“Women are bitches,” says a young man as he sits down. Apparently a woman at the bar wouldn’t give him her number. He’s talking to the man sitting on his left in spite of the fact that I am sitting two feet to his right and at the same table.
I’ve spent the last couple months in the company of writers, mostly poets, mostly men. I am growing weary. The group I hang with is large and fluid—I’m not naming names, not pointing fingers, I like these people—and yet an issue I cannot ignore has begun to emerge: when it comes to many of the men in the company, mid-thirties and younger, making conversation, even with women present (older, younger, students, professionals, I’m a grandmother for Christ’s sake), the topics frequently revolve around who is sleeping with whom, which female is more fuckable, which poop or dog-cum reference is the funniest, and what is the latest text from “the Korean girlfriend.”
KMA Sullivan’s Women are Bitches, up today on The Rumpus.
“I am a person who clings stubbornly to my ways when it comes to technology, even when there’s no reason for it. I only just got a smartphone this year. I’ve always been more of a desktop than a laptop person, despite the inconvenience of not being able to move my computer around. It took me forever to warm up to the idea of programs like Spotify or Rhapsody, because CDs, and when Hulu first became A Thing, I was pretty sure it would end up being pointless.
So as you might guess, I did not warm quickly to the notion of ereaders. ”
“When I was in college, I had a professor who was big on writing exercises. We did one at the start of each class, and while I admit I was a skeptic at first (“How will describing an apple really help me with this short story??”) I ultimately grew to truly love the boost of energy a writing exercise can give me, especially on days when the words just won’t flow.”
“Do you get that crazy rushed feeling every time you think about writing?”
Our weekly trip around the field of YA, with stops at the most helpful, interesting, and otherwise entertaining news.
” So on Sunday I bought my first iPad, and while I really like my shiny new toy, it served as a harsh reminder of how set in my ways I can be. I keep wanting to reach for a trackpad I knowisn’t even there. This got me thinking about other habits, particularly in writing, that we KNOW are incorrect or repetitive or wrong but we can’t seem to shake.”
I was talking with a very nice woman during the signing, who told me that she was an aspiring writer. We talked a little bit about writing, and the process, and then she asked me what kind of stories I wrote.
“Horror,” I said, to which her face became surprised and maybe even a little bit confused, and that’s when I saw it coming, and only a few seconds too soon:
The question.
The question that so. many. people. will ask you when they find out you write horror.
“But how do horror writers think of such terrible, dark things? You know, like Stephen King? What exactly does that say about him, if you know what I mean? It must take some kind of person to imagine—”
I’ll just stop there because I’m sure you get the drift. The question, for the record, is of course well-meaning. Sometimes it truly baffles people who don’t write horror how or why we come up with our stories, and therefore, the fact that we do must mean that we’re wrong in some deliciously dark, twisted way. That we’re freaks, or weirdos, or (fill in the blank as you see fit.)
The truth of the matter is this: like any genre, horror is not for everybody. The misconceptions about people who love all things scary can run from eye-roll-worthy to flat out offensive, and more than once you may find yourself facing somebody who believes that you must be a sick individual.
— Amy Lukavics | “Writing Horror: Some Inevitable Misconceptions” on YA Highway