Has your monster ever come after you?

You must be a pretty fantastic writer to be able to scare the shit out of yourself, that's for sure.

Only once, Icerose. It was my first horror story that I wrote years back for a class and seemed to scare the crap out of all the others there when the teacher read it aloud. It was the greatest experience sitting quietly and watching people's eyes that are listening to your story, especially one of a nightmare that's scared the crap out of you. Then, they wanted to know how I could think of something like that so I told them that it was a dream I'd had as a child and could never forget. These days I would welcome a few more of those horrorable dreams.

Kerr said:

Only once, Icerose. It was my first horror story that I wrote years back for a class and seemed to scare the crap out of all the others there when the teacher read it aloud. It was the greatest experience sitting quietly and watching people's eyes that are listening to your story, especially one of a nightmare that's scared the crap out of you. Then, they wanted to know how I could think of something like that so I told them that it was a dream I'd had as a child and could never forget. These days I would welcome a few more of those horrorable dreams.

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I hate to quote from my blog, but...

There's really nothing quite as satisfying as watching your best friend's eight year old brother pee his pants because a story you made up on the fly scared the bejeebers out of him.

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It's a fact. Still love to do it.

I am opposite---monsters from my dreams--wind up in my stories

My current wip's MCs (one of whom is monster) were from a dream and since I've been working on it, I dream about them often. Earlier this week when I went to work on my story I had trouble figuring out what had happened and had to read the last chapter - in my dream I'd moved them way ahead.

I constantly have nightmares. I write them and it seems to help. I wish something awful and horrible would come into my reality. I wish some horrid creature would ring my doorbell. It's a sad day when you realize the world has no magic in it and if you want to see something cool, you have to invent it first.

I haven't exactly had that happen... but kind of.

A loooong time ago, I wrote this short piece that was... unlike anything I'd ever read. I considered it horror, but it is such an odd piece of fiction, I'd have nowhere to even think about marketing it. Anyway, it was about a woman slowly going insane from insomnia. It's a running internal dialog... yeah... and all she does is blather on endlessly, but it's super creepy. It's so easy to see her madness... anyway. Her insomnia is onset by the death of her family. At night, when she lays down to sleep, she hears the giant church bell tolling, which only tolls in the noon and midnight hour... or for emergencies, like some small towns once did (and some still do). So, all night long she hears nothing but the bells, the bells...

I wrote this story after my own bout with insomnia of about two or three weeks. Once I wrote it, I felt like I could sleep. Like I'd somehow written my insomnia away (I WISH!!). When I laid down though... guess wtf I heard? Friggin bells ringing in my ears. I didn't sleep again for another three or four days.

DL Hegel said:

I am opposite---monsters from my dreams--wind up in my stories

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Same here. My current WIP opens with one of the characters having the same Nyquil-induced nightmare that I had that partially inspired the story. I was so drugged from the Nyquil - I'd only just fallen asleep - that I couldn't really wake up at first. It was a very slow process of coming out of the dream and trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't and what I was and wasn't really hearing. Really creepy.

Funny thing is, though, the creature that came out of the dream isn't the real monster - that dubious honor falls to one of the human characters.

Well. . . I don't have nightmares, and my monster usually stays put (in the work), but the characters. . . they're a whole other ball of wax! The characters will come to me and freak me out when I'm least expecting them come to mind.
I do have to say many times I've been writing and then goose-bumps rise and I get chills. That's when I know I'm onto something good! I'll continue along, but when I'm done, I'm usually exhausted and the muscles in my back are tight.

I have complex PTSD. All my monsters are in my head. Real ones/and imaginary ones, are infinately less frightening. On the other hand, most people think I'm a monster. No idea where that thought came from . . .

There is a theory and practice from some ancient and knowledgeable monks about a Tulpa.

A Tulpa is a person/thing/creature that forms physically when a few or even one person truly believes in it.
Maybe the creature was your version of a Tulpa.

P.S. I think Tulpas include Bigfeet, Mothmen, and the Boogyman.

My icky bugs have never scared me, but have others!

I get the inspirations for many of my icky bugs from real incidents that happened to me.

One inspiration came from when we were living in Turkey. We had a problem with rats coming up through the toilets. That inspired the icky bug in The Greenhouse, though the actual icky bug isn't a rat. However, several people that read The Greenhouse were creeped out by their own toilets. I'm quite proud of that!

In The Factory, I worked in a wet corn mill that was older than the Titanic. Just the atmosphere in that old plant was enough inspiration for that story.

In The Shadows, my inspiration came from one early morning when I was driving in Southwest Oklahoma. It was still dark and not quite dawn, yet a black shadow crossed the road in front of me. It startled me enough to stop the car and get out. Though surely a dumb move in an actual icky bug story, in reality, it made matters worse because there was absolutely no sound. A few months later, my oldest daughter was also on that road early in the morning and it happened to her. So, that shadow became the icky bug for the appropriately named, The Shadows.

I'll have to admit that I still get a shudder when I think back on that corn mill, especially when I was chasing steam leaks in the oldest buildings. So, in that way, maybe my icky bugs do scare me.