Well, as a kid, I owned literally every Goosebumps book. There was a great little used book store in town called Tom's Book Nook, which has long since been shut down, and he sold paperbacks for a quarter and hardbacks for a buck (Jesus Christ, do I wish that place were still around?). And this guy always had Goosebumps in stock. I remember the first cover that grabbed me, too; A Night In Terror Tower. I saw it, wanted it, persuaded my mom to get it for me, and read it that night. After that, I set a goal of reading at least one of those books a day, sometimes two. They really instilled terror in me.
Honestly, though, I think cinema had just as much, if not more, to do with me being a horror writer today. I was probably seven or eight when my uncle Scottie (Rest In Peace) set me down on his huge recliner and turned on It to keep me occupied while the adults drank and talked about adult things on the porch. That really fucked me up. Then, maybe a year later, I'd stayed up much later on a Saturday night than I had any right to. That was when we didn't have cable, and so I had to be content in watching MadTV. After that, Fox would always play their special Saturday late night flick, and what else should come on but Candyman? I think I found every possible excuse to not use the restroom that night and for most of the next day before my bladder threatened to release in my pants. I forget how old I was when I went to see Jeepers Creepers in theatres. I mean, I could just do the math and look up what year it came out and figure it out from there, but to hell with that. Anyway, that movie scared the bejesus out of me. My bed was situated right next to a window, and the first thing I did when I got back home was situate my bed so it was nowhere near ANY windows.
As a teenager, my love for scary things only developed. I always scanned the TV guide (back when those were still relevant) for anything that sounded halfway scary. I read a lot of Creepy Pasta online, and soon, I stumbled across Lovecraft, Poe, and King and I fell in love.
Somewhere down the line, I got it in my head that I would really love to scare people the way those books and movies scared me. And here I am, nearly a quarter of a century old, doing just that. If I hadn't saw that one book cover in Tom's Book Nook, if my uncle hadn't thought to turn on It in lieu of anything that might be appropriate for children, if I hadn't stayed up late that one Saturday night... who knows what I'd be doing with my life? Probably selling used vacuums or something. Or worse, writing romance.
There you go. You know a little bit more about me than you did before. Have a good day.
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