One of the few things I think people are really surprised about is, even though I am quite twitchy and jumpy about other stuff, one of the few things I really love is horror.
I write Horror (as Sabrann Curach, for the flat-out horror stuff at least, though a lot of my books have some sort of dystopian or otherwise ‘horror’ ish element, apparently), I read horror (favourite authors? Shaun Allan, Stephen King, Dean R Koontz, Adam Baker to name a few).
One of the few things I think people are really surprised about is, even though I am quite twitchy and jumpy about other stuff, one of the few things I really love is horror.
I write Horror (as Sabrann Curach, for the flat-out horror stuff at least, though a lot of my books have some sort of dystopian or otherwise ‘horror’ ish element, apparently), I read horror (favourite authors? Shaun Allan, Stephen King, Dean R Koontz, Adam Baker to name a few), and a lot of the games I play are horror based. I love Resident Evil, and Diablo, and I’ve recently gotten into a style of game called ‘Observation horror’. One of the games (literally called Observation) is so creepy.
Why I love horror
Personally, I’ve always found the things that I’ve been scared of a little compelling. I like exploring horror movies in the safest ways, I love horror TV shows and tie-ins (like Lovecraft Country, Supernatural, The Boys and more), and I like all things zombie, funnily enough. I always have, though.
The first horror book I read, the Magic Cottage, was when I was 13. From there, I’ve always been keen to get the latest King. And when I started as an indie author, I discovered some great writers – John Dow, Adam Baker, and Shaun Allan, all of them great horror writers.
One of the major things I noticed, though, was that I was writing closer and closer to the stuff that was actually happening – not the true dystopian zombie stuff, but one of my books (I’ll be talking about it on my blog later today, as we’ve got a release date for it now), Hotel Oblivion, was so close to the things that happened in the time leading up to getting it edited, (even though the stuff we touched on was backstory, and honestly, mostly guessable, given I did it), so I stopped writing dystopia. I have three half-finished books in the Prayer for the Dammed trilogy, but I am also writing some space-based horror myself.
At the end of the day, watching and reading horror and playing games is a little relief. I don’t know if it’s good for me, but horror is one of those things that lets me have a reason to be scared but resolves at the end of it too. Not like real life, I guess, not really, but…good enough to enjoy occasionally.
How about you? What horror do you like? Do you even like horror?
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
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