A "Grimoire" timeline

August 25th, 2008- began working on a short story entitled "Mauve Movies." Began making preliminary notes for a horror short story/novella collection.

October 2008- complete work on "Mauve Movies."

November 26, 2008: begin a new story, "Under the Leaves."

December 8th, 2008- came up with a name for the project: Grimoire(the other title I was considering was Mythos). Later on in December I decided the collection would consist of 11 interconnected stories. I also finish two stories this month: "Under the Leaves" and "London After the Rain." It was decided that a short story I wrote in 2006, "The Apocalypse Inoculation," would also be part of the collection.

January 2009- in a burst of creativity, write three stories this month: "The Opticon Prism," "Nihil" (which at first was entitled "Grimoire"), and "The Old Chemical Factory."

February 2009- finished another story entitled "Don't Fear the Reaper." Later on that month write a new story called "18 Fragments of a Nightmare."

March 2009- finished work on a story named "Mr. Orwig's Midnight Monologues."

April 2009- finished the final two stories originally planned for the project, "The Agony of the Plasma" and "The Nightmare Syndicate." Incorporated "The Opticon Prism" within "The Nightmare Syndicate." Completion of the first draft of Grimoire. This month I also began the very long editing process, which occupied most of my summer. At the same time I began seeking out a publisher, a very frustrating experience to say the least.

August 2009- cut two stories out of the collection ("Don't Fear the Reaper" and "The Agony of the Plasma") and replaced them with two new ones ("The Onyx Glossary" and "They Came From the Shadow of God").

September/October 2009- radically rewrote "The Apocalypse Inoculation" and re-titled it as "Reaping Time has Come." Completion of the second draft. Around this time I got a friend of mine, Stafford Stone, to create the cover art for the book.

Oct. 31st, 2009- released Grimoire as a free PDF on my Mauve Zone Recordings netlabel.

December 2009- wrote a new story named "The Withering Echo."

March 2010- decided to self-publish Grimoire through Lulu for my friends who wanted to own a physical copy of the book. Ended up self-publishing the third draft, which included a bonus story not included in the PDF version ("The Withering Echo") along with an interview.

April 2010- receive an e-mail from Rebel Satori Press (who I had submitted samples of Grimoire to a few months before) saying they wanted to publish it. Took the self-published version off of Lulu (thus making the few copies of that version to be very scarce indeed... can you say collector's items, ha ha?)

Now, the final step will be to go over the proofs and make sure I didn't miss any major typos. One of my friends who does copy editing work for a living will also be reading the proofs, which I'm very grateful for. Once I approve those, then the book will be ready to be released and I can move on to a new project, details of which will be posted soon.

Seeing as I decided to cut the interview I wrote for the Lulu version from the officially published version, I might end up posting it on this blog at some point in the future for those interested in a more in-depth look at the creation of Grimoire.