Madman, personal essay about feelings on horror,

This is a short essay (2.5 printed pages) about my feelings on horror No comment

This is no fantasy. This is no fallacious delusion of a sick, twisted

mind. This is the honest-to-God truth. I love horror novels. Stephen King

and Edgar Allen Poe are my idols. Perhaps having these two, demented madmen

as my personal mentors sounds sick, but I tend to think as they do. Most of

my writings are short stories of horror (usually about the length of Poe's

'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Masque of the Red Death'). My friends often

ask me four questions: 'Why do you not publish some of your work?' and 'Where

do you get your ideas from?' and 'What is it like writing this horror stuff?'

and 'Why do you like writing horror stories?'

First, I do not publish my work (although some writers at the Virginian

Pilot newspaper feel I should) because it's mine.

Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley, 1894–1895

The Werewolf of Fever Swamp (TV special)

My science fiction shelf

I know this sounds

selfish, but I'm being honest. A part of my personality goes into my work

and I feel if people read enough of my work, they will discover certain

personal feelings I would prefer to keep private.

-- Honesty Check...I also think my work sucks. --

As to where I get my ideas from for my sick excursions, I sincerely do

not know. Like Stephen King (who got the idea to write IT when looking off

of a bridge) I seem to receive my mad phantasms out of thin air. For

example, when I first began writing the first draft of this essay, I started

out writing about writing horror stories and ended up writing a short story

about a vampire in London. It is safe to say I get ideas out of thin air.

When I do capture the intangible, I literally...