The Death of Mark Johnson

 A time of Darkness

A little-known aspect in the history of my award-winning series ebook is that four years before the book earned its award I was ready to kill its hero, Mark Elijah Johnson. 

At the time, I was writing the series for three ladies I was in contact with on Facebook who loved the weekly episodes. That weekend, I had gone to meet an online friend for the weekend, but the date was nothing short of a disaster.

On my way back from Bath, I decided to end the series with a heroic battle that Mark would lose. On my arrival back in Bristol, I sat at my laptop for hours staring at the blank screen, unable to type a word. My friends said that was a sign the series should go on, which it did until the end of the second book. 

I started to write book 3, I had two concepts ongoing when I stopped the idea. One idea was a mix of H.P. Lovecraft meets Silent Hill with Mark, and his friend Phil being in the same building but in different realities, and the other was more like The Witches of Eastwick crossing with Salem. 

Another aspect of the series is it is the only time I worked to a deadline, a deadline set by the harshest of masters (me); at the time of the ending of the first book I was ill, and my friends told me to have a rest, but I didn't wish to disappoint them by not sending the next episode, so, despite not writing for almost a week, I brought the episode out as scheduled.

Another story that has links to this chapter is my crime fiction stories of Pat Canella; some of these stories, set in the 1950s USA are so creepy that they gave me chills, and I knew what was coming.

I started a crossover story for my hero/heroine coupling but quashed the idea as neither set of stories has sold.