Right now, I'm working on an untitled novel about a young woman who, one December weekend in 1987, vanishes from a small Texas town. This disappearance serves as the catalyst for several other stories that all grow out of this one event. The novel, which actually begins with a prologue set a year or so before this girl's possible abduction, spans the years 1986 to 2000 and while the mystery of the disappearance provides the engine to keep the story moving forward, it's less about the crime and more about how one single event, that lasted perhaps less than a minute, can proceed to dominate and alter and shape the next thirteen years of so many different lives. It is a project that I am very excited about but Christ, doing the research for it has been tough. The storyline itself was inspired by an actual incident that happened back in '87 (though not in Texas) and -- as my plans for this book have become more defined -- I've found myself taking incidents from other real life cases of various missing persons and the such. In short, I've been doing a lot of research on the evil that men do. A cliche yes but there really is no other proper phrase to describe some of the true life crimes that I've come across while researching this book. Since last summer, I've been frequenting sites like the Doe Network, that basically detail the cases of literally thousands of missing persons and -- even more disturbingly -- victims who -- though found -- have never been identified.

It's a strangely fascinating subject but not a happy one. Reading these stories of people who have gone missing, one is suddenly struck with the realization that for every one missing person, there are people who spend every day in a limbo, wondering what happened, wondering how a loved one could be so arbitrarily erased from their lives, spending their days in a grief that I can only imagine. It's hard, for me at least, not too feel a certain sense of guilt as I skim through these cases, a tourist in their world of pain. I doubt the fact that they're tragedies have inspired to me write a novel will be of any comfort. God, it's strange. I know that I want to write this book, I know this is something that I can write well, that this book has the potential to be a work of art I can take pride in. And at the same time, I know that after I've written it, I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life apologizing for it.

As I (think) I said earlier in this entry, this isn't happy research. Morbid doesn't even begin to describe it. It's the little details that I find stick in my mind. There's one girl I can't get out of her mind. A few months after she disappeared, somebody mailed her broken glasses back to her family. Jesus Christ, that haunts me. How could anyone have that much evil, that much hate, within him? Even more disturbing than the realization that there truly are people capable of such sadism out there is the realization that whoever mailed those glasses has never been caught and probably never will be caught. In short, he's out there right now. And even if he did die of natural causes or was sent to jail for something else, it doesn't change the fact that an astronomical number of people go missing every year. We all know that there are evil people out there -- if 9-11 taught us nothing, it taught us that. But the reality of that statement, the fact that evil is more than just a word -- it takes the little details to really bring that home. We can look at some guy hijacker crashing a plane into the World Trade Center and somehow we learn to rationalize that reality under a label like "terrorism" or we can find an explanation in the hijacker's religious beliefs. But how do we explain or understand or rationalize away the fact that somewhere, there's a human being who could mail a missing girl's broken glasses back to her family?

Yes, they're both the product of evil, pure and simple but -- until those little details start bombarding you -- it's easy to forget just what exactly that word means. And after reading about things like that, it's difficult to then turn around and look at the world outside your door the exact same way.

That's what I'm hoping the end result of this novel will be. Once the reader turns the final page, the world outside his or her front door should never look the same again.

It'll never look the same to me again and I know that regardless of whatever happens in the future as far as this book is concerned -- even if it is never written -- I will never forget about the men, women, children, and families that I've come across while researching this book. They're stories haunt me and I know, everyday of my life, I'll be silently praying to a God I far too often take for granted, to give them some answers, to give them the peace that's been so cruelly ripped away from them.

I can't end this without doing something that drives me nuts when other bloggers do it but in this case, there's no way I could live with myself if I didn't play site advocate here. Go to the Doe Network or any of the other missing person sites listed in their links. The cases aren't pleasant but they need to be heard and, if by some chance you might unknowingly hold the key to solving these mysteries, could you really live with yourself if you didn't at least try to do something about it? I wish I could do something more substantial to help all of the families out there that are suffering right now but, other than offering my own prayers, is the best I can do.  ¶ 12:52 PM