Shame on me.  I promise you a new post and what do I give you?  A shameless plug for my first book, that’s what!    Ah, but it’s out of my system now, I promise.  I know that YOU know about my book, I just chose to put it there for those other visitors who may not!

I was recently asked by why I have chosen horror as my main genre.  There are plenty of other things I could possibly be doing with my talents, so it makes little sense that I have taken to something that only the strong can stomach.

For me, the world of horror is something that I grew up with.  While I have never had the privilege to be around the fascinating world of makeup artists in this genre, and while it’s true that I have not had any filming experience, I HAVE (from an early age) read hundreds or horrific novels.  I have plunged headfirst into the cinema, watching everything from B movies to the more star studded films produced by Hollywood.

I was first introduced to horror by Elvira. My first memories are of sitting in front of the television, while my bastard of a father spent his entire visitation weekends at the bar, and watching either Elvira’s presentations or Friday Fright Night.

My first movie, and I wish I could remember the name of it, was a black and white winner which had a mad scientist bringing life to a tree, via some form of transplant.  I don’t remember much about it, other than the tree monster had a beating heart that glowed in its trunk and it would hide in plain sight.

Of course it did, right?  lol

For several years afterwards, I couldn’t hear the rustling of leaves and not have to resist the urge to run screaming!

So…  Why horror then?  I’m fascinated by it.  Sure, I’ve had my scares over the years.  There have been the trees with beating hearts, giant floating skulls with fires burning in the eye sockets, squid-like monsters which reached up out of the water to peel the flesh from my bones…  And this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  These are just a fraction of the things that have scared me over the years.

These things came to me in dreams, provoked by movies I hadn’t been ready to accept.  At that time, I hadn’t known the intricacies that make up these make believe monstrosities.  These creatures were put together for one purpose, to be someone else’s nightmare.

I began to hunger for the world of the paranormal.  I quested for every kind of monster.  It became an obsession for several years to read as many new books, watch as many new movies and read as many new magazines as I could find.  By new of course, I meant new to me.  But, you already got that, didn’t you?

Sure, I think of things that would give most people nightmares.  I’ve dreamed of things that would put sane people into therapy for years to come!

And I’d love to share them with you.

There’s a misconception about people like me, however.  Those of you who know what I’m talking about will be able to get what I’m saying here…  Yes, it’s true that I find the macabre more interesting than most.  Death fascinates me in its many forms.  Monsters are the delight of my whimsy and the paranormal I could talk about for hours!  Rivers of blood do not phase me.  I can summon demons with words and thrust them deep in the heart of the city to slaughter the innocent with but the flick of one finger.

The misconception lies in that just because I fancy these things, it doesn’t mean that I have embraced the Dark Lord.  Just because my work might depict violent, gruesome deaths and just because I’m not afraid to create something that others might find to be a bit too much, doesn’t make me a follower of old fire & brimstone himself!

On the contrary, I have no strong set of beliefs whatsoever.  I AM a baptized Christian, yes, and my wife and I are raising our children to be Catholics, but I don’t have as strong as a conviction either way. Some part of me does, which is why I mentioned what I did just two lines up, but the majority of me chooses to accept that there are things out there which lurk behind every corner, in every shadow and beneath every bed.

There is often so much flowing through my head that I find it hard to keep track of all of my ideas.  I write most of them down, I’ve used a voice recorder for others, and yet some still slip away.  It’s truly a shame because 1% of the ideas that slip quietly back into the void are the really good ones.  One of these days, I’ll devise a way to catch them buggers…

The truth of the matter is this;  I have come to think of myself as a conduit for the things that I (and a very few others) have a real understanding of.  Am I somehow glancing into alternate universes?  Possibly.  I could also just be that damn creative as well.  That’s also a real possibility.  Whatever the way that you look at it, I’d like to think that I work a lot like Stephen King does.  Or, *ahem*, I work a lot like this quote of his(?) that I found online amidst a plethora of research.  It goes a something like this;

“I don’t take notes; I don’t outline, I don’t do anything like that. I just flail away at the goddamn thing.” ~S.K.~

…and really, that’s all there is to it.  I sit down and open my Word Screen and what comes out is some of the most effed up stuff I ever thought I’d think of.  And I enjoy it twice as much the second time around!

There is only one direction I wish to travel with this and that’s all the way to the top.  But don’t get me wrong here!  This isn’t about some misguided notion that I should be writing according to other’s needs!  I write strictly for myself.  Everything that comes afterwards is for you baby, yeah!

Okay, I admit it.  That last comment was less horror and more horrible.  I do apologize for that.  However, I hope that as you get to know me a little better, you’ll come to see the sick and twisted sense of humor that I have as well.

At least, that’s how I hope it translates!  lol  Or do I?

Whatever the case may be, there is plenty of time ahead of us to find out.  I do so enjoy horror.  I could sit down to a nice order of Hannibal, followed by The Hills Have Eyes with a smidge of The Thing (John Carpenter’s) on the side.  Mmm…  And for desert, I’ll have a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Toast a glass of red wine with Freddy and play a game of Pinball with the creepy old guy in Phantasm.

I hope you are the same way, and, I hope that those of you who aren’t will hang around and get to know me.  I may channel a lot of dark creatures through my fingertips, but I’m really not that bad of a guy!  I don’t bite…unless you ask me to.  And even then, I can’t promise that it’s not infectious.