How 'The Neighbors' and Mount Jewel Came to Be

In 2022 my wife Amanda and I bought property in Coarsegold, on a road called Jewel Vista. The property featured a large hill—not a hulking mountain like the Mount Jewel in the stories, but a good-sized hill. The views were breathtaking, all the way around. It was always windy at the top. Tons of flowers in the spring and summer.

We turned the top of that hill into a glamp site, almost exactly like it's described in The Neighbors. The main tent was huge, on a deck, with rocking chairs out front. Two smaller tents, decorated with antique memorabilia. The firepit's the same, Adirondack chairs surrounding it. That’s Glamp Vista, just like in the book. We posted it on Air Bnb and Hip Camp, and got some hits right away.

Half our neighbors there were awesome. Specifically, the Fairchilds were awesome. I still hear from them occasionally, they're just great people.

One day Amanda and I were bouncing ideas off each other, and one of us (probably her) mentioned theming the tents for holidays. For Halloween, I said we should put scary stories in there—in fact, I could write a short scary story about Jewel Vista, and if tenants read it, they'd slowly realize the story was about campers that were staying exactly where they were at that very moment, and that would be really freaky and fun. Then I could also hide easter eggs around the property that are also in the book, and it would be a cool, exciting, fun thing for campers to do.

So I got to writing! I'd always, always wanted to write a novel. I started more than one when I was young, and never finished. I wrote a ton in college. Even in recent years I had started working a couple books that are still on the docket—but this one had a clear purpose, and needed to be done quick, so it came together nicely.

The Neighbors' camp in the book was based on part of our Jewel Vista neighbor's property—with the pond and everything. The views were all the same—the forest, the creek—Mount Jewel was just made much taller and much, much steeper.

It turns out, Jewel Vista wasn't zoned for tent camping, and our other neighbor, down the road, called the county on some of our campers one night. The county fined the crap out of us for having tent camping where we weren't allowed to, and we had to shut it down. There were ways to continue, but the situation was rather soured, so we took down the tents and kept dreaming and scheming about what was next. Many years later and we've got a lot going on in the Air BnB department! See Redwood Creek Cabin, coming soon!

I kept writing. I had something I thought was good, and fun, and now that the parameters had changed, I could make it longer, make it more my own, and I started to really have fun with it. As I was writing, new ideas for more books came to me, and I knew I'd have to write them all, and that they'd always been waiting there for me to discover.

Every place on Earth is ancient. Every place we walk has story after story underfoot. So much has happened, changed, transformed on Earth, and it occurred to me that that property on Jewel Vista was no different, and therefore Mount Jewel would be no different. So the next book slips into the past of Mount Jewel, but a past where a bit of magic pervades.

I hope to get better with each book I write. Putting my writing out there is always scary and exciting, but OUT is where it belongs.

Thank you!