“I’ve been a horror writer for perhaps three years. The previous dozen years were spent on the relatively bright imaginative life of comic scripts, albeit with a dark edge. I finally feel that I have my niche with the To Assemble the Dead The Lying Coward In The Medulla Oblongata narrative. Your level of productivity has inspired me. So I have to ask, what do you do when the darkness within rises? I know it is in you—it’s all through your fiction and nonfiction. I feel on the verge, the cusp, ready to kick out quality quantity—but, the creeping dread of the Gamma Male crawls up through the halls of doubt to torment me. How do I deal with that?”

-Junger Haas

As horror writers we deal with it through our writing of course. I take it you are referring to when that dark streak in your subconscious rises to sabotage your arts—which is a way to protect your consciousness—which is what the subconscious does, according to Jung—from the rejection or the realization of a fear of failure.

I have dealt with this on various levels.

1. Physical purification—something strenuous to cause pain to the body: fighting, to fatigue it so your mind can unhitch from it a little. I include extreme sleep deprivation, extreme walks, sparring, even doing nasty chores and my job, of course, which is a semi-nasty chore which can be approached at a strenuous level.

2. Do not just write horror. Write in other genres, even if it’s not so good. Don’t force it. Find something you can stomach—even non-fiction—to practice the writing craft without having to wrangle with the darkness that informs your horror fiction every time you put words on the screen.

3. Have sex—not masturbation—but sex, with a woman. This helps you connect with the other half of humanity and puts your writing in better perspective. It also permits you to express. Don’t do it as a solace or pleasure seeking venture, but as an exploration. That will heighten her approval—which is a sense that figures in every writer’s mind strongly—and will help you experience the opposite of what your focus is, which provides contrast. Be warned, that permitting yourself an orgasm before a writing session may hurt that composition effort. Once the woman starts depending on you for this attention you will have to hold back as you take care of her to maintain your energy—the same as boxing.

4. Read off subject when your creative gravity is dragging down your composition. Read about gardening, for instance, then look for the possible horrific angle and that fire might light. Be careful not to start a new project while your drive is lax, but weave such inspirations into the ongoing one to enliven it.

5. Never talk about your story. Do not discuss your plot, characters or any aspect of your story. If you keep talking about it you release the pressure to write. Don’t fall into that trap.

Good luck, Junger. Mescaline says you’ve got something almost ready. I’d love to see it—but let’s say you hold off on giving me a peek until you have a publishable chunk complete.

Below is a phrase by an author that I think best parallels the perspective of the horror writer and what we are trying to escape so that we might see it clearly from a clean vantage, hopefully taking the reader along. It has inspired me, hopefully it will you.

“…on a placid island of ignorance...”

-H.P. Lovecraft