Growing up in a small Texas town in the 60’s and 70’s, I experienced that idyllic childhood that older folks remember, and younger folks doubt ever really existed. Well, it did exist, folks. I was lucky enough to live it. I could go out and play all day with my friends, ride our bikes – Stingray bikes with the banana seats! – all over town and its outskirts, and only show up at home around noontime for lunch, and then around six or seven when it started getting dark. When it was dark enough for the street lights to come on, it was time for me to get home.

I was not particularly athletic as a kid. I rode my bike with my childhood pals, and of course I played football. Not because I wanted to, but because it was expected of me. You see, I was born in a state where football is considered a religion, stadiums are cathedrals, Pro players are Gods, and the worship starts at a young age. So I knew the object of the game, basic routes, how to pass, how to catch.

But I did receive multiple benefits from participating in team sports. I learned to follow directions. Do what I was told to do. I learned teamwork, sportsmanship. And I learned how to exercise, how to stay in shape. This was particularly beneficial because my natural tendencies were to be sedentary and chubby.

While not what one might call a “gifted” or a “natural” athlete, I excelled in academics. I do not know why. English, History, even mathematics. It all just came easy to me. Sure I had to work at it, concentrate (“Pay attention, young man!”), do my homework and study (somewhat), but school work simply did not faze me the way it did some of my classmates. All I had to do was read it once or twice, do it once or twice, and I had it well enough to pass the exams with flying colors and actually retain some of it.

The point to all this? When I was in fourth grade, Miss Richards gave us an English assignment. Over the weekend, we had to write a short story at least three pages long, and on Monday, we would read our stories to the rest of the class. The story could be about anything we wanted. Wow. An entire weekend to come up with three measly pages?  No problem, I thought. After all, a weekend is a long time, right? Three whole days!

So what did I do? I rode my bike home as soon as school let out, unlocked the door, dashed down the hallway to my room, tossed my books across the bed, and dove for the TV set. WFAA-TV Dallas/Ft. Worth had monster movies on Friday afternoon! That particular Friday? Why, a Godzilla movie, of course! What else would they be broadcasting on a Friday afternoon, right?

So, Saturday comes and goes, and now it’s Sunday and we’re home from church. After lunch, I have to sit down and do my homework before I can go out to play. No problem. The only thing I need to do is bang out the aforementioned short story, right? So I sit down with a pencil and paper because we were taught to write rough drafts in pencil so we could erase stuff we misspelled, got wrong, or decided later we didn’t like. Then we wrote the “smooth draft”, the one turned in for a grade, in ink.

So what did I do?

I completely plagiarized the Godzilla movie I had seen Friday afternoon. Of course, I did not understand anything about plagiarism or copyright laws or trademark infringement in fourth grade. I just wrote a cool little story about Godzilla attacking Tokyo for reasons unknown (because they were unknown and unimportant to the author!), and then getting promptly killed somewhere on page three when a building fell on him after he hit it with his radioactive fire breath. Hey, it ate up three pages and got me an “A” for the assignment, all right?

But it did something else, too. Something far more important. It got me praise both at school and at home, that particular combination being a Holy Grail of sorts; and it got the creative juices flowing in that 10-year old kid. If I could write and score with a completely derivative three-page Godzilla story that I just churned out like literary butter (okay, margarine!), what would I be capable of accomplishing when I really sat down and put my mind to it?

I wasn’t sure. At 10 years old, you’re not sure about many things.

But I was sure  of one thing: I was going to apply myself and see where it might lead.

“Why do you write all that horror stuff?”.

I’ve gotten this question thrust upon me from family, friends, and acquaintances for as long as I can remember. The underlying implication is that there must be something wrong with me, that I must be a latent psychopath or something even more nefarious, in order to choose expressing myself through such dark material. After all, I was that weird kid, right?

In my mind, my strangeness as a child notwithstanding, nothing could be further from the truth.

Other authors write gritty mysteries, crime novels, and stories about hardboiled detectives, conniving criminals, demented killers, rapists, and of course, seductive femme fatales. It does not mean they themselves have any underlying wish to murder, steal, or cheat for the insurance money. When screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan wrote the script for BODY HEAT, I doubt if we was thinking about killing anyone as part of an insurance fraud.

An actor may play a rapist, a pedophile, or a serial killer. That does not mean that actor is inclined himself towards any of these depraved and heinous acts in real life.

All it means is these artists have done their research, have gotten their own thoughts together, decided on an approach to their subject matter, and then applied their own creative abilities to their art.

Writing is my art. My channel happens to be horror, or something in a similar vein. I have written screenplays in the thriller and film noir genres (as yet unproduced). I’ve even written an action thriller (also as yet unproduced). But sooner or later after taking a literary exit off the highway for a quick pit stop, I always come back to the fast lane of horror.

Growing up in rural Texas in the 1960’s and 70’s, watching on a 12-inch black and white TV in my room, old movies were my main source of entertainment when I was not doing homework or out playing with childhood friends. I grew up watching the old Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney movies of the 30’s and 40’s.  A TV station out of Dallas, WFAA-TV, played a movie every day from 3:30 to 5:00pm during the week. Fridays was horror or sci-fi day. So I would dash home from school on my bicycle, unlock the door, rush into my room and dive for the TV while simultaneously tossing my schoolbooks onto my bed. What a way to end the week! These classics never failed to entertain me, even after I had seen them a dozen times. When you’re a kid, repetition is a good thing.

By the time I was maybe 10 or 11, the old Hammer films with stars like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, made their way to American television, though relegated to the Late Late Show. They usually came on at 11:00 or 11:30pm on a Friday or Saturday night. My biggest problem was staying awake.

My older brother, who had been blessed with more sophisticated tastes than I (a situation that perpetuates until this day, I might add), did me a solid by turning me on to the “Big Bug” science fiction movies of the 50’s — movies like THEM, TARANTULA, THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, GODZILLA (the 1956 American one with Raymond Burr). Notice these movies, while technically science fiction, all have strong horror elements infused into their stories. This blend of sci-fi with horror elements continues to this day with movies like ALIEN, PREDATOR, and all their sequels and imitations.

This was the content that shaped my young mind. With the suspense, the buildup, the spooky mansions and creepy music, my heart raced as the hero or heroine (who always seemed to wear a gossamer, low-cut gown!) was always just two steps away from the lurking monster, or just one door opening away from certain death at the hands of some frightful fiend. That emotional roller coaster I felt as a kid is something I continued to crave as an adolescent, and on into adulthood. I’m still looking to replicate now as a middle-aged man. And I want to create that same emotional response in my audience.

Notice I said, emotional response. Because horror is more than just a genre; it is emotion at its most primal.

Good horror cannot be constrained by the normal limitations of genre. When executed well, horror transcends, breaks through boundaries, crashes through walls, and communicates profound thoughts, philosophies, or ruminations on life, death, loss, and love. It grips us by the throat. It makes our breath catch. It delves into the psychology of universal human fears. And it examines the darkest impulses we humans have, especially the ones we don’t want to admit (to ourselves or to others) we have. And while such examination may be cause for some to cringe, it is essential to accepting who we are as human beings, warts and all. Hey, someone has to do it.

And that is why I write horror.

Any blogger or writer writing a blog (I fall into the latter category) must answer this fundamental question before word one is ever committed to the page and shared with the world:

Why do it?

Why put in the time, effort and concentration on top of all your other creative, business, and personal commitments and various other drains on your time, attention, and energy? The answer is simple:

PASSION.

Some people blog to share views with the world regarding politics, religion, social issues, or to talk about family, friends, children, grandchildren, etc. Some do it with the written word or photographs. Others do it with video entries. Some do it for free. Some do it for money. I do not think that monetizing one’s blog automatically decreases the validity of the content. People and organizations have built their followings to such a degree they have been able to find ways to monetize their efforts so they can expand and continue on (and good for them). Still others (like me) begin doing it for a variety of reasons. I cannot speak to the motivations of others, but I can speak to mine.

I am passionate about writing — both the creative and the business aspects of it. Naturally, I want to create quality “creative content” (I call it “art”), but I also like to eat and have a roof over my head. So the business end of things (read, “financial”) also keenly interest me. I do not equate selling my art for money with selling out. I consider it an opportunity that few writers are fortunate enough to achieve. It’s an opportunity for some financial security, and for the freedom to continue spending the majority of my time in the life I have left creating more art.

Since 1995, I have concentrated most of my creative efforts into learning the craft of film and television screenwriting. This is a unique craft with its own set of writing and formatting rules that are separate and distinct from any other writing form — with the possible exception of comic books and graphic novels. I have had a moderate amount of success, with two feature films having been produced for the low budget direct to video market from scripts I wrote.

Since 2014, I have gone back to my writing roots in novels and short stories. I do it sort of like a hobby, a literary glass of wine to cleanse my creative palette in between screenwriting project main courses. More on those efforts in future blogs.

Ultimately, as my blog site’s title suggests, this is about this horrorwriter’s life. Who I am, what events made me the way I am, why I write in primarily the horror genre and in related dark genres, my ups and down both personally and professionally. This blog and this site is designed to give you insight into one writer’s process, motivation, predispositions, opinions, loves, successes, failures, and lessons learned.

And in the end, isn’t that what life is really all about?