Fort Worden

Fort Worden provided many opportunities for artsy photographs.  

There were many little nooks and crannies.  I wasn't sure how the doors were supposed to work; there was a gear system connected to them, but most of it had rusted away or been removed.  

The old gun turrets would make good small amphitheaters; I can imagine an Art and Music Festival Happening here, although I'd want to put some barriers up around some of the more alarming three story shafts.  

Many of the concrete rooms were excellent echo chambers.

I'm also surprised someone hasn't filmed an apocalyptic movie here.  Or a horror film — based on some of the graffiti, this is where the youngsters go to have sex, so it would be fairly easy to add in a deranged murderer and a misunderstood oceanic beast into the scene for a classic horror film plot. 

Oh The Horror

I read an article about horror and how it's necessary.  The main thrust was that there are some pretty horrible truths out there, children have to navigate these truths somehow, and horror is their compass and map.  I didn't exactly agree with the article, because I think focusing on horror elevates it unnecessarily, and I want to read and write stories that focus on wonder.  At least the article made a distinction between being frightened by a movie, book, or story (which is a good thing) and being terrorized by it (which is not).

I don't feel drawn to horror because I can't unsee it easily -- at least as far as movies are concerned.   It's like the cave of my mind is painted with glow paint, and the horror hand-shadows there create a glowing anti-image of terror that stays for a long time.  Horror, with the exception of Scooby-Doo, almost always delivers me to long-lasting terror.  It's not an initiatory ordeal for me; I don't walk out of a scary movie and think, "Oh My God, I feel such a sense of community with my fellow movie goers who survived that movie," I think, "Why the hell did I just pay money for that excruciating memory that will be impossible to un-remember?"  (And now every squicky thing I've ever seen before I could glance away is coming back to superimpose itself over my vision.)

Maybe I'm simplifying the article too much, or focusing only on film.  Perhaps I'm seeing the genre "horror" and going straight for zombies and the Alien franchise (nope, haven't seen them) and throwing out things I've enjoyed like Edward Gorey, or Neil Gaiman's "Coraline."  Maybe if I mentally substitute "creepy and odd" for "horror," the article would resonate more for me.

Oddly, I've written some stories that people think have horror elements.  All I can say is that I didn't set out to write horror (OK, except for that one micro-fiction anthology).  Thinking about that micro-horror piece some more, I suppose that I write horror when I look at wonder through a cynical lens.  

Maybe one person's wonder is another person's horror.

Sale to Twisted Tales Anthology

I discovered last week that I managed to sell a 66 word story to Delving Press. It will join 65 other similar dark stories in an anthology called "Twisted Tales."


From the Delving Press website:

  Twisted Tales  is a collection of 66 stories that will terrify and creep under your skin like a flesh eating virus...each story is only 66 words in length, but like the the microscopic size of ebola will eat away at your subconscious and seep into your dreams when the lights are low and the sounds of darkness frighten your every sense...

I'm happy because this was a fun story to write, I can now say that I write horror (who knew?), and I'm in an anthology with Damon Kaswell and Alethea Kontis.  ... and I pretty much had the same reaction Alethea has on her blog.