truly believe that self-censorship is the death of good horror. i mean i know i’m biased because i am trying to get a fucked up book published, but i feel like so many good ideas are stopped in their tracks because the writers are so afraid of being judged. i mean, hell, i went through the exact same thing writing my book. my dad had to continuously tell me to stop self-censoring and to write from the gut, because i was terrified that other people would hate me or be disgusted by me because of what i wanted to write. i didn’t want to pour myself into the book and then have people read it and realize that i was secretly a bad person. and like, look. i’m not going to pretend that everyone in my life is thrilled about this book, now that I’m talking about it openly. there are people that mean a lot to me who think that writing about incest and sexual assault and gratuitous violence is fucked up. and guess what? we’re still friends. i respect that they’re uncomfortable around those subjects and will probably never read it, they respect that i wrote it and still hope that i find success, and we talk about other shit! at the end of the day, it’s horror fiction. they know my character and trust that I won’t push it on them. and there have been far more people that have been very excited about the book, people that i wouldn’t have expected! self-censoring is almost shooting yourself in the foot— you’re not telling the story you want to tell, you’re telling a watered-down version of it. readers can always tell when someone is really excited to be writing what they’re writing, and when they’re walking on eggshells. get more fucked up! push it to extremes! that’s going to be so much more interesting for both you and your audience. don’t censor yourself before anyone else gets to see it, you’re just doing the critics’ job for them. they think it’s disgusting? oh, you’ll fucking show them disgusting.
