"The bombs had fallen," says Kenyon, "and I stood on a beach and watched them come down, watched the shockwave approach over the water, knowing there was nothing I could do. I felt the wave building, the heat against my face, and the scream of wind in my ears. As the debris hit me I jerked awake, bathed in a cold sweat and full of terrible feelings of loss and helplessness; for a single moment in time, I had ceased to exist. And I had felt my mind come undone."
So he did what writers do with bad dreams. He turned it into a great idea.
"It propelled my up and out of bed to the computer, where I banged out a 5,000 word short story about a group of kids alone and trapped in a bomb shelter after a nuclear war. The story was about the isolation and hopelessness they felt while trying to live in the aftermath of such a thing."
The short story, initially called "Acid Rain", evolved into Kenyon's fourth novel, Sparrow Rock.
From the flap:
They were just a group of high school kids looking for a place to party. They didn’t know the end of the world was coming. Now, alone and trapped below ground, they are being stalked—and the creatures that come to visit them through the dirt and ash are like nothing anyone has ever seen before. There is a new ruling life form on earth, and six humans are the only remaining prey.Click here to read the prologue and first chapter, and stop by BoxOcto tomorrow for a 3Q conversation with Nate Kenyon.
Comments
And Nate's nightmares sound as bad as mine. Maybe we were forced to write as a survival mechanism.