Chris Clegg
South Peace News
Almost everyone has some fear of meeting some creepy-crawlies in a dark forest!
But a former High Prairie woman has put some humour into the situation in her book The Creepy Dark Forest.
Elizabeth Jong, who authors by the pen name Aafie Mooi, is the daughter of Harry and Susan Jong of High Prairie. She was born and raised in town and now lives in Edmonton.
The Creepy Dark Forest is an adventure book written in the second person where the reader is the main character. In the book, two friends, as the title suggests, venture in a creepy, dark forest they swore they would never enter. A forest full of hairy-legged red beady-eyed spiders, a creeping green hand, howling hideous beasts, and a 12-foot tall sasquatch. Maybe other creepier things inhabit the forest. Things that cackle, things brightly lit, and more.
And gingerbread cookies!
What?
Read the book to find out more!
“I have always wanted to write a book,” says Jong.
“This book I started in early 2016, and wrote only a few chapters,” she adds. “I didn’t continue writing the book until late 2022.”
Life got in the way of Jong not finishing the book sooner.
“From 2016-22 I finished two university degrees, went through a divorce – single parenting with nine kids, moved twice to two different provinces, started working . . . life stuff. Then in late 2022, I decided to take a year off and finish the book!”
Listening to her father also played a role in writing and finishing the book.
“. . .listening to stories my dad would tell, to reading/listening to inspiring stories from people who went through and/or did a lot to get to where they are today like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, J. K. Rowling, Steve Jobs,” says Jong.
Regarding the fears that exists in the woods, especially for people with vivid imaginations, came by Jong honestly.
“I’ve aways liked exploring in the ‘wooded wilderness’ from living on a farm and wooded properties, wilderness hiking/exploration, climbing in the mountains, trail bike riding in river valleys, to camping,” says Jong.
“And wooded places are quite a bit creepier in the dark!” she adds.
Jong draws from personal experiences in the book.
“Especially one childhood experience at a summer camp, where our camp leaders would tell creepy camp stories like the one about a creeping green hand which is in the book!” she says.
Personally, Jong is “creeped out” by what she calls “big, creepy spiders!”
But instead of focusing on fear, Jong tells a humourous tale.
“The humour is arrived at in a few ways,” she explains.
“One, the book is written in the second person, so the reader experiences the tale as if they were the one going through the creepy dark forest as the main character. The main character is afraid to be in the creepy dark forest and the friend is the braver one.
“Second, the main character thinks a lot, thinks of creepy things, and there is an omniscient narrator who interacts with the main character in humorous ways,” she adds.
“And third, there’s just funny, sometimes unbelievable, parts in the book, like a brightly-lit neon sign on a building in the middle of the forest with a humorous message on it ‘Get Your Clean Underpants Here!”
Jong self-published The Creepy Dark Forest Dec. 14, 2023 through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Readers will be pleased to know the tale will continue in another book.
The Creepy Dark Forest is not Jong’s first published work.
“I wrote a poetry collection earlier that same year published through Amazon Kindle Direct Published on Sept. 22, 2023 titled Retchings of the Soul,” she says.
Jong’s passion for writing is self-inspired: no writing courses and advice, just stored from the heart.
“I haven’t taken any ‘How to write a book’ courses, per se, but I have done a lot of academic writing, which is way different then writing a fiction book . . . I did the cold turkey thing and just started writing the book.”
She taught herself how to write, edit, and format a novel-length book by “struggling” through it.
“I thought I was ‘all that’ when I first finished my manuscript, which was later evaluated by FriesenPress Publishers – and that’s when I learned I wasn’t ‘all that!’”
Not limited to writing, Jong also drew the cover picture and designed the cover with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
“I also had my sister-in-law do a once-over proofread edit prior to publication,” she adds.
The Creepy Dark Forest is available on Amazon and other online book stores like Barnes & Noble. Softcover copies are $16.99 each while hardcover books are $33.98 each.