A Few Words from Will Mullin

Writing has been an on-again-off-again hobby for me ever since I was very little. When I was about six years old, Dad set up a family computer. One of the first things I remember doing with it is firing up Microsoft Word and typing a very short story. (It would probably be more accurate to say I just hunt-and-pecked a bunch of silly sentences together that vaguely connected to one another.)  Halfway through middle school, writing stories became one of my more consistent hobbies. I didn’t try to make them publishable or anything, but I did have lots of ideas and overall met with success putting them to paper…bar one. A multi-part mystery, featuring numerous separate cases all tying together to form one cohesive story. For many reasons—mostly laziness—I never got around to it.

Eventually I finished high school and went on to college. My priorities and hobbies changed immensely during those few years. I no longer liked the types of stories I used to enjoy making up, and I would have preferred a thousand times to go to a party, travel, or hang out with friends instead of sitting in front of a computer typing away. After graduating college, I got my first big-boy job and my first home away from my parents. Things were altogether different, and *I* was altogether different, from just a few short years earlier when I was still in high school.

And, yet, that one last elusive idea for a mystery story remained. It festered in my mind throughout college and in the car during my work commutes. At last, I decided I had to be done with it. After many years and countless plot changes, I sat down and pounded out what became “The St. Ciaran’s Chronicles.”

It was over. The idea that had been in my head for almost a decade was silenced forever. I was ready to move on with my life.

I haven’t stopped writing since.

Written by Will Mullin