Scribbles & Munch

      I'm not into horror as a genre. Regardless of the media, horror is not - and never has been - my thing. So how is it that the novel I'm trying to publish is a ghost story, and the trilogy I'm currently writing circulates around zombies? Um...all I can say is that the Muse is one weird figment of my imagination.
     The reason I don't read/watch/play horror is simple: I'm a wimp. My imagination is the strongest muscle in my body, and like a toddler who just figured out how to get into the candy cupboard, it likes to take things and run with them. (Sorry for the mixed metaphors there, but that sentence is actually a pretty great example of what I'm talking about.) Most people can watch a movie about evil dolls coming to life and enjoy a good scare, laugh at the absurdity, and then bring it up over beers with friends for years to come. I, on the other hand, would watch said movie, and then for the rest of my life periodically wake up at night to use the bathroom, suddenly remember a scene from said movie for no good reason, and them proceed to be freaked out by every small noise, strange shadow, or temperature fluctuation in the room for another three hours--even though there are no dolls in my home. So I have learned to cut out all horror from my entertainment diet, with the sole exception of Resident Evil video games. ONLY the video games. The movies are not cannon. My marriage depends on this.
      When I was in California last weekend with my brother, the subject of horror came up, and he reminded me that he doesn't go for it, either. Nor did our parents. Which made me ponder whether there might be a nature or nurture component to this. I don't know a lot of horror fans who watched their first truly scary movies with their parents, but maybe family movie night eased them into it? Or maybe there is something genetic going on. Maybe my family lacks the "horror fan" genes. I'll have to talk to my extended family and ponder this more. Do you like horror? Does anyone else in your family? Do you remember how you first got into the genre?
      Of course, just because I avoid scary fiction doesn't mean I don't get scared: real life offers plenty of frightening things. This whole subject was simmering in my head today because of this story about ebola I heard on NPR this morning. I dare you to listen to this and not get at least a tiny chill up your spine. You don't have to work hard to make Ebola scary: it has a high mortality rate, presents appalling symptoms, spreads fast, and you can catch from both living and dead victims. That's about as terrifying as it gets. But this NPR report sounds like a scene from a horror story: a government hospital; cement block buildings with rusty metal doors; doctors and nurses falling ill and dying; a corpse just visible in the next room, lying neglected for days because people are too scared to go in. THAT, my friends, is classic horror material--and it's 100% real.
      And yet, I'm really not scared of catching Ebola. I think I can read about it and get my chills and thrills* and feel safe. This is the way I imagine most people feel when indulging in horror fiction. I am confident that even if there were an Ebola outbreak in my country - even in my neighborhood - I know enough about the disease to avoid contracting it. Like HIV and Hepatitis, as long as I follow the correct precautions, I'm in the clear. Although anyone who knows me can tell you that this does NOT apply to Lyme disease.

A male Blacklegged tick. I will take enraged zombies over one of these guys any day.

Or West Nile Virus.

Why are people afraid of bats? Bats EAT these bastards! I say more bats, MORE!

      Or essentially any disease that I can catch by being bitten by an insect that does not live in the Pacific Northwest, where I grew up. The idea that I could go enjoy a lovely summer hike and emerge with an insect bite (or, in the case of ticks, an insect still biting me) as the only evidence that I have now been infecting with a deadly and/or potentially life-long disease is appalling. Lyme disease is appalling. It's a bacterium known as a spirochete. If you're looking at that word and thinking, "That sounds like a cross between 'spiral' and 'machete,'" that's because IT BASICALLY IS! It's a cork-screw shaped bacteria that burrows into your muscles like a microscopic machete, and hides from antibiotics for freakin' EVER! That's scary as hell!
      Which brings us back to zombies, a horror standard with its root in infection, whether germ- or supernatural-caused. There's plenty of speculation that the western, flesh-eating, appetite-driven zombie has its origins in rabies (another scary-as-hell real-life disease). So why would I want to write about them? Why would my Muse even bother buying a packet of those seeds, much less plant them in my head? In this case, the answer actually comes down to ego--the same ego that I suspect every writer has, whether blatantly or secretly. I look at the plethora of zombie stories out there - the slow ones, the fast ones, the brain-dead one, the "romantic" ones - and I think to myself: You know what? I can do better than that.
      And if I can ever get the bloody thing finished, I really think I can.



*And feel like a $#!% for donating to a cat shelter last Christmas instead of the Red Cross. Although now that I think about it, the fact that I donated to any charity in my current financial state is pretty impressive, so maybe I shouldn't beat myself up.