January 2024: An Update on Lester

I started an editing phase at the beginning of January for my novel Lester, and I had hoped to wrap it up in mid-March. This date was based on an ambitious timeline, one I felt was attainable with consistent effort. Things were progressing well ahead of deadline. The light at the end of the tunnel looked like it was easily within reach. And then once again, all hell breaks loose.

I am starting to think this book is cursed.

Lester is a real-life ghost town hidden in the woods, reachable only on foot. The most curious part to me is how it appears this once booming city has been shut down by powers beyond its control because the town had the misfortune of being within the Green River Watershed. Through systematic action and legislation, progress wiped Lester off the map.

The last buildings remaining in Lester were demolished in 2017. The narrative is they presented a hazard to public safety, miles and miles into the woods. It is an eerie thing to find gates and yards of fencing with barbed wire on the only road that can access the old townsite. They are serious about how they handle trespassers. Hot springs are a fascination of mine, and I discovered that a hotel existed in the late 1800’s around a collection of thermal pools in Lester. This hotel tragically burnt down. The hot springs were well known and popular, and I have it on good authority, they have since been destroyed. When I started putting all the pieces together, it truly begged the question: what are they hiding back there?

In my novel, the town of Lester is a place where bad things happen, as if the existence of the place itself demands it. I am starting to believe I have drawn that energy to me. The dark forces at play against Lester are working on my life.

The development of this book has been plagued with problems and interruptions. I’m starting to feel cursed. After I began work on it last June, there were a number of occurrences that seemed meant to deter me. In June, I was required to move, and a family member was hospitalized. One of my loved ones was in a car accident in July. Luckily, they were unharmed. August was a happy time between my vacation and engagement, but it was swiftly followed by a period of disturbance between members of my family that impacted my work for months. When I was nearing the end of the first draft and trying to complete it before my second move, I experienced an anomalous infestation: hornets coming into my home in the middle of November.

After I completed the first draft and I took time away from the manuscript, things calmed. There were nearly four weeks between November and December where things grew peaceful. But I kid you not when I tell you the very day I printed this draft for editing, I became ill, which was followed by the hospitalization of a family member and an unfortunate, but completely necessary, estrangement.

It’s starting to feel there are forces at work trying to prevent this story from being written, and there has been a growing fear I have stumbled upon something that does not want to be exposed. While I believe it has become more important than ever to make sure this book is published, I am concerned that future attacks will be made against my reputation or me, personally, to deter me. I feel compelled to continue and will persist as long as I am able. My only hope is that bringing this project into the light of day will protect me.