Next up: Annihilation

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Quick roll call:

1.) What genre are you writing in right now —
2.) and what was the first piece that made you want to write in it?

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Next up: The Fisherman

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Next up: The Turn of the Screw

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There are a few books I had to read more than once before they fully clicked.

Not confusing, per se — just…operating on a different frequency.

Starting a short thread of the ones that stick in my brain.

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First up: House of Leaves

For those that write horror: how much ambiguity do you think feels satisfying to you and readers?

At what point does “withholding” start to feel like avoidance?

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Fresh read—this book is so patient.

Heat. Unease. The South. It all does the work long before anything else.

It’s confident enough to trust mood over momentum. Curious what other horror novels earn it instead of rush it.

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Some places only feel wrong when you stop to look.

A window at dusk.
A street before the lights come on.
A house that just looks like it's not expecting company.

I think attention is what turns a location into a story. Curious what details make location tip for other writers?

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A lot of fear enters my revision process.

Looks like clarity. Sounds like concern for the reader.

But mostly it’s me trying to control how things are felt instead of letting it be felt.

Confusion isn’t the enemy, premature explanation is.

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Picked up The Red Tree.

There’s something in the way Kiernan uses place that makes me rethink how much weight a setting can carry before a character ever speaks.

What part of the world does the heaviest lifting for you?

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A Reddit thread was asking horror writers what actually scares them on the page.

For me it’s understanding something important a few seconds too late. A lot of my work circles delayed realization instead of big reveals.

What fear do you keep rewriting?

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Watched Dead of Night last week. The structure hit me. It repeats itself, traps characters in a pattern they don’t see til it's too late.

Horror writing can do the same. Why escalation when you have inevitability?

What films changed how you think about story?

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Short week.

Long drafts.

Hope “the signal” finds you.

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I used to think length was just logistics: how much it took to get from beginning to end.

But I’ve been realized it’s more like pressure. Some stories want to stay contained; others break the form trying.

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I was revisiting an old draft and found a note in the margin: “stop feeding it.”

No idea what I meant, but reading it, it made sense.

Sometimes past versions of you leave behind things you weren’t ready to hear at the time.

Ever happened to you?

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Editing yesterday I caught myself rewriting the same sentence three ways—just to see which lied to me best.

I wasn’t revising the draft, I was interrogating it.

How do you know when a piece is finally telling the truth?

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Late night thoughts:

Sometimes the draft lies before a character does. You cut a line, move a scene, and suddenly the truth feels wrong in a way you can’t fix.

Maybe that’s the real horror—the story knowing something you didn’t.

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Ever write a thing you thought was shy and then a beta reads it and says, “This is the darkest thing you’ve ever done”?

I used to think of horror as something that was added, but its best when it just seeps in.

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So many horror books don’t hit me until long after I’m done.

Not because they’re deep—because they stick.

The pace of a bad dream. A smell I recognize. Details that crawl into my brain.

What’s one you thought you were done with, but it came back to you anyway?

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I had a great writing teacher who told me that every horror story is about someone being the last to understand what’s happening. I think I’ve been trying to write that way ever since.

What piece of advice changed how you write?

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Working on a flash piece about ghosts. An interview: a man records. A woman speaks—on her terms.

She talks how people do when they’re trying to fix something in your head without letting you know its broken.

Silence. Memory. More to come…

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Found a VHS at a flea market w/ a handwritten label in black Sharpie:

DO NOT WATCH AFTER 5PM

Prob a joke or note from Mom, but been thinking about it all week. Not about what was on it, but about what happens at 5:01.

What’s your version?

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Revisiting sections of Straub’s Ghost Story—

A group of men tell each other the same terrifying memory. Not for confession, but for control.

Not to be believed, but to be in charge.

Ever written something just so you could sleep?

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Reread Cutter’s The Troop again—a book that forced me to set it down & take a breath.

Still think about it. Even recommend it.

It makes me wonder what we get out of extreme horror? Do we respect it or are we in awe of it when it leaves its mark?

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Been circling ideas that don’t start with a scare. More pressure than premise.

I have 1000 prompts to terrify, shock, unsettle—

Not enough to just let things sit with a simmering dread.

What does your process start with?

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