I Chose the Monster: Maybe it was never about the monster

One of the questions I get asked most often is why I keep writing about monsters. Demons. Fallen angels. Creatures that exist somewhere between mythology, psychology, and fantasy. The answer is surprisingly simple: I've never been particularly interested in monsters. I've always been interested in people.

My I Chose the Monster series isn't really about darkness, evil, or being seduced by forbidden things. It's about projection. It's about the stories we tell ourselves about what makes someone worthy of love, acceptance, and existence.

For years, shadow work has fascinated me, especially through the lens of Jungian psychology. We often imagine the shadow as something terrifying that has to be defeated or integrated, but I sometimes wonder if we've been asking the wrong questions. What if the real tragedy isn't that we have a shadow? What if it's that we've become convinced our ordinary human self isn't enough?

Fairy tales usually tell us that humans are transformed into beasts. In my stories, I like turning that idea upside down. The fly becomes a man. The monster becomes human. Demonic forces give creatures a human body, a human heart, and the impossible task of learning what it means to belong in a world that constantly asks them to become more than they are.

That reversal isn't accidental.

It feels strangely familiar to modern life.

Everywhere we look, we're encouraged to become exceptional. More successful. More productive. More beautiful. More spiritual. More disciplined. More interesting. More enlightened. We collect achievements, followers, qualifications, aesthetics, and identities as if existing quietly as ourselves were somehow a failure.

Looks like we've forgotten something: That being human was never supposed to be a competition.

Perhaps I Chose the Monster isn't asking why someone would fall in love with darkness at all. Perhaps it's asking what happens when someone finally meets a part of themselves they spent years rejecting. The monster isn't always the shadow we fear. Sometimes it's the vulnerable, imperfect, painfully ordinary self we've hidden beneath endless attempts to become extraordinary.

I don't think shadow work is about becoming darker. I don't even think it's about becoming stronger. I think it's about becoming more honest. It's about recognizing the parts of ourselves we've abandoned because we believed they weren't lovable enough, successful enough, impressive enough, or extraordinary enough to deserve a place in the world.

The greatest irony is that the monsters in my books often spend their lives trying to become human, while humans spend theirs trying to become something else.

Probably that's why I keep writing these stories and I Chose the Monster was never about choosing darkness. Maybe it was always about discovering that being beautifully, imperfectly human is already enough.

If you enjoy psychological fiction, Jungian psychology, shadow work, mythology, fantasy, gothic fiction, symbolic storytelling, dark romance, archetypes, and stories that explore the unconscious mind, you can find the I Chose the Monster series and my other books on Amazon by searching for Cory Kay.