Like A Father

When I first set out to write Dehumanized I had maybe written a bunch of short stories and the first chapter of about ten different books, never to complete them for a multitude of reasons. But I hadn’t ever written a whole novel before Dehumanized. I was never able to get myself to sit and concentrate for so long, which is why I wrote a bunch of short stories, because they don’t require as much time and effort as a full novel.

But when I first sat down to write Dehumanized it was like I was mesmerized. There was just something about this idea in my head that I couldn’t put my finger on. I was entranced. And when I started writing I couldn’t stop.

The fact that I completed this novel is a huge thing for me. A see a lot of blogs about authors who write a few novels before actually trying to get published, and that just seems strange to me. Maybe it’s because I’m only nineteen, but I can’t see myself popping out a few novels and then just discarding them. I get writing the first few chapters of something and then not feeling it, but to write a whole novel and then to just go, “Eh,” and then throw it away? Not possible for me.

I have a hard time concentrating on one thing, and again that could just be my age, but I was never able to concentrate on anything like I did on Dehumanized. I was so absorbed in this fictional world I had created. Even now I get tingles when I think about it. I’d lie awake at night thinking about all the characters and what kind of reactions they’d have in certain situations, what it would take to get them to do this or that, or what kind of activities they’d like outside the storyline. I felt so attached to my own creations, like a father to a child. And there was this whole world I had made, where anything I wanted could happen at any time. If I so chose a meteor could come hurtling down to Earth and the main character could suddenly grow wings and eat the meteor before it hit. Obviously I wouldn’t do that, but the idea that I could do that excited me.

Once I really got into writing, I started to realize what was happening. I wasn’t just writing a simple book: I was pouring my soul out. I was portraying actual emotions I felt into these characters. I was bringing out things I had felt in the past, things I was feeling at the time, and exorcising them onto the pages of this novel.

For example: Ryan Zachery is the main character of Dehumanized, and I feel he received the most of my pent up emotions. In the book he feels trapped, isolated from the rest of the world as if shunned. He holds within him anxiety, frustration, depression, and most of all loneliness. He wishes for a world where everything would just go away and he can be free. The walls around him in the camp he is held prisoner isn’t the only things trapping him. There are walls in his own mind that keep him stuck in place. He dreams of a way to break free, but does nothing to help himself, thus strengthening the walls of his mind.

Throughout Dehumanized, he finally learns to break free of these walls and truly be free of himself. But it doesn’t come easy, there are obstacles in his path he must overcome in order to achieve this freedom. He liked to close his eyes and imagine it just coming to him, and then when he opened his eyes he’d see that freedom has a cost.

Dehumanized isn’t just a product of my imagination. It’s the creation put together by nineteen years of pent up emotions I kept within me and fabricated into a novel. I revere this book not as something I did in order to make money, but as something I love dearly as if it were my own child. There were times I didn’t think this book would make it, times I worried I wouldn’t be able to put it together properly. There were times I’d be so overwhelmed with anxiety about this book I’d have to take a break and breathe. But when the day came when I typed up the final sentence of Dehumanized, I just stared at my screen and marveled. I marveled at the time I put into it, at the hard work I did in order to finish, at the very fact that despite everything I sat down and finished what I started – something more than one person said I’d never be able to do.

Well, I proved them wrong. And now I sit here writing this with my next novel open in another window, ready to be worked on and brought to life just like Dehumanized was. I plan to put just as much time, passion, and love into this book as I did my previous one, and hopefully when it is finished it will receive just as much appreciation as Dehumanized.

Thank you,

Michael Loring.

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