My goals and dreams have flucuated frequently (as these things tend to) but what has always remained is this: to be a wife, to be a mother, to make a living off of a creative pursuit. At the time of writing this, I am a newlywed(ish), I am five months pregnant, and I have gotten back on this website after a four year hiatus. I'm crafting stories and putting together pieces that have been in my head for ages and am getting new and intriguing prompts on the website every day. A friend gave me a book on writing 6 years ago and I am finally reading it after all this time.

Even if writing does not end up being what puts food on the table, I can take solace in knowing that the love for words has not left me, and that the love of a family has found me. I am about to take some major time off work, especially given our daughter will be in the NICU for some time and I hope to be able to channel the time alone and heavy emotional burden into something beautiful.

I want my daughter to grow up strong, smart, and have the same love for art that my husband and I do. I hope to see her successful and independent and not fall victim to the same traps that I did in my youth. I hope for us to have a more stable home life than my husband and I did growing up and for us to always stay strong as a unit, no matter what comes our way.

I dream of seeing more writers and creators move from the internet and lined notebooks into bigger and better things. I do not care about a saturated market, I only want to see a genuine one. There's an infinite number of voices, and entire lifetimes to experience them. I want artists to be able to cut through the trappings and politics of the fine art world so that they can proudly display canvases on their terms. I want poets to not be held back by their bios or stack of rejection letters. I want musicians to not be controlled by sponsorship or feel as if the only route to success is through endorsing things they do not believe in.

Some of these dreams are easily accessible. Some of them are lush and lofty. They all occupy space in my head, even if it is to varying degrees.

I don't believe in love at first sight. I find it kind of shallow.

I have to know someone before I can like them.

And I think that's what love really is -

accepting someone, despite all of their flaws, because you know them completely.

Not just falling for a pretty face and hoping it's not hiding something ugly beneath.

Not a scary story, but to really understand how fear is perceived differently by every individual. Have you ever noticed how people will become excited over different things on different levels. A kitten will send me into hysterical squeals and sobs, but my husband will only be interested for a short while. However, if we go to a comic book store, he will stand for hours in front of rpg figurines as I oh and ah as he holds up different ones in adorable excitement. Just like happiness, fear is perceived and expressed in different ways.

What sometimes happens is that writers will think of a scary situation and then write a story around it. In the storyline, there is the main character’s suspicion, the growing anticipation before a reveal that is supposed to knock the reader for a loop. But it often doesn’t. This is not because you are a bad writer, but because fear has not been expressed in a way that the reader directly relates to.

I was “today” years old when I realized most people have a deep fear of the woods. The dark, enclosed spaces, the heavy air, and the perpetual darkness has always been a sanctuary for a country girl like me, but I learned that a friend of mine from the city thought it was absolutely nuts that I slept in the woods all night. Alternatively, I have a perpetual fear of large, open areas. The first time my husband took me to the ocean, he had to slowly entice me out into the water as I clung to him, because I was terrified of being washed out into emptiness. And don’t even get me started on Kansas. I love and appreciate all my Kansas readers, but your home scares the crap out of me.

In order for a reader to empathize with a scary situation, the subject matter has to be a realistic situation the reader would have to have experienced at some time in their life. For example, I will wrote two short prompts. The first will be the incorrect way of introducing a fearful plot line, and the second would be my personal recommendation.

Example 1:

Julia sat with her father in the car. He was very silent, which was unusual for him. “What’s up, Dad? You aren’t saying much.” He gave a deep sogh, “I can’t keep lying to you.” Julia’s eyes widened. Her father continued, “Your mother and I, we’re actually... what I mean to say is... your mother and I are in a cult. A cult who murders hitchikers.”

Example 2:

Bobby pulled on his mother’s hand, “No, Mommy! I want to take the stairs.” His mother pulled on his hand a little too hard, “We are late, Robert Allen! Do you understand!? Pick up your feet! Act your age!” Bobby held back a sob and gripped her hand tight as he stepped on the escalator. His brother told him about how if you didn’t get off fast enough, you would be sucked down into the crack at the top, mushed into mashed potatoes. Bobby’ s heart thundered as they approached the top. He leapt off with both feet, and breathed a sigh as hihis mother pulled him forward. But one of his feet came out from under him. One of his shoelaces had become caught and was being pulled into the crack where the steps disappeared. Bobby screamed in terror and began tearing at his shoes with all his might.

A plot line about your parents being in a murder cult is very interesting, but difficult to create a sense of foebodeing, since most of your audience won’t be able to relate. However, they would be able to relate to having to choose between family tradition and going your own path.

I really enjoy your horror stories, and I always like to take a moment to be scared out of my wits. This advice is simply meant as a suggestion as to what I believe are the most successfully terrifying stories. It’s not always about blood and ghosts. Sometimes, reality can be terrifying, too.

Did I come all this way just to be a bystander?

Did I do all that I did and not be remembered?

Did I achieve all I did to know that some of the ‘greats’ had nothing on me?

Was it my position to be influenced or to influence?

Will I die alone and tired?

Will I be remembered?

Did I change lives?

No, I was not standing by

Yes I will be remembered

Yes I achieved as much or more

I influenced

Yes

Yes

Yes

I think I’ll just go home to Mom and Dad who did the same.

There is a wall inside my brain between me and the rest of the world. It is an impermeable membrane that filters out my genuine message and filters through my tone and body language a message that is nothing that I mean to say. The gist is how people take it, speech is the gray between what you meant and what they make it; what, to anyone outside of me, was said.

Now this unkind wall causes me in all my interactions to bang into it with recurring concussive blows, for what I mean

is mostly lost to an audience who cannot see or hear past their own eyes,

nobody will ever know.

My replys are usually taken incorrectly.

I’m a bare bones speaker and when I say what I mean then there is always some exterior editing, associating all kinds of things that if I had meant; I would have said.

I’m simple and simplicity eludes many.

I will wind up dead on this character flaw alone.

Thusly writing is where I find home. It is where my heart is for it is founded on this milled pressed conglomerate of tiny wood waste particles that stipulate precisely the articles I record upon them. Written in pen the words I cultivate become less open to the crowds guesses. What I write can’t be misquoted, as it has the ability to be looked back at and can be cross referenced in general. I like the longevity that comes with placing it in its parchment cage by way of pen or pencil.

I feel less lonely for the thought that one day someone might know me through the verbage I construe and while they dont know, or have a clue, it is the only clear communication I get. It’s my truth.

The only one I have or had,

Cause I gave it away,

and what’s sad is

nobody knew.

Many people long to be shit on...

Hell they beg for it,

and that's what my job is,

(well sort of)

it's to purge my guts of all the rot,

and then sell my underwear to the

highest bidder...

...Fuck 'em if they can't

pay for a sitter,

and their kid gets into a bag

of my dirty linen

that Daddy bought online...

Your Da Da is a pervert, son,

now kindly get in line

and cry to your therapist,

but don't come blubbering to me...

Whole countries are fucked now,

it's like there is a sea

of swimming scalps

that bob up and down in the endless

murky waters...

...You can take a swing, and crack

a floating head

without one aim!...

...All the fame in the world

won't wash anyone clean,

but if you carve your own road

with your own two hands

you're often a whole lot

better off.

Stop buying another's filth,

and be your own self healer!...

...Or keep on breathing in the

methane,

but there's something on the horizon

for a dirt breather who throws

the gauntlet all so aimlessly,

and I think y'all should know.

01-11-20

Slack Selassie

I check every day, in the mirror, to see if its time.

Cry for the eternity in

man

Two shovelfuls of lime

seek to deform the perpetually

damned

I was never given a choice or a grin

Poisoned my lakes

Salted my fields

and yet I keep paying taxes

because

that

was

the

deal.

The darkness makes a nest in my eyes, curling itself in my cranial cavity, its long flicking tail hanging from my corneas. I'm choking on its claws as they stroke my fear and throat. I feel the tipped talon of its claws close on something in my throat and my voice is stolen from me but with a simple tug I'm screaming endlessly, my eyes wide open and my mouth open wider. The creature giggles at this, his long curved teeth baring in a terrorizing grin. The gigglings echo inside my skull, my teeth clamp down into the fleshy softness of my lip; a metallic taste overtakes my madness and pushes it further. I reach my arms out for something, anything; I need to feel something solid under my fingers, something to latch on to ride out the storm, but my hands come out empty. I'm floating in nothingness but I'm surrounded by creatures, I can feel them closing in, I can feel their breath on my neck and face. My hackles are rising higher and higher, my shoulders are inclosing my ears and neck inside a ball of safety, my knees dig into my stomach painfully as my hands claw them closer, into safety.

My mind is overtaken with monsters and loneliness; I am alone but there are creatures all around me, closing in as I sink lower and lower into madness.

I am trapped in the nest of the darkness and there is no escape.