“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster… when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

 

About me

Howdy! I am Josh Wendell and I have a story to tell… My whole life I have been an avid reader, and at about the age of 13 I was devouring everything from “Where the Red Fern Grows” to EVERYTHING Judy Bloom, to “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”. My tastes grew to include Stephen King, Earnest Hemmingway, and John Steinbeck, and I learned to enjoy poetry. My favorite poet is Walt Whitman, and “Song of Myself” inspired me to start writing poetry myself. My stream-of-conscious method felt most comfortable in adopting his style of prose to my own, and I will have several poems written by "Nate" in the book. I also started journaling heavily, often writing 4-5 front and back pages at a time. I would watch a movie with a message and delve into its philosophy on my pages; I would write about the events of the day; I would reach deep inside myself and write about what I saw there, no matter how scary that may have been. This last gave me the experience needed to write this novel now, and I will be writing a “mock journal” by Nate as a bonus for kickstarter pledges exclusively.
After growing up in Indiana, my family and I moved to Western Georgia, where I grew up on a Black Angus farm with my Grandparents. I write in the book about this experience of being a Yankee transplant in the Deep South, as it helps explain Nate’s own transformation. Later, I went on to spend six Honorable years in the Marine Corps. This too is included as Nate’s experience, but his motivation is much different then was mine. I wanted to serve my country as one of the few and proud (and even today, I carry with me my Sacred Oath of enlistment, and will ALWAYS be a Marine), whereas Nate wanted to learn how to be the most effective hunter possible.
I will leave my biography at that, as I’ll need something interesting to talk about on all those morning news shows when I get to be famous! IF I get to be famous…
Thanks for your interest and support!

See the bottom of the page for a place to comment and share via facebook, and feel free to contact me with any suggestions, comments or questions using the "contact us" link at the top. Please read my sample first chapter and give me your brutal, honest opinion. If you like the first sample chapter and poem, pass it along! I ain't shy! I'll be doing much more work in the future and updating this site frequently, so come on back by and see what I'm up to. Hope to hear from you soon!

 

 Special Thanks!

I want to give a very special thank you to my dear friend and guru Amy McCoy Dees. She is a very accomplished author (www.AmyDees.com) and is the main motivator for my taking on this project. She is my copy-editor and drill instructor, and without her, I wouldn't have even typed the first word. Thank you for being here for me, Amy! Your epic and essential assistance is the glue holding these pages together!

 

About "The Terror Within"

There are those who live among us whose existences are spent conceiving of methods to commit malicious and evil deeds toward their fellow man. They are the schoolyard bullies whose self esteem is so broken and withered that they arrogantly attempt to cow all else around them in order to have pride. They are the twisted and vile pedophilic alcoholics who carry out their sick, perverted fantasies on the innocent with uncaring malice. They are the controlling abusers of women; cowardly bastards who occasionally take their hate-filled rage to the point of causing permanent harm…even death. The list is endless…

These evil men leave behind a trail of victims who must try to learn how to ignore the nightmares and phobias that will now plague them for the rest of their lives. Some of these broken innocents bury these memories deep within; building a defensive wall and disallowing anyone to be close, lest they be hurt again. Some receive help from either a professional or from family, friends or clergy, and are able to leave the events of their past far behind and be happy. But there are a few, just a slight few, who actually take their destiny in their own hands. They feel honor-bound to assure that these demons are never allowed to hurt anyone ever again, and if the law either can’t, or won’t accomplish this, then they are righteously compelled to settle the debt of punishment. And afterwards, they find that they sleep just fine at night.

 

Nate Bishop is among those in the last group. His childhood is plagued by extreme ugliness from “trusted” adults that forever changes him from a sweet, fun-loving boy to a cynically resentful loner who trusts no one. His rage, personified by his inner “Bear”, is constantly striving to be set loose upon those who selfishly believe that they can harm whomever they want with no consequence for their malicious deeds. These cowardly innocence usurpers have a devious agenda of corrupting anything good that they encounter. They are hateful, they are merciless, and they are callously un-repentant.

Nate soon discovers that his Bear is a powerful ally in his cause for exacting justice on the deserving, and welcomes this new protector and friend whole-heartedly. But then horrible events unfold that Nate couldn’t stop, and he is sent reeling on a spiral of agonizing guilt for not being there at his family’s most desperate hour. Fueled and encouraged by his Bear, Nate goes on a mission to find and punish the one responsible. Along the way, the influence of the Bear grows more powerful, and Nate begins to see that he is losing control to this fierce, rage-filled entity. He struggles philosophically with what he is doing, and finds that he has to fight not only the worst of society, but also that which is growing within him.