Horror writing: it gets the black out

"You're such a sweet girl. Why do you write horror fiction?"

This is a question I've gotten from friends and relatives shocked the first time they read one of my stories.

My answer to anyone who asks: "It gets the black out."

My life is hectic. There's the day job, the night job, the bonus children, the writing and editing, housework, friends, family, and all the other things that fall in between. Often times, at night, I can't sleep because of all I'm trying to organize and remember and prepare myself for. When I do finally fall asleep, there are nightmares, or any little sound wakes me up and I wind up the next morning, a zombie.

For me, writing down what's bothering me or stressing me out helps me to make sense of it all. Because my mind happens to be an imaginative one, just writing things down as they happen isn't enough. My mind twists and warps life situations, so that they turn into pure, fun fiction...even if the stories are sometimes pretty darned creepy.

Dealing with the transition day when my partner's boys come home to us from their mother's, cantankerous and poisoned by high fructose corn syrup, turned into "Fairy Lust and Pixie Dust" (http://www.stateofimagination.com/), the horrors of illness and my fear of hospitals became "Sucker Punch" (http://www.fearandtremblingmag.com/), and the stresses of hosting a Pampered Chef party turned into the soon to be released "The Ginger Men" (http://www.onebuckhorror.com/).

My advice to anyone dealing with the complexities of modern day life is: write it down. Who knows what might come out? Putting the pen to paper might help spark the answer to a problem you've been having. You might get more relief by crumpling that piece of paper up and throwing it in the trash. Or maybe, just maybe, you can turn the horrors of the world into fiction, spill the black from your mind and start your fingers plunking the keys of your laptop. You might wind up with a pretty good spooky tale, keep your nightmares or insomnia at bay, and keep someone else awake at night, afraid to turn out the light.