Month: August 2026

I have been writing horror professionally for eleven years. Tonight, apparently, my own manuscript finally managed … I Scared Myself So Badly Writing My Own Novel’s Climax Tonight That I Had to Turn On Every Single Light in My House Before I Could Finish the SceneRead more

I write to unsettle people, not to comfort them. Today a reader taught me those two … A Reader Told Me at a Signing Today That My Last Book Helped Her Through Genuine Grief, Which Is Not at All the Reaction I Expected Horror Fiction to ProduceRead more

Not scary enough is, on its face, the single most useless note a horror writer can … My Editor Sent Back Notes Today Saying My Latest Manuscript’s Monster Is ‘Not Scary Enough,’ and I Have Spent the Whole Evening Trying to Figure Out What That Actually MeansRead more

I went in hoping for genuine atmosphere to steal for my next book. I came out … I Went on a Guided Tour of a Genuinely Reportedly Haunted House Today for Research and Came Away With Considerably Less Usable Material Than I Expected, Which Is Its Own Kind of Interesting DiscoveryRead more

Three years. One final sentence. A feeling considerably quieter and considerably more complicated than the triumphant … I Finally Finished the Book I Have Been Writing for Three Years Tonight, and the Actual Feeling Is Nothing Like What I Expected It to Be After This LongRead more