A List of Obsessions

June 12, 2024

I've just finished a read-through and outline of Monsters 2, which hopefully means this draft is a little better. I am NOT ready to read through it again -- at this point it would be like trying to perform an autopsy on a putrefying corpse.I also made some art for the book, because apparently I like waxing the cat. This is Vaira in the void, wearing a crown of monster teeth.

I'm going to let Monsters 2 rest for a while and then do what Raine Wilson just did with her current novel WiP which is to read it as an ebook and make notes. I have never actually done this before but I can see it being very useful as it forces you to look at the book in a new way.

I was feeling a little meh about what to do next -- for reasons I'm not feeling the current monthly prompt, so instead I started Paul Jessup's class on Pushing Your Imagination. I haven't got far , but I'm enjoying it, and Paul is just such a lovely human to listen to talk about writing.

One of the things he talked about is writing a list of obsessions, which long-time readers may remember me doing before. It's been ages, so I decided to start a new one from scratch (although, lbh, there are some recurring vibes hahaha)

The current list reads: (and there will be few if any surprises here)

  • Shapeshifting/slipping skins

  • Wild things, feral monsters

  • Gothic as in 80s goths

  • Seaside towns in off-season

  • Queerity

  • Beautiful tragic heroes (male and female and inbetween)

  • Fluidity

  • The edge of body horror

  • Sexuality in a lush, rampant way

  • Creeping dread

  • Mythology woven through the everyday

  • Gods of small things

  • Houses that are bigger on the inside

  • Layers of time

  • Drugs and drugs and more drugs

  • Rituals

  • Closed-off communities, especially ones that are religious/ritualistic

  • Gardens of statues

  • Grey dogs appearing meaningfully

  • Little creatures as familiars - especially winged cats

  • Comedy of manners

  • Dreaming becoming real

  • The fracturing of what is real and what is not - seeping into each other

  • Fallen angels as feral creatures

  • Sea gods

  • Bones of long-dead monsters

  • Town names that are both familiar and not, like you’ve side-stepped into a world adjacent to this one

  • Antiques and strange finds in charity shops

  • Woods in the misting rain

  • Lost turns leading you to different times

  • Carnivorous plants

  • Remnants of fairy tales that exist alongside the now

So, yeah. It ended up with me starting a new short story, so we'll see how that goes :D

Hopefully this time I can keep it to a length I can actually sell, rather than a +- 14 000 word novelette that I can now do nothing with.   side-eyes story.