One thing that has always (and I suspect will always) vex people about the Black Womb series of novels in the way I went about writing them. Even though Transformations in Pain is the second book in the series, it was written ninth. A lot of people raise their eyebrows at that, but I'll try to explain why, and at the same time, explain the concept behind TiP.

I started working on Transformations in Pain when I was about nineteen. I was living in Calgary at the time, working hard to try and save up some money to go to school. Also, I hadn't written anything longer than a grocery list in about three months. That may not seem like a long time to you, but for me writing is a part of my everyday routine. It's like saying I didn't eat for three months.

To this day I'm not sure if the writer's-block made me depressed or if I was depressed and that caused the writer's-block, but either way I was feeling pretty down-in-the-dumps. My family and friends were all the way across the country at home in Newfoundland and I couldn't see them, but there were two friends who could help that I always carry with me: Mike Harris and Cathy Kennessy.

While those two characters have always gone hand-in-hand with Black Womb, they may not always. While I was in Calgary I missed them just as much as I missed the 'real' people in my life, so I went about the task of writing a book to take place in between the already-written Black Womb and Smoke and Mirrors.

And nothing came.

Like trying to get blood from a stone, I couldn't manage a single drop. Not one word would come out of me and I was afraid that after three months, the writing muscle in my brain had atrophed from neglect. For another gruelling two months, there was nothing.

I got enrolled in a Creative Writing course at the University of Calgary to try and help. A group of about twenty of us would meet once or twice a week to talk about the craft and critique one another. It was an amazing feeling. Like being the only person in your villiage to be born with three eyes, then walk into a room full of people who saw the world the exact same way you did.

It was a real eye-opener. (Yuk Yuk Yuk).

One of the first assignments we had was to write a short story about three people getting fired from their job. To help those people in attendance that might not have known how to use characterization and the like, the instructor had each of us come up and act out the parts we'd play in that situation.

For whatever reason, light-bulbs started flashing in my head. I got home as quick as I could and wrote a short-story called Downsizing, which will see print eventually. But after that little eight-page piece was written... I opened up a new text document and called it Transformations in Pain and started to write. The whole novel was done in just over a week, and I'm happy to say that I've had very little downtime since.

For all those reasons and more, Transformations in Pain is very near and dear to my heart. On the surface it's just another horror novel, but there's a lot more to it if you look deeper. It's about love and friends and devotion... but more than all that, it's about dealing with the life you've led. Black Womb has always been a series about consequences, and TiP is no exception.

After writing this novel I knew exatly where I wanted to go with the series and how I wanted it to progress. It's a novel about how we deal with pain and loss... and about what those two things mean for different people. This 'sequel' surpassed the original in many ways. On the cover there are hands... but I almost wish there had been ears, so that it could hear me thank it.

Thanks for listening to me ramble. Even just writing about this book gets my blood on fire. Time to get back to writing, and I'll see you all again in Smoke and Mirrors!

Best Regards,
Matthew LeDrew