The Making of First Howl: An Introduction

I was on a train in 2016 when I decided that, now Eldritch Nights was done, I could sit around and wait for it to get published or I could start work right away on a new novel. I had so many ideas it didn't make sense waiting for the Holy Grail when I could just go right ahead and write all those ideas anyway. So, I decided on that train to go ahead and begin work on First Howl. Don't ever look back.

Only I didn't start writing First Howl right away and back then it wasn't called First Howl, it was called Poison Apple. God knows why it was called Poison Apple. I knew the new book would be a pastiche of fairytales and the name Poison Apple had a catchy ring to it (maybe, just maybe, because it was a cocktail) but it all these Snow White connotations I couldn't fit into the book so I spent ages shopping around for a new title. I tried Abandon All Hope all Ye Who Enter Here (a nice homage to the start of American Psycho, that one), but that was too long and I couldn't see it on a Happy Meal, so I kept looking. I liked the sound of the Sean Connery film First Knight, so I tried to do something similar and hence, First Howl, which came long after the book was written.

I did start writing First Howl in the winter of 2016, just before Christmas, and whoa boy, any Gen-Z/ Millennial knows how taxing that winter was. Oh my gosh, it felt like the entire universe was crumbling apart. As Trump did battle on Twitter, I was writing this bloodthirsty medieval battle sequence which seemed to commit all the verbal and political violence in real life into what was a particularly bloody book. First Howl isn't as bleak or grim as Eldritch Nights, but it resembles a bloody eighties medieval fantasy movie in terms of how the violence takes no prisoners. Or it did. I toned things down, including removing a description of someone's head being crushed like a pumpkin.

I was in a happy place in life when I wrote First Howl, perhaps happier than I had been before or since, and this is reflected in the sheer amount of songs (!) the book contains, courtesy of the Wally Pierrepoint character. I was listening to a lot of Paul McCartney, in particular his old Beatles songs, so a lot of the songs in the book have that element of scream-out-loud joy. My god, there was so much joy. I just love the image of him and John swapping turns at the microphone, warbling out some happy tune. It's so good.

First Howl is probably the closest book I have in tone to my great big inspiration -- Roald Dahl. The morality is pretty similar, as well as the characterization (Sir Pleasance is like a medieval version of Miss Trunchbull). I'm sure Roald Dahl if he was here now would beg to differ (and no way is this comparable quality-wise) but I'm happy with what I achieved.