INSPIRATION. What gives writers inspiration? If we only knew. The answer is as mysterious as the muse that transports ideas across dimensions and differing worlds of the living and dead. Since inspiration is still an enigma, perhaps we would be standing on safer ground if we go over what is known.
1) Inspiration is odorless, colorless, and very volatile.
2) Inspiration can be likened to a stray cat, in that, you don’t find the kitty, the kitty finds you.
3) Inspiration gives us a story. Any story that is not inspired is only a bunch of words that nobody wants to read.
4) Prayers are ineffective in plying inspiration to visit and whisper in our ear.
5) Ditto begging.
6) Inspiration can be triggered, but not consistently.
7) Inspiration is dependent on the phases of the moon and only appears when favor shines upon you.
8) Trigger points for inspiration are: chocolate, good food, a picturesque scene, strolling down a beach, chocolate, a heroic act, ocean tides, dancing, sitting before a fire, chocolate, magic rituals, coffee, felines, furry pets of all persuasions, and, most importantly, chocolate. If you have used any or all of these methods and found they have not worked for you, follow shampoo directions and apply, wait, rinse, and repeat until you have no stamina left to repeat.
9) Inspiration occurs by accident and such was the case with my newest novel entitled DIRT. Randomly encountering a man burying children’s toys in the park was enough to trigger the creation of that tale, but it is another incident … one just as serendipitous … that fired the spark for SERVE.
A few years ago, in 2013 to be exact, the story of a young woman disappearing under mysterious circumstances broke in the press and across social media. I, like thousands of others, was held spellbound by the tale that ended in death. The victim’s name? It was Elisa Lam. She’d only meant to take a vacation, and booked a room at what was advertised to be a hotel named Stay on Main. She had no idea that, in reality, she’d checked in and was lodging at the infamous Cecil Hotel.
The Cecil Hotel was one of those places that invite controversy. Much like the Stanley Hotel which served as inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s iconic bestseller THE SHINING, the Cecil Hotel has a history just as compelling.
Built in 1924 by William Banks Hanner, Charles L. Dix and Robert H. Schops, it was opened on December 20th of that same year. While the first documented incident of violence was recorded on January 22, 1927 when Percy Ormond Cook, 52, shot himself in the head, this bypasses a more significant issue, which is that the Cecil Hotel has a just-as-evil twin.
The London Cecil Hotel predated the LA version by 28 years and has been operational since 1896. It serviced the wealthy and was named after Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. In fact, the Cecils were the power behind the throne of Queen Elizabeth I. Rumor had it that a masonic hall was built into the structure and that it was frequented by worshipers of Satan. And this is where the Great Beast comes in.
Aleister Crowley was one of those worshipers. A member of the Golden Dawn, a masonic occult group that attempted to reconstruct the forgotten one sight, one sound system of magic practiced in ancient Egypt, he resided in the hotel during its opening year. And on November 20th of that year, he wrote a poem called Jephthah. It’s a story of a Judge of Israel burning his daughter Selia as a sacrifice. The first odd coincidence? That Selia is an anagram for: Elisa. The second odd coincidence is that Elisa’s last name “Lam” was the name of an alien entity Mr. Crowley was alleged to have met when entering a portal to a different dimension. There is third coincidence here, one pertinent to SERVE, but I will save it for later.
In addition to this connection, there were numerous other bizarre incidents and notorious guests linked to the Cecil Hotel located in Los Angeles. Elizabeth Short of Black Dahlia fame, stayed at the Cecil on her last night alive. Murdered the following day, her body was cut in half, drained of blood, and discarded on a lawn. The case still open, the murder was never solved. Richard Ramirez, the serial killer dubbed the Night Stalker, also stayed at the Cecil in 1985. Reputed to have walked around naked or in blood-soaked underwear, he would ditch his blood-splattered clothing in the dumpster before coming inside. One can only imagine the appearance of the rest of the residents for the unsavoriness of his appearance to go unnoticed and unchecked. While there’s lots of fodder for thought, it’s the Elisa Lam case that captured my attention.
Elisa Lam, a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, went missing on January 31, 2013. (A numerological note: the number 13 is repeated three times in that date—once in reverse. Also, if she disappeared at midnight, it would not have been 1/31/13, it would have been February, the 2nd month, at the zero hour or 2/0/13. That would mean the year 2013 was also repeated.) Tragically, she was found almost three weeks later on February 19, 2013. While I followed the story, it wasn’t until its re-emergence in 2019 that I took notice of the strange video of Elisa Lam in an elevator. Released by the LAPD to elicit help from the public in finding Ms. Lam, this second viewing triggered something it hadn’t the first time around.
From the deep recesses of memory, something she did reminded me of something I had done. When I remembered the incident, yes, inspiration. It’s where fiction took over and I wondered, “What if?” An entire novel grew from that single thought and it’s the one I am obsessively writing.
I will give no hints of what I did in the elevator or how it mimics what Ms. Lam did. I instead will save it as a surprise for you when you read SERVE. But I will return to an earlier point … the third coincidence of Aleister Crowley’s poem and the use of the name Selia. In his poem, the daughter who was sacrificed was named Seila. Interestingly enough, when I began writing SERVE, I named the protagonist Celia—I did this without having any knowledge of the poem or the name of the Judge of Israel’s daughter. To pick this name out of thin air … out of inspiration … was proof to me that I was working intuitively, and that’s the best way to write. My only job at this point is to keep things going because my goal is and remains:
TO WRITE THE SHIT OUT OF THIS BOOK.
I promise to do everything in my power to do just that.
