I wrote Los Olivares twenty-five years ago.

Recently, I found my old manuscript among a few others, tucked inside a beat-up folder—the kind where you'd find your birth certificate and other documents you didn't even know you needed until, well, you do.

Anyway, back to Los Olivares.

It all started as a high school project. I didn't leave my room for two full days while writing it. I'd say that was the first time I truly found myself "in my element."

But the story itself began years earlier.

When I was ten, I had a nightmare. Something was chasing me, and I ran into a forest. We had a forest about a block away from where I lived, which probably didn't help.

This may sound contradictory (or perhaps not), but alongside my interest in science and technology, I've always been a bit of a nerd when it comes to the supernatural. So I decided to put that nightmare on paper, face it, and see what happened. That's how Los Olivares was born.

As for the name? It simply came to me while I was daydreaming during physics class.

Writers often say that when you finish something, you should put it away for a few days before returning to revise it. Well, I figured twenty-five years was probably long enough. So I came back to it and gave it another round of revisions.

And that nightmare? It's still there. A little less powerful, perhaps, but lingering just enough to make me look over my shoulder as I write this.

Yikes.