You will be the strange child, the forgotten child. You will start to write because it’s the only way you know how to speak and it will come out crumbled and broken and dark. This is normal, because you feel crumbled and dark, and if you’re lucky that won’t go away.
You will have relatives who change the subject when you tell them what you write about. The critics will say, “write something nicer.” Your uncle will say, “write a romance,” and your mother will perform an exorcism. Grit your teeth and wait for it to be over: the demons are probably stronger than the holy water and bed straps.
They will say to you, “this is good, but it isn’t horror.” They will label you: Speculative fiction. Dark fiction. Science fiction. Fantasy. Soft fiction. Slow fiction. Literary. Because horror is a deep word and an old word and it goes down into a place other people are trying to forget.
Horror writers are tormented, kid, but don’t believe what the old and failed artists say about needing to be depressed. If it’s to the point where you’re unable to get out of bed, then for god sakes, do what you need to in order to get better. Take your ritalin or prozac, meditate, drop some acid, see a therapist, take a vacation to Mexico and sort your fucking life out. Anything to keep you from going out Virginia Woolf style. If you’re dead you aren’t writing.
You are a horror writer because you are terrified and terror is familiar. It doesn’t matter how old you get, the monsters still live in the closet and underneath the bed and crawling through the ceiling. They will always find new and exciting ways to scare you.
There are times when you will think you are the reincarnation of Edgar Allan Poe, gothic and mysterious and alien. You will wear the title Writer like a crown of thorns and dream of sitting in endless rows of coffee shops drinking cafe au lait and talking about the philosophy of the vampire. Then something will happen - your grandmother will die, your boyfriend will break up with you, you’ll stub your toe and look foolish at a party- and you’ll realize that Edgar Allan Poe died penniless in an alleyway and you too, are human and could die the same way. You’re not above humanity, but you write about it from the dirt, and that’s what makes you beautiful.
Horror is a body genre, the dark twin of romance - and so it’s full of nausea and spit. You won’t be able to do so much as throw up without focusing on your body, every knotted pulse, thinking, “so this is what this feels like.” Every pain will unravel into turgid prose. Your friends will have to pull you back from tornadoes and rabid dogs. You’re not suicidal or reckless, though it may look indistinguishable to an outside observer. You just need to feel.
There will come a time, if you keep at this, when you realize you’re not writing for the legacy, because everything you leave behind will rot like the rest of it. You’re doing this for that moment when the knot pulls apart and you’re lost in that world. For the hungry curse of needing that world actualized in front of you. And yes, for the desperate and foolish need to be loved by everyone.
Every morning when you wake and roll out of bed to write the spiders will descend from the rafters and the dead girls will skitter out from underneath the bed. Remember that you could’ve had a normal job, gone into accounting or law. Remember always that you chose this special hell, the gnawing anxiety of the almost finished book and the nightmares of bad Amazon reviews. You will be rocked and cursed and crushed, you will have your hair pulled, your mind turned to batter. You will forsake everyone you ever loved to venture alone, every day, in the gray landscape of your mind without ever knowing if there’s a way out. But when you sit at the keyboard, writing and tearing spiders out of your hair, you will know that you wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Stock photo from Pixabay
Self portrait by me canon t51
Some of my other posts you may be interested in:
[Short Story] Job Requirements For The Destroyer of Worlds
What Separates A Good Writer From An Excellent One?
The Things You Love Will Find Their Way Back To You [Writer's Journal]
[Poem] I Think One Day You Will Disappear
Why I Prefer Being Alone [Writer's Journal]