Oh the Horror

There is a story I want to write—but I won’t because it scares the shit out of me.

 

So I guess, in essence, I don’t want to write it. But it’s in there lurking around (as most stories do), bugging me to just go ahead and put it down on paper (or in electronic 1s and 0s) so it will get out of my head like a pensieve from Harry Potter.  But as I said, it scares the crap out of me. It would be my first horror novel, but it’s not blood or guts. It’s not something paranormal. No ghosts or goblins riding through the night eating babies or dark creepy things taking over people’s brains. None of that typical stuff that’s considered horror these days by so many (though horror is much more than that). No, this one is my personal fear. The kind of terror that leaps through you when you walk to the edge of the abyss and stare down into it and have no fucking idea of what might be on the other side.

 

Plenty of horror writers will indeed say, “Write what scares you.” And I could. And, okay, I will admit, a small piece of my really wants to. And maybe I will someday. But it’s the kind of thing that creeps me out to the point that I wonder—if I write this, what if it comes true? It’s that kind of end-of-the-world moment where you have absolutely zero control of where things are headed. And let’s face it, though it is true that the majority of the time we really don’t have control, at the very least we feel like we do. Or we can pretend that we do. Because that makes us comfortable. Because it’s fucking scary as shit when you realize the truth in one single moment when you have rock-bottom zero control. And I’ve had that happen (ironically it wasn’t when I realized I was just about to be involved in a car accident in which I could see the other car coming at me dead on) and it sucks.

 

It wouldn’t be a matter of just putting it down on paper, either. It would involve a lot of research. A lot of planning and a lot of looking up of information I really don’t want to know.  I think it would exhaust me and maybe even get me a little depressed—another few reasons why I’m not so keen on crafting it. Is it a new concept? No, not really. Has it been done before? The way I would do it, I’m not sure.

 

That’s it, really. I just had these thoughts fluttering around my head and decided to throw them out into the ether of the internet rather than let them swim. I’m sure others can relate, even if it isn’t in regards to a horror story idea. There’s always one or two ideas that we have rattling around in our heads that we either can’t seem to grasp or just don’t really want to put down on paper for one reason or another. Someday, perhaps. Someday.

 

But not today.