Notes on “Serving Spirits”

This story was originally titled “Serving the Spirits,” a play on words which at the time I felt was rather clever. You live and learn. It’s one of my personal favorites due to the amount of time and effort that went into writing it, and the emotional payoff it achieved—for me, anyway. It was well received upon release, which helped me gain a lot of confidence.

I’ve never been a wizard with computers. In fact, I could probably crash your computer just by driving by your house. Due to this fact, I ended up writing this story from scratch, in its entirety, at least half a dozen times. I nearly threw in the towel on several occasions, but Natalie needed her freedom. She was stuck in my head as much as she was stuck with Mitch. Only I could set her free and I’m happy I finally did.

This story was inspired by a particularly tumultuous summer, and everything we’d been through where I live in Florida. Originally, the plan was to write about a house that could withstand any storm, but as it took shape, I realized that was a silly idea. Nobody cares about a house.

From there it developed into a tale of sex and revenge among the rich and famous, later with Vodou. There was even a draft that ditched the Vodou aspects in favor of the unfinished book having power to raise the dead.

But in the end, after all of the false starts, forced rewrites, dead computers, hours and hours of wasted research and nervous breakdowns, this torment of a story metamorphosed into a tale about the unbreakable bond between a father and his daughter.