Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Scary stuff, those genres...

As part of being human, we want safety. We are afraid to step out of the commonplace where we are used to live, where we feel comfortable.

Safety, however, is a paradox. How can we feel safe if we don’t dare to venture outside of what is customary?

The best ideas are scary. Once we experience the scary, we find that all is safe.

I am uttering all this gobbledygook, not because I am not thinking about the Amazonian jungle or the African Savanna, but I am talking about writing, and I am talking about psyching myself about it.

Before I came to WdC, my writing had been straight-laced nonfiction, mostly research work, with the exception of a novel attempt in 1985 in a novel-writing course and very few poetry and short fiction pieces here and there. Truth is, I have always loved fiction and read non-stop. When I finally got around to writing "the fun stuff" though, most of my work turned into general fiction, with little or none of that occult/horror/sci-fi material.

For example, all three of my NaNo novels mimic real life, and they all feel like they lack something. Except the last one, in which I sprayed a bit of ghost/occult thing. Of the three rush jobs, it is my favorite. For sure, it needs re-thinking and rewriting, to which I am not easily going to succumb.

The good thing is, if it is a good thing , I have been reconsidering. I may try the genres in longer works maybe little by little at first. It may be late but what the heck. I write for the fun of it in the first place. Why not try something far out? Who knows, I may enjoy it.