Too scared to write...

No, not of failure, or of the story dying my head.I can't write today because I'm too scared of the hellhounds. And the demon corpses. And the little wooden figurines that are apparently possessed in that spare room.

In other words, once I calm down enough to explain exactly what I'm talking about, I'm scared because I am currently reading a fucking fantastic horror novel.It's called "Serenity Falls" by James A. Moore. I guess it was originally published as one enormous book, but now it's been divided into three parts. I'm in the middle of the second, "The Pack" and I feel perfectly OK about admitting that I am really, really creeped out by it.

One of the cover blurbs-several of the blurbs, in fact-mentions Stephen King's early work. I would agree with this, but I think it's scarier (except for parts of "It" that really were terrifying-this book is on a par with them.) And with less reliance on old song lyrics.

I love horror novels, but it's rare to find some that are truly scary. Too often I'm disappointed. Anyone else notice this? How hard it is to find a really good scary story?

When we were looking for an apartment we looked at one inhabited by a lovely couple. The wife was a horror writer. She mentioned something about how she had always secretly wanted to write literary fiction, and I said, "THat's funny. I've always wanted to write horror."Which is true. I'd love to be able to write horror.

What I'd really love to write is genuinely scary horror with some good sexy romantic scenes in there too, but I don't know that anyone would buy that.One of these days...sigh.

Anyway, go buy Serenity Falls. There's three books-Writ in Blood, The Pack, and Dark Carnival. I'd love to hear your thoughts.