My kind of scary

When I tell people that I write horror, instead of doing some real job like working in a cubicle or doing stuff in a lab, they always give me this odd look. Then they probably start wondering if I have a secret room in my place where I carve up dinner guests and serve them to chipmunks and hungry college kids. I don't, in case you were wondering (there's no room for one of those in my apartment).

When we think of horror fiction (or horror writers), we generally think of blood and guts, socially inept geeks who collect porn and comic books, and stressed-out individuals who are one step away from taking a power saw to someone they don't like. The first two are seldom true of horror writers, while the third applies to more people in the general population than you might realize.

No, horror writers aren't much different from you or the crazy people we distance ourselves from. Maybe we just think about it more.

Blood and guts. No, that isn't what horror writers are obsessed with. At least I'm not. Speaking for myself (and this is may be true of most horror writers), I do have a tendency to think about scary stuff a lot. Not stuff like ghosts and axe murderers, but things that could go wrong at any moment. Things like job security, freak accidents, and what we'd do if the people you once trusted turned out to be hiding something really sinister.

Or what about stuff that you're supposed to believe is good? Like hybrid cars, for instance. Yeah, they get great mileage, but has anyone thought about what to do with the highly toxic (and environmentally unfriendly) battery that powers that thing when it comes time to junk the Prius for a new one? You can't just toss it in the garbage can and let the city handle it, you know.

Hey, I'm all about green energy. But let's think it through before we jump on every green bandwagon that comes along. Remember, zombies are green too. And maybe there's a good reason why...

Website is up

Well, after talking about it for so long, I finally got around to putting together a website for my writing. It can be found here.

Of course, more stuff will be added to it as time goes on. Indie writing is a lot of fun, but it's a heck of a lot of work. I wrote another 1500 or so words this morning (for my next novel), and tomorrow I'll be adding at least another 1000.

I'm still feeling my way through the whole self-publishing bit, and the marketing aspect of it seems so overwhelming. There's so much information out there, and so much to learn.

Now that I'm starting to immerse myself more and more into writing, it seems as if I've stumbled upon an exciting time. The nature of publishing, thanks to the rise of digital technology and the web, seems to be changing. Self-publishing is losing its stigma, as the business model of "conventional" publishing company proves to be less cost effective.

There goes a notion that self-publishing (where anyone can become a published author) will lead to a flood of poor-quality books. I strongly disagree. First of all, the discipline and drive to undertake a task as daunting as writing a book will weed out the lazy and unmotivated. And secondly, the free market will largely determine which books are "good" and which ones stink. Self-publishing, or indie writing, is gearing up to be a much more democratic way for new talent to get noticed.

But whether one chooses to be self-published or plans to go the conventional route of finding an agent, and enduring rejection letters, the passion for writing will always be at the core of any success. As a writer, do you love what you do?