Brian Logan's Blog

Like The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons? Try out The Congregation! A wonderful read for adventure, romance, vampire, demons, angels, steampunk, young adult, fiction, and spiritual readers! Check it out today at www.logansworldonline.com, where it is cheaper and you will get an autographed copy just tell me how you want it scribed, or on Amazon and other sites! It is also available in the UK!
Soon to come my new novel based on the true story of The Mad Butcher of Fayette County, West Virginia in which for the first time ever the real name of the serial killer will be revealed! Stay tuned for more details!

The time was December of 2003 and my back was against the wall, literally. For the first time I was encased between four stone walls, at this time I was turning thirty. I had worked my whole life. I had began working at the age of sixteen as a lifeguard. Then spent the next fifteen years as a Professional Wrestler touring the world with companies such as Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling and Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (now the WWE). Through a personal set of wrong decisions I found myself sitting in prison. A fan had jumped into the ring two years prior. The Fayette County, WV court system, who have a long history of corruption, decided I was too dangerous to be a free man. A decision that has made them look foolish in the retrospective. I wrote about this and many exploits in my autobiography, Worker: Last of a Dying Breed. As the snow fell outside my cell window I had to face facts. I was going to be in jail for a long time.

As a child I wanted to be one of three things when I grew up. A baseball player, which did not pan out due to not having the ability to hit a curve ball. A Pro-Wrestler, which was my chosen path and a successful one that led me to the American Wrestling Association's World's Championship in April 2008. Finally, my last dream was to become a writer.

I wrote short stories most of my life. Many of which ended up in the hands of various high school beauties I tried to woo with my words written versus the gibberish I was prone to speaking. After being shot by my father five times two months before being sentenced to prison for five years (of which I served only eighteen months behind bars and three and a half years on parole. All without one incident or complaint). I wrote my memoirs down on paper. I feared I would be murdered and wanted my only son, who was stolen from me, to know who his father was. These papers would sit dormant till 2009.

I learned the art of visual storytelling through wrestling. Night after night, whether as a hero or villain, I constructed elaborate story lines to fascinate the crowds and keep them coming back for more each and every time. Although writing a hundred thousand words for my own autobiography was easy, because I had lived it, telling an original tale with unique characters and plot lines sustained over long periods of time was a challenging task.

Seeing that I had plenty of time on my hands, and only paper and pen as resources, I figured now was as good of a time as any to write my classic "American Novel". So, I set forth to create. Also to suspend my mind from reality. Reality that my life at that time was over. At least as long as I was locked up.

The original plot line had come to me years earlier in 1995. Driving the country's highways late at night from one town to another was a boring task. One I had done thousands of times alone. While driving I liked to listen to talk radio. It is like someone is in the car with you. Yes, at times I would talk back, but that was part of the fun. My favorite late night talk show was Coast to Coast AM. There were three reasons I liked this show so well. First being Art Bell's unique approach to the odd, strange, and paranormal. He took every topic seriously no matter how silly. Which brings me to my second reason; the topics ranged from Y2K conspiracies, to alien abductions, to ghostly sightings, and Art Bell's favorite topic, Big Foot. The main reason I like the show so much was the show was six hours long so it covered almost every trip. Since it was syndicated if I lost the station crossing time zones or state lines I could easily pick it up again.

The topic this particular night in 1995 was a guest who claimed to be the real Father Damien Kaharis, the priest the book and film The Exorcist was written about. To make things eerier it was raining hard and the night sky, as I was driving from Tennessee to Atlanta, Ga., was filled with thunder booms and lightning. Father Damien was an excommunicated priest of the Catholic faith. He was speaking on the evils of the Vatican. During his testimony he had told the story that the Bible was not complete. That, in fact, there were two missing books hidden by the Pope and the Vatican because of their "detriment to the world". He claimed that in these two books were the exact date of the end of the world. That the Vatican had been planning and working towards these dates for centuries. Art asked where these books were at the time of the interview. The Father claimed he had stolen them and they were in his possession. So Art, as always, responded with, "Well, mail them to me". This was his go to answer for everything. You have Big Foot, mail it to Art Bell. You have video footage of an alien or ghost, mail it to Art. You know the date of when the world comes to an end and how, mail that to Art too. I often wondered how big Art Bell's mailbox was.

Father Damien declined and said that he was going into self imposed exile with the books till the date of Armageddon. This story was fascinating. After six hours of driving alone you will tend to believe anything. I always wondered what were in these books excluded by the church and later stolen and placed in hiding. This became my main plot line for The Congregation. Which at that time had no name.

I was saved when I was sixteen and did a little preaching before I jointed up to be a wrestler. Once on the road, however, I lived a sinful life of partying. I experienced what any seventeen year old boy would traveling with the likes of Ric Flair, Jim Cornette, and The Road Warriors would. I lived it up. That came to an end as I wanted more for my life and a family. Then once I was shot I was sure there was a superior being and that He had saved my life figuratively, spiritually, and literally as the bullets went through and through except for one that was lodged in my back. I had rededicated my life to Christ and was trying to put myself back on path when they sentenced me to jail.

While I was formulating the ideas about my novel, I was reading the Bible daily. Studying the Word of God. That goes on a lot while in prison, but not usually carried over once free. I am proud to say that I continued my studies as I just recently became an ordained minister.

On the weekends in prison they show two movies a night for a total of six per weekend. If you have been good (they treat you like children) then you can watch them. The night I began writing the movie was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I had seen it in the theater when it came out and it was one of my favorites. This film being played, combined with the idea of missing texts from the Bible plot, was a huge role in influencing me. That was the beginning. I took careful measures not to write what had already been done. I wanted an original. So, I revised my writing schedule. It helped me pass my time wisely.

Time never stops. In prison you have twenty four hours everyday. For me that was for a year and a half, but for others it is for everyday of the rest of their lives. You eat three meals (which are terrible), you have one channel on the television, and you can read if you are able to get your hands on a book. I would read two chapters of the Old Testament in the morning, eat breakfast, then sleep till lunch. After lunch I would read a novel till dinner. After dinner till lockdown I would walk in circles around the pod thinking about my life and how to better it, and my novel story line. Once I was locked down for the night I would read two chapters of the New Testament. Next I would pray. I prayed for God to help me write my story. For it to be a story that was appealing to the nonbelievers and uplift the converted. Then I would put pen to paper and write ten pages a night. Only ten so I would have something to do the next night.

The main character is Professor Dorian Thomas, a college teacher during the thousand year reign of evil on earth. He works in the New York city territory, but is from a small town in Tennessee. I chose the New York area based on Copague, Long Island where my first roommate was from. Copague is the town next to Amityville. The small town in Tennessee is where I moved to to begin training as a wrestler.

Dorian is struggling in his new world, as was I at the time. He was longing for a simpler time and to find his way home. So in many ways Dorian is based on actual experiences I had. However, where I am assertive, sometimes to my own disadvantage, Dorian was cautious. So he is also who I wished I could be like.

Writing the villains was the easiest, as well as the most fun. I guess that's why I played a better "bad guy" on tv. Natas and his evil band were structured by the influence of the book of Revelation from the Bible. That was useful as a guide of events and rank and file. Alexandria and Vagista are both modeled after ex-girlfriends of mine. The heroine, Elizabeth, as well, takes her looks from women of my past. I find it easier to write characters with people I know as a visual. Several of the circumstances that the villains find themselves in I have partaken in at one time or another. They had no limits, were able "to go there", as I never could because of an inner constitution.

Supporting characters like J.J., O'Connell, Hi Lee, and Harry were influenced from my love of the brand G.I. Joe and their toys and cartoons that filled my life as a child. They still do today. I flavored them up with giving them individual backgrounds that made them each have a purpose for being there. With every move they seem to tug and pull at Dorian. Who has enough trouble on his own.

The final character is the world itself. I tried to imagine a world after 9/11 if the terrorists had won, but won through manipulation of all the governments. That is where The Order came in and how they shaped the planet. I imagined, with some accuracy, how things would change. Nationalization of vices, limits on travel, and "The Big Brother" surveillance. It was a world so desperate that people of lesser breeding could actually become that which they needed the most. Such as a drug addict was the drug. Murderers feed on the rush of being able to live lovelessly. This made the lesser world dangerous. The world controlled by Natas was even deadlier. Natas is the grand puppet master. He intends to play everyone in a world without heroes. Without God. Without reason. Nothing could stand in his way.

The Congregation is my second book and my first fiction piece. I feel it is my best work. I will never top the story lines, love, exotic interludes, action, and excitement that is in this piece. I am currently working on my second fiction novel, The Coalfields, which goes 360 degrees away from the spiritual story lines of The Congregation and is about a cannibal, moonshiner, rapist, and serial killer in West Virginia. I figure showing range of topics is the closest thing we can do in a technological age to acquaint ourselves with the memory of the original men of the Renaissance Era. After all that is what true art is about, range. There is one thing we must all remember, faith is forever!
www.logansworldonline.com
Brian Logan