The Darkness Within follows a fading author who takes an experimental serum that restores his health and sends his creativity soaring, but also amplifies the violent darkness inside him. What first inspired the idea for The Darkness Within?

Frankly, I wanted to write something from an author’s perspective, but for a considerable length of time I was thinking of something along the lines of “Misery” by Stephen King.  It wasn’t until I read “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” that I realized that I wanted to do it along those lines in a modern-day reimagining.

How did you approach making Tanner someone readers could understand even as his actions become increasingly disturbing?

I truly believe that every indie publisher can utterly relate to Tanner’s hopes and fears… as well as his plight.  Knowing that, I knew that I had to create a character who might be repulsive.  The serum that Tanner ingests simply brings out the worst in his psyche.  It serves as a megaphone.  He’s a bit narcissistic, bitter, irritated, and angry.  His worst qualities get amplified by the serum, and they are given an outlet and license to act through it.

Ambition is one of the novel’s central themes. What interested you about the emotional effects of reviews, rankings, sales, and other measures of creative success, and the point where healthy ambition can become destructive obsession?

Well, we’re all familiar with the effects of sending our books off into the ether riding on all our hopes and fears, and then seeing it fall flat, right?  We must be gluttons for punishment because we do it over and over and over again.  The drive is there to produce something people will love, that will sell well and resonate, that will climb up the charts, that will help us establish a career for doing this.  But that drive can definitely become destructive.  We are not our hustle, though we may think we are.  We are a valuable human being independent of our hustle, and Tanner has to learn that the hard way.

Did writing a novel about an author’s obsession with success change the way you think about your own relationship with writing and publishing?

Sure, it made me commit to avoiding any and all genome-enhancing serums. 🙂

Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Website