There\u2019s a lot of joy in the writing process, but some days there seems to be a whole lot more fear than anything else.\u00a0 The masters haunt us.\u00a0 Our self-doubts berate us. The blank page (or screen) sears our retinas.\u00a0 (We re-read over-written sentences like that one and wince.)\u00a0 Our internal editor goes on a manuscript-shredding rampage\u2026<\/p>\n
Even our good friend What If<\/em> turns on us.\u00a0 What if I never write another word?\u00a0 What if this is no good?\u00a0 What if no one likes it?\u00a0 What if I don\u2019t meet that deadline?\u00a0 What if I don\u2019t get a date for the prom? Brief bios can be found after the responses.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n What, if anything, scares you about the writing process?<\/strong><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n John Mantooth: <\/strong>Pretty much all of it, except taking days off.\u00a0 I’ve got that mastered.\u00a0 That is<\/em> part of the process, right?<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Carrie Laben: <\/strong>Writing doesn’t scare me. It’s indoor work and very rarely do I get stepped on by a cow.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Caitlin R. Kiernan: <\/strong>More than anything, the fear that one day I won\u2019t be able to do it anymore. Write. I don\u2019t mean that someone or something will stop me, but that the ability will simply escape me. That terrifies me. It seems a truly silly fear, an entirely irrational fear, as I\u2019ve been doing this for more than eighteen years now. But it scares me, nonetheless.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Kit Reed: <\/strong>Doing it.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Kaaron Warren: <\/strong> You have to give so much of yourself to it, don\u2019t you? You can\u2019t hold back. You have to show what needs to be shown and not be fearful about your audience and what they\u2019ll make of you. That can be terrifying.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Rick Bowes: <\/strong>Not much scares me about the writing process. The publishing process is something else again.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Carolyn Turgeon: <\/strong> I find the writing process scary in all kinds of ways. That kind of plunging into an imagined world, that state you get in where you can see and smell and taste this world you\u2019re conjuring on the page, that irrational but intense fear that you\u2019ll slip into that imagined world so completely you won\u2019t be able to come out again. At least I have that fear all the time when I\u2019m writing, and a big challenge for me is to stay there, in that world, rather than get up and, you know, sweep a floor or call a friend or something, just to get grounded again.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not even touching on the horrors surrounding book publishing and marketing and hoping that this book will sell and the next book will sell, too, not to mention the horrors of revealing yourself and your weirdnesses and obsessions and wounds to the world at large, in ways you might not even realize, through your writing. Not that I\u2019m complaining but: it\u2019s scary!<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Erzebet YellowBoy: <\/strong> Talking or writing about the process of writing is terrifying. For me it’s an entirely intuitive process and I have a devil of a time trying to present how it all works in any kind of meaningful way. The best I can do is \u201cget pen, get paper, write\u201d.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Ramsey Campbell: <\/strong>Well, I once wrote a tale called “The Change”, which suggested that the act of writing (or, more precisely, the self-absorption it requires) could be dangerous, even lethal. I’m glad to report it hasn’t proved that way since, and Jenny and I are about to celebrate our fortieth anniversary, so that story must have been an exaggeration…<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Rick Bowes<\/a> is the author of From the Files of the Time Rangers<\/em><\/strong> and Streetcar Dreams and Other Midnight Fancies<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 He wrote \u201cKnickerbocker Holiday\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Ramsey Campbell<\/a> is the author of The Seven Days of Cain<\/em><\/strong> and Just Behind You<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 He wrote \u201cChucky Comes to Liverpool\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Carrie Laben is working on a novel and an MFA.\u00a0 Her fiction has appeared in Apex Digest<\/em><\/strong>, ChiZine<\/em><\/strong>, and <\/strong>Clarkesworld<\/a>, among other places.\u00a0 She wrote \u201cFace Like a Monkey\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Caitlin R. Kiernan<\/a> is the author of Daughter of Hounds<\/em><\/strong> and The Red Tree<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 She wrote \u201cAs Red as Red\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n John Mantooth<\/a> is a seventh-grade English teacher, grad student, and writer of short fiction.\u00a0 He wrote \u201cShoebox Train Wreck\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Kit Reed<\/a> is the author of Enclave<\/em><\/strong> and Weird Women, Wired Women<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 She wrote \u201cAkbar\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Carolyn Turgeon<\/a> is the author of Rain Village<\/em><\/strong> and Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 She wrote \u201cLa Llorona\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Kaaron Warren<\/a> is the author of Dead Sea Fruit<\/em><\/strong> and Walking the Tree<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 She wrote \u201cThat Girl\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Erzebet YellowBoy<\/a> is the editor of Cabinet des Fees<\/em><\/strong> and the founder of Papaveria Press.\u00a0 She wrote \u201cFollowing Double-Face Woman\u201d for Haunted Legends<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Jeremy L. C. Jones <\/a>is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher.\u00a0\u00a0He is the staff Interviewer for <\/em>Clarkesworld Magazine<\/a> and a frequent contributor to <\/em>Kobold Quarterly<\/a>.\u00a0 He teaches at <\/em>Wofford College<\/a> and <\/em>Montessori Academy<\/a> in Spartanburg, SC.\u00a0 He is also the director of <\/em>Shared Worlds<\/a>, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and <\/em>Jeff VanderMeer <\/a>designed in 2006.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a lot of joy in the writing process, but some days there seems to be a whole lot more fear than anything else.\u00a0 The masters haunt us.\u00a0 Our self-doubts berate us. The blank page (or screen) sears our retinas.\u00a0 (We re-read over-written sentences like that one and wince.)\u00a0 Our internal editor goes on a manuscript-shredding rampage\u2026 Even our good friend What If turns on us.\u00a0 What if I never write another word?\u00a0 What if this is no good?\u00a0 What if no one likes it?\u00a0 What if I don\u2019t meet that deadline?\u00a0 What if I don\u2019t get a date for the prom?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nYes, yes, writing can be fun but also a scary pursuit.\u00a0 Below, nine masters of dark fiction, all of whom contributed to Haunted Legends <\/em>edited by Ellen Datlow<\/a> and Nick Mamatas<\/a>, reveal what scares them about the writing process.<\/p>\n