I am a 39 year-old writer, currently residing in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. Having competed successfully in several writing competitions, I’m now working to pull myself out of the amateur ranks and into the professional field. It’s not all about money, though; it’s more about getting my work broadcast and sharing what’s been crowding my head for years. I am paying the bills by working in a job that, while providing a good source of income, is not exactly what you would call a creative outlet. That’s why I spend as much of my spare time as possible sculpting stories.
I have been writing for quite some time now, and I have dabbled in all sorts of sticky, literary things. I have tried on more styles and more genr…
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I am a 39 year-old writer, currently residing in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. Having competed successfully in several writing competitions, I’m now working to pull myself out of the amateur ranks and into the professional field. It’s not all about money, though; it’s more about getting my work broadcast and sharing what’s been crowding my head for years. I am paying the bills by working in a job that, while providing a good source of income, is not exactly what you would call a creative outlet. That’s why I spend as much of my spare time as possible sculpting stories.
I have been writing for quite some time now, and I have dabbled in all sorts of sticky, literary things. I have tried on more styles and more genres than most people have tried different cuisines. I like poetry, but I quail at the thought that my verse would come off as contrived and drippy. Still, give me a good haiku assignment, and I will dive in.
Long ago, I discovered that I had a taste for things macabre, spending hours perusing the pulp fiction racks in any place that even came close to being a bookstore or library. Too, I watched my fair share of the spook offerings of such syndicated delights as The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery (alas, what a loss the world experienced when Mr. Serling stepped through into the shadows of the museum for the last time), and The Outer Limits. I still relish in horror movies and short offerings, such as one would find featured in The Masters of Horror series currently running on one of the pay channels. The bottom line here is this: Horror is what I like, what I read, and what I write. Not the blood-guts-and-gore variety, but tales that make your spine tingle and shift. The art of frightening someone does not lie in showing them viscera, but exposing what is at the very core of fear. Fear is one of the most powerful emotions imagineable, maybe even stronger than love in regard to what fear can make an otherwise rational human do. And I like to take fear and ply it with my words, make it palpable, let it develop into something that reaches across racial, political, even personal lines to grab at everyone.
I like the craft of the short story, but I am shedding the restrictions I placed on myself in the past of not writing longer fiction, in either novella or novel formats. (Yes, that was a fear for me, the fear that I couldn’t go the distant with my long-game.) I have a full-length manuscript in the development stage, a work that addresses some things I’ve wrestled with for years. I’ve got enough material to create possibly a two- or three-volume series, and I plug away at it daily, despite the fact that it can be a very draining task to saddle up behind the keyboard. Also, I’m putting together a collection of short stories, some old, but most of them new. I’m working also, on a relatively sideline basis, on a screenplay for a vampire feature. I have to admit that this one is a definite challenge for me as it’s something I’ve never tried before. That’s why I have turned to my own vampiric behavior- I’m sucking the knowledge and experience from my all-too-creative fiancee, a film graduate from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Feel free to read and critique with impunity. As the axiom goes, even a bad review still means that I’m being read.
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