Page 30 (1/1)

Robert McCa Man novel It was also my first published novel, and the first book I ever tried to write I think that in Baal you can feel the friction of shoulders being squeezed by iron walls: ainst the walls of a dead-end job

You see, I never thought I could be a writer Write? For ? That was someone else&039;s dream I went to the University of Alabaured writers did As a kid, I played around with a typewriter, and I did ghost stories, mysteries, westerns, science fiction but those were creations to entertain ood at sports You know the type - they never go out of style Soe is exacted, and all those jocks who burned bright and handsouts and have to wait to be the very last one chosen

So ry after all

Baal is about poritten at a time when I had none I enty-five years old when I wrote Baal, and working at a departha proofs between the local newspaper and the various department heads: "traffic control," they called it When I went ho since deceased - and worked on the novel that would becoet my ideas for characters I always say that each character, whether ether from observation, memory, and is part of the author too I really believe there&039;s part of ood ones The character of Baal - with his unleashed wild power and his ability to do just about anything he pleases - is certainly part of what I was feeling at that ti, and I couldn&039;t see

One character in Baal particularly stands out to a I used to have lunch at the same place every day, a restaurant called the Molton Grill that&039;s no longer in Birham, and an elderly Catholic priest would come in almost every day as well He had his favorite table, he always see, and he ate alone I watched the e I never knew the priest&039;s name, but I have his face in a

You always hear this said to young writers: "Write what you know" I wanted to write about things I didn&039;t know, so I consciously set Baal in locations as far from the South as possible: Boston, the Middle East, and Greenland I wanted a global scale and a story that would take the reader to the very edge of Areddon, and I hope I succeeded

As I said, Baal was my first novel My first step into the unknown Whatever I a, Baal started me on the path Ten years since Baal was first published, I&039;m still on the journey

Robert McCammon

June 1988