And then there’s the variety of sub-genres: quiet, supernatural, psychological—on and on.  Always something different to try.   Maybe even let a little science fiction creep in around the edges.  I like to vary my style and sub-genre depending on the individual story.  Richard Matheson is especially adept at this style-shifting.  Read a short story collection of his and you’ll be amazed at the range of different experiences he’ll give you.

    It’s fascinating to see what different authors have done with all this flexibility and freedom.  Stephen King, of course, excels in taking ordinary people, putting them in some extraordinary situation and showing them coping with the adversary.  Clive Barker has the most amazing spatial imagination.  He creates entire morphing environments for the reader to visualize.  Dean Koontz demonstrates quite a range.  His work varies from police procedural to techno-horror to psychological horror.  Kathe Koja’s work is poetic, lyrical.  Not what you’d expect in horror storylines.

    Ever see that Twilight Zone episode, “Time Enough at Last”?  The one where Burgess Meredith, due to some nuclear disaster, ends up the last man on earth.  And he finds pure joy in the heaps of books in a wrecked library.  Time enough at last to read all he wants.  (Well, until his glasses break, anyway.)  That would be me.  Happiness is piles and piles of wonderful fiction to read!

    I’ve written tons of technical material in my career as an Information Technology consultant.  And I placed 37^th in the 1999 Writers’ Digest competition in the Personal Essay category.  With thousands of entries, I figured that was a pretty good accomplishment.  Then I helped edit a textbook on mutual funds. 

    In 2001, after a couple of false starts at fiction writing, I got serious and decided horror was the path for me.  Since then I’ve been working hard at honing and expanding my skills.  I still remember my first acceptance letter.  I had to read it several times before it sunk in.  It’s now framed on my nightstand—which is a mini-bookshelf, holding my reading pile. 

    Where do I get ideas?  Pretty much everywhere.  A fragment of overheard conversation, the look of a building, bits of dreams, nuggets from my overactive imagination.  Just about anything can form a seed.  The trick is taking that seed and coming up with solid characters and a plot to create a story that transports the reader.

    You know those books that you open, read a couple of pages, and realize right off your life isn’t your own until you get to the end?  The kind where the plot has you by the throat, you’re sweating right along with the protagonist, you’re dragged along helpless on a wild ride of well-paced suspense and action.  And you just can’t turn out that bedside light.  And you think, “What if something like that could happen?”

    That’s my goal.  To write stories like that.

     Thank you for reading!

  Lisa

Bibliography

"Vacancy" - The Edge, Tales of Suspense #15 (Jan 2003)

"Gift Horse" - Horrorfind (Feb - June 2003)

“Hunting with the Boys” – The Swamp (July 2003)  

"The Performance" - Alien Skin (November 2003)

"Chain Reaction" - Alien Skin (December 2003)

"Riptide" - Gothic.net (Jan -Mar 2004)

“Diversions” – Dark Animus #6 (May 2004)

"Lost and Found" - Naked Snake Online (June 2004)

"Resolve" - Twilight Times (Summer 2004)

"The Scalpel's Path" - Twilight Times (Oct 2004)

"Unintended Consequences" - Dark Krypt (Jan/Feb 2005) 

"Halcyon House" - Dark Krypt (July/Aug 2005)

"Waiting" - Flashquake (Fall 2005)

"Dodge and Burn" - Whispering Spirits #11 (Aug-Sept 2005)

"Exodus Hotel" - Dark Recesses Press #2 (Jan-Mar 2006)

"Final Approach" - Dark Recesses Press #4 (Jul 2006)

Coming Up in the Near Future

"Covet with Care" - Dark Krypt (Sept/Oct 2006)