The Unsexy Side of Monster Hunting

I recently listened to an episode of Writing Excuses (if you're a writer and you don't listen to them, get on it!) and they had a strangely titled show; The Unsexy Side of Space. The gist of it is they interviewed two people who work at NASA but aren't astronauts. One was an accountant and the other worked with some kind of logistics that was completely behind the scenes. The point was to demonstrate that there are levels upon levels of people that work to bring things together.

Listening to them talk, it was fun to hear stories about hiding funds from managers so there would be money left in case something broke or renting out space in the pool where they do neutral gravity tests to an outside company to help pay for rent on the building. There are so many facets to running a huge organization like NASA that you don't think about and all of them are important for the end goal to be had.

One of them pointed out how important it was to keep things on budget when the project leaders threw money at everything that was brought their way. They mentioned that sometimes the windows for missions were minuscule, days sometimes, and if that window was missed because a part broke and there were no funds to repair it, they might not get another chance for fifteen years. Fifteen. Years. Just because someone wasn't wise about their spending.

It got me thinking. I've got a government agency within The Paladin that operates on a not too dissimilar model. There are the paladins who go out and hunt monsters, but they're supported by a crew of dozens, even hundreds of masons, regular people who know about the monster world but aren't cut out to hunt demons. These people contribute in more mundane ways, from simply offering a coffee shop after hours for a paladin to meet in to coordinating paladin parishes across the state. They're in the community, as police and EMTs, and back at base as librarians and custodians. 

I wonder then - since I'm looking for something to write about at the moment - would there be any interest in a story exploring the lives of these masons? I know the mason that gets the most attention in the book, Katie, seems to be popular among my betas. Still, would seeing people living in a world of werewolves and vampires but never directly interacting with them be interesting?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please, feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on social media. In the mean time, enjoy a picture of my favorite mason from my favorite artist. Ciao!

​DFTBA