Writing "Locusts and Wild Honey"

In February, 2011, I began sketching out what would become Locusts and Wild Honey, I started with the Hellhound, a legendary character that supposedly was the messenger of Satan; whover saw the creature with fiery eyes would die soon.  I had forgotten about the hellhound since college, but was reminded of it during a sermon by Reverend David Pickett when he quoted the iconic and mysterious Blues Guitarist, Robert Johnson (1911 - 1938) whose song "Hellhound On My Trail" set a standard for Blues guitarists.  That Sunday afternoon, I wrote the first paragraph of my hellhound story:

Before sunrise, as I entered the darkness of the woods, I heard my father's voice admonishing…“Never hunt alone.”

Robert Johnson

I was delighted when author and former QVC associate, Jim Breslin, called to invite me to submit a short story for an anthology titled Chester County Fiction.  Without thinking, I dashed off the first paragraph above to him and then began working on it for the collection that Jim was putting together. Collaborating on Chester County Fiction in conjunction with other writers was a joy that happily consumed my writing energy for the remainder of 2011.  My short story was titled, "The Prey."



In January 2012, having written the hellhound story I went back to my notes, simple phrases that I had jotted down on napkins from various restaurants -- a ghost story in an old house haunted by teenage boy; recent divorcee seduces high school classmate, adding to the string of bad decisions this man has made; arm-wrestling with a stranger in a bar when the newcomer reveals he just got out of jail for armed robbery. And then there was "The Prey," which I had retained the copyright and made vague references that I might use it again in another book.

I had enjoyed writing in the short story form -- less than 10,000 words that compresses novel basics of exposition, problem, climax, resolution and denouement in a shorter frame. I  wondered if one could weave a series of short stories into a plot.

At another church service, I heard a reading from Matthew 3, verses 4-6, where John the Baptist is dispatched to the Wilderness:

John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

Eric Armusik (b. 1973)

Up to this point, my story ideas were all dark and threatening, but the phrase "his food was locusts and wild honey" gave me hope.  That is, even in a desolate wilderness, John was supplied food.

I recalled that Christ would find himself in a wilderness as well for forty days and nights and that it was on the thirty-ninth day, when Christ was at his weakest, Satan chose to tempt him.

Temptation, bad decisions, hellhound, Satan, Good and Evil.  A story of human frailty intersecting with unseen rival factions began to form in my mind.

(To be continued)