MY BOSS IS THE DEVIL
Funny enough, my journey as an author had a lot of starts and stops. You could say it all began in grade school. I wrote short stories and won a writing contest in middle school, followed by a lot of angsty poetry in high school.
I didn’t do much writing after that, though I think my AP English teacher threatened to come find me if I ever gave up writing, until after college. I wrote the first portion of this very book while I was working my first corporate job out of school. Then I put it down for a long time until NaNoWriMo 2014. I wrote the majority of the book during that month!
I got it professionally edited, shopped it around for a hot minute, and then I gave up on the idea of getting published. I shelved it for… almost ten years.
One day, I was on TikTok watching a video by AtomicApplePie, who did readings of terrible romance prose written by men. It was that moment when I said, “Hey, I wrote a book once. And it can’t possibly be as bad as these, and they’re published.” So, I dusted off my manuscript, added a bit, edited a lot, and got familiar with the publishing process.
My book had languished for almost a decade, so I decided then and there that I would self-publish rather than try to go the traditional route. Since then, I’ve written two more books and have two unpublished manuscripts going through the process. So, you could say that it all started a long time ago, but it really kicked into high gear the past year and a half.
Comedy is one of the best tools to dismantle heavy topics. I could have taken a long hard look at evil, at the ends and means, but I didn’t. Instead, I took comedy and made the journey funny. It’s still serious, don’t get me wrong, but it definitely takes some of the sting out of the heavier concepts.
I wish I could say exactly “how” I did it, but I think it’s just part of who I am as a person. It’s hard to try and swallow a big topic like “good and evil,” but a spoonful of sarcasm helps the medicine go down.
My main character worked a dead-end job, and when I wrote him, I was in a similar mental boat. I wasn’t a barista, but I definitely felt like I was stuck. I recall wondering to myself, “What would I do if I got a job offer from the devil?” And that’s where the idea was born.
Now, Lucifer himself is an interesting character. I’ve always loved portrayals of Lucifer that were “non-standard,” you could call them. The funniest thing about my books is that the things that are stereotypically the most evil are not actually the villain. When I started writing the book, I knew that Lucifer wasn’t going to be the bad guy. I always thought that the biblical figure was misunderstood, and that colored a lot of my writing.
Good and evil are rarely absolute, so why should they be in this case?
I’ll give you a two-for-one. First, you can’t publish a book that doesn’t exist. So, the best thing you can do is write. The best thing you can do, once you’re writing, is engage in the community. The indie community is full of fantastic, helpful, and generous people. If you have questions about publishing? About writing? About anything? Someone in the community is there to help. So, connect with it! Connect with us!
Just beware the scammers—it’s definitely shark-infested waters. But the authors and other professionals (editors, narrators, etc.) are a delight. I’m in at least five Discord servers related to the indie community, and while I can’t keep up, I’d still recommend each one.
