Stalked by Horror

I'll admit it with a "No Duh" response from my hubby and kids…I'm a chicken. Huge, loud clucking chicken of the worst sorts. I haven't been able to watch a real scary movie in decades. I can only read my favorite authors like Stephen King in the day light, starting in the morning and stopping well before sundown. Thereafter, I must watch something like Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure or Weekend at Bernie's to push out any remaining horror thoughts before sleepy time. Yes, Gigantore of the Scaredy Cat Club.

Go ahead. Laugh, hoot, and holler. Get it out of your system and then you'll have the normal question I get all the time. "Why are almost all of your short stories and flashes horror or darker speculative fiction?"

Gather around and let me tell you…because they're my nightmares, and, I'll keep having them repeatedly until I write them down.

My flash fiction, Night Visitor, haunted me for weeks. "It" came every night. My blood curdling screams woke my family every night. I remained awake from that point on every night.

Every. Night. For. Weeks.

It wasn't until I wrote the darn thing out and tucked it in my laptop folder titled "Flash Stories" did I get a nights rest. It took several months before I could gather the courage to pull it back up, edit it, and send it off to Pill Hill for their 365 Days of Flash Fiction anthology.

Want to know an even deeper secret? I never read them again once they're completed and published.

Ever.

I've bought all the anthologies my stories are contributed in. I've even read my fellow contributor's stories (during the day light of course)…but I've never read my stories in them again.

Pfft!!!

They might come back out of the recesses of my mind and haunt me. Then what would I do? I've already written them, so can't rewrite them. I'd be stuck with them….forever.

*shakes off chill*