There are only two more chapters of WHERE WOLF left before the series concludes on Wednesday, September 28. I can’t describe to you how surreal it feels to work on something for almost three years and then be sitting on the cusp of the entire thing being out there in the public to read.
But you’re a writer! You should be able to describe it!
Yeah, well maybe it’s not that I “can’t” describe it but that I don’t want to. I’m choosing to treat the whole thing like an ostrich. This is me sticking my head in the sand and choosing to ignore the fact that my labor of love for the last few years is over.
But first STOP! Did you read Chapter Ten? If not, go and read it. Big spoilers follow!
Ok, let’s talk about cum gutters. The whole thing started as a joke between my friends and myself. During the first few months of COVID, we’d host bi-weekly virtual hangouts. They were supposed to be movie discussions, where we’d chat about a film we all watched, but they quickly devolved into us exposing the weirdest parts of ourselves to each other. We were isolation-mad and hungry for human interaction and that led to some weird places. At some point, we became obsessed with Ryan Reynold’s abs in THE AMITYVILLE HORROR and BLADE III.
We’d spend hours discussing just what kind of work would be needed to have abs like Reynolds and what, exactly, the term “cum gutters” referred to. Were the gutters meant to catch sperm? Distribute the spunk? Like I said, our conversations got weird.
Anyway, flash forward to the fall of 2020 and I’m writing WHERE WOLF and I need a cliffhanger to end chapter nine. On the spur of the moment, I had Sophia say the line “We need to talk about the werewolf’s cum gutters.” I always figured I’d change it to something I could actually use but instead I kept it and then leaned into it further and further until a whole chunk of the story hinged on Sophia’s hornt-up attitude towards Billy Wagner.
Sorry, mom and dad.
Yes, I went around my apartment looking for everything that might conceivably carry silver.
The last few chapters have been short ones but tomorrow will bring Chapter Eleven - which not only returns the chapters to their normal 20+ page length but details the secret origins of Billy Wagner, werewolf by whenever. I’m really proud of the next few chapters and Chapter 11 in particular. Just because you know Billy’s the werewolf doesn’t mean you have the entire story yet.
See you tomorrow at FANGORIA.com!