Today's story is Click, from the Perfectly Fine Neighborhood, published by French Press in 2023.
This anthology is based on the novel by Stephen Kozeniewski and Wile E. Young, titled The Perfectly Fine House. The concept is centered around the idea that ghosts are real, and everyone can see them and interact with them. It’s weird when you cannot see them or when a loved one does not soon reappear.
This story was actually late getting to over to French Press because I was struggling so much with the original storyline that I had in mind. It just was not working for me. Something was off, not enough emotion, not enough dread, not really sure, except I knew that it was not working. I ditched it and sent a quick email over to Stephen at French Press and asked for an extra week to try something new.
The something new scared me. I didn’t tell anyone what the new idea was, because I knew it would hurt. It would hurt to write, hurt to tell, hurt to relive, but my heart was telling me that it was time. The new idea was to write about my older brother’s death, his suicide. More specifically, the day of it, moment by moment, as I experienced it. My brother had been gone twenty-five years, that month in fact, as it was August when I was writing this story, but I knew it was time to tell it.
I sat down the same day I sent the email to French Press and started writing it. The story practically told itself as I was so blinded by tears it was impossible to see my keyboard. But I didn’t move until most of the story had been written. I finished it within days, then held my breath as I sent it to my mother and my oldest daughter. I needed their approval before I could say it was finished. It was only then that I told them what I was writing, but loosely, a single phrase. “It’s about Alex.”
Some of you may think I should have said more, prepared them better, but I knew it was enough for them. I needed to know if the story hit them how I wanted it to, if they felt what I needed my reader to feel. They did. They cried, but they loved it. I sent it over to French Press and waited. The news came faster than I expected, and they also loved it.
CLICK is raw and emotional. It’s based on a real experience, real moments as I felt them and lived them. It also fit the premise of the anthology exactly as I needed it too, and I think my brother would have approved too.
Get it here:
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