What's Next?
My remaining literary energy (hmm, let's say the next 20 years, assuming I live that long) will be focused in these areas:
Thrillers
Science Fiction
Fantasy
The thrillers will be squarely focused on trad markets -- stories written for mainstream thriller audiences.
The science fiction and fantasy will likelier be indie-oriented, unless something strikes me as being particularly suited for a trad market, or I'm wanting, you know, readers, audience, and fans.
I've already got eight indie SF and fantasy books out there under different pen names, so it's not like I'm starting from scratch with this.
Anyway, I'm feeling liberated by walking away from indie horror, honestly, and I think I know why (I mean, besides the obvious lack of readership, haha).
With SF and fantasy, I can do what I do best, which is world-building -- I'm a big fan of world-building, and I'm good at it, even if not quite as good as I am at writing good books nobody reads -- THAT is my area of unsurpassed literary mastery.
Horror is so rooted in the everyday, the here-and-now, the larger mechanics of world-building are a background consideration, if considered at all.
What is also means is there'll be less noise in SF and fantasy -- which is to say that there won't be as many literary pretenders out there. There's a reason why indie horror gets packed tight with wannabes -- because it's easier to write horror than other genres. Norms love their horror, and I'm squarely in the realm of the freaks & geeks set, the feisty outlier and contrarian outsider. Even as a codger-in-training, I'm still the Art Club Punk Romantic who hangs back from the normies, and I always will be.
The narrative requirements are less in horror. Sure, you should be able to scare readers, but it's also why gore is so central to so many of those works. Tossing a hapless character into a woodchipper is easier than articulating the sociopolitical effects of a surveillance society within a crumbling dystopia.
By walking away from indie horror, I'm graciously leaving that bloody battlefield to the bookish berserkers (most of whom aren't novelists, because, you know, novels are hard work) who relish that kind of fiction. I made my contribution to it, and I'm moving on.
Give me worlds to build and characters to occupy it as I'm exploring ideas, and I'm happy. And I have so many to build in what time I have.
Btw, if any of you are triggered by the above, that's what you get for reading my blog. Haha! I don't apologize for it, or for my perspectives on things as a writer who's almost certainly been at it longer than you. Enjoy your indie horror junk food, by all means; I'm traveling to other worlds, going far, far away...
Thrillers
Science Fiction
Fantasy
The thrillers will be squarely focused on trad markets -- stories written for mainstream thriller audiences.
The science fiction and fantasy will likelier be indie-oriented, unless something strikes me as being particularly suited for a trad market, or I'm wanting, you know, readers, audience, and fans.
I've already got eight indie SF and fantasy books out there under different pen names, so it's not like I'm starting from scratch with this.
Anyway, I'm feeling liberated by walking away from indie horror, honestly, and I think I know why (I mean, besides the obvious lack of readership, haha).
With SF and fantasy, I can do what I do best, which is world-building -- I'm a big fan of world-building, and I'm good at it, even if not quite as good as I am at writing good books nobody reads -- THAT is my area of unsurpassed literary mastery.
Horror is so rooted in the everyday, the here-and-now, the larger mechanics of world-building are a background consideration, if considered at all.
What is also means is there'll be less noise in SF and fantasy -- which is to say that there won't be as many literary pretenders out there. There's a reason why indie horror gets packed tight with wannabes -- because it's easier to write horror than other genres. Norms love their horror, and I'm squarely in the realm of the freaks & geeks set, the feisty outlier and contrarian outsider. Even as a codger-in-training, I'm still the Art Club Punk Romantic who hangs back from the normies, and I always will be.
The narrative requirements are less in horror. Sure, you should be able to scare readers, but it's also why gore is so central to so many of those works. Tossing a hapless character into a woodchipper is easier than articulating the sociopolitical effects of a surveillance society within a crumbling dystopia.
By walking away from indie horror, I'm graciously leaving that bloody battlefield to the bookish berserkers (most of whom aren't novelists, because, you know, novels are hard work) who relish that kind of fiction. I made my contribution to it, and I'm moving on.
Give me worlds to build and characters to occupy it as I'm exploring ideas, and I'm happy. And I have so many to build in what time I have.
Btw, if any of you are triggered by the above, that's what you get for reading my blog. Haha! I don't apologize for it, or for my perspectives on things as a writer who's almost certainly been at it longer than you. Enjoy your indie horror junk food, by all means; I'm traveling to other worlds, going far, far away...
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