And Then There was Nothing

~

Wow. Cleared out. Vamoose. All gone...

Well... almost. The truck came and took away virtually everything in my house today. Ten hours of loading boxes yesterday, and about six hours of loading the 'big' stuff today. And now it's all gone. For a few different reasons, I'll still be residing at the house - mostly to tie up loose ends - until the end of next week when I'll join the rest of my family in our new house in the north country. Until then, I've got my dog, my cats, and my computer to keep me company, and that's literally it. Hmm... seems to me that that time would be best spent doing some uninterrupted writing... and that's exactly what I intend to do.

Before that, however, a few of you sent in some questions after the offer laid out in my last blog post, so let's get to those.

Tiffany asked: "Scott, if you could only write one genre, what would it be? And don't just say dark fantasy because it has elements of everything else in it!! If you really, truly, HAD to choose one genre, what would it be?"

Well that's a tough one isn't it? You're right to think that I would choose dark fantasy if given the option. Dark fantasy is vague enough that you can branch out into aspects of horror, fantasy, and even elements of science fiction and space opera, and still be well within the confines of the genre's qualifications - at least from my perspective. And, of course, that's the appeal of Dark Fantasy, isn't it? There really isn't anything set in stone that says that such and such qualifies as being part of the genre and such and such doesn't. Though, really, the same is true for horror - though horror might be a bit more restrictive. All a story has to do to be eligible for the horror moniker is to instill an element of Fear in the reader's mind; now, that fear can be instilled through a variety of ways including but not limited to the use of suspense, the intimation of bodily or mental harm upon the protagonists, the use of supernatural beings or entities, or supply a generous injection of the unknown - because that, as all of you I'm sure are well aware, is what is most frightening to us as human beings.

The Unknown.

Often, that Unknown comes in the form of Death - (note my over-use of capital letters to achieve a lackadaisical attempt at emphasis) - the threat of Death, or the uncertainty of it's finality. Human beings hate being out of the loop, and death is one of those things that the thoughts and musings that take place in the dark little hidey-holes in the backs of our minds refuse to look on as final.

But I'm getting off track.

Before I answer your question, however, let me make it clear that to me genre classifications are a first-rate yawn fest. Of course they help in finding new authors that write the kind of things that you like to read - as in you know where to look at your local bookstore or online, and yet most of my favorite authors downright refuse to be classified by the sheer variety of their voluminous amounts of work. Authors like Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, and even Clive Barker, make themselves hard to pigeonhole to a specific genre.

"What?" you say. "But Clive Barker is a horror writer...?" Really? I'd argue that Imagica is more fantasy than horror. I'd argue that the books of the Abarat are straight ahead fantasy, not to mention Young Adult. I'd argue that Sacrament is horror, but in a subtle sense.

"What?" you say. "But Neil Gaiman is a fantasy writer...?" Really? I'd argue that short stories like Closing Time and Shoggoth's Old Peculiar are terrifying. I'd argue that Good Omens and even Stardust indicate that he's a skilled humorist. Oh, and he writes children's books too... and then there's that comic book thingy... and the screenplays...

Matheson writes everything from fantasy to science fiction to teleplays to horror to westerns to...

Ellison... well, Ellison is Ellison.

All is to say that to me, a writer is either a good one, or a writer isn't. Harlan Ellison hates being termed a "speculative fiction" writer. It narrows what he does in some sense. He is a Writer and nothing more... or less.

I am a Writer.

If, Tiffany, you chloroformed me some evening, bound my hands and mouth, shoved me in the trunk of a 1976 Oldsmobile, waited until I awoke, and poked toothpicks under my fingernails, I might, might mind you, say that if I truly had to choose one genre and only one, I might tell you that that genre would be horror: the classification isn't quite as broad as dark fantasy, but it's close.

Don't fence me in.

And now to the second question. Antonym Mouse (I assume that's an alias) wrote:

"Hello Scott! First off, I just read the Feast of Catchville for my high school Wisconsin literature class, and I ABSOLUTELY /LOVED/ it. I didn't think one ever got truly good books assigned to them to read in school, but I was so very wrong.
Secondly, I am also an aspiring writer. As a young author, the work of others greatly interests me. So, a few questions. When did you really start to know you wanted to write? Did you know then that you wanted to write in the horror genre?"

First off, let me say how thrilled I am that high schools are teaching Catchville. Ah, to mold, slash, infect young minds is a wonderful thing! (Bwa-ha-ha-ha!) Seriously, though, I'm glad you enjoyed it, Mouse. I was trying to think back to the assigned works that affected me most in high-school, and the one that came to mind first was The Metamorphosis by Kafka. No, it wasn't contemporary, but it still had the grit and "newness" of a larger literary world beyond what was usually taught.

When did I know I wanted to write? Hmm... I think I always possessed an innate desire to be creative. Whether it was through words, through art, through acting, or through music, the Humanities have always spoken to me in a way that no other calling could have.

Though I always dabbled in all of those creative endeavors at the same time, I went through what you could call "primary" phases with each one. In high-school, I was primarily a music and art guy. Lots of playing bass and guitar with a band some friends and I put together, and lots of drawing when I was alone in my room, allowing my existential teenage angst to bubble up into a full boil. When I reached college, the acting bug hit full tilt, and I was in a few university productions. However, college is when I realized that writing came easier to me than any of the other creative disciplines; it was also when I realized that it was the one thing that I mined the greatest amount of pleasure from. It was also when it hit me that I could do it professionally.

There's a point in your life where you suddenly realize that you're an adult, and that there's a world of opportunity open to you. Sure, we're all told that we can do anything we want when we get older, but I don't think that the concept really sinks in until you've ridden a few dozen miles in the saddle. At some point in my university experience, it genuinely occurred to me that I could write a story that other people would want to read, that I could in some small way entertain, educate, and possibly open other people's minds to my own skewed way of thinking. When that kernel of a thought did occur to me, it was like the walls came down and I could see clearly for the first time. Of course! I'm a writer!

Easy to think. Harder to do.

But that's what weens writers from the ranks: the willingness to spend the time and put in the ridiculous amount of unrecognized work just to tell a story. Part of me is very glad that I entertained the notion of being a rock star, of being a world famous artist, of being a star of stage and screen before I realized I wanted to devote my life to writing - and writing well. However, there's also a part of me that wishes that I would have realized that I wanted to do it earlier - perhaps when I was in high school - so that I could have started cutting my teeth on the nuts and bolts of it all from the get-go.

But what are ya gonna do? No regrets and all that.

Did I know from the start that I wanted to write horror? Hopefully you've read this entire post and gleaned an impression as to my opinions on genre classifications. But what you're asking is a different animal, and the answer is, nope. I first tried writing science fiction, or more accurately, I tried writing space opera. Sitting down at the keyboard, I strenuously tied a rambling narrative of about 200 thousand words together over the course of about a year into something that vaguely, possibly, resembled something that - if you squinted from a distance - might have resembled a novel.

But it was great practice. It forced me to sit down on a regular basis and perform the physical act of tapping my fingers against a collection of keys. Believe it or not that's one of the hardest things to do as a writer: simply put everything else aside and write. The experience also allowed me to prove to myself that I really could finish a novel-length work. Now, at 200k, I overdid it a bit, but that's all right. It was something I needed to excise before I could move on to the "next thing".

When did horror come up? Somewhere around 1992 I got my hands on a big old book called The Stand by Steve King. I'm sure you've heard of it, and if you haven't, rectify that fact.

Prior to reading that book, my idea of horror was a narrow one. It centered around monsters and ghosts and the usual Bogey Man kind of generic. The Stand showed me what could really be done with the horror genre - how far it could be stretched and how deeply it could saturate the human mind.

I was hooked.

After reading King's tale of "Cap'n Tripps" and Randal Flag, I realized that horror was the conduit through which I could best tell the stories I wanted to tell at the time. I immediately started work on the tale that would eventually become Swaybuck.

Any-hoo - horror bit me at the right time and place. Did I stick with it exclusively? No. Will I return to it? Absolutely. I love to read and write it. As a young writer, Mouse, I think you need to flap around for a bit in the genre muck. Write what you like to read, but don't imitate what you're reading. Understand what's been done in the past, and build on it - take it in new directions and surprise yourself. If you surprise yourself as a writer, you'll definitely surprise your readers.

I hope that answers your questions. Thanks again to both Tiffany and Antonym Mouse for writing in. Anybody else - feel free to drop me a line with whatever you want to know.

And now... back to work.