Marilyn's Musings

I've always been a sucker for horror movies, not the slash and blood and gore flicks but the ones that are downright scary and often have demons and even the devil in them. Seldom did the main characters have any faith in any religion or if they did it was usually the Catholic faith--never a Protestant. I began thinking about creating a story with the devil and a heroine and/or hero who were Christians. I did some research into Satan worshiping, and it certainly made me wonder why anyone would be interested in following a supernatural being who would end up in a fiery hell for all eternity. The more are investigated the more intrigued I became and soon began writing. At the time, I was new to the foothill area where I live now and decided to make it the setting. I wanted a female resident deputy with a teenage son and a local pastor in the book. Anyone who has read my Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series will recognize some of these elements. Actually this might have been...

For the first time I have a Kindle book available that I sort of did myself. I've been reading about all these authors putting their books up on Kindle, and especially those who had books they couldn't find a publisher interested in it. I had a book like that. When I finished it, I sent it out to various publishers and though I always got good reports on the writing the rejections from the main stream publishers all said something along the lines of, "It's a little too Christian for our readers." So I sent it out to Christian publishers and received the same kind of rejection, "It's a great story but far too scary for our readers." I liked the story and ended up self-publishing it with an outfit that turned out to not only be a bit on the crooked side (I really know how to pick them) but not all that savvy in the publishing business. The manuscript has been idling in an old word-processing program for years--until I decided to take a look...