog.  For many days I wrote, all of it impromptu, all of it stream-of-consciousness created and stream-of-consciousness presented, unprepared and unplanned if you will, spontaneity made manifest.  And ten days after I began posting it, seventeen “parts” later, the whole stood revealed.

How primitive a thing it now appears to me, how troglodytic and pedestrian, how common.  Or perhaps not so much.

By the time I felt prepared to post the last piece, already I knew it was more than I intended, more than off-the-cuff conception, more than fun with a random impression turned random idea turned random story.  Already it had become.

Thus I protected the tale for many years, then in a fit of housekeeping in 2010 I deleted the story’s posts, all of them having been locked with passwords for many years, making the deletions no impact save increasing my peace of mind.

For you see, despite its primitive roots and dull exhibition, the mechanics of the tale meant little but the substance of the tale meant everything.  Now in a manuscript some 884 pages long (submission format, hence double-spaced), the original “Darkness Comes to Kingswell” grew from a ninety-page 50,000-word novella into a 250,000-word 450-page novel (in document format, so the printed book will be around 600 pages).

Much of the original story has changed, from the title (the novel is called The Breaking of Worlds I: Dreamdarkers) to the characters to the supporting events to the reasons behind what happens.  Over the years of its development, it became part of something larger, part of a series, part of an epic which reveals some of its unanswered mysteries and daunting challenges via this first narrative.

Because Dreamdarkers is a beginning, not a whole, it asks more questions than it answers, and through the remainder of The Breaking of Worlds, the series it initiates, those questions will be answered.  Well, some of them anyway, for as you will find in “Darkness Comes to Kingswell” I do not like neat and tidy story packages where everything is resolved.  To me at least, the reader should be left with their own imagination to fill in some blanks, otherwise they have only read a book rather than experiencing a saga.

But I digress…

As Dreamdarkers nears publication (hardcover and e-book formats first, then paperback edition later), I began thinking more and more about its beginning and the becoming that followed.  And that led me back to “Darkness Comes to Kingswell.”

So as means to introduce the forthcoming novel and the series it represents, as well as to share something which itself was a fun exercise in spur-of-the-moment creative writing, I have decided to present here on my blog—for a second time-turned-first time—the original digital novella which I called “Darkness Comes to Kingswell.”

I will not make changes as I post this.  You will see it just as it appeared six years ago.  So let me introduce it with the same words I used back then.

This is an experiment.  It’s an online draft of a fictional short story I am writing specifically for my blog.  There are no assumptions about its quality just as there are no promises.  I’m posting it as I draft it.  That means it’s possible you will see disparities as it develops.  That’s normal since the way I write is to regurgitate what comes to mind as it forms while going back as necessary to modify previous content to accommodate the storyline.  I may or may not make those corrections as I move forward with this.  I will update the offline version of the text, however, in order to keep it coherent in that form, and that’s because I don’t know if this will only be a blog thing or if I will include it in future publishing endeavors.  Once the entire story is complete, and only if significant modifications have been made to it over time, I may repost the entire thing in its final form.

Regardless of those considerations, this is fiction.  It not only is allowing me to flex my creative muscles, but it’s also a venue by which I can establish for myself the foundation necessary for future works.  That includes my new little fictitious town, Kingswell, and some of the characters that inhabit that Podunk East Texas settlement.  As I previously stated: “I am utilizing this story to help me create a world wherein I have absolute authority to generate wondrous and horrible events that will not assault your suspension of disbelief.  Details and environment you see here will be utilized for a great deal of my imagination as I move forward.  That is the selfish part of this endeavor.  It allows me to create—sans disassociation—my own genuine realism to be carried forward and expanded, a place much like Stephen King’s Castle Rock, Maine, capable of supporting whatever imaginative explosion my mind can generate.”

As with all stories, you will not comprehend the entire thing simply by reading a single entry.  I don’t know how long this will be as it’s in development at this time, but I do not intend to limit it simply because of the medium in which it’s being presented.  I’m gong to let it go and let it do its own thing.

I hope you enjoy it.  More importantly, I hope you’ll speak up with criticisms that spring to mind.

“Darkness Comes to Kingswell” is about something terrible that happens to the world as seen from a very small corner of it.  It is told as a first-person narrative.  That should be familiar since my blog has always been in that format.  Despite this, not all of my work is in the first person.  This happens to be one story that is.

Finally, I make no promises as to how often you will see portions of this story.  They will be posted as they develop, and they will undoubtedly range in length depending on how it takes shape.  I will do my best to post sections in logical blocks like chapters.

That said, and to reiterate the final paragraph, I make no promises as to how often you will see portions of the tale.  They no doubt will appear interspersed with my other blogging activities.  But I will share them regularly, linking them together to keep the story navigable, and when it ends I will be a significant step closer to kicking off the Dreamdarkers release, something that will be celebrated by the publication of the novel’s first three chapters here on my blog.

So come with me, poppets, if you will, on a dark and creative journey first told several years ago.  And let us realize this little literary trip serves to prepare us for a much larger one.

(Ultimately I will clean up this story because I will include it in a compilation of my novellas and short stories.  Additionally, I will use this to introduce the coming practice of sharing original short works of fiction here at xenogere; more on that at a later time.)

[Part 1]