Tiny Words
Missme?
It’s beena while since my last blog entry (and newsletter and YouTube video). Aside fromteaching Spring semester classes at my college, I was desperately trying tocatch up on various writing projects. I still have a couple books – onefiction, one nonfiction – and a few short stories I need to finish, but atleast my head’s (slightly) above water again. Plus, the spreading infection of fascismin my country has caused my persistent depressive disorder (also known asdysthymia) to kick into high gear again. So far, I’ve managed to avoid fallinginto a major depression, but I haven’t had the mental energy for anything extra,which meant my blog, newsletter, and video channel went by the wayside. They allfocus on writing, and while I use them as promotional tools for my work, mymain goal is to help writers, just as I’ve been helped by so many over theforty years of my career. I tried to come up with ideas, but none of themappealed to me. Besides, what was the point? In the face of what’s happening inAmerica right now – and how much worse it might get – what good could my essaysand videos about writing do? Once, I was writing while extremelysleep-deprived, and I kept nodding off in front of my computer. During one ofthese times, I heard a voice whisper in my mind. (Don’t worry, this kind ofthing doesn’t happen to me on a regular basis.) It said Your words are tinywords. I was startled awake, and I knew instantly that when the voice said tinyit meant inconsequential and worthless. Words that didn’t have even the mostminimal impact on the world, words which might as well never have been writtenat all.
I didn’ttake the voice seriously. As I always say to writing students when talkingabout self-doubt, “Remember, those voices always lie.” And writers that don’tfind some way to keep going despite their doubts aren’t going to last long inthis game. But over the last few months I’ve been feeling that my words really aretiny, at least compared to the march of totalitarianism in the USA – and I knowI’m not the only one.
Gettingolder isn’t helping, either. I turned sixty-one a couple weeks ago, and awriter friend of mine, Brady Allen, died unexpectedly on my birthday. He wassix years younger than me, taught composition and creative writing at a localuniversity, and was the father of two daughters. He wrote horror fiction, too,among other genres. So we had writing and teaching career in common, as well asboth of us having two daughters and a love of horror fiction.
Here’s alink to Brady’s Amazon page, where you can find out more about him and orderhis short story collection Back Roads and Frontal Lobes: https://tinyurl.com/nhc94hjv
In lateDecember, a good friend from college, Brad Marcum, passed away after a longbattle with early onset dementia, and another college friend, Paul Custodio,also died recently. At the first Stokercon in Las Vegas in 2016, I was talkingwith author William F. Nolan at dinner one evening. Bill was in his nineties,and he said, “The hard thing about living so long is everyone I grew up with isgone.” Bill died in 2021. Dennis Etchison (one of my favorite authors of alltime) was with us at that dinner, and he died in 2019.
Here's anews article about Brad: https://www.news-expressky.com/sports/remembering-brad-marcum/article_ef0dd644-c93c-11ef-a8f6-ffbc02d5776d.html
Here’s alink to Paul Custodio’s LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcustodio/
Here are linksto Bill’s and Dennis’ Wikipedia pages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Nolan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Etchison
Given allof this, it’s only natural for someone (aka me) to wonder what the point of itall is. And by it, I don’t mean life. My first close relative died whenI was nine, and I almost drowned the same year. I’ve had fifty-two years tocome to terms with the reality that our lives are finite. I mean the point of awriting career. In the face of all the darkness in the world, all of our wordscan seem pretty goddamned tiny. But our words matter, especially during darktimes.
So ifyou’re having trouble seeing the point of your writing, consider the following.
It’sOkay Not to Write
Writersoften feel guilty when they aren’t producing words. If you write to make aliving, there’s very real financial pressure to produce, of course, but most ofus probably have day jobs (I do), and our writing has little to no financialimpact on our overall income. And if it does, we can most likely get by withoutthat money. At this point in my career, I make decent money from my writing,enough to live on if I lived extremely modestly, but writing money ebbsand flows, so it can’t be relied on. Plus, I like teaching (even if I amlooking forward to retiring in a few years). But if I become overburdenedemotionally, I know it’s okay to take a break from writing (or slow down myrate of production), and I’d do my best not to feel guilty or surrender toself-loathing and begin thinking of myself as a failure. One of the things Ilearned when I became a parent was that if I don’t take care of myself, I can’ttake care of others. It’s like what flight attendants tell you about the oxygenmasks. Put yours on before you try to help anyone put on theirs – because ifyou pass out, you can’t help anyone.
Your WritingKeeps You Sane
I need towrite like I need to breathe. Both my ex-wife and my current wife have told methat if I go several days without writing, I start to get moody, then cranky,then depressed. Writing is as important to my mental and physical health asexercise, good nutrition, and sleep. (Not that I get enough of those latterthree…) There’s an infinite number of things that I can’t control in thisuniverse, but I can control whether I write, and sometimes having even a smallthing in your life that you can control can help you make it through bad times.Creation, however modest it may be, is a positive thing. You’ve broughtsomething new into being and – whether you take this next bit literally or asmetaphor, it still works – you’ve added to the sum total of Light in theuniverse. Plus, just as reading allows people to escape their troubles for atime, so does writing help us escape ours.
YourWriting Helps Others Cope
Storiesare refuges for both those who make them and those who read them. Forty or soyears ago, my mom was scheduled to undergo surgery, and while my dad wasn’t thekind of man to display much emotion, I knew he was worried about her. The nightbefore mom’s procedure, Dad and I went to a small local bookstore. Theunwritten rule in my family was that anyone who bought a book got to be thefirst to read it. I can’t remember which book Dad bought, but I bought thefourth book in Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, Centaur Aisle. I’d had noidea there was a fourth book, so as a fan of Xanth, I was very excited to findit. As we paid for our books, Dad saw Centaur Aisle, and he asked if hecould read it first. I was shocked, since this Simply Was Not Done in myfamily. Then I realized Dad wanted to read the book because he needed a silly,imaginative adventure to occupy his mind while Mom was undergoing surgery. Ofcourse, I said yes. I understood that day that popular fiction could be muchmore than simple entertainment. It can be a lifeline for people in so manyways. I did something similar several years later when my first wife was in thehospital with complications for several days before our daughter was born. Iread the first few books in Jennifer Roberson’s Tiger and Del series to help mecope then. (I highly recommend those books).
Yourwriting can do the same for people. A Stephen King or Nora Roberts’ novel mighthelp millions cope, while a short story you publish in a small-press journalmight help only a few people. How many people we reach doesn’t matter. Helpingone is as good as helping many. The point is simply to help on whatever scalewe can, whenever we can.
Your WritingShows People They Aren’t Alone
Iexperienced a very dramatic example of this at the 2024 Stokercon inPittsburgh. I was scheduled to do a reading with two other authors. The ideabehind readings like this is that a more-experienced writer serves as a draw tobring in a larger audience for newer writers. Having done these kinds ofreadings many times, I know that while the authors should split the hourequally, newer writers almost always take up too much time. For this reason, Ialways go last, and I bring several pieces of flash fiction to read. That way,I can fill up whatever time I have left to me without stopping in the middle ofa story. Before I left for the con, I printed out several pieces of flashfiction, more or less at random, to read. It’s not standard practice, but Ilike to read a piece that I’ve never read in public before whenever I do areading, so one of the stories I chose was called “Faithful Friend andCompanion.” It had appeared in the late lamented Vastarian, and it was ashort, surreal story in which I processed the death of one of my beloveddachshunds. He was only seven years old when we had to put him down, and doingso devastated me.
So whenmy time came, I read “Faithful Friend and Companion” to a group of aroundfifteen people. Like an idiot, it neveroccurred to me that I should preface my reading with a content warning. One ofthe people in the audience had recently put down her dog, and the trauma wasstill very fresh for her. When I was finished, people clapped, and several saidhow impactful they found the story. Then the woman who’d just lost her dog toldus what she’d gone through not long ago, and I was filled with horror atunknowingly re-traumatizing her. She said if I’d given a content warning, shewould’ve left the room, and she didn’t realize where the story was going untilit was almost over (flash fiction, remember?) and she hadn’t felt comfortableleaving at that point. I apologized to her, but she said that while the storywas painful to listen to, it was a good experience. She said she could tellfrom the story that I had gone through the same thing – and I admitted I had –and then she said, “It helps to know that I’m not alone.” Anyone could tellsomeone else about having to put their dog to sleep, but as a writer, you canmake someone feel that you experienced the same emotions as they did.That creates a deep, powerful connection.
YourWriting is Your Voice
There aregood reasons dictators fear writers and other artists. One is what I talkedabout in the previous paragraph. Using our voice as artists, we can make deepconnections to our audience through our work – connections that are out of adictator’s control. What’s more, our audience can connect to each other throughour work. We can speak directly or in metaphor and symbol. We can engender andstrengthen empathy. We can help people imagine possibilities, conceive of abetter world, believe they can become their best selves. Art is one of the mostpowerful forces humans have ever created, a weapon that ultimately cannot bestopped as long as our species endures. It absolutely terrifies thosewho, as XTC sings in the “Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead,” “would keep us on ourknees.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYupSHWEJxA
Maybe youdon’t feel your voice is loud enough on its own to do any good. But think aboutDr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who. The Whos were microscopically small, butwhen they combined every last one of their voices – their tiny voices –they were finally able to make themselves heard in the larger world. Horton’sline that he repeats throughout the story, “A person’s a person, no matter howsmall,” could just as easily have been “A voice is a voice, no matter howsmall.”
And eachand every one of them is important.
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
JustAdd Writer
My latesthow-to book is all about writing media tie-ins. It comes out from Raw DogScreaming Press in May 2025, and it’s available for preorder at the Raw Dogsite – and you get a discount if you preorder! How great is that? And ifyou’re a reviewer, the book is also available to request from NetGalley.
https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/just-add-writer/
Andspeaking of tie-ins…
TheX-Trilogy is Complete
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With therelease of MaXXXine in February, all three novelizations of Ti West’sX-Trilogy are out! The best place to buy the books is on the A24 Publishingwebsite, where you can purchase them individually or in a bundle.
Preorder,by Crom!
My novel Conan:Spawn of the Serpent God will be out in October 2025, but you can preorderit now! And you’d best be quick about it if you don’t want to make a certain Cimmerianangry.
https://titanbooks.com/72365-conan-spawn-of-the-serpent-god/
ScheduledAppearances
AuthorconV. March 28th to March 30th. Williamsburg, Virginia.
StokerCon.June 12th to June 15th. Stamford, Connecticut. I’m one of the guests of honor!
Signingat Vortex Books. June 26th, 5-7pm. Columbia, Pennsylvania.
Horror onMain. June 27th to June 29th. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
GenconWriters’ Symposium. July 31st to August 3rd. Indianapolis, Indiana.
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