While many seniors spent their summer compiling college lists, going on vacation, or doing internships, Daniel C. (12) was writing and getting his first book, Ghost Trappers, published.

Growing up, Daniel has always had a fascination with horror movies and books; he feels like ghosts are one of the main components in this genre and loved incorporating them into his book.

He says, “Ghost Trappers is about a family of paranormal investigators going against an evil spirit. In real life, paranormal investigators are the ones people usually go to for help when the are experiencing paranormal activities, as paranormal investigators know pretty much about paranormal activities, as well as ghosts and other entities.”

He combined his love for ghosts and other paranormal components of these horror books and movies to begin  creating his very own. It took him around three months to finish it once he started writing it.

“I don’t really have writer’s block as ideas kept on flowing in whenever I just thought about my story. However, sometimes I kind of get stuck thinking about which idea should go in which parts of the story, so then I kind of need to organize the ideas first, and then put them in the right parts of the story,” says Daniel.

He doesn’t really have an issue with conjuring new ideas and plot twists but he struggles sometimes with being able to express his ideas out in a good flow.

He says, “I had this publishing company do the publication process, and I do have an editor who edited my work for me. Since I needed to do a few more revisions afterwards to make sure the entire book is perfect, I spent another month getting the entire book published.”

During his writing process, he also learned to limit some of the blood and gore in his story.

Daniel says, “Even though Ghost Trappers is a horror novel, I managed to keep [the horror] to a level where nothing is too bloody or violent.”

After the novel was published and printed, Daniel donated 200 copies of his book to World Vision. It is 200 NT per book and they created a donation account for anyone who wants to read it.

Daniel hopes to one day be able to be published by big publications like Scholastic or Random House; he hopes to someday have his books adapted into movies.

He says, “After getting Ghost Trappers published, I started to think that having a career in writing seems to be an interesting work and job to do. I am almost finished with a second book titled Game Terror. The ISBN for Game Terror had been received.”

Look out for Daniel in the hallways and he might have an extra copy. As for right now, look out for his next book, Game Terror.