Where is The Monster Hiding?

I’ve been at the writing thing for several years now. I started a blog when my children were very little. A nonfiction thing, musings about motherhood and midlife. Then, when I reunited with my love of horror, I switched gears. I was drawn, not only to read and watch horror, but to write it myself. Diving deep into the horror genre has it’s plusses and minuses.

On the one hand, how wonderful to find your passion, to immerse yourself in that which you love! On the other, people who have known you all of your life, people who think they have you figured out, will question this choice well, because it’s horror. If you went into writing in any other categorization, with the exception of perhaps erotica, there would be no questions asked. You would be lauded and congratulated. To be frank, the average person will think you mad or demented when you fly your horror flag.

Since it is a love and a passion not necessarily a money maker at this point, you may need to keep your day job and/or seek other means of employment. So, you begin to look at your resume, try to remember what you did in another life before swimming in the deep end of the dark pool with the fellow lovers of the spooky. As a person with a dance background with both my bachelor’s and my master’s degrees in this field, I was never destined to make money. I have much joie de vivre, but my pockets are empty. I went on to pursue continuing education in early childhood development so I could teach preschool and keep my lights on. That was another life…but here I am revisiting the past and assessing my skills. Yes, I have participated in yoga teacher training, meditation certification, and reiki certification as well. Again, much passion but as a means of support, I couldn’t make it happen.

This brings me to the actual meat of this month’s blog: How do you work in completely unrelated fields, conservative fields even, and continue to write horror and I will add, you also live in the Bible Belt? With a lot of jobs, they want you to suit up and show up and don’t really care what you do in your down time. However, in some lines of work, they will look at what you do during after hours, and they will question and judge. How do you do both? Really. I’m asking more so than giving answers.

In Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, he has this to say about artists and fundamentalists:

“Who am I and why am I here? These are not easy questions. We’re wired tribally to act as part of a group. The artist is grounded in freedom. Fundamentalism is the philosophy of the powerless, the conquered. The fundamentalist cannot stand freedom. He cannot find his way to the future, so he retreats to the past. When fundamentalism wins, the world enters a dark age.

The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern them.”

Whoa. Read that again if you need to. I know I need to read that passage more than once. When your skills seem to be at odds with each other, are you really judging yourself? Pieces of me, hidden in plain sight. Am I the monster? Like in any folk horror film or book, where does evil lie? Is it in the strangers moving to a remote village in search of a fresh start like in Thomas Tryon’s Harvest Home or does it reside in the fabric of the community, in the seemingly innocuous townsfolk? In movies like The Wicker Man or in the recent The Lord of Misrule, you will find this well-loved folk horror trope as well. I have to ask myself, are the others measuring me and finding me lacking, or is it me? Who is hiding?

Once there was this thing floating around Facebook something to the effect of characters or people with whom you identify. I thought and thought and came up with this: Ann Margaret’s Kelly in The Swinger, Sally Ann Howes’ Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Lily Rabe’s Misty Day in American Horror Story: Coven, and Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I should probably throw in some vintage fashion-loving movie character too but that requires more mulling. I am all of those things. And that’s ok, isn’t it?

Have I taken a deep dive or am I really only in the shallow end or even standing on the shore of the sea, afraid to go in the water? If I really went all in, would my passion be enough to keep me from drowning? It is fear, yes? On many levels. Fear of lack. Fear of failure. Fear of not being accepted. What do you do? Really. I’m asking. And, I’ll leave you with that, a question, because maybe you’re asking yourself the same thing.

Book recommendation

The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield

My guilty pleasure

Fashion. You wouldn’t know it to look at me most days but when I put on the dog, I go all in. I don’t stick to a particular era or style, but I do like a theme. Whether it’s sleek contemporary or funky retro, I love it all. And purses. I love a good vintage purse. Like Jess said in New Girl, “I love purses. And that doesn't mean I'm not a feminist, either. I'm a damn feminist who loves purses. Where else am I supposed to keep my feminist writings? In a purse, that's where.”

Batty forever,

Greta