So, I outlined a horror novel and started writing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I wrote my first five horror novels while I was teaching.
I spent years only ever reading horror and then trying to write horror - and deep down, a horror writer is still what I'd love to be. But it wasn't until I started writing crime that things began to work for me.
Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel.
Many of my short stories (all unpublished) were horror, and the novel I'd just finished was horror, too.
Although I've said a million times that I'm not a horror writer, I do like horror.
I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction.
I don't write that much horror. People tell me my books are scary, but they're not really; I don't go there.
I hate violence, and I didn't plan to write horror; it just poured out of me.
What I see as the particularly exciting prospect for writing horror fiction as we go forward is setting stories in more internal landscapes than external ones, mapping out the mind as the home for scary things instead of the house at the end of the lane or lakeside campground or abandoned amusement park.
I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror.